Saucy pesce

Steamed beets with garlic yoghurt sauce.

Shrimp sauteed with lemon and served with a sauce of onions, roasted red peppers, garlic, lemon, chili, and a Moroccan spice mix.


Pan cooked freshwater trout and cod.

Endives with a blue cheese sauce made from Bleu de Basque, cream, and nutmeg.

Sauces for the fish.
[ onion, garlic, roasted red pepper, tomato, cumin, lemon ]
[ ground almonds, soaked bread, garlic, water, olive oil, sherry vinegar, capers ]
[ garlic, salt, tahini, lemon juice, water ]
[ garlic, ground fennel seeds, parsley, olive oil, lemon juice ]


Green beans with shitake mushrooms in a yoghurt cinnamon sauce.

New Year's Eve

Thanks to Cindy for sending on snaps from the Lieu family New Year's Eve Feast... I'll update with info on each dish soon....

Breakfast Trout

[ smoked trout, smoked paprika, onion, capers, eggs ]

Winter Warm Up

Once a month a gang of us New York transplants that don't get to see each other enough meet up for a pot luck. It started a few years back and the get-togethers were dubbed 'winter warm ups'. It's a date to cook and hang out with friends who all wished they saw each other a bit more often. And in New York, you often have to make these kind of events happen in order to see people. Tonight's lovely event was hosted by Corey. After eating for about 4 hours straight I then cycled home in the sub zero weather over the potholes of Bushwick. It wasn't so much the cold or the roads that did me in - more the rapid exercise after such fully focused gluttony.

Smoked trout and fennel terrine with capers.


Miz Ana's bloody marys. Seriously the most delicious and involved I've ever seen - with all kinds of chilis, grated green onions, umm, vodka... top notch.


Ms. Quan's pulled pork tacos with salsa verda, queso fresco and cilantro.


OK. Where to start with this business. It seems the Jello company at some point inthe 40s or 50s managed to convince a large portion of the American public that jelly and haute cuisine were well met cousins. This jadeite jewel courtesy of Aaron's grandmother is moulded from green jello, cream cheese, pineapple, and celery. Aaron was telling me that this was the only non-Greek dish she prepared. I was kind of transfixed by it all night. And it was delicous too! If a bit bizzare for an Irishman. It did remind me of when I was a child and would sneak blocks of jelly from the kitchen and eat then 'raw', some times hiding them under the sitting room cabinets to eat them in installments. Hooves and sugar. Nice.



Yes there were five courses of dessert. Macarons from Quoc, Tiramisu from Tom, an apple and a cherry pie, and the green Jello magic.


Although prepping for New Year in California, Quoc was representing with the macarons. There was also a delicious vegetarian lasagne, an arugula salad with bacon toasted walnuts, grapefruit and goat cheese, and a cheese course with ginger preserves... but the shite camera on the iphone didn't take any decent snaps of those courses.

Fish Terrine

[ smoked trout, fennel, horseradish, onion, eggs, cream ]

Poker night

Delicious smoked trout from the Acme Smoked Fish Company, Greenpoint.


Motion blur chickpeas and spinach with saffron and smoked paprika.


Moroccan scallops [ onion, roasted red pepper, tomato, lemon juice, garlic, cumin ]

Potato and green olive tagine. The potatoes were cooked in chermoula, the classic Moroccan marinade, usually used for fish. This chermoula is easy. In the food processor: 1 bunch cilantro, 1 bunch parsley, juice of a lemon, 1 tbs vinegar (not too strong), 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp paprika, salt, pepper. You can experiment with it as you like, there's no set recipe. Marinate fish or chicken in this for a few hours before slow cooking it. Use a tagine if you have one.

For this dish I actually par boiled the spuds, then mixed them with the chermoula and green olives. I added sliced preserved lemons towards the end.

Sugo

[ sausgae, fennel, celery, carrot, onion, garlic, thyme, fennel seed, chili flakes, tomato ]

Macaron Birthday Cake

Quoc's Birthday Fondue Party

All the Catherine Holm fondue pots up and running.


Chocolate fondue with strawberries, banana, and pineapple for dipping.


Green onion biscuits for the sausage gravy fondue.


Chicken liver paté [ chicken liver, shallots, juniper berries, brandy, thyme, butter ]


Cornichons, potatoes, bread for the traditional Swiss fondue.


The Swiss classis. Emmental and gruyere. There was also a Stilton fondue which was great with apples.


Nobue's amazing chocolate nut cookies.

The aftermath - blue cheese fondue and fried egg sandwich.

Risotto

[ artichoke, chicken, mushroom ]

A simple pasta

[ anchovy, garlic, chili flakes, cherry tomatoes, linguine ]

New Year's Eve on Pumpkin Pond

With lovely friends old and new, we went to the woods and cooked for five days to celebrate the arrival of 2009. It was a big group affair, a celebration of friends and food. Thanks to everyone for all the cooking and the inspirations, and to Tod and Jay for hosting us at Pumpkin Pond.



New Year's Eve we had a Northern Thai curry with pork.


New Year's Day Lisa cooked up her collard greens with ham hock.


That evening we had a roast leg of lamb which Jay had marinated in rosemary, garlic, red wine vinegar, thyme.



Dessert was a hazelnut brown butter cake with orange spice ice cream. The milk and cream were simmered with orange zest, star anise, black peppercorns, and allspice.


Soup for lunch. A roasted fennel and butternut squash soup with candied pumpkin seeds.



Chicken enchiladas with a salsa verde that had peanuts added.


Lisa's lentil soup with lamb sausage for lunch.



Our new favourite cocktail. Pumpkin Pondwater.
1 1/2 cups of fennel simple syrup (see below), 1/2 a cucumber, 1/2 bottle of gin, sliced lemons, juice of 1/2 lemon to taste, soda water, pinch of salt to taste, mint or shiso or cilantro


The table is set for our tapas dinner. Quoc's origami shapes set the tone.


Sliced rare lamb served on thin slices of apple with a gorgonzola-shallot butter.


Smoked tuna salad canapés with wafer thin lemon slices and a dot of sriracha.


The classic Catalan greens with raisins and pine nuts.


Cauliflower fritters.


Rajas con crema. Sliced roasted poblano peppers with onions and sour cream.


Venison keftas with pistachios and Moroccan spices.


Red chicken mole made with mole smuggled back into the country from a local market in Oaxaca.


Candied fennel. Fennel simmered for 45 minutes in equal parts of sugar and water, and then dried in a super low oven. The left over fennel simple syrup is used for the Pumpkin Pondwater cocktails above.


An almost savoury dessert. Red beet sorbet with candied fennel and fresh orange slices.


Last night's orange spice ice cream made into little ice cream sandwiches with ginger snaps.


Breakfast table on our last morning.


French toast with spiced apples and cranberries.


Chorizo, potatoes and kale.


The ice cream maker sits in the basement waiting for the next guests...