OPS primary school friends/buddies came over for a 13pax dinner this evening on 9dec2016. ^^

i did basically same dishes as i did for my RI VSOP (very special old pals) malan besar on 29.11.2016. 🙂

a friend brought a christmas toy gift – so nice! daughters will love it. 🙂

first was the usual pumpkin tofu dish prepared by my helper. she fried the cut tofu & roasted the pumpkin the evening before & cut the yellow onions for me.

i dressed the salad with extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar & honey 2 hrs before.

for the rockets, i dressed it just before serving to keep fresh. otherwise will be soggy.

this a dish all my friends like always.

today’s miso cod was the usual good standard, quite consistent. 3 days miso marinade 13mins in 250degC oven. quite straight forward.

i like this dish. the marinade made the cod a bit firmer, still the oily, flaky texture.

taste was wonderful, and the parts near the bones especially nice. i think all my friends liked it.

the teriyaki salmon was very good too.

these were classified as salmon trimmings but these lot was better w/o bones.

it’s a bit potluck.

i had better ones, which had quite a bit of belly, last time on 16.11.2016.

anyway it was a wonderful dish.

nicely grilled (15mins at 250degC), very tasty, & flavourful oily fish belly/trimming.

one friend though doesn’t like salmon – make a note for next time.

this was a large serving, about 800g, all finished. ^^

i made the slow roasted belly pork again.

dish done & served a bit late. didn’t have time to take photo, so used an old photo.

pork about same standard as my VSOP dinner on 29.11.2016.

quite tasty pork with sauce, but crispy skin was a failure, so had to cut it off. anyhow pork all finished.

just could not reproduce the excellent crispy skin which i did for the FGS (Fof Goodness Sake) Charity Dinner on 21.10.2016.

a friend doesn’t take beef & doesn’t like chicken thigh.

so i added a dish for her – pan roasted skin on brined chicken breast.

it was ok but i couldn’t grill/brown the skin well. first my ceramic coated non-stick pan was holding the pink sauce for seafood pasta & i was lazy to transfer & wash the pan. but also the breast skin tends to shrink a bit unlike the thigh which is quite taut.

as seen from the photo before the above photo, the chicken was tender & moist, and juicy & quite tasty from the brining, sans the crispy skin. sigh!

& after i did the “sous vide” method for a chicken thigh the next day, that produces an even more tender chicken. 🙂

i did a seafood (prawn & squid) pasta in pink sauce.

pasta was al dente & sauce had excellent tomato flavour, very tasty with stock from prawn heads & shell.

a nice, delicious pasta everyone liked.

my helper made the prawn & chicken alio olio this evening.

her alio olio usually better than me. this evening it was quite ok, not here best but still delicious.

i had 2 pieces of 150day grain fed black angus ribeye, about 300g each.

i made the tagliata di manzo 2 times.

this the favoruite for everyone. very tender, sweet, excellent steak.

for the second steak, a friend helped me arranged the cherry tomatoes & rockets after i rested the steak & sliced it, and dressed the salad for him to arrange.

a friend brought a very nice macadamia cake🍰🎂from amara hotel.

a friend brought fruits 🍎🍐.

another lapis sagu+ durian kuehs 🍱,

another potty red wine🍷,  & one Christmas toy+present for everyone 🎄🎁

another brought bak kua.

everyone had great fun and laughter.

one friend entertain us with his usual standup comedy – chiao ka peng .. ^^

& he even discover a disciple this evening…

all in all very enjoyable evening with good friends for 51years.

c.h.e.f andy