Sunday dinner at home with BB — the end of another lockdown weekend, and we’ve stopped distinguishing between Friday-Saturday-Sunday meals because the days started to blur together. Home-cooked plate, slow eating, no commitments after.

Today’s plate:

Hot rice base
A pan-seared protein (chicken or fish)
Stir-fried vegetables
A small portion of soup
Chilli sauce

Sunday dinner during lockdown was less elaborate than weekday dinners because by the end of the weekend we’d run through most of the energy for cooking. The format gravitates toward simple — one protein, one vegetable, rice base, maybe a quick soup.

Today’s protein was pan-seared chicken thigh. Skin-on, salt-and-pepper seasoning, hit in a hot skillet on the skin side first for the crispy render, then flipped to cook through. Slightly thick-cut so the cook time gives the skin enough time to crisp without overcooking the meat. Finished with a squeeze of lemon and a sprinkle of fresh herbs.

Stir-fried vegetables — kai lan today, with garlic and oyster sauce. Quick wok toss, stems still crunchy, leaves wilted. The colour green against the chicken brown and rice white.

Small portion of soup on the side. Lockdown weekday soup was usually a quick chinese-style egg-drop soup or a corn-and-chicken broth. Tonight was a clear pork-bone soup with a few slices of winter melon and a sprinkle of white pepper. Restorative without being heavy.

Chilli sauce on the side as always.

We sat at the table, ate slow, drank water, and didn’t talk about the work week ahead. Sunday dinners during lockdown felt like the small ceremony of closing out the weekend.

Overall: 4.3 / 5. 😋👍🏼 Quiet Sunday lockdown dinner — keeping the routine.

Original IG post