Christmas Day Appetizers

For my xmas day potluck, I made some appetizers and dessert:

- Smoked salmon with dill cream cheese spirals

- Guacomole, avocado and parsley

- Hummus and tomato

For my dessert offering to go with green tea, it was just a simple vanilla sponge cake with powdered sugar cut into bite sized pieces for easy eating.

Xmas Eve 2010 supper

Herb crusted lamb chops with sweet potato mash, young carrots and braised asparagus

Thanksgiving 2010

Huge menu for Thanksgiving this year:

French Onion Soup with Gruyere and Mozzarella

Roast Lamb with Homemade Mint Sauce

Brussel Sprouts with Cranberries and Apple

Sweet Potato Souffle

Roasted Rosemary Potatoes

Yorkshire Pudding

Braised Asparagus

Buttered Young Carrots and Parsnips

Shoepeg Sweetcorn

Dessert was my own homemade pumpkin cheesecake and pumpkin pannecotta with caramelized pears.

Ippudo in NY - ramen as art

After four unsuccessful attempts, we finally staked our ground and waited over an hour for a table at Ippudo. In the past, we were just too hungry to wait. For those in the know, Ippudo is a well-known chain for ramen in Japan and recently, they opened up their first branch overseas in New York's East Village. If you have ever had ramen in Japan, you'll know that the soup base is an art-form, boiling pork bones for 24 hours to produce that rich, silky-smooth concoction. Noodles are hand-made. At Ippudo, the ramen did not disappoint and neither did the appetizers especially the pork bun - beautiful slab of Berkshire pork wrapped in lettuce, mayo and fluffy mantou. Apologies for the picture - we gobbled one of those down before we remembered to take a photo! The chicken wings were good too - marinaded in a honey-sesame and black pepper sauce. We also had the seared scallop appetizer with shiso leaf and ponzu sauce - nice but with the small portion size - expensive. We ordered the standard ramen plus the special - with ankimo (monkfish liver) pate and garlic toasts in the tonkatsu pork broth.

The Best Japanese restaurant in Boston area

Happens to be one of the closest Japanese restaurants to our home! Called Toraya - it is actually owned by a Japanese sushi chef. Most Japanese restaurants are owned by Chinese - surprise surprise. It is a tiny place - 5 tables but this is where all the expat Japanese go! The fish is fresh and expertly prepared. Chef's knife skills are so good - the fish melts in your mouth (the key is to slice the fish across in a gliding action with a very sharp knife so all the cells are cleanly cut and therefore smooth to the tongue). Look at this beautiful glistening plate of sashimi - the saba (mackerel) is one of my faves as he salts it slightly. Scallop also have a delicate flavor and the nori gives the tuna a good flavor combination. The tako (octopus) is placed next to the lemon slice as it tastes even better with a slight hint of lemon. It is the best sashimi and sushi I have had in Boston. Other Japanese places may do the westernized fancy rolls - which hides a multitude of sins. But for the authentic version, you need expert preparation and very fresh fish. It is not too pricey either!

Food in San Fran

A holiday wouldn't be a holiday without tasting the local treats and for our stay in San Fran, we made sure to hit all the good spots we know. The best dim sum in all of US is at Koi Palace (not in Chinatown but in Daly City). The trio of dumplings comes with dried scallops and various other toppings. The trio of salads came from The Beach Chalet Brewery at San Fran's coast. For such a touristy place, was impressed the food was good! San Fran is well-known for its sourdough bread and in the window, were some fun sourdough shapes. A teddy bear loaf will set you back about $40. And of course, you should stop by Ghiradelli Square for some free chocolate samples!

San Fran: The Famous Roasted Garlic Butter Crab

You should not leave San Fran without eating crab. And at Thanh Long vietnamese restaurant, they do the most amazing Roast Crab with garlic, swimming in butter. It is absolutely delicious but very rich. To complement this dish, you can also have garlic butter noodles and garlic rice - both very good.

San Fran Japantown: Maki

One of my favorite places to eat in San Fran's Japantown is Maki. Their speciality is the mini wappa meals - Paul had beef and I had the salmon with salmon roe (ikura). The chawanmushi was particularly good!

Recipe: Smoked Salmon Salad

This is my latest favorite salad - mixed greens with campari tomatoes, fresh corn from the cob, smoked salmon and capers. Optional: pan-fried lotus root, cucumber, scallions or finely diced red onion. Remember to add some ground black pepper.

Forays into Korean Food

Blame H-mart - the new Korean megastore that has opened up near our home recently. It's a huge store with a great fish/sushi selection, whole area for kimchi, a food court, a posh bakery etc. We go there often at weekends - where you fight with other asians for a parking space. Once in, they are cooking up a storm in food samples - dumplings, fruit, fish, korean bbq etc. Our grocery bills have doubled but food quality of life - definitely have gone up 3 notches! I see odd ingredients, buy them and work out what to do with them on the net. Owning my trusty H-mart calendar (with 12 recipes) plus access to all the correct ingredients means I can now cook jap chae, bibimbap, scallion pancakes, beef bulgogi and the fabulous hot tofu kimchi stew called soondooboo jjiagae.

Cheap strawberries!

Something odd has happened this year - a 1lb punnet of strawberries is going for $1.99 in April! Apparently, there is an abundance of strawberries due to a mass freeze over the winter and now there are too much strawberries ripening. Prices have bottomed out. Some farmers are letting general public raid their strawberry fields free. Others are destroying their stock to preserve the price!! Last night, for dessert, I melted some white chocolate and 100% cacao together and dipped the strawberries in the chocolate. Presented in my new Liberty of London cake tiered plate!

Vanilla Cupcakes - Valentine's and CNY

This year, CNY First day and Valentine's Day fell on the same day - February 14!

For a CNY party, I made "Love or Money" cupcakes. Offer them to people and find out which one they take! Interesting....

I also bought some heart-shaped silicone cupcake containers which made these lovely heart-shaped cupcakes (reuseable too).

CNY - Tiger Year 2010

This year, had our usual Chinese New Year gathering. As always, had to cook up at least 8 dishes - this is one of my favorites - pork-stuffed zucchini with dried scallops. Secret to making the pork stuffing is to make sure your pork is not too lean (pork butt is a great cut for this). Dried shittake mushrooms, scallions, water chestnuts, sesame oil all add to the flavour of the stuffing. And of course, having a food processor makes this very very easy! For the dried scallops in the sauce, you need to soak these and then steam them for 20 mins.

One More...

Couldn't resist! Breakfast was buttery scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, bacon, tomatoes and some blackberries (random I know). Next time, I'm buying a smaller pack of smoked salmon...

More Smoked Salmon

The luxury of having a large pack of smoked salmon in the fridge! For Xmas Day lunch, I made a simple salad of romaine lettuce with radishes, dill, capers and smoked salmon in a light lemon vinegarette. This was to go with my homemade potato and leek soup with real bacon bits.

Smoked Salmon Spirals

This was an idea that lay dormant in my head for many years. I remember eating M&S salmon and cream cheese spirals once in the UK. They came in a packet and of course, were super expensive. This Xmas, I bought a whole packet of Norwegian smoked salmon. I used regular cream cheese and added lots of dill. Rolling them up was a little tricky but reminded me a little of making maki rolls. So I presented them like sushi - each roll on its own individual square cracker with a caper on top!