Clongerting Zone

She/They | I really love food. We all gotta eat and we all gotta die. Today, I'm here with you! A food blog, dedicated to my learning of the craft of cooking. Made for humans, by humans :) Banner from Gourmet Hound! Credit to Leehama.

[kitchen-clongert]

Welcome to my Kitchen!

Thanks for checking out my blog!

Here's some examples of the things I've cooked :)

List of Future Posts / Dishes / Recipes:

Clam Chowder [Recipe needed, since 3/14/26]

羊肉串儿 (Chinese Lamb Skewers) [Since 3/26/26]

Quiche [Since 4/16/26, recipe needed]

Chicken Parm [Since 4/26/26]

Burrito Flight [Since 5/11/26]

List of Dishes I need to Revisit:

Egg Custard Pie [Last attempt: 12/13/2025]

List of Dishes on the Super-Backlog:

Vegetarian Marry-Me Pasta [Last attempt: 1/24/26]: Will need to find access to vegan heavy cream replacements, which I don't have at my local grocery store

Fesenjan (Persian Pomegranate and Walnut Meat Braise) [Since 3/14/26]: Not sure I have the equipment for this yet

Croque Madame and/or Franchesinha [Since 4/24/26, recipe needed]: Waiting to do this for my partner, so that might take a bit before I get back there.

[kitchen-clongert]

05/20/26 - Lasagna

Layers of ragù, long wide pasta noodles, and a creamy ricotta mixture, baked in an oven, and topped with additional mozzarella and Parmesan. Made following this recipe from Spend with Pennies!

Insanely delicious. The cheese/ricotta made the dish so creamy and rich, and the tomato's sweetness and acidity really brightened it up. The noodles fill your mouth in a really toothsome way (kind of like udon?) I was worried the tomato was going to overpower the dish, but it surprisingly didn't!

I kind of went insane and had 4 slices for dinner that night. It was a LOT of food. But it's so good! I'm channeling my inner Garfield.

(sorry for the dirty plate. I didn't have a better photo)

I also learned something while researching how to describe the lasagna. I never knew that the Ragu (the pasta sauce brand) came from the word ragù, an term for traditional Italian pasta sauces made with ground or minced meat and slow-cooked vegetables. Thank you, Food and Wine!

I also had some leftover ingredients that couldn't fit into the pan so I just had a lasagna bowl:

It was delicious

[kitchen-clongert]

05/19/26 - Boyfriend Bagel

Bacon and cream cheese, served in a cinnamon raisin bagel!

I love this! It's a perfect mix of savory, sweet, and salty, a perfect grab--and-go breakfast.

I'm sure this isn't the most original dish in the world, but my first time trying it was when I was staying over at my partner's place, and he made this for breakfast before his class. He called it his 'weird creation', but I loved it—I'm a sucker for savory and sweet things.

[kitchen-clongert]

05/20/26 - Vermicelli Noodle Stir-Fry with Peanut Sauce

Stir-fried tofu onions, mushrooms, and red bell peppers, coated in peanut sauce and served over vermicelli.

It wasn't bad, but it definitely wasn't my favorite thing. I wish I seasoned this a little more and added more peanut sauce.

This was another attempt at a dish that a guest at my old apartment showed me! He's definitely a lot more skilled at cooking this, as well as working with these ingredients in general.

I definitely need to up my tofu game. It ended up being really really soft and break up, while also not marinading well? I tried to follow Nora Cook's Fried Tofu recipe but the tofu/cornstarch stuck to the pan, and yeah... just not great. Will definitely get extra firm tofu the next time I intend to stir-fry it.

[kitchen-clongert]

05/16/26 - Garlic Confit

Garlic, slow cooked in olive oil over low heat. Often served as a spread over toast, mixed with mashed potatoes, or added to compound butters!

Insanely delicious and flavorful. Imagine the garlic bread, without the garlic. I had it as part of a charcuterie board that I set up for my roommate's gay hockey vampire smut book launch!

We also had homemade crostinis (I forgot to take a photo of that part)

We had quite the spread at the party:

It was so delicious.

[kitchen-clongert]

05/16/26 - Su Special

Crispy bacon and a runny sunny-side up egg, lathered with maple syrup and hot sauce. Served between two slices of texas toast.

I'm a big fan of sweet + savory things, so this was really good! (I'm currently having a crazy obsession with Thai sweet chili sauce) It's definitely a once-in-a-while treat, though. Very heavy :)

I got this from Casey McQuiston's lesbian romance novel, One Last Stop. It's a really sweet romance book, and I had a really fun time reading it. It's one of the books that have really inspired me to get back into reading, despite my busy schedule. In fact, I'm currently reading through another one of Casey McQuiston's novels, The Pairing!

I had been planning to make this for a while, but I could never get my hands on a plain brioche loaf! Finally, I gave up and bought a cinnamon brioche loaf instead, but with Jane's sweet tooth, I know she'd approve.

[kitchen-clongert]

05/11/26 - 炸酱面 (Zha Jiang Mian)

A popular dish from northern China, consisting of ground pork, stir-fried in sauce made from 黄豆酱 (Yellow Bean Paste), 甜面酱 (Sweet Flour Sauce), and various Chinese aromatics. Served with edamame and cucumbers, on top of udon noodles. Made following this recipe from Red House Spice!

A savory and comforting dish, with refreshing bites of fresh veggies. Reminds me of home, even though the amount of times I've made this now outnumber the amount of times I've had this at home.

I didn't think I'd be revisiting this so soon, but for some reason, I had a crazy craving for this dish, and I had leftover ingredients, so I figured I'd give it another whirl!

While I was cooking down the sauce, I realized that my emulsion had slowly started breaking. It's been happening fairly consistently at my new place, because the power burners are crazy hot, and my cast iron pan retains heat like crazy.

Because I got pretty irritated the last time it happened, I had actually taken some time to learn how to fix broken emulsions. Luckily, I had some starchy water (from the noodles) on-hand, and with some elbow grease—voilà! A nice, creamy sauce.

Also, while I was having dinner, my roommate came downstairs, and she said something along the lines of 'you cook so many things that I have never heard of', and while trying to describe it, I came to the realization that this is kind of similar to a bolognese? It's a very rough comparison, but it's ground meat and a sauce, served on noodles.

Anyway, it's delicious and I love it. I think I have enough sauce ingredients to make it once more.

[kitchen-clongert]

05/04/26 - Tandoori Chicken

Bone-in chicken thigh, marinaded in a spiced yogurt marinade with just a touch of liquid smoke, then roasted in the oven.

Absolutely delicious. Flavor-wise, very very similar to the Chicken Tikka Masala I made, but the liquid smoke adds another layer of depth to the dish.

Glad I could do it justice! (or at least, justice enough!) I wish I could've smoked it for real, but I don't have access to a tandoor, or even an outside grill. That'll be something for the future.

[kitchen-clongert]

Starting off the month strong with some delicious food.

05/03/26 - Kung Pao Chicken

Chicken thigh, marinaded in a soy sauce-based sauce, then stir fried along with zucchini, carrots, mushrooms, and bell pepper, as well as the Big 3 aromatics (ginger, garlic, scallions) + dried red chilies and Sichuan peppercorns. Made following this recipe from The Woks of Life!

This is an almost 1-1 recreation of most Kung Pao chicken dishes I've had in proper restaurants, and it's so delicious. The sauce is so insanely yummy, and the chicken was so, so tender. I almost wish I increased the sauce ingredients, and added more chilies, because it's just a tad under my flavor preferences, but I'm happy as-is!

I think this my first actual attempt to velvetting meat, as is Chinese tradition. It's the primary Chinese technique for tenderizing meat—you make a slurry of corn starch, salt, and just let the chicken sit for a bit! Honestly, I almost regret doing it with the chicken thigh, because it's already so tender, and the thigh became melt in your mouth. I still liked it, but I prefer my chicken to have a bit of bite to it. You can read more about velvetting here!

Also, a cool detail about kung pao chicken: the name comes from the 宫保, which means 'Palace Guardian', after Ding Baozhen, a Qing Dynasty government official who often served the dish during gatherings. You can read more about this from the source I got it from!

(another cool thing about this article—it taught me the origin of the word 'bao' as a cooking technique! It refers to 'baochao', or fast/'explosive' stir-frying, a technique originating from Shandong)

The only thing missing from this was the water chestnuts, but I couldn't find any at our local supermarket, and I didn't want to go all the way to the local Asian supermarket to pick up a single thing today.

I also meal prepped this for the week instead of my usual Japanese curry chicken, but it's a little more involved than the potatoes and carrots. Still, it's nice to switch it up a bit, and I love this dish.

[kitchen-clongert]

this photo is soooooo ugly TwT

04/28/26 - Chicken Tikka Masala

Cubed chicken thigh, marinaded in a yogurt and citrus-based sauce, the stir-fried in a cast-iron pan. Made (failing to follow) this recipe from Swasthi's Recipes!

Rich, creamy sauce, with a deliciously spiced chicken.

Originally, this was an attempt at Tandoori Chicken. Unfortunately, I made threee major mistakes. 1: the chicken was diced into small pieces, 2: I didn't smoke it. I found out that it's traditionally made with whole chicken pieces, and that the smokey flavor one of the main components. 3: I cooked the chicken along with a sauce.

I actually figured this out while looking into Tandoori Chicken, and I saw Chicken Tikka listed as one of the variations listed. As I read deeper into it, I realized that what I made was closer to Chicken Tikka, NOT Tandoori chicken, even though the same spices were used for the marinade.

However, I dug even FURTHER, and found that roasted chicken pieces (Chicken Tikka) served in a gravy is actually Chicken Tikka Masala—not authentic Indian food. Wikipedia actually has a great chart about this.

So, I'm not counting this a true attempt for Tandoori chicken.

Even so, it lead me down an insanely interesting path of research, where you can see the development of this dish through the many cultural influences that brought it to life. You have the Persian yogurt marinade and Indian spices, along with existence of the Tandoor oven leading to Tandoori Chicken and Chicken Tikka, with the British preference for gravy leading to the creation of Chicken Tikka Masala.

I also almost burned myself out of cooking this week by the sheer number of times I cooked. I count 5: the Tofu Noodle Salad, Biscuits and Sausage Gravy, Chinese Garlic Eggplant, Japanese Curry Chicken that I made for meal prep, and this. So, a lot of cooking this week!

[kitchen-clongert]

this photo is hilarious. it looks like I was running around with the pan.

04/27/26 - Chinese Eggplant with Garlic Sauce

Eggplants, stir-fried with ginger and garlic, served with a soy-sauce glaze. Made following this recipe from the Omnivore's Cookbook!

Tender chunks of garlic-y and ginger-y eggplant, with an deliciously sweet and savory sauce.

I bought a Napa cabbage recently, but when I cut it open to make a quick meal, I found worms in it :( so I had to make a quick stop to our local supermarket to find a replacement vegetable.

I was eyeing the zucchinis, when this dish suddenly popped into my head, and I knew I had to try and make it. My mom used to make this every so often, and as a kid I didn't like it—I thought the texture and flavor was odd, and I'd much rather eat bland stir-fried vegetables.

As an adult, I can appreciate this so much more. It's still not my absolutely favorite, but I do enjoy it a lot more than I used to.

Also, I learned you have to salt eggplants! I tried both methods suggested in the recipe, and I found no major difference. Here's a quick photo of how I weighed them down, though:

[kitchen-clongert]

04/26/26 - Biscuits & Sausage Gravy

Southern-style biscuits, served with a southern-style sausage white gravy! Biscuits made following this recipe from Sugar Spun Run and gravy made using this recipe from Tastes Better from Scratch!

Incredibly heavy but so comforting and delicious. It might've taken a few weeks off of my life but believe me, it's worth it.

I think this is my first true attempt at biscuits and gravy! I have had biscuits and gravy from the dining hall (good, not great), as well as from the culinary school restaurant near my university (fantastic), but I've never taken the time to do it myself.

This was also my first attempt at making biscuits from scratch, and while they weren't super pretty, they were so absolutely goddamn delicious. I've never had fresh biscuits in my LIFE, and these were an unbelievably insane improvement over any other ones I've had.

Taste is king... don't look too long at the ugly ones...

I also made this little guy

[kitchen-clongert]

04/25/26 - Tofu Noodle Salad

Tofu noodles and carrots cut into matchsticks, tossed with chili oil, sesame oil, ginger, and garlic. Served cold, and topped with some cilantro!

Quite refreshing and light, but super flavorful!

This is one of the side dishes we used to get from our local takeout places in my hometown! Completing* the 老三样 trinity made me think of other dishes we used to get from that restaurant, so it was a nice way to revisit my childhood.

*technically, not completed—that fish dish needs another attempt but I'm lazy... maybe in a few months or so...

[kitchen-clongert]

04/23/26 - Celery and Potato Stir-Fry

Celery and Russet potatoes, neatly chopped and stir-fried in olive oil along with garlic and ginger. Seasoned with salt and pepper!

A very simple but delicious dish! I might've oversalted it slightly, but the ginger and garlic did wonders to what I was worried could be really boring.

This is another one of those dishes that really seem thrown together, but we used to have this every so often during my childhood. It came to mind when I was trying to figure out what to do with the extra celery, since I don't usually use a lot of celery in my cooking.

That's it! It's pretty simple :)

[kitchen-clongert]

4/21/26 - Tumisan Ayam Masak Merah (Chicken in Red Sauce)

Sauted Chicken thigh and sliced onion, served in a tomato-based sauce with cardamom, turmeric, cloves, garlic, and Thai chili paste. Deglazed with a bit of Chinese cooking wine to bring out the sweetness of the tomato paste.

A hearty meal! Very well-seasoned, absolutely delicious. The sweetness and tartness of the tomato, the well-seasoned chicken, and the spice. An all-around amazing meal.

I did use ground cardamom instead of whole, and I was a little worried that I messed up the recipe (because it was a little bitter). However, I realized I just tasted it too early, and I had to let the Chinese cooking wine cook off a little more. It's definitely better than accidentally biting into whole cardamom

I also used a lot more turmeric this time, which gave it this great color and fantastic flavor. Will definitely be repeating that for future iterations.

All-in-all, I consider this a great success. It's still a ton of effort and doesn't provide as much food as I'd like, but it's absolutely delicious, and a dish that I love having in my repetoire.

[kitchen-clongert]

4/20/26 - 清炒鱼片 (stir-fried fish fillet)

Tilapia, bamboo shoots, straw mushrooms, celery, and carrots, stir-fried!

Honestly, not fantastic. Undersalted, but otherwise well-seasoned. I think I used the wrong fish and didn't add enough salt.

This is the (semi) conclusion of a long journey! This dish is one of the 老三样 (old 3 staples), that my mom would pick up at a local takeout place, which includes this dish, 葱爆牛肉 (Scallion and Beef Stir-Fry, which I've made before!), and 四季豆鸡丁 (String Bean and Chicken Stir-fry).

The other two dishes, I've already made and posted about before! You can read about them at the links above.

I think the reason I feel a little more disappointed with this dish is because of how well the other two turned out, as well as the fact that it didn't make as much food as I thought it would, it took a ton of effort, and the ingredients were not super easy to get (bamboo shoots AND straw mushrooms? that's a whole dedicated trip to the Asian supermarket, each time I'd want to make it!)

However, I'm down for the challenge, and I'll happily eat it across the course of the week.

(Below is a picture of what it's supposed to look like! Not quite the same!)

[kitchen-clongert]

04/15/26 - Arepas

Cornmeal griddlecakes, made with masarepa, or un-nixtamalized, pre-cooked cornmeal. A delightful, savory snack, often filled with queso, mantequilla, and other fillings!

Savory, hearty, and delicious. I enjoyed it with some queso blanco and butter!

I was inspired to make these after trying arepas from a little food cart in our local park, when my friend came to visit me from across the country! The arepas were so insanely good, I knew I had to give them a shot.

I used Goya yellow masarepa, and when I was making the dough, it looked pretty different from all the videos I saw. However, they still turned out pretty well! Not as good as the ones I got with my friend in the park, but still really quite good.

I'll also be taking some time to research and improve my arepas. I found a post on Reddit with a few details, and I definitely want to try some of the tips out! I think letting the dough sit for longer will make a huge difference.

Also...

1 year ago, on this day (well, a few days ago now), I started this blog to learn more about cooking and express my love of food into the void. In that time, I've tackled so many different dishes, from a wide array of cultures, to varying degrees of success.

And I've learned so much over the course of the year! From different cooking techniques, to the culture/history of different dishes, and even just learning how to taste. More than anything, I think this blog has taught me to look at food in ways I'd never thought of before, and it's truly shaped up as one of my biggest passions.

Quite honestly, I'm surprised I'm still going! I'd never imagined I would've care about this project enough for it to stick around. There were so many times that I thought I was going to give up, but here we are, one year later, alive and kickin'.

Here's to a great year of learning, and to many more! Happy 1-year anniversary!