Several images are from a dinner in December at Benu. A few are from recent meals at Monsieur Benjamin and Mama Ji’s. The rest are scenes from our kitchen.
As usual, click a picture on the mosaic for a larger-sized version.
Arctic char amandine, haricots verts, brown butter.
Sauternes.
Broccoli rabe with garlic and lemon.
Black truffle steamed bun. Basically a play on Peking duck – stuff the bun with quail, top with condiments and enjoy.
Caviar with hand-pressed sesame oil, sesame leaf and daikon.
Chicken wing stuffed with abalone and abalone liver mousse.
Marinated mussel, root vegetables.
Milk pudding, salted caramel sauce, peat
Ginkgo flour “tortilla”, matsutake mushroom, pine needles, 10 year old aged pine syrup.
Anchovies and parsley.
Left: Pickled crosnes and pearl onion. Right: XO sauce, house-made soy sauce.
Monkfish liver steamed in rice wine, with toasted seaweed and chili.
Quail liver mousse, au jus, black truffles.
Butter lettuce salad, French breakfast radishes, chervil.
Pernil – Puerto Rican-style roast pork.
Omija sorbet, olive oil
Kohlrabi kimchi.
Spicy fermented bean paste with tomato, served with crudités.
Salted walnuts, dried persimmons, sweet rice cakes
Shrimp tempura, jellyfish, seaweed
Chicken with tree ears and Chinese mushrooms in a clay pot.
Butter with orange blossom honey and ginseng. Not shown are some sprouted grain rolls.
Xiao long bao with lobster coral, house-made soy sauce, vinegar.
Steamed Japonica rice with powdered scallion.
Whipped ricotta cheese, chestnut honey, chopped pistachio nuts.
Sea urchin marinated in fermented crab sauce, with thinly sliced celtuce
Coconut chiffon cake
Asian pear and Napa cabbage kimchi.
Chicken meatballs with ricotta and lemon.
Endive salad with walnuts, mustard vinaigrette and apple.
Barbecued quail from Wolfe Ranch.
Chrysanthemum leaf and scallion salad.
Short ribs.
Blood sausage, sweet rice, squid ink, shiso.
Pickled long beans with pork and chile peppers.
“Shark fin” soup – Dungeness crab, ham, egg white and black truffles.
Grilled veal short ribs, seasoned with sesame seed, perilla seed and pine nuts.
Thousand year old quail egg, cabbage juice, ginger.
I’ve never committed to a regular blog posting schedule in the nearly 13 years this blog has been in existence, but I suppose I should start doing that, no? That should be my New Year’s resolution…or one of them, anyway.
So here’s to a beginning of sorts.
