Re: ciel: How the heck do I make Al? (Ed sounds easier for some reasons) lol I'll try, but don't expect too much
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Standard 2-layer cake with cocoa cream and strawberries
Baked cheesecake with honey



Apple sponge cake (really spongy!! the "more eggs than flour" thing really works...lol)
(Feel free to ignore the random strawberries)

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1 cup fresh sliced cucumber
5 fresh strawberries, sliced
1 tsp olive oil
2 tsp fresh lemon juice
0.25 tsp salt



Contains:

117 kcal

out of which, 72% comes from fat (olive oil)

584 mg Na

25% of daily recommended intake value of sodium (just from that bit of salt)

Scary, isn't it? lol

Erm...I'm not sure about the whole genre thing, as I'm pretty sure this can't be considered as gourmet lmao but it's not dieting either...

Either way, a picture of the finished product of the banana coconut tart that I made following the recipe found on this site.



Though it tastes pretty good I wish I put in less sugar, because the recipe calls for coconut crumbs (?) which I ignored and put in sweetened coconut flakes instead

Also, the edges were burnt slightly because I was baking for more than 40 minutes before realizing that I couldn't achieve the golden brown effect shown on Mitong, the original author, 's site due to the fact that when one chooses "bake" on an North American oven only the bottom heats up, so one has to switch between bake and broil all the time.... so troublesome...

Finally, for some reasons the tart looks more like a meatball pizza in pictures for some unknown reasons

伪张氏肉丸, recipe obtained from Ciel's dad This is actually my 2nd attempt in making them, but this time the results were so much better than the 1st Still needs improvement though....details shall be noted below

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1. Clearly, ground pork. In this case I used roughly 1lb of regular (the cheaper and not so lean) ground pork, but I'm sure lean ground pork would work too...I shall try it out next time





2. Into the container dump an arbitrary amount of starch/flour (I used a combination of both, in total up to about 1.5 tbsp), an arbitrary amount of light soy sauce (I used about a bit less than 1 tbsp, but from the excess saltiness of the finished meatballs later I'm judging that I should have added less ), an arbitrary amount of sugar (I used about a little under 1 tbsp). And despite what the recipe said, I added a little bit (about 1 tsp) of cooking sake, to get rid of some of the porky taste/smell .....



3. Mix everything in the container using chopsticks until they reach a relatively homogeneous texture (?), occasionally crush the pork with your chopsticks. The end result should look something similar to the picture above. Let sit in the fridge, covered, for about 30 minutes.



4. Roll the finished mixture into balls about 1 inch in diameter, applying pressure while doing so. I tried to make the balls as round and perfect as possible (which clearly failed in this case lol), but later on realized that this was pointless since they'll deform after the pan frying procedure anyway, as can be seen in later steps...

lesson learned: don't bother making perfectly round and good looking balls!
tip: have a plate/bowl of water by hand, and when the pork is starting to stick, dip your hands in water to solve this problem



Ignore the dirty stove top.... Let's move into the fumehood stove area!



5. Add oil into the frying pan, just enough to cover its entire bottom.



6. When the oil is hot enough, put in all the meat balls, and fry on medium high until one side is relatively cooked.



7. Flip/Turn the meat balls to the uncooked side, keep on frying until they are golden in colour.
This is where the nice round shape of the balls are destroyed...
Also, during the cooking procedure, the fat from the ground pork gives off oil in the pan, increasing the amount of oil and decreasing the size of the meat balls themselves...



8. Take the meatballs out of the frying pan. There is no need to line the plate with paper towels, since they're going back into the pan/pot anyway. Also don't worry about whether the balls are cooked thoroughly, because in this case it doesn't really matter



9. Dump out excess oil generated by the pork, but leave in the pan about the same amount of oil as you started with before frying the meatballs. Add water, soy sauce, a large amount of sugar, turn on the heat and let it come to a boil. Alternatively, add water, oil, soy sauce, and sugar in a pot if your frying pan isn't deep enough.



10. Add in the balls, after letting them boil for about 20 seconds (I made this up), turn the heat to minimum, cover and let simmer for about 1 hour and a half, turning the balls every 30 minutes to a different side.



11. Done Depending on how much liquid you add, the simmering time should be increased or decreased. Make sure to check now and then to avoid....you know...the drying of liquids (duh?)




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No olive oil was used because I didn't have any
Other than that, the classic margherita ingredients, i think: sliced mozzarella, fresh basil leaves and sliced fresh tomatoes (seasoned with salt and fresh ground black pepper only).

Please ignore my ugly cutting skills or the lack thereof and シンプル・イズ・ベスト！！