The bake-it-yourself bread series. A bloomer. The European kind. Probably the most classic, most beginner-friendly one out there — Paul teaches you to bake bread, from the BBC Recipe channel. Paul Hollywood’s bloomer http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/paul_hollywoods_bloomer_84636

Sort of a copycat of Zhongwang’s little cookies? Making them is actually really simple.

Still the oven. This time it’s small drumsticks, not the big thigh kind. And the flavor is my favorite again — black pepper!

Another day, another excuse to fire up the oven. I can’t get through a day without black pepper, and this time it’s shrimp. The usual version of baked shrimp is garlic shrimp, where you stuff the garlic into the meat. First, wash the shrimp, snip open the back of the tail and pull out the black intestine, then score it with a knife so it opens into two halves. Add Shaoxing wine, a little oil, and a tiny bit of salt to marinate. No need to marinate long — about an hour is plenty.

I bought an oven recently, so cooking has a whole new frontier to expand into.

A breakfast I stumbled on while randomly watching Japanese cooking videos on YouTube. Takes about 10 minutes. Ingredients: Sliced bread Soy sauce Eggs Lettuce Chicken bouillon

I’ve made salad before, but only recently have I started getting slightly better at it… Usually the ingredients are these: A head of romaine. (Not regular lettuce — the little ball kind.) Lean beef Cherry tomatoes (I just like them, so sue me) Cucumber Boiled egg Avocado Black pepper

Kung Pao Chicken is a famous dish, and plenty of people love it. But there are actually two versions of this thing. One is the northern version, the one that spread the widest—supposedly tweaked by Shandong cuisine. That’s the one you get with peanuts, cucumber, diced carrot, and the chicken itself. What’s the original, then? The original is the Sichuan version. No extra cucumber or diced carrot, the chicken has to be thigh meat rather than breast, and the finished dish shows only chicken—none of that other stuff. Of course I’m not making the original. Maybe next time, if I get the chance. After all, Sichuan and Chongqing are full of perverts and gays, and to show off my northern traits as a non-pervert non-gay, I’ll make the northern version of kung pao chicken.

Following up on last time, I made fish-fragrant puffy omelet a whole bunch of times. All of them failed. Not in the flavor department — the flavor was fine. The problem was that it wouldn’t puff. So I stopped forcing it and just made fish-fragrant scrambled eggs.

Back in the kitchen after a long break. Today’s project: fish-fragrant puffy omelet. The proper high-end version comes out fluffy and legit impressive. But the pantry’s limited… so a stripped-down version first. Eggs are the main event, fish-fragrant sauce is the supporting act. Let’s take them separately. Eggs first: