Blackened Salmon

Still have a couple of pieces of Coho in the freezer so I figure it is time to eat them. This piece is coated with salt, pepper, chili pepper, cumin, thyme and coriander, seared quickly and then into the over for five minutes. The potatoes are roasted with salt, pepper, olive oil and thyme. The peas, well, are just steamed frozen ones, I do like frozen peas very well.

Frequent Flyer Pork Pot Roast

A friend came back from India and Hong Kong and brought me cloves, cardamom and 30-year old orange peels. I used them to make this pot roast of a pork leg roast. I browned the meat, sautéed onion, carrot and celery. The spices were added with some dry cranberries, thyme and very little cinnamon. Put everything into the pot, add some water and in the 300℉ over for a few hours. I pureed the sauce and here it goes.





The meat is pull-apart tender and just perfect for rice, couscous or like here Orzo pasta.

Beef Noodle Soup 牛肉麵

Again the calf meat. This time I braised it northern Chinese style with cane sugar, star anise, Chinese cinnamon, cloves, Sichuan pepper, hot chili, dark and light soy sauce, rose liquor and water. The sauce also stands in for soup base, just add hot water and voilà soup.

New Year 'Cake' 年糕

The sticky New Year cake is quite easy to make but for some reason people would make the more difficult ones but buy this kind. Cane sugar is dissolved in hot water then poured onto a mixture of sweet rice starch and fine wheat starch. The dough is worked until firm to give it texture and then water is added to make a cake batter looking batter and steams in cake pan until set. Chewy, sticky, sweet and comforting, cold or pan fry with a little egg.

Water Chestnut 'Cake' 馬蹄糕

With all the heavy food in the Chinese New Year, there got to be something lighter. Water chestnut cake is just such thing. It is quite easy to make just chop up some fresh water chestnut, cook it briefly with rock sugar and water; dissolve some water chestnut starch in cold water and stir it into the hot liquid until it forms a light jello like mix; pour into a cake pan and steam until set firmly. Good to eat as is or pan fry till lightly brown.

Fresh Soup 筍尖香菇豆腐湯

Picked up some salted bamboo shoots from Mt. Tianmu 天目筍尖 so I made this soup with fine chicken stock, fresh shiitake, ham and tofu. Not only tasted good but felt good after eating it.

Chococookies

I made some thin almond egg white cookies and thought why not use up the Thomas Haas chocolate bits? Turned out really good.