“Cool. Tip it in the pan once the oil’s hot.”
Diwa turned the gas up under a wide pan and slid in a generous slick of oil. When it shimmered, he gestured Colin over with a tilt of his chin, and Colin scraped the garlic off the board and into the pan in one go. The hiss was immediate and aggressive. The smell that came up was so good Colin’s stomach made a noise he hoped Diwa hadn’t heard.
“Right,” Diwa said. “Now we add the rice.”
He produced a bowl of cold day-old rice from the fridge and tipped the lot in. Colin watched him work the wooden spoon through it, breaking up the clumps, the garlic going gold and crisp around each grain.
“Stand here. Keep it moving so the garlic doesn’t burn. Don’t let it catch.”
Colin took the spoon. Diwa moved off to the next hob and started laying strips of beef into a second pan, where they spat and curled at the edges. He came back round behind Colin’s shoulder, looked into the rice pan, reached past him, and dumped another small mountain of minced garlic in on top of what Colin had already added.
Colin stopped stirring.
“Mate. There’s already garlic in there.”
“There’s never enough garlic,” Diwa said. “This is a foundational rule in Filipino cuisine. You can write it down.”
“I’m going to be sweating that out for a week.”
“You’ll still smell incredible.” Diwa tipped a third bowl in, smaller this time, and Colin made a disgruntled sound. Diwa looked down at him and laughed. “Oh, your face. Your face, Colin, I’m sorry.”
“You’re not sorry.”
“Just keep stirring.”
Colin kept stirring. The rice was turning a deep gold, properly fragrant now, and he had to admit to himself that it smelled better than anything he’d made in his own kitchen for along time. Diwa flipped the beef, plated it onto a wooden board, and started cracking eggs one-handed into a third pan, the shells coming open against the rim with a small clean tap.
“Right. The vinegar.” Diwa reached up to a shelf and brought down a small jar of clear liquid with several whole bird’s-eye chillies floating in it. He set it on the counter beside Colin with a flourish.
Colin looked at the jar. Then he looked at Diwa.
“What’s that for?”
“You dip the tapa in it. Just a tiny bit. It cuts through the richness, it’s the whole point of the dish.”
“There’re chillies in that. Whole chillies in vinegar. I told you yesterday that I take it mild.”
“Then just take a tiny dip, Colin. The vinegar’s the main event. The chillies are just hanging out in there, giving it a little flavour. You barely taste them.”
Colin folded his arms across his chest and gave Diwa the same flat look he’d given the consumer unit on the morning they’d met.
“I’m getting you a side of soy sauce as well,” Diwa said, cracking the last egg into the pan. “Calm down. I’m not trying to kill you.”
“You sure about that?”
“Reasonably sure. You’ve still got a shelf to put together for me on Friday.”
The eggs spat in the pan. The garlic rice sizzled under Colin’s spoon. Diwa’s shoulder bumped against his on the way past as he reached for the salt, and Colin didn’t move out of the way.
When Diwa slid the plate in front of him, Colin understood that he was about to have a problem with his own kitchen for the rest of his life.
The garlic rice sat in a fragrant gold mound, the beef glossy and dark and curling at the edges, the egg with its yolk stillwobbling after Diwa had set it down. He picked up his fork, and the first mouthful did something to the inside of his head that no marmite on toast ever had.
“Christ,” he said.
“Mm-hmm.” Diwa was already eating, dipping a strip of beef into the chilli vinegar without looking. “Try the dip.”
Colin eyed the jar. The chillies were floating in there like little red threats. He speared a strip of tapa on his fork, lowered it to the surface of the vinegar, and tapped it once in the briefest possible kiss against the liquid.
