Puppet Project

here's a bit of craft work i'd indulged on.

maybe there's just too much of sesame street and the muppet show recently, so i decided to put together something from toilet roll cores that i'd stashed away. yaps, so everything here's built with things around the house. i really haven't got the slightest clue where i was going with this, till the very end :)

Step 1: Create the 'bones'. did this with about 6 cores, stapler and wood glue. took me 2 days to work out what i want to build.





Step 2: prepare paper mache to flesh out the puppets. like the hollow-eye, silly, goofy look that came through.





Step 3: Finishing touches. decide to give it a reggae, muppet blue look. but guess it looks quite boney. Th Wife says it looks too scary for the kid but she seemed ok with it. maybe i should go on to make a few more and maybe get some fabric for the neck & bust.

Braised (Ginger) Chicken with Mushrooms

This is something that i adapted from my MIL & Wife. Her side of the family adores ginger, period. i ain't brought up eating gingerly stuff so you cld say it's somewhat an acquired taste. of cos there was also the 'compulsory' eating period when pretty much every meal had ginger in it when The Wife was doing her confinement after the birth of Avery (or vinegarish cos of the pig trotters cooked in black vinegar). For this evening, i decided to give it a shot, with a moderated portion of ginger & ginger wine......essentially i'd blended it with a 'chicken in oyster sauce' recipe....so it tasted somewhat in between...sweet, gingery, salty. serves 2-3.

ingredients

• half chicken, chopped
  
• ginger, chopped
• garlic, chopped
• cooking oil
• sesame oil
• water
  
• dark soy sauce
• oyster sauce
• Stone's Original Green Ginger Wine (absolutely necessary, check here for what else you can do with the wine)
  
• sugar (to taste)
• fermented beancurd 豆腐乳 (to taste, optional)
• corn flour
• button mushrooms, quartered / whole dried shitake mushrooms
  
• spring onion (chopped, for garnish)

recipe

• marinate chicken in soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil and set aside for at least 30 minutes
• soak dried shitake mushrooms if you are using them for this dish
  
• brown ginger and garlic
• add chicken and beancurd to the ginger and garlic and fry at medium heat till it turns whitish and u get the aroma from the ginger-beancurd
  
• add water (enough to form lots of gravy but not have the chicken pieces swim in soup), shitake mushrooms (optional), then cover and let simmer at medium heat till it's about 50% cooked
  
• add more dark soy sauce and oyster sauce to taste, if necessary
  
• add 5 tbsp of ginger wine, cover and let simmer till chicken is somewhat cooked (approx 5 minutes)
  
• turn to low heat, add more ginger wine and sugar to taste, let simmer for another 5-8 minutes
• when u are happy with the taste, add in the corn flour to thicken the gravy and stir in the mushrooms. DO NOT overcook the mushrooms so that they retain some degree of crunchiness
• when it's ready to serve, add in chopped spring onion