The spread
A recent dinner at home a few weeks ago was an ode to summer. Basking bright, warm summer sunset on my balcony with friends and family.
Fancy pants topped chicken sausages
We had large steamed then grilled lobsters, a huge, juicy bone-in prime-rib (I’ll give you that recipe at the end of the post), and fancy pants topped fresh chicken sausages.
Why chicken sausages you ask? Well, it’s arguably the most neutral flavored meat sausage that can go with almost anything. The most trickiest to work with is the foie gras, truffle aioli toppings since I have to use up the extra foie gras in my refrigerator. All the sausages were phenomenal, especially the truffle bomb (as in finely chopped black truffles with truffle aioli).
Chinese-style BBQ pork spare ribs
My dad made a slightly spicier version of his signature Chinese-style BBQ pork spare ribs. It’s a balanced combination of sweet and savory that has a lingering ghost of spiciness. The secret to that spice – spicy peanut butter.
Gluten-free desserts
I ended up making two different desserts that wound up to be gluten-free. And it was unintentional. I had a lot of almond flour and organic coconut flour that I need to use so I ended up baking an almond-coconut cake filled with homemade guava curd (it’s based on guava puree not guava jam, by the way) and semisweet chocolate buttercream. My guests were swooning how it ended up tasting lighter and the flavors are a lot cleaner than the traditional yellow cake.
The other dessert was mochi that were filled with homemade lotus seed paste and rolled in sweetened, flaked coconut. I know most of you are used to the red adzuki bean filling for mochi, and frankly, I like both fillings for its own reasons. The lotus seed paste tasted a lot more pronounced in mochi than for example, a mooncake.
The 15-pound bone-in prime rib
Finally, here’s the recipe for the bone-in prime rib. It’s technically, a very easy hunk of meat to deal with, as long as you have an instant meat thermometer and lots of patience, as it would take at least 3-5 hours of roasting time, depending upon how large your prime rib is.
Herb, Salt and Pepper Crusted Prime Rib
1 (4-rib) standing beef rib roast (bone-in prime rib; 9 to 10 pounds), at room temperature 1 hour
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons kosher salt
1/3 cup black peppercorns, coarsely ground
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
1. Preheat oven to 450°F with rack in middle.
2. Rub roast all over with oil, then sprinkle all over with kosher salt. Coarsely crush peppercorns in a folded kitchen towel (not terry cloth) with a meat pounder or bottom of a heavy skillet. Coat meat on all sides with peppercorns, pressing to help them adhere.
3. Roast on a rack in a 13- by 9-inch roasting pan (or any large heavy-duty roasting pan that will fit the prime rib) for 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F and roast until an instant-read thermometer inserted into center of meat (do not touch bone) registers 110°F, 3 1/2 to 4 hours more. Transfer to platter and let rest, uncovered, 30 minutes (temperature of meat will rise to about 130°F for medium-rare).
To view more of my photos of this meal, please scroll through the slideshow below (or click through my Flickr set):
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