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.
Xiao long bao with lobster coral, house-made soy sauce, vinegar.
Sea urchin marinated in fermented crab sauce, with thinly sliced celtuce
Quail liver mousse, au jus, black truffles.
Butter with orange blossom honey and ginseng. Not shown are some sprouted grain rolls.
Milk pudding, salted caramel sauce, peat
Kohlrabi kimchi.
Coconut chiffon cake
Thousand year old quail egg, cabbage juice, ginger.
Pernil – Puerto Rican-style roast pork.
Omija sorbet, olive oil
Whipped ricotta cheese, chestnut honey, chopped pistachio nuts.
Chicken meatballs with ricotta and lemon.
Caviar with hand-pressed sesame oil, sesame leaf and daikon.
“Shark fin” soup – Dungeness crab, ham, egg white and black truffles.
Left: Pickled crosnes and pearl onion. Right: XO sauce, house-made soy sauce.
Blood sausage, sweet rice, squid ink, shiso.
Endive salad with walnuts, mustard vinaigrette and apple.
Steamed Japonica rice with powdered scallion.
Asian pear and Napa cabbage kimchi.
Black truffle steamed bun. Basically a play on Peking duck – stuff the bun with quail, top with condiments and enjoy.
Shrimp tempura, jellyfish, seaweed
Anchovies and parsley.
Pickled long beans with pork and chile peppers.
Sauternes.
Grilled veal short ribs, seasoned with sesame seed, perilla seed and pine nuts.
Chicken wing stuffed with abalone and abalone liver mousse.
Broccoli rabe with garlic and lemon.
Spicy fermented bean paste with tomato, served with crudités.
Marinated mussel, root vegetables.
Ginkgo flour “tortilla”, matsutake mushroom, pine needles, 10 year old aged pine syrup.
Chicken with tree ears and Chinese mushrooms in a clay pot.
Barbecued quail from Wolfe Ranch.
Salted walnuts, dried persimmons, sweet rice cakes
Butter lettuce salad, French breakfast radishes, chervil.
Monkfish liver steamed in rice wine, with toasted seaweed and chili.
Chrysanthemum leaf and scallion salad.
Short ribs.
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.
