Christmas lunch—eaten with chopsticks?

[HBS Guy]

Been told I am hosting Christmas lunch.

Decided Chinese might be nice. Maybe homemade gelato for desert.

Will select dishes to make up a menu, maybe dishes from various Chinese regions? Among my ≈300 cookbooks is “Chinese Regional Cooking” by.

Curry/chili dishes welcome so Szichuan will be on the menu.

Alternatively, dishes from Near Asia to Far Asia. “Cardamom and Lime” for near east, Doris Ady’s “Curries from the Burra Bazaar” takes it from Pakistan to Indonesia.

Will select 4-6 recipes incl a magnificent rice dish Persian Pillau, flavored and colored with saffron, pistacios, cardamom, cinnamon and orange blossom water—looks fantastic and tastes the same.

The rice:

Recipe:

 

[HBS Guy]

Heh, I better go buy chopsticks tho persians, Pakis, Indians, Malays eat with their hands—saw that with some Malay and Malay Indian friends at Uni. I DO have chopstick rests, funnily enough, knife rests too.

Dining table will be my rectangular Lebanese cedar table. Organise some flowers to go in my Beswick basket vase—won’t block sightlines then. Candles? Nah, hot enough already by chrisssy I reckon. Bookpress table to put food containers on to plate out the food.

 

[HBS Guy]

Relative from Adelaide was here for a few days—told him to not commit to holidays, take them and bring his family here to sit out the worst of what is being predicted to be a severe bloody El Nino! We can buy some camp type beds. We get enough some can sleep in the two car garage on my property. Might be a big lunch table!

 

[HBS Guy]

Pho soup be a great starter! RecipeTinEats has a nice recipe. Stock made from 3 types of beef bone. Expensive cut for the thin slices.

Will work out a recipe, maybe 7 dishes to be slimmed to 4 plus sides, means if I can’t find ingredients I have an alternative. Launceston population is only ≈ 100K so not a huge range of shops/ingredients—mail order for some ingredients. All takes time so start early.

 

[johnsmith]

Peking Turkey for lunch

 

[HBS Guy]

Duck not big enough?

 

[johnsmith]

Duck not big enough?

Not very christmasie

 

[HBS Guy]

Cucumber sangos to start—Brit as.

Persian pillau—with pomegranate “seeds” or arils to give a cheery red color to the yellow rice. A curry to complement the rice

Sour prawn soup—Indonesian

Gado gado veges—Indonesian

Beef rendang?—Indonesian

Tea?

Thai fish cakes

Dunno, could structure it to start in UK, skip to Persia (Iran) to Thailand to India to Indonesia—to ocker Oz?

 

[HBS Guy]

Actually, Thai fishcakes would really wow the peasants!

Need a little deep fryer, makes it really easy. Cheap as.

Could follow the sour shrimp soup, before it yellow rice and a light curry? Or sour shrimp soup?

 

[HBS Guy]

I have two small cookbooks, one is “Recipes from the Sultan’s Kitchen” which is mostly India–Pakistan and one other—lost in the avalanche but should find it soon a bit west of the first booklet.

English–Dutch (rollmops? Huzaren sla?) to Persia to SE Asia to India to Indonesia and ending in. . . . . . . . . . gelato?

A globe trotting menu!

Finishing in Sichuan or Indonesia? Before Italia?

 

[HBS Guy]

Pho soup and Thai fishcakes be standouts I reckon!

Have to limit dish size—1 fish cake, small bowl fragrant herbed pho soup and very thinky sliced beef.

Highlights of taste!

 

[HBS Guy]

Hmmm Ukrainian dish??? Entree size

yeah!

Holubtsi: Tender cabbage leaves rolled and stuffed with a savory filling of rice and mushrooms, slowly simmered in a rich, earthy mushroom and sour cream gravy.