Mama's Birthday Party

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Our menu (with pictures) for Mama's Birthday Party. (May 11, 2008)

We've taken to printing out a few copies of our menu and leaving them around the house during parties. With the number of guests, we found that this was the most practical solution: we can't really put placecards with the dishes' names because the island counter can barely contain the platters of food. Dishes were served buffet-style as there were perhaps 45 guests at the party.

Savory
Smoked Salmon Platter
cornichons, lemon wedges, cream cheese-caper sauce

Insalata Verde
mesclun greens, hazelnuts, dried cranberries, world-famous balsamic vinaigrette

White Rice
Green Beans in Coconut Milk
Sautéed Mushrooms
Braised Romaine and Peas

Capellini Pomodoro e Basilico

San Bei Ji (“Three-Cup” Chicken)

Mediterranean Leg of Lamb
rosemary, lemon, olive stuffing

Lechon Kawali (Roast Pork Belly)

Steelhead Trout
lemon-caper butter sauce

Thai Beef Basil Stir-Fry

Sweet
Mama’s Philippine-style “Fruit Salad”
Heart-shaped Mother’s Day and Birthday Gelato Cake
Lemon Bars
Cheesecake-swirled Chocolate Brownies

There were also other desserts brought by guests. But we'll get to that a bit later. To start everything off, the gongs brought kropek!


kropek
These are prawn crackers. They come in hard rectangles that you fry. They puff up into the beauties you see above. Thanks gongs! We made a dipping sauce of chile-infused vinegar with minced garlic. This brings out the "sweetness" of the kropek.


Smoked Salmon Platter
cornichons, lemon wedges, cream cheese-caper sauce


roasted hazelnuts waiting to be peeled; for the salad


Insalata Verde
mesclun greens, hazelnuts, dried cranberries, world-famous balsamic vinaigrette

This is so good. Something magical happens when the hazelnuts, dried cranberries and balsamic vinaigrette -- oops, that's my world-famous balsamic vinaigrette -- come together.

White Rice
I don't think I need a picture of this.


Green Beans in Coconut Milk
The former incarnation of this dish was as a minced pork dish. We did as we said in our post and dispensed with the meat, making this a vegetable dish. A vegetable dish, not a vegetarian dish. As in a lot of Chinese vegetable dishes, shrimp acted as a flavoring agent in this one.


Sautéed Mushrooms
Made pretty much similar to our mushrooms on toast. We used our lemon-thyme from the garden.


Braised Romaine and Peas
This was a discovery! It deserves its own post. (Coming soon. Now here!)


Capellini Pomodoro e Basilico
The capellini looked more like spaghetti. Anyway, JS has made tomato sauce a thousand times (like here, for example). I like this one because there was a kick to it, thanks to them lovely anchovies.


San Bei Ji (“Three-Cup” Chicken)
This is a Taiwanese dish, so called because in theory, it has 1 cup of sesame oil, 1 cup of soy sauce and 1 cup of wine. There was more to it than that. It also deserves its own post. (Coming soon. Now here!)


Mediterranean Leg of Lamb with rosemary, lemon and olive stuffing
We've never posted about a lamb roast. It's definitely about time. (Coming soon. Now here!)


Lechon Kawali (Roast Pork Belly)
Previously seen here.


Steelhead Trout with lemon-caper butter sauce
We initially wanted to do a trout grenobloise, as Mama had previously requested this for a party. However, there are logistics complications when doing grenobloise for such a large group. For this party, we simply roasted the trout in the oven, then poured over the hot lemon-butter.

Thai Beef Basil Stir-Fry
We didn't actually get to this dish. But, we've done the classic Thai Chicken Basil Stir-fry. Coming soon!


Mama’s Philippine-style “Fruit Salad”
This is a classic Philippine dessert. A lot of people have fond memories of this from childhood. Some of our guests actually call ahead to request this dish. One might call this "canned good" cookery. It has "fruit cocktail", toddy palm, macapuno (young coconut) and other similar canned/jarred fruits (jackfruit,maraschino cherries) with cream and condensed milk.


Heart-shaped Mother’s Day and Birthday Gelato Cake
Lovingly made by moi.


Meringue Cookies

Lemon Bars
Cheesecake-swirled Chocolate Brownies
Pictures of these creations from CSC's fledgling baking studio are here and here.


Portuguese Custard
This was like crème caramel (or the Philippine leche flan). The gong sisters brought this. Thanks again, gongs!

Mega and Y brought the following variety of Philippine desserts as well.



top: kutsinta; middle: pichi-pichi; bottom: sapin-sapin


The dessert spread

The buffet