Home-cooked stuff on 17 and 18 July 2010

first up, the dishes that wife whipped up on 17 July.

shanghai green - stir fried with dried shrimp


braised chicken mid-joints with garlic sprouts and carrots



stuff she made again on 18 July

braised pork belly with yam - cooked the yam in water to soften them before cutting them into cubes and stir-frying with the pork. the taste and texture of the yam was superb, soft and savoury on the outside, yet slightly sweet and powdery on the inside.


stir-fried garlic sprouts with carrots strip


the most sinful stuff of the day, caramel pudding for dessert. the caramel formed a moat around the pudding, he (apprehensively) went "wow......."


wife was commenting about her dishes being lapped up in no time, apparently in self-praise. hahahaha

04 July 2010 - pork goulash and brinjal

the missus made her own version of goulash with yam, pork, carrots. the yam made the texture of the gravy thick and slightly powdery, and they ingredients blended much better than he had expected.


spicy brinjal - nice to have a change from the usual, not that he'd get sick of food so easily.

sweet and sour pork loin, dinner 21 December 09

she prepared sugar yam again in the afternoon and left it in the fridge to take form. used 4 big scoops of sugar.....


also, she had already chopped up the vegetables to wait for him to cook. she forgot to peel the asparagus though, so some of them were too tough to eat. again, he seared some smashed garlic in the oil till fragrant before throwing in the vegetables, salt and butter. she found the end product too bland, even when he had threw in a large chunk of butter and half a teaspoon of salt. he's trying to eat healthily.


she had requested that he buy some pork loin after work, and he found frozen meat chunks of loin. the chilled section offered only loin ribs. she took out 3 slabs of meat and cut strips out of them to marinate in ginger, flour, egg, salt and spring onions. also made her concoction of her favourite sweet and sour sauce, vinegar, sugar, water, kushiyaki, soy sauce.

helped her fry the meat while she washed up the dirty dishes to make space. set on kitchen towel to remove excess oil. when he proceeded to fry the white sesame over medium heat, many of the seeds started jumping all around the place, forcing him to turn down the flame.


and the finished product here, after rolling it in the sweet and sour sauce and white sesame. thick sinful syrup, and the meat tasted a tad too salty. seems like they are becoming opposite, one advocating healthy eating, while the other dishing out salt and sugar at will. luckily, it went well with the bland tofu porridge.


not one to waste food (again, they are dissimilar), he pan-fried the leftover batter. had wanted to deep-fry it but the wok was too heavily coated with sugar and he found it too troublesome to wash it up (was also getting very hungry). the batter didn't expand, and it turned out to be something like a salty roti prata. fortunately, it didn't taste bad.


end of report for 21 december 09.

homecooked lunch on 18 december

dinner on the previous day was a disaster. perhaps they had tried to make something too difficult for them at this stage in time. only the broccoli with butter and salt tasted fine, the xiao long baos tasted like dough and the meat hadn't been seasoned enough.

but, she managed to rebound the very next day. got up earlier than him and cooked minced meat beans, sugar-coated yam and corn soup with minced meat.

corn soup with minced meat, and dissolved yam. tasted good enough.


sugar coated yam chunks. too thick, some were not cooked enough to bring out the sweetness, and he felt that too much sugar was used. those that were done well had a good aroma once you bit into them.


the best dish - minced meat with beans. she chopped garlic and chilli to suit his taste, how sweet. beans were still crunchy and complemented the slightly salty meat well.