The list of food I plan to master in this lifetime

I once read in a food magazine (probably Donna Hay) that if you master 10 of your favourite dishes, then you are set for life. So I thought about what to master in this lifetime. I have crossed out the food I mastered :p

1. chocolate chip cookies
(Dare I say I mastered it? Let's just say that as long as I stick to the recipe, I will be fine.)

I find it very hard to bake these seemingly simple chocolate chip cookies to perfection. I have wasted almost a kilogram of Valhorna chocolate.
(I shed tears every time I think of them)
Has anyone tried Millie's Cookies? You probably have if you have visited/lived in UK. You can find them in nearly every train station and even at Heathrow. They are not the best in the world, (too sweet for my taste) but I want to immitate the texture of miniature cookies. They seem soft and slightly chewy.
I want to make the ultimate dark chocolate chip cookies that are cripsy on the outside but chewy on the inside.

2. chocolate brownies

I wasted another kilogram of Valhonra chocolate. I despise almost all the brownies sold in Korea. Most of them do not deserve to be called 'brownies'. They are just chocolate sponge cakes with bits of nuts thrown in. Brownies should be gooey and slightly crispy on the edge.
The best chocolate brownie I tried till date comes from Chandos Deli in Bristol. It was my weekly treat. It was dense, gooey with chunks of white cholate, plain chocolate and brazil nuts here and there. I aim to recreate them.

3. pasta (one each of cream sauce , tomato sauce and olive oil base)

I don't want to sound smug, but I think I found one of the ultimate cream sauce pasta which will appear regularly when I invite guests over. It is prawn in parsley cream sauce. But for tomato sauce and olive oil base I haven't quite mastered.

4. Yukgaejang

It is a spicy Korean beef soup made of beef brisket, gosa-ri (bracken. Yes, we eat them), shitake mushrooms and leeks. My ex-maid used to make very very nice yukgaejang that I think of time to time. Whenever I come home for holidays, yukgaejang was the first dish I ate. It is hearty and spicy, just what I needed after 11 hours of flight.

5. Caramel à la Fleur de Sel

To be honest with you, I never had a real Fleur de Caramel à la Fleur de Sel. My favourite macaroon at Ladurée was Caramel à la Fleur de Sel variety. I tried once at home but it was hard to get them solid at room temprature. Perhaps the first thing I can do is to invest in a candy thermometer.

6. kimchi (baechu, kakdugi and pa)

Kimchi. One cannot talk bout Korean food without mentioning kimchi. The (usually) spicy preserved vegetables are staple of our daily life. Each household has its own unique recipe. There are actually various types of kimchi but I guess the most well known and hard-to-master one is baechu kimchi (Baechu is sold under the name Chinese cabage in supermarkets in the West). I also want to master kakdugi, a kimchi made of cubed radish pieces, and pa kimchi, made of spring onions and good fish sauce.

7. madeleine

These almondy cakes are simple yet elegant and delicate. And the shell-shaped curves are pretty to look at. A madeleine with a cup of lemon-verbena tea. Heaven.

8. Lemon tart

It is actually quite hard to find a nice lemon tart. They are often soggy or eggy (in an unpleasant way) or both.

9. omelette

Light-as-air omelette will make a perfect light meal any time of the day, whether served with green salad or smoked salmon.

10. Roast

Time to time, I get craving for roast, be it beef, chicken or pork. I miss pork cracklings, yorkshire pudding and buttery savoy cabbage. It is almost impossible (again) to get it in Korea, so why not cook my own? Mastering a roast would mean mastering roasting meat, potatoes, cooking vegetables and gravy. This will be a challenge.