Experiment 15: Cooked Chicken Tidbits in Misua

Prelab:
I haven't really decided what to cook for supper, except that I wanted to recycle the last leftover chicken from the adobo. Ma mere came just in time to give me one piece of upo.

Date Performed: Dec. 5, 2009

Ingredients:
1 cup of cooked chicken tidbits (I used ones from adobo)
1 small red onion, chopped
5 small cloves of garlic, diced
1 long white squash (a.k.a. upo), chopped
1/3 of a misua noodle pack weighing 200 g (approx. 70 g)
5 cups water

Preparation:
Sautee garlic and onions in a pot. Add chicken tidbits and stir fry for about 1 minute. Add white squash and then pour 1 cup of water. Wait until it boils under medium fire. Add the remaning 4 cups of water and bring to a boil. When it boils, set to low fire and then add a dash of pepper. When the white squash is cooked (after approx. 20 minutes), add the misua noodles and let it stay for about 5 minutes. Serve hot.

Post-lab:
Because I added a bunch of very salty chicken tidbits to this soup, I didn't have to adjust the soup's tastiness. Boiling the adobo taste off from the previous chicken dish worked!

Hmm... my problem in cooking is that my sense of smell and taste aren't trained. I could hardly taste and smell the difference unless it is very distinct. I have no choice but to measure so that I can adjust appropriately. I can, however, clearly see the difference in color and in the way the food shrinks - that I can remember.

Why this problem? Perhaps it's because in the laboratory, students refrain from smelling the carcinogenic reagents (if that were possible) and do not taste the chemicals either. But our eyes are trained to see the difference immediately (for instance, the difference between pale pink and light pink), lest the chemical reaction be overtitrated.