roma - one most captivating recent film

I recently came across Roma on Netflix. Its black and white cinematography and the intriguing opening shots captivated my interest. Netflix's synopsis gives little clue but I resisted the urge to run to the computer and search to see what the movie is all about, and am very glad that I didn't.

braised eggplants with seafood 海鮮茄子煲

I have not cooked with eggplants for close to a decade. The challenge with them is they taste rather blend by themselves. I used to cooked them with minced pork. The slender Asian variety tastes better than the big and fat ones to me. I recently came across this video of an eggplant dish that is braised with seafood and I immediately want to make a similar one but with my own twist. I actually went to bed and could not get it off my mind as I could imagine how delicious the dish can be.

sichuan water poached beef 四川麻辣水煮牛肉 - part 3

Practice makes perfect. As I have plenty of ingredients left I made another pot of Sichuan water poached beef. This time I went and bought a bag of soy bean spouts which is required for the traditional recipe of this dish.

sichuan water poached beef 四川麻辣水煮牛肉 - part 2

I am having this urge to try out a number of Sichuan classic dishes. Of this Sichuan water poached beef 四川麻辣水煮牛肉 was the first that I recently tried. This seemingly difficult dish turns out to be quite simple, once I figured out a few shortcuts. This is my third time preparing this dish. This time I made a point of getting some ingredients that I didn't have.

a few casual meals - part 1

These are just some photos of casual dishes I made recently.

sichuan water poached beef 四川麻辣水煮牛肉

With a lot of Asian dishes this is one dish the name can so easily lost in translation. If translated word for word, this dish would be called water cooked beef which does not sound too appetizing. It was nearly 10 years ago in a business trip to Dalian that I had my first taste of a sister dish of Sichuan water poached beef - Sichuan water poached fish. When the fish was presented to the table in a large shallow ceramic bowl there was this half inch thick of orange chili oil. Very intimating. I was immediately perplexed with the name as the abundance of oil gave me the impression that the slices of fish were more likely poached in hot (as spicy hot) oil rather than cooked in water as the name suggested.

airline serving cart as furniture - part 2

I have been wanting an airline serving trolley ever since I first saw them sold in Hong Kong 5 years ago. Upon returning home I checked on and off here but the prices had been sky high. Recently I have been thinking about traveling again and my desire for one.

mini love - part 48

Once I was satisfied with the preliminary fit check of the Konig Dial-In wheel in 15x8, I proceed to order the other three for a full set. Amazon has 5 of these wheels and I bought 4, leaving one in their inventory. It would turned out that all 5 passed through my hands.

mini love - part 47

This is a catchup post. This event happened in October.

Wanting to have a wider selections of high performance tires for track I decided to switch from 16 inch wheels to 15 inch. It was not a simple switch as the Wilwood front brakes are too large to fit inside any 15 inch wheels. For the switch I had to reduce the brake rotors from 12.20" to 11.75". Even then only none but the few 15 inch wheels designed for track focus would fit, and just barely with next to no space between the caliper and the wheel barrel.

a couple of shrimp dishes

I haven't bought farmed shrimps for close to a decade now. I used to buy them back when they were not as widely raised. In recently years I only buy wild sea shrimps - US gulf shrimps. Need to say when you go out to eat, more often than not the shrimps are farmed, except in the high end places where the shrimps are the highlight of the dish.

clay pot rice aplenty - 很多煲仔飯 part 2

I had written a post a while back called clay pot rice aplenty - 很多煲仔飯. This is a follow on post to it.  Clay pot rice tends to be eaten in the arrival of cool winds in the winter in southwest China. It is a one vessel meal and you cook everything in one pot, and serve it in the same pot. Some find making a perfect pot at home daunting. Like most things often we are the biggest enemy to success being afraid of failure. Practice and willing to experiment are the best teachers. In tech the latter is called dogfooding.

clay pot rice 煲仔飯 - with dim sum ingredients

Clay pot rice 煲仔飯 is one of the most versatile Chinese dishes. The variety of ingredients that may be used only limited by one's imagination. The whole meal is cooked and served in the same cooking vessel, and the best experience is to eat it straight out of the clay pot.

cantonese steamed beef meatballs - part 2

This is one man's quest for edible dim sum continues. In addition to preparing the beef meatballs, I also prepared a batch of baby ribs in black bean sauce. Unlike the beef meatballs the preparation for the ribs cannot be easier.

cantonese steamed beef meatballs

This is something that I have not try to make until now. Here in Portland there is no dim sum place that I care for. The closest acceptable dim sum I have to drive to Seattle, or better Richmond, BC. So short of taking a road trip, I have to take matter into my own hands if I want edible dim sum.

cantonese congee - part 3

I have been really into making congee lately. I discovered the simple techniques which involve so little time that I category them as passive cooking - a kind of like IRS's passive investment income which I have not much involvement while my sous chef Chrono does all the heavy lifting. My congee typically takes 10 hours of extremely low heat simmering, thanks to Chrono's unparalleled patience.

winterize brunnhilde

Winter is coming. Freezing nights are coming, and along with the White Walkers that are our mortal enemy. It is time to mount the defense.

cantonese congee - part 2

I had not made congee for years until recently. One reason that I hadn't because I thought a bowl of congee does not constitute a meal for a hungry man. Congee is typically eaten as a light breakfast in many Asian countries.

smoked ham hocks

It is a nice fall day and I want to take Mini out for a short drive. I also want to check out a ODB reader which concerns me as it has a burnt component that I can see through the translucent case. I cannot open it as it would be viewed as I had tempered with it.

porsche love - part 1

I am enslaved to my vehicles. When you drive them as fast as you skills capable the maintenance and operating costs can become quite substantial. I try to do all maintenance and repair work myself and so far I have done quite well. The Mini has never been touched by anyone, not even warranty work by the dealer.

cantonese congee

This is probably my fifth time making congee. I made a pot of mostly seafood congee for my ill neighbor. I simmered the rice into congee which took over 8 hours. It smelled so good that today I decided to make myself a pot too.