Hoa's Birthday and Pakalolo-5/15/2021

The set up Appetizers/Guests Dinner Desserts/Pakalolo/Poker Behind the scene

Dinner

Tonight on the menu I have prepared a 5 course dinner but the first and the 2nd course are served two ways so there are a total of 7 dishes.

Picture of everyone for posterity!

 

On the left: Alice, Mark, Cindy, Tuan, Trung, Tuan,

In the center: Han and Maily-Standing up: Hoa and me

On the right: Phu, Huyen, Andre, Minh, and Loan - Missing Annie Le as she was taking the picture.

 

The wine for the evening courtesy of the whole group.

 

First Course: Hamachi two ways

The first dish is a Hamachi with cucumber consommé served with sautéed mushroom and Ikura (salmon egg).

 

This dish is from Farralon, the famous seafood restaurant in San Francisco now defunct.

 

I love this dish!  It is light, fresh, and so tasty and the colors are so vibrant.

 

The 2nd Hamachi dish is a Pan seared sesame Nori crusted Hamachi. Note that this portion is for 2 people.

The vinaigrette is made with passion fruit, chopped serrano, lime juice, Vietnamese Perilla (tia to).

 

This dish is from Orsa and Winston, an upscale Japanese and Italian gastronomy restaurant in Los Angeles.

 

When I described this dish it sounds mild with caramelized plums and passion fruit vinaigrette.  Don't let that fool you, the Hamachi was lightly seared as the serrano keeps it sharp while the aonori (seaweed) brings you the brine of the pacific, the tart/sweet/acidity from the passion fruit, and the sweetness of the caramelized plums just created the perfect balance.  This is a very lovely dish.

 

The first course is served and now Hoa is going around just to make sure if our guests needed more wine.

Pay attention to Andrew's chair - he is sitting on a wooden foldable chair with a red cushion.

 

Hoa is collection red wine glasses so he can pour red wine for everyone.

 

Ha is helping me by bringing to the table the 2nd course.

 

Second Course: Mushrooms two ways

We have totally insane mushroom soup (left) and mushroom quiche (right).

 

Soup always looks like it is easy to make but this soup is rather complicated and takes quite a few steps to make it but the flavors are incredible and it is so delicious and unctuous.

 

Both of these dishes are 100% vegetarian but if you are a real carnivore you will not miss not having any meat.

King mushrooms are sautéed and they are really meaty.  I also caramelized the onions in the quiche and they yield such a rich flavor.

 

We are moving to the third Course with Foie gras so Phu is bringing out his Sauternes (The best ever!)

 

Phu is pouring the sauternes..

 

Third Course: Foie gras, charred corn, and onion charcoal

For this dish I used a 2 lb. Foie gras lobe but since there are 16 people I also use another 1 lb. cubed Foie gras. So basically, I used 3lb of Foie gras for this dish and each portion is pretty generous.

 

 

The Foie gras is pan seared and served with charred sweet corn in a reduced sweet corn sauce, and onion charcoal.

To make the onion charcoal, I used 4 bunches of green onions and roasted them until they are black.  I pureed the charred onion and added some olive oil to make it like a paste, and then it is brushed on the plate.  The onion charcoal does have a nice burned flavor.

 

I usually served Foie gras with blueberries and balsamic vinegar but tonight I wanted to make something different.

 

Sauternes is the ultimate pairing for Foie gras!  Thanks to Phu for always bringing the best sauternes.

 

Even though the portions are pretty generous, I made sure to give the biggest Foie gras pieces to Phu.

I think here we are all looking at Phu's portion and making fun that this is probably too much for him but apparently it is never enough.

There is no such thing as "too much Foie Gras".

 

Cheers!

Remember I told you to look at Andrew's chair earlier?

Here you need to look at Andrew's chair but I know you cannot see the backing because he is sitting on a foldable chair.

 

Andrew broke the foldable chair and felt off to the ground.. 

We gave Andrew a "real" chair which you can see the part of the wooden side in comparison, look at Minh's foldable chair next to Andrew.

See Ha is holding the red cushion and walking away.  The red cushion was on top of the folding chair to make it more comfortable but now that he got a regular chair, there is no need to have the cushion.

 

Now you can see the backing of his chair -It is a regular chair.

We laugh so hard learning that this is the 2nd time he broke a chair.  The last time he brooke it was at a wedding and they gave him a high chair because there nothing available, and he was towering over everybody on that dinner table.

 

The red wine selection for the evening.

 

I told no "Gifts" but our friends still brought Whiskey for Hoa.  There are more whiskeys but I put it somewhere else.

 

Phu taking care of opening more wine...

 

More conversation while waiting for the next course.

 

Forth Course: Chicken meatball lasagnettes and sautéed mushrooms

For the 4th dish I wanted something light so I made a chicken meatball lasagnette.  The meatballs are marble sized and they are very cute stacked between a few torn sheets of lasagna (nobody wants to eat a lot of carbs these days).  This is definitely not a traditional lasagna as there are no cheese and a creamy béchamel sauce the binds the layers together.

 

 

Instead the sauce is a deeply flavored roasted chicken just and it definitely felt very light and perfect for a hot summer day.

I also added sautéed mushrooms for an extra layer of flavor.

 

The chicken just and the chicken meatballs does takes a lot of time to make but they can be made well ahead and the final assembly is really easy.

 

Fifth course: Porchetta with grilled vegetables

Porchetta (pronounced porketta) in Italian means “little pig”. It refers to slow-roasted pork belly roll, pork loin, or whole pig, with the rind always included. Moreover, a classic porchetta recipe requires butterflying the pork, stuffing it with herbs, rolling and tightly securing it with butcher twine, and slow-roasting it to perfection.

 

It took me about 4 hours to roast the Porchetta and another hour or so under the broiler so that the skin crisped up.

The problem is there is a lot of smoke coming out of the over because the fat that comes out of the porchetta is burned so I had to transfer it to another tray without the fat so the skin continue to Crisp.

 

 

I served the Porchetta with a mixture of roasted vegetables.

 

Maily did such a good job arranging the vegetables.  Looks so pretty and appetizing.

NEXT.... Desserts/Pakalolo/Poker

Filed under: Dinner parties

 

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