Dinner tonight was a bit of thing of threads and patches. Mainly due to my chaotic shopping this morning. I had a firm plan, but when I got there, the cupboard was bare. They didn't have what I wanted. So I shopped at random.
I spotted an odd looking squash thing. It was labelled in the Chinese for "pumpkin" (南瓜 - nán guā), but didn't resemble the normal pumpkins we get. Not normal is right up my street so I bought it. It was kind of flat, as if someone had sat on it for its entire infancy and adolescence.
Inside, however, it looked pumpkinish. So, I de-seeded it, de-skinned it and de-cidely soupified it. An onion, some curry powder, salt and pepper and vegetable stock. Blitzed in the blitzer. I also washed, dried and roasted the seeds, a few of which went into the soup. Served with crusty baguette. (I did buy cream to add but decided it didn't need it.)
This was followed by a plate of salmon sashimi with Chinese sea grass (中华海草 - zhōng huá hǎi cǎo) and a soy sauce dip. I like me some sea grass.
Then I went on to a plate of half a dozen raw oysters which I had fun shucking. The more mathematically literate among you may notice that, in my small world of today, half-a-dozen meant 5. I did buy the more accepted half dozen amount of six, but one proved to have a bit of an alien whiff, which I hadn't detected in the market, so it was dumped. The others were fat, juicy and perfect.
Finally (almost), I partook of some mussels and spaghetti. All the mussels opened. They were cooked with olive oil, osmanthus flavoured rice wine, garlic, chilli and scallions.
In the final end, I ate two Hong Kong style egg tarts which I greedily demolished before pointing the camera.
