Chicken & White Peach Curry – Food Bloopers

Have you ever had any embarrassing moments related to food?

Although I am generally pretty obnoxious…and won’t get embarrassed so easily…(ya ha!)…but there was a moment which caught me off guard. It was a beautiful day, but I was probably feeling down, that's why I fancied a couple of (one is never enough ^_^) good sandwiches for lunch (what a splurrrrge! They are super pricey), with a hearty soup and a cup of nice coffee to polish everything off. So I dragged my lazy ass off my work chair and marched to Pret-A-Manger to get my fancy treats. I had no idea how to pronounce Pret-A-Manger correctly, I used to pronounce it as “prey-a-man-jer”…until my sis, who learnt a bit of French in high school, told me that it should be “pre-a-mong-cher” (with French curly tongue). These days, I simply call it “Pretend-A-Manager”, to which my corporate pals could relate better (I get “HUH?” a lot when I tried to say “pre-a-mong-cher”. So...don't bother!)

Anyway...when it was my turn to order…

Staff: (checking out my Double Cheddar and Super Club sandwiches)…anything else?
Me: Ehm, a cup of mocha (for mochachocolata-rita) and a cup of minestrone (I pronounced it as “mind-stroun”) soup, please….
Staff: (straight faced, without blinking an eye, barked my order to the kitchen staff) ONE MINESTRONE! (it was thunderously shouted out as… mi-nə-ˈstrō-nē). One
MINESTRONE (again, mi-nə-ˈstrō-nē), right, mam? (PS. don’t you just hate being called “mam”?)
Me: Errr...yah! (Suddenly feeling very conscious of my surroundings and noticed that all the corporate slaves were shooting me Oh-how-could-you-not-know-how-to-pronounce-the-name- of-such-a-humble-common-little-soup? looks)

The heck with them! The sandwiches, the MINESTRONE soup and the mocha were delicious and I’d be damned if I let some Hong Kong corporate once over ruin my pricey lunch. Hehe…

At home, I had some left-over peaches and wondered what to do with them…(not another sweet treat!) so I made some…
Chicken & White Peach Curry

Recipe
- ½ lb boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into bite sized chunks (or you can use thigh fillet)
- 2 white peaches, remove pit, peel off skin, cut into bite sized chunks
- 1 zucchini, peel off skin, cut into 1 cm thick slices
- 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 5 cloves of shallot, thinly sliced
- 1 cm ginger, crushed
- 2 tbsp curry paste (or more)- 1 cup coconut milk
- salt, pepper, sugar, corn starch, olive oil
- chopped fresh coriander and fried shallot to garnish
Marinate chicken pieces in a bit of corn starch, salt, pepper and sugar (salt should be the dominant element). Saute garlic, ginger, and shallot in hot oil until fragrant, add chicken until a bit browned, add zucchini pieces until a bit softened, add coconut milk, bring to boil, add peaches, heat everything through and quickly remove from heat (not to overcook the peaches and turn them into mush), serve with freshly chopped coriander and fried shallot. Perrrrfect with rice!

Let me entertain Hong Kong’s miserable lunch crowd one more time by ordering minestrone again tomorrow…I’ll pronounce it as “meeenn- struuun” this time. HAH!