our makan dishes
we arranged to have a 6pax dinner on 23.8.2016 to trial some dishes that I may serve for the next FGS. ^^
salad & GR crispy slow-braised belly pork
wife’s beautiful mesclun salad
wife made 2 beautiful salads for my friends.
first was a mesclun salad with blueberries, parmesan cheese, some dried apricots, cherry tomatoes etc. quite excellent la…
wife’s pumpkin quinoa tofu salad
the other was a pumpkin quinoa tofu salad. & she washed to arugula (rockets) & prepare the olive oil balsamic dressing for me to toss with the salad when the guests all arrived.
fine braised prime ribs (mock kurobuta) & nobu miso cod
the first FGS we had asian food, anchored by robust dishes like fish head curry & curry chicken etc.
for the second FGS, we are having whisky appreciation as well, so the plan is to do modern western, and mostly tapas servings which can be serve cold as “small bites” buffet items.
i made a slow braised prime ribs. the aim was to replicate foc’s kurobuta pork ribs experience.
this a recipe i created myself, fine braising in 90degC oven for 6hrs then charring it to give a very tender texture but still firm retaining the bite.
lately i have been doing mostly chinese & asian dishes, and not do this nobu iso cod for a really long time (>a year i think).
anyway today’s miso cod came out beautifully. i reduced the sugar, and a little less miso too. the >48hrs marinade in chiller though is mandatory.
miso also help to firm up the cod (actually i used chilean seabass or patagonia toothfish which is better) so make it more ideal for cutting & tapas presentation.
the gordon ramsay crispy slow-braised belly pork is really a wonderful dish. i only googled it recently & practiced it a few times. the method enables the skin to crisp while the belly pork slowly braised in liquid in the oven.
today i managed to make the skin really crackling & not chewy like in my first 2 attempts (this my 3rd try). a friend said the reduced sauce & some parts of the pork a bit salty. this because of the thin layer of salt on the skin to crisp it.
today i made a wonderful squid ink spaghetti, as good as any i made previously.
the squid ink aroma was wonderful as i was cooking & dish was very tasty.
today my seafood paella (pronounced pa-e-ya) was excellent too. texture was quite perfect just al dente not too hard in the centre.
perhaps still not as good as the “moterosso miky seafood risotto” i made previously which was truly par excellence, but still a very tasty, flavourful paella.
in fact i used carnaroli risotto rice! i tried paella rice from phoon huat & did not quite like the texture.
today i also vary the recipe for my choc banana cake. will post a second recipe later.
but basically i doubled the ganache topping & substantially reduced the flour (from 1 & 3/4 cup to 1 cup) & did not add mashed bananas to get a very much lighter cake texture c/w the usual dense texture).
i think i may reduce the ganache a bit, and add more bananas at the ends.
korean strawberries
a friend brought korean strawberries.
yellow kiwi fruits
& very very sweet yellow kiwi fruits.
table setting
wife did not join dinner as she had another engagement.
table setting
she did the nice 6pax table setting for us.
dining lights
dining room
as a friend posted on FB, “we had a wonderful dinner. Thanks to all diners for the conversation which spans across multiple topics”.
a jolly good time together.
c.h.e.f andy
c.h.e.f 