Birthday red eggs

Today is my boyfriend's birthday. Since we are living in different cities, I decided to make him some red eggs to celebrate, and eat them all myself to gain more weight.

I permanently have food colouring in the house for various art purposes, so it was an easy treat. You also need to add some white vinegar and salt into the water, to make the egg shell porous to absorb the dye. 

I don't really like eggs to be hard boiled, so I tried to break the tradition and cooked them soft, but failed.

How the red spread into the egg white

Hey, I tried making saury fish for the first time. My family calls the fish by the Chinese name 秋刀魚, that means "autumn knife fish". I read that you can use the broiler function in household oven to pseudo-grill the fish. 

I gave this a try, and after I put the two fish in the oven for less than 1 minutes, I heard a BANG and see smokes come out from one of the stove top. I opened the oven immediately to check what goes on. As you can see, one of the saury got a serious burn. Lesson learned: the broiler can be a very powerful source of heat. 

I'm going to talk a little about all the small things I did on the fish before putting to be cooked. For example, I poured olive oil on the oven pan, I cut the belly of the fish open to clean the intestines, then once ready on the pan, I smeared the olive oil all over the fish. I added a lot of salt, and some grounded pepper. I also poured some ancient mirin that I found deep inside the sauce cupboard (6 years old?)—but it smelled fine, so I added it in. Rub the seasonings all over the fish. 

With the hole in the fish belly, I wanted to fill that emptiness. So, I dashed out to the garden and pulled out some tiny shallots from the soil. I stuffed cut shallots into the belly. 

Thoughts on the taste: Even though they were frozen saury fish (in pack of three) that I brought at Chinese supermarket for a bargain, the meat tasted rich. I definitely recommend it as a nutritious lunch dish. I eat 2 of them to gain weight. 

Banana bread

For the first time I baked a Banana bread. As I told you, my dad Anthony often brings too many bananas in to the house to offer to the Buddha, in the end, they will end up being overstocked and ripen.

I did not follow closely the recipe. It calls for 3 bananas but I instead I put two into the batter: one ripen and one frozen. It turns out not as moist as I would like it to be. I gave half the load to cousin Theo and his wife, and they kept telling me that it tasted good, only too dry. I didn't feel that I had enough good material to offer any to grandma who is in the hospital.

Not enough banana was the conclusion. Next time, I will execute this better, since ripen banana will be a sustainable source of carbohydrate and calories.