Learning to cook

Cooking was a difficult chore for me in the past.  I could only cook some simple things like cooking rice, frying eggs and cooking instant mee.  That's all.  Before the day of marriage my father had to tell my mother in law that I could not cook.
After marriage, I avoided cooking.  My husband and I used to eat in food stalls or restaurant.  Most of the time I catered food.  My food caterer sent the food to me everyday except weekend.  Occasionally I would cook something but the result was not good.  And I would wonder why my stewed chicken was not good as others.
My cooking improved as I joined the discipleship training and live together as a community in the church.  When I first joined the training, my pastor put me in charge of kitchen and food.  I did not tell him that it was my weakest thing but then I just obeyed and gave a try.  Pastor's wife was my spiritual father and teacher.  She taught me how to cook.
Fried rice is the easiest thing to do but I failed many times, countless times.  I felt bad because if I did not cook well everyone had to suffer eating the lousy fried rice.  The rice turned out to be soggy.  According to expert, the rice grain should be able to 'jump' in the wok but mine was wet.  Then I realized that the rice for frying must not be cooked with too much water.  It must be cooked with just enough water for best result.
Frying eggs first will leave a smooth surface on the wok so that the rice will not stick to the wok and be burnt.  No water is added in the midst of frying.  I do not use soya sauce as it will make the rice wet.  All the lumps should be loosen.  I learned it through many failures.
I told myself that it would take a miracle for me to be a good cook as I was slow in learning in the area of cooking.  I jotted down all my mistakes so that I could refer to it to avoid future mistakes.
In the beginning I did not know how to cut carrot and long beans into small pieces in a fast way.  I learned the ABC in cooking.  I learned to cut different types of vegetables.
I learned budget cooking.  With the least ingredients and the cheapest things to produce tasty and nutritious food.  We do not use artificial seasoning.  To improve the taste we use meat, bones or small fish called 'ikan bilis'.  Vegetables like carrot, cabbage also improve the taste of soup.  Mushroom does wonders in taste.
Coming back to fried rice, we can use frozen mixed peas, corn and carrot .  Most of the time I use carrot, long beans or French beans, big onions spring onion and eggs.  For seasoning I use pepper powder and salt only . Some dark thick soya sauce added to add some brown colour.
Learning the basic is very important as it can enable us to upgrade to more complicated way of cooking.
I thank God that today I am able to fry rice not just for my family but also for more than fifty people or even for a hundred people.