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It was one of the proudest moments in the mid-semester break when I tried to make a new dish and messed up the kitchen with cooking powder.

Since the beginning of the mid-semester break, I found it difficult to disconnect from work and kept feeling exhausted. Sure, The Pomodoro technique had been helping me focus on my work in limited time and take a little bit of break every 30 minutes. But on that day, I could not switch my brain from one to another that easily. It was already one-thirty in the afternoon.

I had not eaten anything and forgot to do the grocery last week. Grabbing the shopping bag and walking for a few minutes, I directly went into the Asian food section at the Coles. From there, I found the mysterious powder called “panko”, the Japanese version of breadcrumbs, used as a coating for deep-fried foods.

I do not usually try to make different cuisines. I am so conservative in food that if I find a meal with good taste, I stick to it. But since it was in the middle of the mid-semester break, with this exotic powder, I decided to explore a new meal – korokke, a Japanese style of croquette.

The cooking recipe that I found to make korokke was more challenging than I ever thought of. I had to mash the potatoes, put them together with fried onions and beef, make small balls out of them by solidifying them with flour, paste on eggs, and finally put them on panko and fry.

Finishing cooking korokke, I realized that the kitchen was messed up with the flour and panko with tons of kitchen utensils that I had to wash.

The product that I got? It was a nasty and ugly shape. It looked like a different food compared with the one you may find in the local stands in Japan. But the taste was perfect. With the crunchy skin with juicy potatoes inside, I felt it was worth trying a new recipe.

It was already three and a half in the afternoon. I had been cooking for more than a few hours without worrying about time because I was desperate and focused on cooking. It not only refreshed my mind from the study but also created a sense of freedom that boosted my confidence.

What was the meal that you tried to cook new in this mid-semester break? If you want to try new cuisines, there are a lot of good websites that provide recipes. You can also jump into a local Asian (could be any cuisine) supermarket and get random seasoning that can change the taste of your ordinary meal.