Afternoon tea at Two Fat Laddies

Shredded Vietnamese Salad

[ 3 tbs lime juice, 3 tbs fish sauce, 3 tbs oil, 1 tbs rice vinegar, 2 tsp sugar, black pepper, green onion, garlic, chili, mint ] leave sit 20 minutes
[ kohlrabi, carrot, cabbage, blanched kale ]

Any combo of fresh vegetables work well for this. Cooked shrimp or chicken or tofu are good in there too. Peanuts and cilantro make a good topping.

Indian night

Pumpkin and prawn curry [ black mustard seeds, fenugreek, onion, tomato, green chile, ginger, pumpkin, mango powder, turmeric, prawns ]


Turnips with mint and coriander [ garlic, onion, coriander, mint, tomatoes, turnips ]


Beets Indian style [ cumin, garlic, onion, beets, cayenne, cilantro, tomatoes ]

Chicken with fresh coriander and lemon [ chicken, onion, garlic, coriander seeds, turmeric, cayenne, cumin, fresh coriander, lemon ]

Persimmon desserts

Japanese persimmon gifts from Christy and Emily who went to an Asian dessert fair in New Jersey on Friday. One is a sweet persimmon jelly inside a very realistic looking plastic persimmon. The other is a dried persimmon stuffed with white bean paste.

BANGERS + MASH

So delicious. Garlic and parmesan pork sausages from the Union Square farmers' market. Celeriac potato puree [ celeriac and potatoes cooked separately then mashed with milk, butter, horseradish ] and onion gravy [ caramelised onions, garlic, rosemary, mushroom broth ]

Quoc's homemade wonton soup

Quoc made about 100 wontons last night. They're stuffed with shrimp and pork, then cooked and served in a broth with noodles, bok choi, daikon, green onion, and poached chicken. There's also sesame oil, Chinese rice wine and white pepper in there for seasoning.

Gujerati style cabbage

[ oil, asafetida, black mustard seeds ] [ dried red chili, shredded cabbage, shredded carrot, fresh green chili ] [ salt, sugar, fresh cilantro ] [ lemon juice, cilantro ]

Pumpkin and prawn curry

[ mustard oil, fenugreek seeds, coriander seeds, dried red chilis ] [ diced pumpkin, mango powder, turmeric, sugar, chili powder, salt ] [ water, yoghurt, prawns ]

Juk

Juk, or congee. Rice porridge with thousand year egg and laahp cheung (Chinese sausage)

Quoc's Asian Minestrone

[ chicken broth, garlic, bok choi, burdock root, carrot, ham, macaroni ]

Farm share

[ Lettuce Carrots Parsley Kohlrabi Celeriac Turnips Bok Choi Potatoes Baby Bear Pumpkin Leeks ]

Bacon and cabbage fried rice

This is what you get after 10 years of Irish and Cantonese co-habitation - the cultures begin to blur. This isn't quite bacon and cabbage, but it's close enough! oi yuj lahn chau faahn. Ireasian cooking!

[ onion, garlic, ginger, turkey pastrami, blanched kale, sriracha, soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, black pepper, rice, fine grated fresh ginger ]

Treats from Germany

My cousin Roisín recently came to visit from Frankfurt and brought us this amazing array of German culinary treats. Most of the sweet stuff is seasonal and is being saved for Christmas. The hand cheese and Kümmel (caraway) are served together on bread, and this combination is nicknamed 'musik' - because of the excessive wind it produces.

Le fin de l'été

That's it. No more grilling outside in Brooklyn. The turkey burgers have moved indoors.

Teen labour

The site of my first job out of school. In 1989, fresh from 6 years of priestly education, I went to Hamburg for the summer with 3 friends. With next to no German, I ended up getting a job at the Kühne pickling factory. They're famous for their gherkins, which I spent 4 months working with - putting into jars, sorting out on the conveyor belt [ the categories were big, small, curvy, rotten ], filling the mustard vats, stacking crates of hot tins. It was mind numbing and back breaking. The stink of vinegar hit you about half a mile from the plant, which was huge. And the stench followed us home too. My cousin Roisín recently visited from Germany and brought me this jar as a souvenir of my past labours. They didn't taste half bad actually, after all my talk over the years about how I could never eat anything Kühne ever again.

Broccoli rabe and sausage

[ onion, garlic, Italian peppers, chili, thyme, Italian sausage, broccoli rabe, chicken broth, basil, parmesan, balsamic, lemon juice ]

Fattoush

[ lettuce, grilled flatbread, radish, tomato, onion ]
[ salt crushed garlic, juice 1/2 lemon, 1 tsp za'atar, 1 tsp sumac, olive oil, pepper ]

Dim sum go go

Dim Sum Go Go, our favourite dim sum place in New York. Jing Fong is great too on Elizabeth street for the traditional banquet hall and steam trolleys, but for delicious, original dim sum this is the place for us. This is the vegetarian dim sum selection.It also serves dumplings all evening, and delicious entrees too.

Japanese style rice

Quoc's 'fried rice' with fish, egg, tofu, green onion, and a varied mixture of Japanese spices.

Brazil treats round-up

Pichana - rump steak BBQ at the table


Moqueca de peixe - a fish and prawn stew with coconut milk and dende oil


Shrimp and cheese fritters


Guava pudding with creme de cassis


Pastel de camerão


Ice cream sundae on Copacabana beach


Fried anchovies Rio style


Yuca fries with linguica and onions


Bolinhos de bacalao


Marinated octopus with lime, fresh herbs and celery


Pasta with four cheeses, a lot of four cheeses.



Fried crab claws

Brazil treats: Farofa

Feijoada in Rio

Brazil is all about the buffet. The Rio fest threw this big feijoada party for the festival guests...more food than you could shake a stick at. The feijoada is the traditional thing to do on a Saturday afternoon - time spent over a rich bean and pork stew. In each cast iron pot a different part of the pig; roast bits, ears, sausage. The best bit was the delicious black beans. Or maybe the dessert buffet. Very tricky.