So Here It Is, Merry Christmas! Everybody's Having Fun....

Well it's actually Merry Fourth Day of Christmas! (I wiki'd it up cause the 12 days of Christmas song was confusing me).

Now my family is very typically Asian so they don't celebrate but this year we finally decided to stop procrastinating and me and Jenny had a Christmas dinner. Like a normal dinner party it is awkwardly filled with people we don't talk to that much. But I did get to cook a four course meal!

First and Second Course - Starters:

Krab Kakes


Cream of Cauliflower Soup

They're Krab Kakes as opposed to Crab Cakes because I used those imitation crab sticks from sushi places =P. Real crab are expensive D=! The Krab Kakes turned out well though, my dad bought it and it's the kind they used in his restaurant. A bit sweet and not too fishy. Also, it had a nice crust outside. The soup was creamy and really flavorful.

Third Course - Main:


Turkey!


Sides: Mashed Potatoes with Gravy, Stuffing, and Roasted Vegetables.

There was also Garlic Roasted Portabello Mushrooms but they didn't photograph well. Unfortunately the turkey was a bit overcooked, it was perfect the first time but then I never cooked a Turkey and thought it would take longer to cook and then when I reheated it it was dried =.=. But the mashed potatoes were really good and really easy to cook, I used a rice cooker and you just have to add a VERY small amount of water and it steams itself! Than you add cream and butter and seasoning! I cheated on the gravy (cause Jenny hates homemade gravy for some reason), it was powder with turkey drippings and on the stuffing (cause stuffing is annoying0.

Fourth Course - Dessert:


Fruit Cake - Asian Style~

The cake could be a bit lighter but I liked it, it was not too sweet and I thought the flavors are really genuine unlike the crap you usually get at Chinese bakeries. But need more refrigerating time or just use more gelatin for the whipped cream, it was still to soft. There was supposed to be an apple sorbet as a palate cleanser but I forgot it >.>...


Drinks!

A great cocktail that Jenny made: peach juice, Sprite, and Ice Wine (which apparently comes in red!). I'm really sensitive to the taste of alcohol (I personally think beer taste like wet socks) but I couldn't taste alcohol in it. So great for getting young girls with low tolerance drunk! DO NOT DO THAT!!!! I'LL CALL THE COPS ON YOU!!!

We also had copious amounts of Jack Daniels and I had drunken sex.












Merry Christmas =D!

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The World Is My Scallop! I Will Eat Congee! A Double Whammy!

I finally made scallops! Simply fried in clarified butter. Really simple and they tasted great. They are best made simply, and you MUST use naturally dry scallops (or diver scallops they are also called) because the other stuff don't give you a nice crust. Fresh scallops just taste sweet and like the sea but in a good way~



And since I haven't updated in a while, there's more! I didn't take picture cause I was pissed off half way through I made chicken congee, much better than the ones in restaurant in my opinion.

Recipe and instructions: http://joyciel.livejournal.com/94863.html

5 Minute Meal

Suck on that Rachel Ray!



I was lazy and wanted some good and fast. Had ground chicken, basic aromatic vegetables, and noodles from yesterday that were superfluous and needed using up. I browned the ground chicken, add salt, add in the onions to sweat, add pepper, add butter and a little bit of flour, added some stock, then noodles, and topped it off with cilantro. It reminds me of being a child and my grandmother will just mix everything together for dinner =.=. Very...nostalgic, except of course mines taste better o.o.

A HK Cafe Staple

And a Chinese classic. I remembered wanting to make it since I saw this old HK show with Bobby Au Yeung called Happy Ever After. It's set in like the olden times and Bobby is like a talented chef and eventually becomes the royal chef (I never got why people actually wanted to be that, if the Emporor so much as coughed, your whole family is dead), and like all good TVB series there is backstabbing and conspiracies!! Anyways, the dish I remembered the most is Ma Po Tofu, because that's the dish he remembered when he was a kid before someone (father?) died while making them, and he was trying to recreate it but failed several times. Finally, the secret was coating tofu with egg whites and using meat juices to flavor the sauce rather than actual ground beef. I never even heard of that dish before I watched the show but it made me REALLLLLY wanted to try it. I didn't do any of that shit of course but I make Ma Po tofu!





It was both a successful and an unsuccessful dish, it was good tasting...but...it failed in the sense it did not taste like Ma Po Tofu...hmm...=/. Still good though!

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