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