So, one of my cooks got evicted from his apartment last month, so he decided to move to San Francisco. So, somehow, we ended up having Christmas dinner at a coworker's house, and kind of a going away party. She lives in Ocean Beach in an amazing house, so it was the perfect place to have dinner.
So, we decided to have Asian Christmas.
I decided to make lumpia the way my mom used to make it. Except, I couldn't find good shrimp for a reasonable price, so I skipped shrimp. I put carrot, green beans, potato and ground pork in the filling. I made the filling the day before, so then I brought the filling and wrappers to the house and we rolled the lumpia. I know that lumpia wrappers are dryer than others, but these seemed especially dry. But we used them all.
I had also brought banana, and fresh shredded coconut and brown sugar for turon. So we used 2 packs of wrappers. Obviously there were too many turon, but I figured we might as well just make them anyway.
So, as is tradition for the hostess, she got a bunch of dungeness crabs. She had cooked them the night before, so she broke them up and cracked them, set warm ramekins of drawn butter over tea candles and we dug in. Of course, I had to have vinegar also. This was before most of the other guests arrived, so we sat at the kitchen island with our various beverages crackin crab.
Knowing that we were going to be at the house several hours earlier than the others, I felt like we weren't bringing enough food. So we made a run in the morning to Von's. I decided to make kung pao tofu from my Whole Foods days, and the Food Pimp decided to make slaw. Needless to say, we didn't need this extra food, but I guess I felt I had to spend a certain amount of money to feel I had contributed properly - even though we spent half as much as we would have if we were hosting a party.
So, the FP decided to roast duck, no biggie. He had dried it with a hairdryer and did all kinds of other things to it. It turned out beautiful.
And then the rest of the food showed up. Sticky rice, and these crazy fried chicken wings and ribs that were coated in fish and chili sauce. They were so crazy good!
But the star of the show, was when they showed me their surprise... A pig head!!! OMFG! It was so crunchy and fatty.....
And then I'm a dick because I didn't take pictures of the cookies. I think I was pretty wasted by the time the cookies showed up, so I didn't document them. They were peanut butter, and I think oatmeal.....
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