48 Hours Short Ribs

Sous Vide is more than just cooking in a plastic bag...

Sous Vide short ribs has always been considered kind of the holy grail in sous vide cooking at home, as this seems to bring out the best balance of flavors and texture for a meat cut that may be otherwise tricky to handle. And I have been planning to do this ever since I got my Sous Vide Supreme machine just before Christmas. 

Here I am using a much simplified recipe - given the time constraint I had and I strictly used what I have left over from the refrigerator as well. But with a choice cut from a trusted butcher, you really don't need to over-do things to make this a decent dish. That I guess is one beauty of sous vide cooking - it's really hard to go wrong.

Yuzu Dinner at Home

Our friends and good neighbor bryan and henrietta went to Osaka during Chinese New Year holidays and brought us something - including a pair of fresh Japanese yuzu. We probably all had a good share of yuzu-flavored food or drinks in the past, but surprisingly, fresh yuzus are hard to come by outside of Japan for whatever reasons. Anyway, I was so excited getting this wonderful gift that I immediately planned a yuzu-themed dinner for the weekend so I can play with them.

Chicken Enchiladas

While I believe that home cooking can be as fancy and elaborate as you can imagine, I am also a fan of quick one-pot dinner from time to time. After the whole weekend of traditional chinese new year food such as turnip cakes and sticky "nin go", we decided to stay at home one evening and did something totally different - the anti-CNY dinner so to speak.

63-Degree Eggs - playing with Sous Vide Supreme

Come meet my new friend Sous Vide Supreme! Ever since I got it in early December I have been experimenting and trying out dishes that I had difficulties making without this super machine that can keep temperature to 0.5 degrees (Celcius) accuracy.

I have been trying to cook a few things with this new kitchen yoy but particularly here's a simple dish I made over the new year for a vegetarian friend of mine - hearty lentils combined with fresh mushrooms that I got from the farmer's market, and eggs cooked at 63-degrees sound like a perfect winter appetizer dish to me in this occasion.

Looking back - the rest of 2011

Every Christmas we made e-card using pictures of food we have enjoyed over the past year. As I was going through those picture albums, I realized that there are too many memorable meals that didn't quite make it to the blog - either I don't have time or mood to write, or even to formulate some thoughts on them. Anyway, as we look towards the new year, this is our way to give thanks and reflect on the wonderful times we had around dining tables in 2011 with a recollection of those meals - think of this as several mini-blogs jammed into one: