Letter to Julia 20121110

In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Merciful.

Hello Julia, my beloved.  How are you feeling today?  You must be busy as usual, so please take good care of yourself.  I have been quite busy, and I was thoroughly drained when I woke up this morning, so I couldn't do much in terms of chores.  But today was a good day for cooking.  My bamboo shots fried rice was a resounding success!  It's quite simple, really.  Bamboo shoots can be very strong in flavor if you save some of its natural bitterness, so the fried rice should center on the bamboo shoots, and everything else you add in should taste neutral.  I slice up the bamboo shoots into coin shapes, then fried it up with the onion and garlic fond, then douse it with light soy sauce.  Cook it until the bamboo shoots attain the flavor you desire, then add the rice and everything else, and cook as a regular fried rice, but don't add so many vegetables that they drown out the bamboo shoots.  No need for any meats or seafood!  An egg, at the most!

At night, my chicken liver curry was another resounding success.  You would cook it as a normal curry with whatever vegetables, but the advantage of liver is that it can be tureened.  A tureen is between a paste and a solid.  Spice up the sliced liver in this case with curry powder and salt, then fry it up until it changes color.  Then remove it from the heat into a bowl, where you can mash it up with a spoon.  Then add the liver into your curry, and you will have a strong tasting liver curry with smooth texture.  I saved some curry for you, but since you didn't show up for dinner, I put your portion in the cooler.  I hope you start coming to dinner soon.