Celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival (reblogged from Sept 2014)

Au nom de la fête (In the name of the festival), we celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival with some friends at home with an Italian menu...

 Simple and clean set-up as usual

 bit of Mid-Autumn Festival details to remind everyone of the traditional festival...someone saw the "Ling Kok"( a kind of water chestnut but has horns) and quipped "Oh, that reminds me of my childhood..."

 The "Ling Kok", translated literally means Holy Horns. It is actually a floating aquatic plant with triangular leaves and these fruiting bodies are hard as horns and they droop into the water from the plants' floating body. We used to play with these when we were small.

 Yams from China - these are specially used for the Mid-Autumn Festival and are not found throughout the year.

 A sort-of bean soup from cannelini, borlotti and chick peas. The stock is a mix of onions, tomato sauce and lamb bits.

 Antipasti of ripe fig, kumato, roquette, yellow cherry tomatoes, dried sausage and Pecorino cheese.

A carbonara of tagliatelle home-made.

Recipe for the carbonara:

Prepare the pasta as prescribed (fresh or in box);

200g of smoke-cured bacon (fatty), cubed

Parsley, chopped finely

4 eggs

Pecorino cheese, grated

Salt and white pepper for seasoning,

Olive oil

In a pan, render the fat from the bacon. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl with the Pecorino cheese (you can also substitute this with grated Parmiggiano Regiano). Pour the hot pasta over the bacon fat in the pan, mix and fold in the egg-cheese emulsion. Sprinkle over with the freshly chopped parsley and season with salt and pepper if necessary. Serve with fresh basil leaves.

 Pan-fried Dory, seasoned with lemon, herbes de Provence on a bed of baby French beans. The beans are highlighted with lemon zest and fresh onions. The cooking jus was made by deglazing the pan with some white wine and fresh orange juice.

We skipped the salade and went straight to the dessert: chocolate cake with orange sauce.