Tuan cooking for Hanh's birthday-12/30/11
Tuan started cooking on Friday after work and then the whole day on Saturday! It is a lot of work to feed 16 adults and 6 kids for a sit down dinner of this caliber.
Okay, now that you see what was served for dinner it is time now for me to take you to a quick tour in the kitchen so you have an idea how a meal like this is put on and how much preparation is made ahead.
On top the warmer rack you can see a large plate of pre-cooked duck breasts, roasted butternut squash, a large bowl with some kind of sauce and a large tray pre-grilled venison covered in aluminum foil.
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Here Tuan is cutting the Venison racks for the kids.
Course 1 - preparation
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Here Tuan is cooking the crepes and platting the lobster sashimi.
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A bowl of cooked lobster meat on the counter! |
Hanh is spreading some crème fraîche over the lobster sashimi. |
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Each crepe goes on the plate |
This is how the plat looks like when it is served. |
Course 2 - preparation
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Tuan is giving me directions on where he wants me to put the butternut squash puree.
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Roasted yellow beets, edible flowers are added to the plate.
This the final presentation.. Gorgeous plate!
Course 3 - preparation
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Chard are sautéed in a large pot |
Mui trying to help in the kitchen. |
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Tuan slicing the duck as Hanh is wiping clean each plate. |
Getting the sauce ready for the duck.
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Mui, Ha, and I we could not help ourselves so we had to check out what Hanh and Tuan are doing in the kitchen.
Hanh is putting the sautéed chard on each plate while Tuan is slicing the duck breast....
Here we are watching Tuan and Hanh's finishing plating the last savory course.
Course 4 - preparation
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I pre-baked the Clafouti so all I need to do is to warm them up in the oven for about 5 minutes. |
Almond cake filled with chocolate mousse & covered in chocolate glaze are now ready to be plated.
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Plating the all the desserts. The clafouti are hot, they just came out of the oven so I have to have a rag to handle them.
View of the desserts trio.
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Cutting the pecan bars into small pieces. |
Here I am plating the pecan bars with some chocolate. |
Ending the evening with chocolate and pecan bars!
Tuan treated us to great meal and I was thinking how lucky we were to be surrounded by great friends, great food, great wine and above all we had so much fun together. As this meal was ending I was already looking forward to the next meal prepared by Chef Tuan!
Happy Birthday Hanh!
Filed under: Birthdays
