This weekend is the Lunar New Year (better known as the Chinese New Year) and I have invited a friend over for dinner. I love to cook but, due to various circumstances, have not had the opportunity to do much cooking since I arrived here.
My friend is a fussy eater. She is a vegetarian, she can't eat dairy, and there a ton of odd things she can't eat. She isn't picky because she wants to be, it's her stomach. Regardless of her reasons, I am struggling.
My original menu:
Quote:
A salad with blue cheese, walnut and pear (the dressing is a base of olive oil and some vinegar)
Scallops with black pasta in a whiskey and orange juice reduction.
Tarte Tatin
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This has been scrapped due to the fact that she doesn't like scallops, can't eat walnuts or blue cheese and my oven does not work (hence no baking either). Finally, no alcohol, so no good wine to accompany the food (so much for drunkenness masking bad food gambit).
I need some fast suggestions as I have to get all my shopping done on Friday night (Saturday if I am desperate). The reason being that the stores are apparently picked clean by Saturday morning by all the Aunties stocking up for the New Year dinners.
OK, here is what I have decided so far:
Appetizer: some sort of salad - want some thing a tasty
Main: a) Seared sesame crusted Tuna
b) The black pasta dish above but with chucks of some other white fish
Dessert: a) chocolate mousse
b) good quality gelato with either cookies or some sort of kueh (local cookie treat)
Issues:
If I can source some sushi grade Tuna I would like to do the seared tuna... what to serve with it?
If I go with the black pasta and white fish (it will also have some some yellow and red grilled peppers for colour) what sort of white fish? And should I chunk it (so it resembles the original dish) or serve a whole fish, or a slice of fish with the pasta on the side?
I figure I will pick up some Gelato as a fall back if my mousse fails miserably.
I am so looking forward to cooking. It's been so long.