We’re going to need games, and food…lots of food.

Before you say “this is supposed to be a gaming blog”, it hasn’t all been cooking. We have been enjoying both Control and Alan Wake 2. The intertwined Remedy-verse provides a lot of fodder for fun cross-overs including characters like the enigmatic Finnish janitor, Ahti, who appears to be capable to both banal and fantastic feats simultaneously. We just finished the Control main campaign, and I can’t decide whether anything was adequately explained, but too much exposition would have ruined the mystique so perhaps it will have to remain a mystery.

Lunar New Year

Wednesday the 29th of January brought the Lunar New Year, and the transition from the year of the dragon to the snake. We have a few family members who participate in this celebration, and I’m always game for another excuse to celebrate.

For us, this desire was made manifest by a trip to KW Brothers in Stonehouse to pick up a variety of dumplings and sides. This included spring rolls and prawns which required deep frying. We did not own a deep fryer, and sourcing a decent one within walking distance for a same day meal was limiting. I managed to find a £28 “professional” fryer in Tesco. If you were wondering where the metal from biscuit tins ends up, wonder no more…

As long as it is completely stationary, the deep fat fryer is fine. It’s an element in an oil bath, with a basket. That’s pretty much all there is to it, and it seems to heat up in a reasonable amount of time and maintains temperature well. Is it made from a couple of layers of tinfoil stuck together? Maybe, but it was available when I needed it, and has performed well across several tasks so far.

The sticky chilli pork belly involved simmering pork belly slices in stock before finishing them off in the wok with a soy, honey, and chilli glaze.

The following day I took the leftover pork belly and combined it with chopped spring onions and chilli to make the filling for bao buns, or nikuman if you’re Japanese. This was a bit more involved as I had to make a starter dough and another dough which were combined to make the final dough mix. These buns were (sort of) pleated shut and twisted, then placed in the bamboo steamer for about ten minutes.

The finished buns were delicious and really filling. They puffed up considerably during cooking, and the dough was a little thick so next time I will try and keep the sides thinner.

Doughnuts

Doughnuts have been on my “to make” list for years. That they combined two processes which can be finicky (yeasted dough and deep frying) has put me off until now. Since we already had the fryer, I thought this was the weekend to give it a go.

The first step is to make an enriched yeast bread dough. Enriched refers to the additional ingredients above and beyond the usual flour, salt, yeast, and water. Milk, eggs, sugar, and butter make the dough softer and stickier than the ordinary counterpart. Following the bulk rise step, I divided the dough into small rounds and put them back in the proving drawer for a second rise. Once they had roughly doubled in size, the doughnuts were ready to fry. Fry until browned, then flip and repeat. It took less time than I expected. The doughnuts were drained on a wire rack before glazing with a icing sugar and butter mixture (then decorated by an enthusiastic four year old).

Laptop Saga

I have refined my work laptop docking set up with the addition of a KVM switch. This would be more accurately titled a K-M switch, though, as this one is for peripherals only. It’s connected to a keyboard, mouse, and barcode scanner, freeing up space on the desk by getting rid of the requirement for another keyboard and mouse. There’s a simple switch set up that swaps between PCs which works perfectly, and the video connection was not required because we use a DP to USB C cable.

Football?

This might be the first reference to football that has ever graced this platform, but this is a big one. Plymouth Argyle 1, Liverpool 0. I’ll leave that here for posterity.