21 Jun 20 (Sun) - Stir-fry Kimchi Pork Belly

Watched this episode from "I Live Alone" featuring Song Seung-heon where he cooked for his friends when he was filming on Jeju Island. One of the dishes was stir-fry kimchi pork belly and he seemed to just really cooked with just the kimchi with pork belly and no other seasoning. It looked easy enough and I thought of trying it out myself. It was a few weeks ago and I finally got the chance to try the dish out today.

Bought a slab of pork belly from the market and sliced it myself. My knife-work needs more polishing. Tried my best to cut as thin as possible but still not thin enough I think.

Googled a bit about the dish and most recipes called for the pork belly to be marinated with light soy sauce and rice wine. In addition to marinating the pork belly, some recipes called for gochujang (Korean chili paste) and gochujang (Korean chili powder) to be added while stir-frying the dish. As I have neither the gochujang nor the gochujang, I just marinated the pork belly with light soy sauce and rice wine.

The cooking steps were simple. Just add in the pork belly to stir-fry for awhile till half-cooked and then add in the kimchi to cook till the meat is done. Taste-wise, I think the marinate overpowered the kimchi taste. Maybe next round I will not marinate the pork belly and also to use the shabu-shabu sliced pork instead. Nevertheless, it is still a taste of Korea. Hahaha...

After I was done with that, I went on to make the castella sponge cake again. This time round, I made them as cupcakes instead but forgot to lower the temperature some more compared to the previous round and hence, they became wrinkled again. Will need more practice.

13 Jun 20 (Sat) - Castella Sponge Cake

There has been a lot of posts on castella sponge cake lately on the Facebook group "Home-cooked Delights 家常便饭" page. My sis also makes quite a mean castella sponge cake using her airfryer. So follow their footsteps to try and make one. Found this recipe that bakes the cake in a rice cooker and gave it a try last week.

Unfortunately my cheap rice cooker wasn't able to bake the cake well. It kept jumping from the cook function to the keep-warm function. In the end, the edge of the cake rose well but the middle didn't. The fortunate thing was that at least it wasn't too dense in the middle either.

Not satisfy with the result and gave it another attempt today. This time I only played with one egg portion and baked in an oven. I tried baking it at 150 degree Celsius for 18 mins. As usual, the cake rose while in the oven and sank after it cooled down resulting in wrinkles. I guess I should have baked them as cupcakes instead because the cake turned out to be very short.

Wonder if it would be better if I bake it at 140 degree Celsius for longer time say maybe 20-25 mins. Shall try again.

Whole cake

One slice

26 May 20 (Tue) - Marble Butter Cupcakes (2nd attempt)

Attempted this recipe the second time with the suggestions received previously. The cakes didn't crack this round but they still sink and created wrinkles. Oh well... at least some improvements from the first round. Shall attempt it again to try and get cakes with smooth top.

11 May 20 (Mon) - Mini Chocolate Croissants

There have been many posts on using frozen prata for a lot of pastries on the Facebook group "Home-cooked Delights 家常便饭" page. Since there are some frozen prata sitting in the freezer, decided to also jump onto the bandwagon.

Experimented by making mini chocolate croissants. The result was rather good.

10 May 20 (Sun) - Honeydew Sago

There were a lot of soy milk in the fridge and the honeydew bought recently wasn't sweet. So what to do to finish all these items? Honeydew Sago dessert! Googled for a recipe to use as a base to follow and found this recipe by Roti & Rice.

Improvised to suit my needs and the result was a refreshing dessert just nice for a hot, hot day.

01 May 20 (Fri - Labour Day) - No-mixer Double Chocolate Banana Cake

There were three very ripe bananas at home so put them to use by baking a banana cake. Googled for easy recipe and found this no-mixer double chocolate banana cake recipe by Foodie Baker. The top of the cake was rather hard but fortunately the inside of the cake was moist and soft. Probably need to reduce the temperature and bake longer instead.

I reduced the amount of cocoa powder and it was a good thing I did because otherwise the cake would be rather bitter. Overall, it was quite good except that I will need to reduce the amount of cocoa powder some more the next time or omit it totally since the recipe already called for chocolate chips/chunks.

22 Apr 20 (Wed) - Marble Butter Cupcake

My sis found this marble butter cupcake recipe by Kimiya Lim and told me to give it a try. The steps seem simple enough to follow so gave it a try.

Don't know why my bakes always rose and crack in the oven then sink after cool. Posted on the Facebook group "Home-cooked Delights 家常便饭" page to ask for advice and some members told me to try to lower the temperature and bake longer as well as to only fill 2/3 of the baking cup.

Shall give this recipe another try with the suggestions given.

20 Apr 20 (Mon) - Easy Jam Doughnut Muffin

Have been craving for doughnuts for a while now so googled for a simple recipe to try to satisfy my craving. Found this easy jam doughnut muffin recipe by Baking TaiTai and gave it a try. Didn't have any jam around but I have some chocolate chips so improvised as I go along.

Taste-wise, I should have increased the sugar level by a little given the lack of jam. Fortunately, I added chocolate chips, at least not too bland. The doughnut muffins are very crispy though. Hee...

10 Apr 20 (Fri) - Cotton Cheesecake

More time at home due to the circuit breaker so decided to use the time to try and do more baking to improve my skill. Found this cotton cheesecake recipe by Josephine's Recipes and gave it a try. Don't know why the top crack. Wonder if it was because the oven temperature was too high.

Fortunately, the cake still tasted good and soft. Happy!

28 Mar 20 (Sat) - Huat Kuih (发糕) and Dalgon Coffee

Saw someone posted her Huat Kuih photos on the Facebook group "Home-cooked Delights 家常便饭" page. Her Huat Kuihs looked very pretty in yellow and pink. The kind lady shared her recipe in her post and I decided to try it out myself this weekend since I just bought a pack of self-rising flour. Then saw many other people posting their Dalgon Coffee photos in the same group page and found it to be very interesting. Googled about Dalgon Coffee and realized that it is a current trend in Korea with very simple ingredients and steps to do. Just need instant coffee, white sugar and hot water at a ratio of 1:1:1, whipped till thick and foamy then pour over milk. So decided to try it out this weekend too. It was a crazy first quarter and I really need some cooking therapy to keep myself sane and happy.

Went to the market to get breakfast and finally I broke away from my usual routine of yong tau foo bee hoon mee dry and went for the pig intestines porridge which I haven't eaten for a long, long time. Felt very happy and took my own sweet time to savour the porridge.

Then went on to start my cooking of the day: Huat Kuih. Followed the steps closely and towards the last few steps where I had to mix the colouring, my mobile phone rang and I got a shock. I ended up with a big splash of red colouring in my batter. Continued to fill the cake cases with the batter while cursing. Finally put them into the steamer to steam for 15 minutes on high. My pot has a glass cover so I was able to see the Huat Kuih rose and split at the top. So happy!

After the Huat Kuih was done and left on a rack to cool. I went on to make the Dalgon Coffee using those sachets of instant coffee that I had collected during my last trip. Only managed to get 1 tablespoonful and 1 teaspoonful. Added them to a bowl, measured the same amount of sugar and poured in. Lastly, heated up the black coffee that I had set aside earlier in the morning, measured the same amount and poured into the bowl. Used the mini electric hand mixer which I had gotten from Daiso few years back to mix the ingredients.

Mixed them for quite a long time and still didn't manage to get the thick, foamy consistency. I almost wanted to give up, yet I was too stubborn to give up. So continued to mix in a slightly different way hoping that it will thicken and foam up faster. Finally my patience was rewarded. Poured some soy milk into a glass and topped it with the whipped coffee. Overestimated the amount of whipped coffee I had and thus underestimated the amount of soy milk poured in. In the end, the overall presentation wasn't as nice as I had imagined. Next round I shall try the matcha version.

Nevertheless, I managed to succeed in doing what I had planned to do for cooking to day and that's a win for me already.