char

First attempt at 回锅肉 (twice cooked meat):

Forgot the most important step of stir-frying the meat to evapourate the moisture before adding veggies, thus did not get a nice char on the meat. T'was still good tasting though.

sandwich

Note to self: midday sun does not make for flattering lighting.
Another photography related note: my room gets a brief period of beautiful afternoon light, how does one go about capturing that on camera?

Had a short conversation with my YNCN mentor about not cooking from recipes. Personally, it's out of laziness, it's too much work referring back to a recipe everytime (which is why I rarely bake the same thing twice, even though I loved it the first time). Instead, I want to focus more on ingredients and techniques, which are more versatile. I'll attempt to write future food posts with a focus on those two.

Today's feature is how to construct a sandwich.

This is a successful example of a sandwich. Successful for the following reasons:

• Bread with substance: aka not homogeneously textured bread from a plastic bag. This bread is via budgetbytes and was a tad overbaked due to my carelessness. Despite that, it still has a fluffy interior and chewy crust.
• Complementary primary and secondary ingredients: this is a roasted beets sandwich complemented with slightly pickled cucumbers. I'd describe roasted beets as soft, sweet and warming, where fridge pickled cucumbers are the opposite: crunchy (cause homegrown :D), sour and cooling. One bad thing about beets is that it literally stains everything and anything, one must exercise the utmost caution when eating this.
• Brighter notes of flavour: which is the basil and heavily pickled radish (which is intensely spicy thanks to the pickling jar being filled with chili). A change I would make in future iterations is to arrange the radish and basil in a grid, because the radish easily overpowers the basil, which actually goes quite well with the beets. Previous iteration had mint as the herb, which wasn't as good.

braise

I would like to introduce you all to the dish that will get me (and you) through the winter months: roast meat.
(it's actually a braise not a roast)

It's sauce-y enough to compliment a variety of carbs (rice, noodles, pasta, bread, etc) and has enough layers of flavour that you wont get tired of eating it for an entire week (or months?). It's also inexpensive, the main ingredients are potatoes and the cheapest cut of meat.

The flavours come from a variety of ingredients, which is perhaps the only annoyance to those other than me who wish to replicate it (and you don't, change the flavour up as you wish). But for a Sichuan flavour, use the following:

• smashed ginger and ginger added first to the hot fat (veg oil, or I try to throw in the fatty bits of meat to render)
• dried spices: sichuan peppercone, bay leaf, star anise, dried chili, cinnamon
• the essential flavour: 郫县豆瓣 (chili-bean paste)
• others: citrus fruit peel, chili oil, salt and soy sauce
• optional, non-traditional add-ins: green onion and cilantro (added in at the end, usually to roasted beef but works well with pork too)

The process goes:

• cooking the flavouring in oil
• adding in the meat (I usually brown them a little beforehand, but not necessary)
• add in water and braise for an hour or so until meat is tender
• add in potatoes (or radish, usually not together but I did this time and its fine) and some more water to braise
• cook for at least another hour, until meat easily falls apart when poked. My usual cook time is 3-4 hours
• eat slowly as the leftovers are even better

In other news, field to fork event at school:

All prepared by residents, just 100x better than their regular meals.

method

Despite the fact that I should be working on my Green Growth assignment (delightful to research, painful to write), here's a brief flash of clarity that I experienced:

Most of the "things" I like are means to an end and not the end itself. It's time to shift my focus?

Exhibit A: my recent obsession, tea. Well I enjoy the liquor itself, what I really want to get out of drinking tea is time to slow down and feel at peace, the ritual of preparing tea, and exploring the culture  behind the beverage (such as traditional methods of processing).

Exhibit B: building engineering. Buildings are the medium in which I want to create a more sustainable world.

DHP

Drinking tea with more proper equipment now. Thank you parents for the gaiwan :D

This is a Dao Hong Pao from TheChineseTeashop, bought along with my yixing teapot.

venture

Gerstein library is beautiful, why can't engineering buildings be that nice? Gonna make a conscience effort to trek there for my long breaks. Will also make an effort to go to Hart House on Tuesdays for free tea.

The theme is to get out of the engineering zone.

PS. Medsci is kind of pretty with good lighting.

auburn

I like the roast level of my teas to be inversely proportional to the outdoors temperature. Craving some oolongs now that we've settled into fall (though there's still so much green tea to drink through).

Tie Guan Yin leaves showing the hint of red around the edges from tossing of the tea leaves during processing.