Greta and I like routine. We try to not to do too much out of the ordinary on any particular day. Recently, we've been trying to spend one day a weekend and entertain people. We've successfully had one family over so far, and it worked out very well. So we decided to invite some more friends on Sunday. We don't plan very far ahead, so we invited our friends Sunday morning to come over for dinner that night. They said OK. After that, it was time to cook a nice meal for 4 adults. No problem.
I started by preparing Greta's specialty, Oxtail Stew. Greta was busy with the kids, so I took the liberty of preparing it in her style. I introduced a few differences, by roasting the oxtail after blanching it. Greta usually either blanches it then fry it a bit, or just blanches it. But roasting was good, it got rid of a lot of oil, and browned it pretty nicely. I used my new cast iron pan, a big, wide, deep skillet which is perfect for stewing lots of food. It has a nice tight-fitting lid, with spikes coming out of the bottom, so condensed water will drip on the food. After roasting it and draining the oil, I sauteed some chopped onions, put in some carrots, green onions, some parsley stems as a bouquet garni, a bay leaf, white wine, tomato paste, and Greta put in the salt, sugar, and soy sauce. I covered the pot and put it in the oven at 350 degrees, and left it there to cook for 3 and a half hours.
After that, I got a call from our friend Monica, who takes care of an elderly lady who used to live in the same apartment building as us. This lady was in the hospital, and Monica needed a ride to go there. She lives a few blocks from me, and has no car. No problem. At this time it was 11 am. I went to get her, and we stopped by Pizza My Heart to get a few slices of pizza for us and Greta. Perhaps it was the result of sitting in the box for a few minutes, but when we went back to the apartment and ate it, it was a bit soggy, not as good as the last time I went there. She mentioned that she was in the hospital working yesterday as well, and she was very hungry because she didn't get out of there until midnight. So I told her she can come by our place to eat tonight when she gets off of work. OK, so we had 5 adults now, instead of 4. Well, no problem, I guess.
When I got home, Greta said that her cousin Adriane and family wanted to stop by and bring us dessert, so she said she invited them as well. OK, 2 more adults. And since we have two kids, our friends have a kid, and Adriane has a kid, that's 4 kids. So that would be 7 adults, and 4 kids. This was becoming less like a simple dinner, and more like a party. Well, OK, so we figured we'd have to cook a lot more food. No problem.
Besides the oxtail, Greta had prepared some stuffed bitter melon yesterday. She has a way of doing it where she stuffs it with a ground pork mixture, fries it, then braises it with a bit of water, soy sauce, and garlic, for half an hour or more. So we could cook this dish, which would feed a lot of people, since she made enough for four or five meals.
I flipped through a new recipe book I had recently purchased. It's a Chinese/English bilingual cookbook on Sichuan cooking, published by the Wei Quan school of cooking. The interesting thing about this cookbook is that in many, if not most recipes, it will say to use MSG in Chinese, but not include it in the English translation. I decided to make Ants Climbing a Tree, a dish with bean-thread noodles, ground pork, hot bean paste, and other seasonings, and Napa Cabbage with Dried Baby Shrimp. I doubled both recipes so we would have plenty of food. I went to the store, bought the cabbage, some pork, and some chicken backs and necks to make a quick stock to use for both dishes.
When I came back, it was around 2pm. I started making the quick stock, which was easy to do. The rest of the dishes are actually pretty easy, and I figured I would only have to spend a half hour on both dishes. So I was pretty confident. Then, the fire alarm rang. Greta and I each took a baby and rushed downstairs. For some reason Annelie thought the whole thing was very funny, and was laughing as we came out of the building. I don't know why, since the alarm was at ear-splitting loudness.
The alarm appeard to be caused by a company who was fiddling with the alarms. I suppose they just made a mistake, but it took about half an hour or more to correct it.
When we were back inside, I managed to finish up making all the dishes, including the Stuffed Bitter Melon. Our friends arrived at 7, and we did not hear from Monica or Adriane, so we had a ton of food for 4 adults. But all the better for us, since we now have enough leftovers to last us the week, as well as all the lunches I need to bring to work.
That's the story of my surprisingly busy Father's Day. We've never thrown a party, but this may count, since we at least had cooked enough food for the party. So it was an interesting time for us. But we'll stick to our routine for a little while to cool off from this flurry of activity.
Posted by ahyatt at June 16, 2003 05:58 PM