青椒炒肉丝 & 番茄炒鸡蛋

I used to cook, back when I was still in school.

All things considered, it’s been years since I last cooked anything, and even back then I didn’t do it all that often — so starting again now is basically starting from zero. Anyway, I’ve decided to stop being a useless lump and pick the cooking skill back up.

The rough plan is to nail a few basic dishes first, then go after the harder stuff. If the everyday stuff works out, I’ll try desserts.

So I picked something fairly representative for the basics — green pepper stir-fried pork strips. But it’s Sunday, and making just one dish feels kind of sad, so I threw in tomato and egg stir-fry on the side.

Overall, this first time back in the kitchen went better than my school days, I think. Might be because I watch a lot of cooking videos on YouTube and remembered a fair number of the details — though plenty of things still went wrong.

• First off, my kitchen is way too goddamn small. Even quickly washing the wok and cutting board is hard to pull off.
• Second, my efficiency and planning are still no good. Oil was already in the pan before I remembered I hadn’t cut the garlic, so I hastily threw together a batch.
• Third, I still don’t have a handle on managing dishes — ended up with several bowls by the end.
• Also, I didn’t prep enough ingredients. No Shaoxing wine in the house, so I didn’t add any, and the color came out a bit pale.
• My hands kept shaking. The marinade said to add egg white, and my hand slipped — goddammit, the yolk went in too. Nothing to do but roll with it.
• Taste was passable, just a little bland.
• The tomato stir-fry had too much tomato, the pepper pork had too little pepper, and I played it safe — didn’t use the hottest kind, went with sweet bell peppers.

Anyway, it turned out better than expected. I figure I’ll make these two dishes five times before moving on — next week, let’s see if I can do a bit better.