22 Jul 20 (Wed) - Castella Sponge Cake

Have been practicing baking this cake since my first attempt back in early-June and failed many times over. Took a break from it for the past couple of weeks and decided to attempt it again.

Baked a one-egg portion cake based on the recipe from the first attempt using a smaller baking tin and baked in an oven. Then adapted the baking time (i.e., 1hr 15mins) and method (i.e., bake at 130 degree Celsius with water bath, aluminium foil over the baking tin and drop the cake a few times after taking out from the oven) from another recipe I found on the Facebook group "Home-cooked Delights 家常便饭" page.

One-egg Portion...

... with height about one small yogurt cup.

Happy to say that the result was satisfactory. The top of the cake was still wrinkled but at least not too brown or burnt. The cake managed to rise fully without sinking after taking out from the oven.

19 Jul 20 (Sun) - Pan-fry Salmon on Rosti with Chicken Ham Spring Onion Egg Roll

Craved for salmon so cooking it again. Have potato and chicken ham to clear so squeezed my brain for ideas. In the end, decided to just have fun with whatever ingredients I have on hand. Turned the potato into rosti, pan-fry the salmon and cooked the chicken ham with spring onion and egg to make into egg roll.

14 Jul 20 (Tue) - Lemon Yogurt Cake with Sakura

Have been practicing on baking castella cake for a while now but still unable to quite get it right. Felt a bit disheartened and decided to bake something familiar. Dug out the Lemon Yogurt Cake recipe and added some salted sakura that I have in the pantry. Now I will have cakes for afternoon tea over the next couple of days.

12 Jul 20 (Sun) - Teriyaki Salmon, Roast Eggplant and Egg with Sesame Sauce

Have not cooked salmon for a while. Bought a big piece recently and decided to cook it with teriyaki sauce. Bought some mini eggplants too but have never cooked them before. Googled on how to cook eggplants and most of the recipes were on steaming them with garlic and soy sauce. Searched further and found a couple on roasting eggplants.

Gave one of the roasting recipes a shot but the eggplants did not turn out as expected. Instead of becoming crispy, they were soft even though I flipped them over half way through cooking as instructed in the recipe. Fortunately, they were not soggy so it was not too bad. Taste-wise, I guess I can develop a taste for eggplants now.

06 Jul 20 (Mon) - Stir-fry Kimchi Pork Belly (Second Attempt)

Was not happy with the Stir-fry Kimchi Pork Belly that I cooked last month and so decided to give it another shot. This time round I managed to cut the pork belly into thinner slices and did not marinate them before cooking.

Instead, all I did was stir-fry the pork belly slices for a few minutes before adding kimchi, a dash of light soy sauce and rice wine. Turns out to be even better than the first attempt. So I guess cooking without recipe sometimes works better than following one blindly.