2.5 Hours Later... Braised~!

I drove back at high speed after my morning class to spend another 2.5 hours standing in the kitchen. The night before I have studied what I was going to cook. I kinda like dishes being braised. That's winter melon braised to perfection and I thought the water would never clear. It finally did and I was left a little gravy. The addition of roasted chestnuts and red dates made the dish sweeter. I don't like the taste of scallop mushrooms from a can. The taste was something which I couldn't describe but I know I do not like the taste. This whole dish took at least an hour to get it done.

Wrapping dumpling was no big deal. Making the stock was one big deal. I needed two hours to get the taste out from the pig's bone added with flounder fish powder and dried shrimp toasted. Two hours for the stock pot to take over one side of the stove. The other side was taken over by the wintermelon. I didn't know what to do while waiting. When you're cooking, you couldn't just leave the stove because that's where something's gonna go wrong. Trust me on this. When you're waiting for a pot of water to boil, it simply refused to boil. Once you walk away and thinking that it would need another few minutes, those few minutes turned into seconds. So, I better not walk away. I did walk to the piano and played a song. I came out after I was done with that one song.

The whole wok of winter melon done was quickly removed and I changed to my favourite marble wok. This was my first time cooking duck meat. I bought the whole duck from the market. You need to order one day ahead. I asked the lady at the market to chop the duck into two and separate for two different days of cooking. The whole duck has NO meat. Poor ducky... Oh... I simply love this braised duck disk. The taste was just like the braised pork in a can. Exactly the same~!!! I love this taste. I wished to finish the half duck on my own but I could not do so. Others would go hungry. *sigh* So, yeah... 2.5 hours standing in the kitchen and we finished them 30 minutes later plus washing. Kitchen slave I am...