Le blanc de bar en peau croustillante, pommes de terre fondantes safranées et légumes

Robuchon a Galera, fish course

This is a well cooked piece of fish but as typical of this kind of preparation the fish itself is a little under seasoned. The potato is exceptional though, more like a cream sauce than mashed potato.

La Saint-Jacques, le calmar et la crevette dans une nage coralline parfumée au basilic

Robuchon a Galera, Fish Dish:

A lot of detail works went into this dish but it seems to be lacking something, something exciting. Well made but...

Pintade two ways

Robuchon a Galera: Meat course
It is very well done, the crispy one is nice and crisp and the poached one is soft and smooth. The plate is impressive. Other than the plate though, I don't think this is better than the one in Chow or Gastropol here in Vancouver. A highly enjoyable dish, nonetheless.

Le foie gras mi-fumé en copeaux sur un lit de champignons confits à l’huile vierge

Robuchon, appetizer 2: This looks like a pizza but the base is really is made of slices of tastily cooked big mushroom. On top are curls of smoked foie gras. The mushroom is silky and the foie is wonderfully creamy. What a wonderful combination!

Le saumon mi-cuit pressé en duo d’avocat épicé, aux asperges vertes à l’huile de citrus

Robuchon a Galera, appetizer one: lightly cooked salmon mousse with avocado and asparagus. Handy work.

Amuse-Bouche

Had dinner at Robuchon à Galera in Macau. This is the amuse-bouche. Some sorbet or another, refreshing, I remember...

Steamed Clams

The clams are big and fresh, the sauce is simple but good, but, as Hong Kong people like to complain about other cuisine's cooking of clam, some of the clams are overcooked. Such a trick to get every clam right, but the sauce is still very good with bread.

African Chicken

African chicken is perhaps the most famous dish in Macanese cuisine. The funny thing is every restaurant make something almost completely different. I grew up eating the blackish African chicken from Solmar but this brighter colour from O Porto Interior is very different but no less wonderful, less spicy and more creamy.

Crispy Pig

This is a famous dish in Macau--crispy roast pig. A small pig is roasted nicely so the skin is crispy and the meat is moist and sweet. We were lucky to have the last half of the night. Very enjoyable.

Cabbage?

The surprise find at the O Porto Interior dinner is this poached cabbage. Maybe because Portuguese dishes tend to be heavy, the light, fresh and sweet cabbage is just perfect accompaniment.

Portugese Ox Tongue

O Porto Interior is an old time Portugese-Macau restaurant that serves very good old time food in a room, or two, of just a enough kitsch and old pictures on the wall to be nicely notalgic. Here is the braised ox tongue, quite a tasty dish.

Old Fashion Shark Fin Soup

When I go to Macau, it is always a nostalgic journey. Even with all the blinking distraction of the new casino-hotels, I always go visit the places I went when I was little. Tou Tou Koi 陶陶居 is just one of those places. Amongst its famous dishes is the shark fin soup. The stock is rich and flavourful and...









good size fins are plentiful. While it is not cheap, it is still a great value and has superior quality when compared with most restaurant in Hong Kong.

Unique Chestnut Roaster

This is from my recent trip to Macau. This got to be the most unique chestnut roaster I have seen. It was a hot day so I didn't buy any from him. While I don't know if this roaster works better than others, just looking at it is exciting enough. Keep wondering if it would make a good coffee roaster...

Lobster, steamed

Cut up a 2-pounder, sprinkle on some chopped garlic, and steam for 10 minutes. Pretty easy. A sauce made of heated oil, scallion, sugar and soy sauce is good.

Big Scallops

It is getting more and more common to have big live Hotata scallops in markets. They are just about the sweetest thing from the sea. Usually I just take out the meat and the roe and simply sear in a little oil and then finish with a little bit of butter.

Hard to Classify

I don't know if this is a soup or a stew. I started with onion, carrots and celery sautéing in olive oil. Tomatoes and soaked white beans are then added. Water, chicken bullion, bay leaf, thyme and dry basil are put into the pot and cooked slowly until the beans are almost done. Then I thought, why not make it a meal? Well, some roasted pork is chopped and potato diced. Cook for 20 minutes or so and everything is soft. Chopped kale and parsley enter and cook for 15 more minute until the kale is not hard any more. A very healthy winter soup/stew is done.

Leftover Fried Rice

Have leftover rice and roasted pork, here comes fried rice again. Eggs, scallion, shiitake and soy sauce tie them all together.

New Pan

This 12-in sauté pan was on sale at the out-of-business sale at Linen-n-Things. It is bigger than expected but its size turns out to be a good thing. I can cook the chicken and the potato in the same pan. The chicken was first salt and peppered and the potato parboiled. After sautéing the chicken well in olive oil, the potato was added to brown too. Garlic and pepper flakes are added moments before it is done. All in one pan, nice.

Last Minute Beef Stir-fry

Once in a while, whole tenderloin comes on sale and I would buy one, cut it into chunks and free them. Here I took one out, sliced it and marinated it with garlic, sugar, soy sauce, shaoxing wine 绍兴酒, sesame oil and cornstarch. Sautéed some onion until slightly softened then fresh shiitake are added. In then went the beef until slightly browned then seasoned with hot bean sauce 豆瓣酱, shaoxing wine, sugar and soy sauce. Served over rice, it is like eating at a cheap cheap neighbourhood joint in Hong Kong.

Slow Raosted Pork

Okay, slow roasting pork again. Here is a boneless shoulder stuffed with garlic, thyme, rosemary, salt, pepper, cumin, Italian parsley and olive oil. I browned the nice bundle first before roasting at 200℉ for hours.









The thermo read 160 but a little bit on the side wasn't quite fully cooked. So, back to the slow over it went for the better part of an hour. Because of the low temperature the cut didn't dry the meat out and the result is moist and very tasty.

Next day...

The leftover dumplings were pan fried the next day. Just put them onto a hot pan with some oil and brown lightly. Add water to up to half of the dumplings' height and cover. Cook over medium high heat until the water is gone. Continue frying until nicely brown. Here it may look a little dark but I do like it just this side of brown.

Too-Lean Dumplings

Lean meat is healthier, so they say, but it is not always good. I like my dumpling filling simple, just a little ginger, sugar, soy sauce and sesame oil to season. My favourite vegetable though is Chinese chive. Here I bought some very lean ground pork and the result is quite a dry dumpling.







Using store bought wrappers, the result looked fairly good.












Looked good boiled too but when I bit into it, it was rather woody. Next time I will either buy fattier meat, or add cornstarch and/or (more) water.

Back to Winter in Vancouver

Just got back to town, picked up my car from the repair shop, and I needed something nice. The good thing about winter in Vancouver is this ugly thing--sea urchin! It is not difficult to open up this spiny shell but getting and cleaning the good bits is a rather noxious process.







The result though is quite sublime. Here is the good bits with some of their oceanic friends.

East Asian Salmon Mushroom Soup

Speak of bones, I have a lot of bone, along with the giant head, from the giant salmon left. A stock is made, of course, with just the bones and head and water. I like to use this rich stock to make a hot miso soup. White miso, gochijang, wakame and tofu are usually what I put into it. Here I added some chanterelle to it too. Rich and comforting and health, do you see the omega-3 floating on the surface?

Crispy Skin

When a piece of gravlax is finished, you have a piece of skin left. There is nothing tastier than putting it under the broiler for a few minutes to crisp it up and eating it. The fattier the fish, the better it is. Now that markets sell the bones and collards of salmon, I wonder if they will sell the skin they cut from the fillets...

Good Morning Fish

When I was living in Southern New England and the Tri-State Area and staying with Jewish friends, I had a lot of cured and smoked fish for breakfast. I am still salivating from memories of those great smoked white fish that they had and I haven't been able to find any good ones else where. This is my version of fish in the morning. Slices of cured Chinook over some eggs and lightly toasted homemade baguettes. Pretty to look at too.

Gravlax

Here is a look at the gravlax I made from the big fish. It is amazing how rich and fine the meat is on this fish. Chinooks are often too soft but this one is just right. Now I think giant Chinook is the best eating salmon over the lean sockeye and the soft coho.

Homemade Smoker

When you have a 25-pounder salmon, you can't really eat it all at once, unless you have 20 kids. Preserving it is therefore necessary. Here I smoked part of it in cherry after brining in sugar, salt, crush peppercorn and dark maple syrup.

The smoker is my spare large stock pot with aluminium foil lining the bottom and racks hold a pan of water and a perforated dish for the fish. At low setting on the stove top, I kept the temperature at minimal for the chips to smoke. For about five hours, it was between 140℉ and 160℉. The inspiration is from smokers they sell in store that burns coal. I see that it is but a heat source that make smoke out of wood chip and then a pan of water and a rack. I change the hear source to the stove and I can do it indoor under the rangehood. The result is very good, the fish takes in sweet sweet smoke flavour without any hint of burnt. The house smell slightly of smoke, more like a little incense. All hail the powerful Cypress Hi-Jet!

Steak and Cukes

In old cookbooks cooked cucumber recipes are very popular. These days though you usually only find cucumber in the raw forms. I do like cooked cucumber very much, particularly at this time of the year when overgrown cucumbers are common in the garden. I simply sauté it in a little oil and salt. Rather enjoyed it with a piece of fillet mignon.

Scandinavian Sushi

After two days, the gravlax from the big fish is ready. Because I have too much fish and not enough dill, I make it with more black pepper and less dill. The process is simple, equally amount of salt and sugar are mixed together with plenty of cracked pepper and the fillet of fish is covered with plenty of the mixture. I put some thin slices of lemon on it and then chopped dill. Wrap tightly in plastic onto which some holes are poked. Put some weight on and then refrigerate for a couple of days. Et voilà, gravlax. One fun way to eat it is to make maki with it.

Mushroom Season

Besides great wild salmons, the other great wild product this time of the year here is mushrooms. For the last couple of years, it was rainy at this time of the year and the wild mushrooms were very wet and wormy. This year however was great. The ground is moist but the sky is clear so the mushrooms are very very good and plentiful. I picked up some pine and some chanterelles from Louis of Wild Products. I made rice with the pine for the salmon dinner; unfortunately my camera was out of battery to take pictures. Here I make this risotto with the chanterelles, onion, chicken stock, Parmigiano Reggiano, butter and rice. At the last moment, I added some crumbled roasted salmon from the other night. So very BC in the fall...

Giant Chinook Salmon

I went down to the Fisherman's Wharf by Granville Island three time in the last five days and finally got a good fish from Steve Johansen of Ocean Organic. I was luck, maybe as a reward of my persistence, because this is the smallest and last of his whole fresh fish, caught the day before. Normally a 25lber is quite large but Steve said he caught only 20+ fishes in this opening but the largest is 40+lbs. Too bad I didn't get to see that monster. I asked who got it and he told me it was Raincity Grill who ordered 100-lbs of salmon and he delivered just three fishes. That is pretty impressive.



To give a better scale, here is the head of the fish again my 9-inch Trident chef's knife. Makes it look like a paring, doesn't it? I simply pan seared and then roasted a 1.5lb fillet and the collar and the belly tips to serve to my aunt, my visiting cousin, her husband, and three of their friends. The meat is so moist, so sweet and so tasty that this simple preparation is just right. Now I still have a good 17 or so pounds of fillets, I will make some gravlax, some hot smoked, and some poached for the freezer. Should last me a bit of this winter.

Easily Roasted Chicken Pieces

I salt-and-peppered these chicken thighs before browning them in a pan. Some garlic, rosemary and sage were thrown into the pan and the pan were thrown into a 400℉ over for 15 minutes. The time in the over is just right for cooking vegetables and in no time a complete meal is done. Crispy skins.

Roof of the World Chili

This is what the Bhutan Chili looks like when fully ripe. Not as dramatic as the purple and green look earlier but still very pretty and bright. It would be nice if it tasted stronger, but then it is plenty nice enough already.

Leftover Pork

Thin slices of leftover roast pork are warmed by the heat of the rice. A couple kind of kimchee round up the meal.

Slow Raosted Pork

For a cut as lean as this pork loin, it is best to go slow roast. Here, I salt-and-peppered the pork and then browned it in a pan first. It was then rolled in a mixture of garlic, thyme, sage and rosemary before going into a 200℉ oven for a few hours until it reached 160℉ inside. The result is a superbly moist and tender piece of pork with the herbs and seasoning fully incorporated into the meat.

Garlic Chops

Here are a couple of pork loin chops that I simply salt-and-peppered and seared in a hot pan. When it was about ¾ done, silvers of garlic were added. When the garlic turned golden, it was done. With the big yellow beans from the garden, no need for extra starch.

Garden Bounty

These yellow beans grow thick but remain very tender and taste richer too. Much better eating than the already nice wax beans.

Local Oysters

I know the calendar say it is still summer, but I certainly feels like winter here. I couldn't resist the temptation to buy some oyster from Lobster Man on Granville Island. They are still a little to fat but they are still good and very tasty. If the weather says winter, eat winter then...

Poached Salmon

I had half of a sockeye salmon left from a barbecue. I poached it in lemon, dill, peppercorn and salt that night and then froze the pieces covered in the liquid. I warmed one piece of it slowly and the result is very good, as if it were poached today. A good way to preserve salmon.

Garden Fresh

Picked this almost perfect radish from the garden today. Tasted as good as it looked.

Roast duck breast

I have a duck but I am eating by myself, so I divided it. Here the breast is first blanched in hot water for a couple of minutes to tighten the skin before eing seasoned with salt, pepper, thyme, garlic, ginger and sugar. After resting for a couple of hours and the skin thoroughly dried, I roasted it in a 400℉ oven until the internal temperature reached 165. To finish I browned it in a hot pan before serving.







The back of the duck was roasted and then made into a stock with some carrot, onion and celery. The stock is reduced with fresh thyme and a couple drops of sherry vinegar are added to make the sauce. Turned out quite well.

Breakfast

Sometimes I wonder why I eat breakfast out. A ham omelette with home fried potato takes just 15 minutes...