A very lobster Christmas

Continuing with the tradition of cooking at home on Christmas Eve, we ordered another shipment of live wild Atlantic lobsters from Nova Scotia, and our lobster supplier picked them up at the airport in the wee hours this morning.  We met up in Central in the middle of the day and divvied up the critters among a few friends, brought our share of the haul home and put the guys on ice.

As usual, we steamed the lobsters in a pot.  These live and wild lobster are really special.  They've got a wonderful firm texture when biting down, so you know these guys were lively.  Really delicious, and I didn't need any seasoning or sauces whatsoever.

The best part about these lobsters is the tomalley.  Just love spooning it into my mouth...

Hello Kitty also made a couple of them into lobster rolls, with the buns given to us by our lobster supplier that she baked herself.  A little bit of celery, chives, and shavings from lime peel mixed with mayo.  And of course the buns were toasted in a pan with plenty of butter.  Mmm mmm good.

Coq au vin - Hello Kitty also prepared a huge cocotte of coq au vin with a French chapon, following an old recipe from Paul Bocuse.  She wasn't happy with the end result as she found it to be overcooked.

But the meat was falling off the bone, and I was more than happy to eat it.  What I wasn't happy about was the fact that as she was running out of red wine at home, she grabbed a bottle of Château Le Pin and used it as the cooking wine...

When it came to dessert, I splurged and got ourselves a bûche de Noël from Caprice at the Four Seasons Hong Kong.  Nicolas Lambert is an amazing pâtissier, and I regretted not getting his bûche last Christmas.  Well, I was definitely not gonna miss out this year!

I ordered it from the Festive Desk set up in the hotel lobby, and was surprised to get a call from the restaurant telling me that Chef Nicolas was going to meet me when I picked it up this morning.  That was a nice surprise.

There was a gluten-free chocolate sablé at the bottom, which was surprisingly a little savory and not sweet at all.  The chocolate biscuit inside was also gluten-free, covered in a very fluffy Valrhona Manjari chocolate mousse, with pecans inside.  We were also given little tubs of crème anglaise made with Tahitian vanilla.

I decided that Rudolf would be my victim tonight...

Finally, we cut up the very last dragon fruit that we brought back from our trip to Vietnam.  This has been fully-ripened, having gone from green to red, back to green, and back to red again.  So it was pretty sweet on the inside.

A festive dinner like this wouldn't be the same without a little alcohol, but we kept it pretty civilized tonight.

1995 Henri Giraud Fût de Chêne - the nose was so caramelized and sweet, yeasty, toasty, with marmalade notes.  Lovely depth on the palate.  Such a beautiful Champagne.

Dewazakura Daiginjo Daikoshu Sansei (出羽桜 大吟醸大古酒 三勢), BY19 - this was a special bottling to commemorate the merger of Mitsukoshi and Isetan, and released in April 2008 for the occasion.  With a seimaibuai (精米歩合) of 35%, this was aged for 13 years at a temperature of -5°C.  The nose showed lots of fermented rice notes, with a little banana.  Very elegant.  Sweet on the attack with a medium-dry finish, it was also a little viscous and rounded on the palate.  Considering it's been another 6 years since its release, that means the bottle is now about 20 years old.  What a beautiful sake!

A really fun evening at home, and glad to have shared some goodies with our friends.