The Big Surprise (Pineapple Coconut Chicken Fried Rice with Her)

Two…now almost three weeks ago was Job’s birthday.  We celebrated it with his family at our house and it was lots of fun!  

I had given him his gift a few days before his birthday, so I really wanted to surprise him with something special.

I spoke with a few of his friends and I planned a little surprise birthday for him the week after his birthday.

The day before the surprise party, I told Job I really wanted to make a cake.  We worked together and make a very long list of all the ingredients we needed for the next week to come for all of our dinners (and the cake).  Eventually we made it home, made some dinner and sat down to relax after our long day of going about the city and gathering foods. (We went to a chinese store to get some ingredients like ginger and chili peppers as well as stock up on some soy sauce, as well as stop at the De Bijenkorf for a pastry spreader, and then stopped by C1000 and Albert Heijn for some “normal ingredients”.)

Around 9PM, Job asked me if we were still going to make the cake.  I responded that we should probably start.  We got up and made our way to the kitchen.  On the way, he told me to sit back down and that he would bake the cake, that I should relax.  He insisted even when I questioned him.  

Around midnight… or maybe it was 12:30AM, Job came over and woke me up on the couch, letting me know that he had just finished the cake.  

Fast forward to the next day.  Job had work so while he was at work, I decided to be a cleaning machine.  I dusted, vacuumed, and washed the floors, did a few loads of laundry and prepped some food for the little dinner party that evening.

One of our mutual friends came over early to help me set up.  We made a salad together and she helped me prep the main dish, Pineapple Coconut Chicken Fried Rice.  

I made this dish about a month ago and haven’t blogged about it, so I will use my photos from then to share the recipce with you!

Ingredients:

• Pineapple Chunks
• Coconut Milk
• Star Anise
• Cardamon Pods
• Rice
• Onion
• Chili Pepper
• Garlic Clove
• Spring Onions
• Sambal Badjak
• Sambal Oelek
• Soy Sauce
• Green/Yellow Peppers
• Chicken Breast
• Eggs
• Olive Oil
• Sesame Oil
• Fish Sauce
• Salt and Pepper for taste

The best thing to do is to prep all of the veggies first.  Slice up the peppers, garlic, onion, and chili pepper.  The garlic and chili peppers can be combined into one bowl.  The peppers and onions can go in another bowl.

(In the photos I have, all of my veggies were separate.)

Next you must prep the chicken.  The easiest thing to do is to butterfly the chicken and then cut it into thin slices.

Once everything is prepped, the rice should be put on to cook.  The rice should be cooked 1 part rice to 1.5 parts liquid.  For this party, I did 600g rice to 800g coconut milk.  I also added about 5 cardamon pods that had been slightly cut open to add flavor and four or five star anise as well.  This makes the rice super aromatic and flavorful.

The rice should be started on a high heat.  As soon as the liquid in the pan comes to a boil, quickly turn the mixture down to low and cook until the liquid is all gone.  It will take about the time it takes to cook all of the rest of the ingredients.

In a frying pan, it is now time to start the chicken.  Put the pan on a medium high heat with olive oil.  Let the oil heat up and spread it around the pan before adding in any chicken.

Once the pan is heated up, add the chicken with some salt and pepper and cook on both sides.  When the chicken is just turning white, add in the garlic and chili peppers.  Let this cook a little longer until the chicken is fully cooked.  Add in some soy sauce and cook for another minute or two so that the flavor seeps in.

From here, pour the chicken out of the pan and into a bowl (trying to make sure that all the juices stay with the chicken).  Add in some sesame oil into the pan and heat it up.  Once it’s heated, add in the onions, spring onions, and peppers.  The vegetables just need to be sautéed and only takes about three or four minutes to cook.  You don’t want the vegetables to lose their crunch.  Once these are cooked, transfer them out of the pan and into the bowl with the already cooked chicken, garlic and chili peppers.

From this point onwards, if you have a wok style pan, I recommend using it because you’re about to put a whole lot of ingredients into a pan.  If not, be careful as the next steps may get messy. Add a dollop of olive oil to the wok/pan and spread around.  Let the oil again heat up.  At this point, you will be adding eggs to the pan.  If you’re making a large amount of rice, you’ll want to use more than one egg.  For this recipe, I used two.  Whisk the eggs together before pouring them into the pan.

From here, you want to really spread the egg out around the edges of the pan.  You will need to now pour in the bowl of chicken and veggies.  Make sure to be quick about this step so that the eggs don’t over cook and so that they also meld with the veggies.  Make sure to continuously stir so the eggs coat the veggies/chicken.  At this point, your rice should be just about finished.  Make sure to remove the cardamon pods and star anise.  It’s not fun to accidentally bite into these spices.  You’ll also add in your rice now.  Keep stirring so that all of the ingredients blend together.  

Now it’s time for the flavors.  Add in your pineapple chunks and little bit of the pineapple juice.  Add in some more soy sauce and fish sauce.  I like to add some spice to the rice so I add in about a half tablespoon of both varieties of Sambal.  Just keep stirring and tasting until the flavor is right for you.

Now everything sounds pretty easy to do… and granted if you’re paying attention, it really is easy to do, however, at the point in time that I was cooking everything, the guests for the surprise party were arriving every five minutes or so.  As I was setting on the rice and waiting for the liquid to come to a boil, someone rang the doorbell.  I ran to the door, quickly welcomed them and got them a drink and went back to the kitchen, but had forgotten the rice had still been on a high heat,  I realized it quickly that I had forgotten when I smelled something burning… Well so much for a perfect dinner.  I quickly turned the rice onto a low heat and removed it from the hot burner and scraped the rice off the bottom of the pot.

I was lucky enough to salvage most of the rice.  The guests all arrived and we waited quietly (well they did as I continued to cook) until Job arrived.  All of the doors and windows were open as the weather was so beautiful out so that when Job opened one of the doors, the hallway created a huge wind tunnel and caused another door to slam.  I wasn’t at the time completely sure if it was just the breeze that caused the door to slam or not, so I went over to the door and opened it and then Job was there… Whoops, well I just said hello to him and welcomed him home from work and then everyone jumped out and yelled SURPRISE!  Everyone congratulated him and wished him a happy birthday (gefeliciteerd! gelukkige verjaardag! ). I invited everyone to sit around the table and start eating as I had just finished the fried rice.  Some friends brought some wine and drinks so we got out glasses and “Proost”ed (Cheers).  

We passed around the foods, talked, ate and enjoyed everyone’s company.  After the food was gone, it was time for the cake that Job had cooked (Unknowingly for his own party) the night before.  We sliced it up and passed it around, had some coffees and talked a little more before the guests had to make their journeys back home.

The evening was so pleasant and gezellig and I don’t think that either one of us could have asked for anything better.  The whole thing was a total surprise to Job and he was so excited and happy that night!

The Stressful Birthday

February 13th is my birthday.  This year is the first year I am not in America to celebrate with my friends and family from home.  This year I got the opportunity to celebrate with my Dutch family.  

The day before my birthday proved to make my birthday a bit stressful.  As many of you know, I’m was still waiting for a job offer as well as my residence permit.  My birthday marked the one month mark of living in Amsterdam and I still didn’t have these two things.  Well, on the 12th, I received a call from the recruiter for work and we spoke about a possible job offer, but I really had to think things over with the specifics I was given.  That night I sat and pondered away if the contract was fair and a good choice to take.  I felt a little cheated at what was offered and spent the whole night thinking over the pros and cons.  If you’ve ever gone through a grueling interview/job application process, you know how stressful this can be.  I contemplated all night long and into the next morning.  I felt guilty and scared for what I was going to ask for the next morning from the recruiter, but I was not off base with the questions I had and the counter offer.  I was just super stressed.

It was difficult to sleep and I woke up a but uneasy on my birthday.

Job however surprised me in the morning by bringing me to my favorite breakfast place, Gartine.  

Gartine is a super adorable little joint in a small street off of the Rokin.  It is owned by a husband and wife who are always in a very pleasant and friendly mood! It’s just a fabulous atmosphere.  They have a gorgeous chandelier hanging from the ceiling,

a huge painting on the wall, about 10 tables and a huge branch with some color of flowers hanging on the wall, depending on the season.

 It’s just a very intimate feeling place… and you always need a reservation otherwise it’s almost impossible to get a table.

Anyways, the morning started off alright.  We went to Gartine and got “the usual” for us, which is the yogurt

(This picture of the yogurt is from a previous visit.  All of the food is seasonal some some ingredients change.  The yogurt we had was decorated with dates instead of dried cranberries and coconut)

and the french toast, which is perfectly grilled and is so moist but has a caramelization of sugar that is to die for.  It’s complimented by an apple compote as opposed to the traditional (at least for an American) maple syrup.

I had noticed a raisin bread on the menu that also looked intriguing and delicious, so we got that as well.

(You can’t see the bread in this picture as it is covered by old cheese and lettuce, but it’s there.  This is also a photo from a previous visit, with a rhubarb jam)

We both ate our french toast and the raisin bread and started on the yogurt, however, the stress started to come back to me as I still had to call the recruiter back.  I soon because uneasy and I totally lost my appetite.  I decided we should go back home so I could call the recruiter, however before making our way back, I suggested Job call immigration because at this point, I still was waiting on my residence permit and it had been a month… it was only supposed to take two weeks to get my residence permit.  

Job called the IND as I unlocked our bikes.  He gave the normal information, my V-Nummer, date of birth, my name.. his name… and finally we were connected to a woman who looked up our case.  She told us she could see it was taking a long time and that we applied five months ago and that we had come in a month ago for pictures and prints and all of this other stuff… finally she told us that the residence permit was at the IND in Amsterdam (that was good news…) and that they had been working very hard to mail out letters stating the cards were ready.  Job informed the woman that I was working on getting a job and that it was necessary that I had my residence permit.  He asked if there was anything else she could do… and low and behold someone at IND was helpful.  She said she would just send an email stating that it was an emergency case and that we could just go over and pick up the residence permit.  That is exactly what we did.

Upon arriving at the IND, we received a number and were asked to sit in the waiting room until the number was called.  We only waited about five minutes and the bell went off that indicated it was our turn.  We went over to station number six and sat with a woman. We explained that we had called in and that the woman we spoke to told us the residence permit card was indeed ready and that she emailed the office to say we would be allowed to pick it up (normally you need the letter they mail you to pick up the card.) The woman told us to wait a moment as she went to look for the card.  She looked in one place and it wasn’t there, so she came back and told us she would look in the other spot.  That is where she found it.  She returned a few moments later, had me look over all of the information, gave us a little packet and we were on our way with residence permit in hand!

Next stop: VODAFONE!

Now that I had my residence permit, I could finally get a phone contract and not have to worry about topping up my prepaid SIM.  (You need your residence permit card or European ID. A passport does not work.)  We went to the Kalverstraat and spoke with a very helpful gentleman who set up my contract.  That was fast and easy.  

From there we took a minute to walk around the Kalverstraat because there are a lot of shops there.  We stopped into a bookstore that was going out of business.  It was nice to do some of these activities.  It really helped me to try to de-stress.  The bookstore was really sad…  Everything was 70% off and books were just strewn about everywhere.  I found a book about American food from before the time we froze things and had microwave meals and it looked interesting.. and was only €3.  We also go a large map print of the city of Amsterdam. €12 well spent!

At this point, we finally biked back home to make the torturous call I had been dreading all day.

We arrived home and I made the call.  Voicemail.  So I left a message.  A little bit later I finally received a call back and we negotiated the rest of the contract to fitting terms.  I start on March 3!

Whoa…

Residence Permit… √

Phone Contract… √

a job… √

wow… I was a real citizen type person in Amsterdam…Established.

It was a fitting way to celebrate both my birthday and my one month of living in the country.

The stress finally subsided.  We spent the rest of the day sort of relaxing and just being with each other.  I also checked the mail (my favorite activity of the day) and found an awesome birthday card from my BFF Ayla.

The card is now hanging on our refrigerator with all of the other nice cards we’ve received.

At around six in the evening, we met up with Job’s father to enjoy a nice birthday dinner.  Unfortunately Job’s mom couldn’t make it.  She had just returned home from Cambodia a few days prior and wasn’t feeling too good.

We went to Bird, a Thai restaurant located in Amsterdam’s chinatown and near the Red Light District.  I have to say that I have not had a whole lot of asian cuisine yet in Amsterdam, but I have had Bird every time I am in Amsterdam and it is top notch.  Since we frequent it so much, as well as it’s cheaper counterpart, Snackbar Bird, which is across the street, we kind of have our favorite and “regular” dishes here as well.  We always get Tom Ka Kai

which is a coconut milk based soup with chicken that is to die for, (unfortunately this trip, the soup was really salty.  For compensation, we got free coffee and tea at the end of the meal) and Chicken Pad Thai.

 This time, however we tried some new dishes with Job’s dad.  We had some Beef with Mango and Pineapples that was both sweet and spicy and very delicious and Beef with Green Curry, which was also really really tasty.  We even got dessert, which is not something Job and I ever really do because by the time we get to dessert, we are really really full, and I promise you, my birthday night was no different.  For dessert, I had Sticky Rice with Mango, Job’s dad had some Thaise Cakes and Job had some sort of Sticky Rice with taro and Ginko nuts.  It was super tasty.  We left pleasantly stuffed and happy.

 It was a lovely birthday evening.