The Road to 40 Day 201/365: Cook Day Wednesday

I got the opportunity to cook for Che and her officemates today, which was a fun experience.

I’ve come to love cooking for people. It has become a way for me to express myself through taste. After learning how to discern flavors and fragrances from my corporate work, I’m now using those skills to recreate flavors that I enjoy.

Because of this, I like inviting people over to talk over food and drinks and understand ways I could improve my cooking.

On this day, Che asked if I could cook baked salmon for her and her officemates. Some of her Filipino colleagues live in the same condo, and apparently, the househusband of one of them cooks for their communal lunch. However, the guy went back to the PH for a bit, so they didn’t have a cook.

The request was a Conti’s style baked salmon. It’s in my bag of recipes, but I haven’t done it in a while. Instead of preparing it for Che, I told her it would be best for me to buy the ingredients on the day and deliver it to her office. Having the luxury of time, I thought that would be most ideal for maximum flavor of the dish.

After dropping off Vino in school, I went to buy some ingredients in Vivo. I have mixed frozen vegetables ready, but it has peas that Che doesn’t really like. So I thought I’d buy carrots and string beans so that Che wouldn’t have to take out the peas herself.

Upon reaching home, I started to work. I needed at least 45 minutes for the rice to cook and at least 30 minutes for the salmon, and I had just a little over an hour left.

What I like about this dish is that all the work comes at the start, and once you put it in the oven, there’s not really much to do.

I put some salt, pepper, paprika, and some garlic powder on the fish before preparing the rice. I guess it allows the flavors to seep into the fish. For the sauce, I mixed a whole block of cream cheese, some all-purpose cream, Japanese mayo, parmesan cheese, and the minced garlic I had ready from making my banchan. As I mixed, I added a little bit more of the cream, some white pepper, sugar, and squeeezed lemon in it.

Once I got it into a consistency that I liked, I slathered it on top of the salmon. For a bit of crunch and bite, I added some panko breadcrumbs and more parmesan at the top. It went into the preheated oven at 180 degrees celius and should stay for about 30 minutes.

During this time, I cut up some carrots and boiled them with my frozen corn. This will help soften the carrots a bit. I then cut up the string beans. Later, I cooked all the veggies in butter, and will serve as the garnish for when the salmon was done.

With a bit more time, I tried to clean up the mess I made so that I wouldn’t have a lot to work on later. Checking on the salmon, I felt like it needed a bit more cook on the crust, so I raised the temperature to 220 and gave it about 10 minutes more.

When I got the color that I like on the crust, I took it out and made a hole in the middle to check if the salmon is cooked. With a relatively thick later of cream on top, I’ve always struggled with the cook on the fish. While it’s fine to eat it raw, I wouldn’t want a baked dish to have raw parts.

I cut up a lemon for garnish, but also to cover the hole I made in the middle. The finished product came out like this:

I took it to Che’s office, where she and a friend worried that it might be too much. It was a whole 800g slab of salmon, which was supposed to feed five people.

After I left, Che said it was recieved well by people who tasted it. For me, I was just happy that the fish was cooked all the way through. She said about 12 people had at least a bite, and it came with positive reviews. One of her friends (part of the original five in the headcount) almost didn’t get a share because of other people.

She also sent me videos of people still eating it and thanking me for the food.

By the end of lunchtime, she sent me a photo of the outcome:

Even if I wasn’t there, I was happy that Che enjoyed the food. Honestly, I don’t cook for the praises. It’s a bonus, but I love cooking for the joy it brings. I’m always open to hear the honest opinions of people who eat my food, because it will allow me to make food that they would eat more next time.

I walked around for a bit thinking about where to eat. Ultimately, I realized I still had some leftovers at home, and it was still a bit too early to pick Vino up. So I went home and made myself some kimchi fried rice from leftover rice two days ago. I had some bulgogi left from when my cousin visited, so I re-heated that for my proteins. Finally, I cooked an egg just to complete my bibimbap.

It’s a hearty meal, which I think I’d need because I was planning to do some shooting while Vino is in football training.

After eating, I cleaned up and picked Vino up from school. He asked to play a bit, and I let him go. On our way home, he fell asleep and asked if he could sleep more in the house.

While he was on the bed, it was me who fell asleep. He got up to find a snack and later called some of his friends on his tablet.

We headed to football practice, where I spoke with one of the dads while watching them do drills. Before it got dark, he went for a jog as per usual, while I shot hoops, as per usual.

One of the other dads who didn’t really speak much, came over to offer to rebound and pass balls to me. He didn’t want to shoot because he said he has bad eyesight and wasn’t really ready to play. I appreciated the help because it made me shoot quicker and a lot more than when shooting by myself as I didn’t have to rebound and reposition myself.

I’m still trying to get used to the shooting form that I learned from YouTube the other week. I fee like it’s effective, but I have to unlearn my old form in order to incorporate this new one. When I do it right, the shot sounds really good and the ball falls softly.

When it got dark, we went back to watch the kids play. Vino played on the pitch and actually got a goal off a pass from his teammate. Later, he moved to goalkeeping duties again.

Che went to have dinner with friends, but came home right about the same time that we did. She brought 4Fingers for our dinner.
For all the cooking I did today, it’s ironic that we had takeaway food for dinner, but with football training, I wasn’t able to prepare for dinner. I’ll cook dinner tomorrow.

Che had a call, I had to clean up the table and myself, so Vino slept a bit late as he waited for us.

After asking him to turn off his tablet and brush his teeth, Vino said he wanted to use the massager. I got irked because he had a lot of time while waiting for us, but only remembered what he wanted to do when he wasn’t using his tablet.

As such, I had to tell him that I will be taking away his tablet time so that he can focus on doing other things he needs or wants to do. I’m not sure how he took that news, but he was facing Che the whole time and she had to ask Vino to say goodnight to me.

After he slept, he rolled over to my side of the bed and slept on my arm. I guess he still unconsciously finds comfort in my arms, which I will always welcome, no matter how old he gets.