Welcome to --- The House of Ru-Ru

Jen would always ask me what Ruy and I had to eat over the weekend and for the past couple of weeks I've been raving about Ruy's cooking. Yes, Ruy is the appointed King of our kitchen. (it's debatable who actually appointed him as such). This being the case, Jen christened our house as the House of Ru-ru.


When Ruy cooks, he gets immersed in the moment...there's a monk-like focus to his demeanor and just between us he gets a tad cranky when things don't go his way. He is also not satisfied with anything that's just fried (yes, even if it is that liempo one post down). He wants things imaginative and different and matching. Meaning, if he's eating something fried, he needs soup and an interesting rice concoction with it.


One day, I thought of contributing something to the House of Ru-ru's gastric delights. I have just learned about the ready made chicken pandan found in SM groceries so I dragged Ruy to the grocery and for the first time ever I went to the meat and poultry section (i usually stop at the hotdog and bacon section) and purchased my first ever raw chicken.

Each chicken pandan piece costs 10 pesos which is quite a steal specially when you compare the costs to restaurants. Upon seeing this, Ruy's brain started trying to find the perfect rice dish to match it. I was initially thinking of Bagoong Rice (Ruy's bagoong is to die for!!) but Ruy had something better in mind.


Ruy initially wanted to try to make pineapple rice but while he was trying to research the recipe for this rice, came upon this recipe. It was a gutsy move for him to even attempt it but he decided to go for it.



It has to be pointed out here that Ruy goes all out when cooking. Yes, to the point of annoying me sometimes. Take this recipe for example...we had to go to 3 shops before finding the basmati rice. We went to Rustan's Katipunan, Rustan's Temple Drive and finally Santi's.

The basmati rice was cooked in coconut milk. We didn't have time to get this off the market so we (notice how I'm using the pronoun WE as if I had something to do with the recipe other than go to the grocery) had to settle for the next best thing...instant coconut milk. This was surprisingly almost as good as the real thing.
Ruy opted to use pineapple juice instead of water which added another layer of flavor to the already flavorful recipe. The resulting dish is not for the weak hearted...it can be very intimidating.
The recipe for the rice was surprisingly easy to follow. It's just a matter of putting everything together in a pan and waiting. I guess this didn't prove to be challenging enough for Ruru...errr Ruy I mean so he decided to make his life more difficult by making his own crystallized ginger.

It has to be explained that Ruy was a one-man-show during this entire process...he was taking photos while cooking. This proved to be disastrous so he ended up having to re-do the ginger.

So with the crystallized ginger finely chopped and the almonds sliced...the Thai Rice came to life.

I loved the rice so much I barely ate the chicken. What-a-meal!!