A Singaporean In Australia

What do we have here?

1.4kg of chicken breast. Today I am going to further slice the flesh to marinate and bread them. Then I'll freeze them and use them for meals this week. After doing the deed, my cost breakdown as follow:

I managed to slice the 4 huge chicken breasts to 12 thinner slices. They cost me $12.63.

I used half a bag of bread crumbs that cost me $3.

3 small eggs around $0.60

A bit of flour, soy sauce. salt, herbs (quite negligible)

Therefore, $14.73 / 12 = $1.23 per Schnitzel. Despite what the picture shows, one piece was actually quite big, but I compressed it so that I can squeeze them into the package to freeze them. I believe 1 piece + rice is adequate for an average Singaporean stomach. Can't say the say for the fat asses but too bad for you guys. Higher cc = higher expenses, bo bian.

Therefore, despite what they claim, it is possible to have a low cost meal in Perth. Says who? 1 slice of this is $1.23. You can deep fry, lightly pan fry or cook them in an oven. A well prepared slice, chopped into smaller slices + some salad + an egg on rice cannot cost more than $2.00 in total. That does not pale in comparison to a standard chicken rice portion in Singapore in terms of price, nutrition, taste and value. 

Does it take a long time to prepare? It took me 1 hour from slicing, coating, breading and storage. During cooking day, it should take more than 15 minutes to fry them up. I think some folks have no patience for this. To me, it's alright. I get to decide how to season my chicken, what to add to my bread crumbs and exclude whatever harmful chemicals used commercially. 1 hour is a reasonable amount of time for those benefits.



Edit: Panfried these, didn't turn out too bad

Look. A chicken rice seller in Singapore once told me that a regular size chicken will provide enough meat for at least 13 packets of chicken rice. That is the bare minimum a chicken rice apprentice tao chiew has to achieve consistently. So, if you eat the whole chicken on Day 1, that is your problem. Remember, this is a 1.4 - 1.6kg chicken, not a spring chicken. You have no excuse, even if you have the appetite of a pig.

Ok, this $7.90 gotta be spent wisely. If not, you may end up without money to buy a return ticket. That'll be bad. 

The chicken will always come with injured wings. This shows a good fight put up by the chicken before they are killed. So if you are going halal or wish to be an annoying vegan, by all means skip this.

Well, you'll find the bird baked so soft that you can virtually debone the thing without the help of a chopper. All you need to do is to give the wings a little twist, they're out. The drumsticks and "mary land" portion require a bit more care if you want your meat to remain in good shape. Else, you can slide bones out using your hand. It is much easier than deboning a chicken prepared for Hainanese Chicken Rice.

The breast provides the biggest portion of meat. So big that I can shred a full bowl of chicken breast meat and have two upper portion of the breasts saved for another use. That is the reason why chicken breast meat makes up the core of  basic chicken rice meals and drumstick meat is usually charged a premium. The "back" of the chicken also have enough meat to make 1 (or 2?) packet of chicken rice. That part is the hardest to make it presentable if it is to be deboned. However the meat at the back is soft and tender like the drumstick but is normally not charged the premium it fetches.

I was able to feed my family of 2 adults + 2 kids a meal of chicken rice by using meat in the plate (drumsticks) as shown in the pic above. Then I used half of the shredded breast for another meal of chicken porridge for the whole family. The outer breasts was used for chicken noodles for dinner today because I missed my childhood suddenly and thought of the chicken noodles we ate often at Holland Village. Lastly, the last half of the shredded chicken breast to make another serve of noodles for the wife's lunch at work the next day. The portion of chicken I used for each meal was very generous, as compared to the portion used in a standard Singapore hawker meal.

The portion used for my 2 kids was about the same for 1 adult. Thus, with this chicken I created 3 (rice) + 3 (porridge) + 3 (noodles) + 1 (noodles) = 10 meals for an adult without the appetite of a pig. If I had not use generous portions, I was pretty sure I can chop up enough for 15 packets of chicken rice or more. Perhaps when I become jobless in Perth, I should go back to Singapore to chop chicken.

Now the cost of the meals.

Chicken used for each meal = $7.90 / 10 meals = $0.79 per meal

Rice = $0.30

Porridge = $0.15

Noodles = $0.70

Thus

Chicken rice = $1.09

Chicken porridge = $0.94

Chicken Noodles = $1.49

Do you know?

Recent movements in Singapore petrol prices and Australian TGPs are shown in Figure 1.

Even living in a new country for already 4 years, I still learn new things on regular basis. That is the fun part in doing this. This post is about a supermarket that is only a few minute's drive away from where I live and why I found delight in discovering this place.

In a nutshell, this supermarket is a Asian version of the more famous Spudshed in Perth. So we can buy everything we need in a single place without even making an odd trip to the oriental shop to replenish some products. Though it isn't really a big hassle going to two shops to complete the weekly grocery shopping, I would not hesitate to grab a chance to reduce the number of times I have to get my kid up and down the car. With a new baby coming in a few weeks' time, that little difference will certainly be felt.

NP Carousel Supermarket is obviously started and run by Asians. My guess is the Viets. Talking about Viets, I have quite a bit to say about them but I guess I'll leave it to the next post. It should be an interesting one if you stumble upon it. 

Back to the supermarket, it appeared to me it is catered to Asians as well as Africans in terms of their produce and goods. The set up of the place reminded me of Sheng Siong (when it first started), expansive, rugged and offered lower prices than the existing big boys. After Sheng Siong's branches multiplied, got themselves publicly listed and involved in TV game shows, it became as crappy as the rest. They even bothered to make their joints look a bit more high class these days. Many consumers were happy with that but I was not one of them, of course. Simply because those came at the consumer's expenses. I don't need a wonderful shopping experience. I want my stuff at the lowest possible price and get the fuck out as soon as possible. The cheering consumers can rub their faces on the new floor tiles or lick the new trolleys for all I care. What do you expect from a population that votes for an insidious party because of some new lifts?

They were offering some decent prices for vegetables. They ought to, they are Vietnamese! With the amount of farming they do here, they have a good control of their supplies to offer 60c for a ball of lettuce and 70c for a bunch of vegetable. If you are a vegetarian and stay around this area, you can probably feed yourself with $2 a day, consuming these bunches.

You don't even have to munch of leaves all the time. The tomatoes, potatoes and whatever fit for a vege person are reasonably priced too.

These guys are dishing out their share of memorable offers. I heard some weeks ago they were offering free 1L UHT milk for customers. Not expired ones mind you. A tray of eggs going for $2, not bad for Perth's standards.

No free milk by the time I visited for the first time but they were offering some chunky chicken breasts for $6.99 per kg. I asked for 2kg without hesitating. That could easily last us a week or longer.

I noticed the fishes they were selling there. Bright eyes, firm flesh, good prices. I will probably be trying one out next week. They sell meat in huge quantity there and they look surprisingly fresher than what I'd see in Woolsworths or Spudshed. On top of that, at competitive prices. 

Our Singapore loansharks these days are lacked of that little bit of X-factor. It could be due to the diminishing practice of hanging a pig head at their debtors' door. All those childish spray painting does anyone no good. It's like playing with a battery operated lantern on the Mid Autumn Festival. These days, such a practice may be very much welcomed. Back in my days, they would call you a pussy and hound you back to your home for attempting to appear in public without a flamed lantern.

The new age loansharks who think pig heads are passe don't even realise how sissy they are looking spraying paint. What next? Spam their clients' email? Duh.

I'll happy to supply you guys these things. Place an order and I'll fly them over. Don't leave home without one of these.

For Singaporeans who think Singaporeans living in Australia feed on cactus and lamb, we can actually get a fully range of Asian food supplies almost anywhere by now, as long as you live within the metro region. I actually Chared Kuay Teow several times myself lately, completed with lup cheong slices. No hum because someone rich ordered it all for his Mee Siam somewhere.