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All is well in this world, I'm finally in possession of 豆瓣酱 again. Never shall I take you for granted again, no other flavour of braised meat taste as good.

But since I just made a pot of pork should ragu, here's some 麻婆豆腐 instead to celebrate this occasion:

jam

Things I've been feeding myself:

saag paneer with quinoa rice

I'm still trying to figure out what's the best way to use frozen spinach. The paneer I bought taste really bland...not surprisingly. I'd make this again for when I feel like making my own cheese, or maybe substitute with tofu or eggs.

 pork shoulder ragu

I'd worship at the temple of pork shoulder, such a cheap cut of meat is so so delicious. There's pretty much a many braised pork shoulder dishes in every cuisine that eats pork.

One problem is that the smallest pork shoulder sold at Sainsbury juuuuust fits in this pot, so I have no room to stir the sauce which resulted in a thick layer of burnt sludge at the bottom of my pot. The sludge that would've been super soft onion and carrots ;_; Next time I might take out the pork every time I turn it so I can properly stir the sauce. This dish also conveniently used up the small bottle of wine that I bought for sardines but didn't use.

Many glorious bowls pots of pasta to come hnnng

but first I gotta remember to not pour out all the pasta water, a lot is needed to emulsify cheese.

rear view

Coldplay's "A Head Full of Dreams" wins as the most therapeutic album I have, but this ain't bad either:

This song sorta reminds me of Bad Habits, which is probably the MVP of studying music in forth year. I wish more artists would include longer descriptions like this.

late night phone calls

CNY potluck was fun, but back to working today :(

vinegar

Chocolates are hands down best Valentine's gift

Ahhhhhhhhh William Curley chocolates are so yummy. I'm rationing one column per day. Today I had green tea, piedmont hazelnut, coconut, amedei chuao, and the upper left corner one I couldn't identify (and didn't match any on the accompanying legend). There was a hint of sourness in the filling.

days go and i'm fine

Soundtrack for making hourly hot water / electricity load data for SAM...8760 rows to copy and paste 168 cells at a time "orz Why can't we model an office or condo with less variable occupancy?

all

I've found the perfect pasta combination from The Art of the Larder, paraphrased from its description: salty ham and cheese, bitter radicchio, sweet onion and creamy sauce. It's so good that I accidentally cooked two portions worth and ate it all. Gonna regret it later, but very much enjoying it right now.

A couple changes I made / would make for the next iteration:

• Use a thinner pasta, probably linguine 
• Up the other ingredients to pasta ratio: at least a full radicchio per 2 portions (photo shows half) 
• Used creme fraiche instead, increased amount to 50ml per 2 portion (recipe states 75ml per 4 portions). This is going to be my cheat for cream sauces from now on, just dollop it in with the pasta
• Not to slice the onion too thinly, I overdid it this time and instead of nice soft onions I had some dried up charred pieces. 

...

Made sardine in vinegar after finding sardines in Sainsbury with help of the people behind the seafood/meat counter. I've rarely interacted with those staff since most of what I buy comes pre-packaged. 

Cleaning these buggers gave me a big shallow cut on my palm and a deep gorge on my fingertips "orz That makes 4 scars in the process of healing on my left hand, I'm great at taking care of myself smh. I naively thought the sardines were deboned and fully descaled, it was definitely not the case so I mistakenly was rubbing my hand along the fish under the tap, which is the perfect opportunity for the rows of bones sticking out along the belly cut to stab my hand. On second thought, for myself whose very picky with fish (prefer to pick out bones on plate and dislike fish skin), there is very little meat for me to consume on each sardine. Too bad they taste yummy. Next time I'll try with mackerel instead.

served with crisps

End result turned out bit too vinegar-y, should've cut the vinegar with some wine. The extra onion and vinegar would make a good pasta dressing.