Gregorian New Year has passed and Lunar New Year is upon us, which means I needed to grind out some new recipes for Saturday’s Lunar New Year Dinner Party.

It’s the Year of the Ox, which is a little more enticing than year of the rat, so I went straight to the ox for inspiration.  This lead me to oxtail, which is actually part of a cow, but I’m not going to stress about it.  I was going to make BBQ pork buns (like Cantonese Cha siu bao), but I have been told that the OMG ribs needed to happen again (I bought over ten pounds of ribs) and that would mean a lot of pork among the starters, so I worked up a recipe for Oxtail Steamed Buns.

— Needle scratching across the record and the music stops —

The Beer Braised Oxtail (recipe far below) was great, but not suited to a steamed bun, so I went back to the more traditional pork.  The method works fantastically well, because I made the meat and sauce in a crockpot, but let it cook down until the liquid was sticky and didn’t cover the meat so the top got charred and developed a barbecue flavor.

BBQ Pork Buns (Cha siu bao)
3 pounds pork shoulder
1 teaspoon 5-spice
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup hoisin
1/4 cup mirin
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup oyster sauce

1. Cut pork into 2-inch strips and sprinkle with 5-spice.
2. Combine other ingredients in crock pot and add pork.
3. Cook on low for 10 hours (and then it sat on “warm” another 8 hours, but I am not sure if that was essential).

6 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup white sugar
1 3/4 cup warm water
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 tablespoons shortening

1. Dissolve sugar in water, and add yeast. Let stand for 10 minutes/until frothy.
   
2. Sift flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Add shortening and yeast mixture and knead until smooth and elastic.
3. Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover with cling wrap and allow to rise in a warm place for 2 hours, or until tripled in volume.
4. Flatten a golf ball size lump of dough into a 4-inch disc, place a 1-inch ball of meat in the middle and wrap dough to encapsulate the meat.
5. Let completed buns sit in the steamer baskets another 30 minutes and then steam for fifteen minutes.  Serve hot.
   

Beer-Braised Oxtail

• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup hoisin sauce
• 2 tablespoons high quality oyster sauce
• 1/4 cup mirin
• 1/2 teaspoon 5-spice powder
• 3-4 pounds oxtails
• 1 cup beef stock
• 1 can beer

1. In a bowl (or in your crockpot if inner bowl is removable!), combine soy, hoisin, oyster sauce, mirin and 5-spice powder.
2. Add oxtail to bowl, submerging in sauce, cover and refrigerate overnight.
3. Add beer and stock, stir, cover and cook on low heat for 8-10 hours.

The amuse bouche to start my Lunar New Year dinner party necessarily features oxtail surrounded by Asian elements. I just wish it were prettier.

1/2 pound braised oxtail
1 shallot, finely diced
1 tablespoon butter
2 teaspoons fresh-squeezed blood orange juice
1/4 teaspoon drained bottled green peppercorns
1 teaspoon braising liquid
1/4 teaspoon salt
dumpling size wontons, quartered and deep-fried
pickled carrots and daikon radishes, jalapeno pepper and cilantro (optional)

About three times a year, I eat at Chipotle, the burrito subsidiary of chain restaurant formerly partially owned by McDonald’s.  I’m not judging if it’s your favorite “Mexican restaurant,” but I live in a city with amazing Mexican food and only go to the chain if I am in dire need of expeditious eats.  It’s less than a block from my office, and even when the line is a mile long, it only takes 5 minutes to be served.

I order the oft-neglected salad, not because it’s carb-conscious, since I order tortilla chips too, but because of the smoky, tangy tub of chipotle-honey vinaigrette that comes with it.  This stuff must be bad for me, because it tastes so good.  I drizzle a little on the salad, but save most of it to dip my chips.

I’m guessing you could make something similar or better by vigorously shaking up the following:

1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup fresh-squeezed lime juice
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
2 teaspoons honey
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon pureed chipotles in adobo
a pinch of cilantro, minced
2-3 tablespoons olive oil

If that’s too tangy, I may swap out some of the lime juice with orange juice, and a little zest from either would be a nice touch.

I’ll give it a try next week and post results as a comment.

“An aperitif guaranteed to inoculate you against bad luck in the year 4707” (2009 on the Roman calendar)

1 part Campari
1 part Sweet Red Vermouth
1 part Shiso-infused Vodka

Shake with ice and serve up.

It’s a variation on the Negroni, substituting shiso-infused vodka for gin to give it a little Asian aromatic quality, while maintaining the bright red color and medicinal, herbaceous bitterness.

If you don’t get the name, Tet is the word for Lunar New Year in Vietnam, as in the Tet Offensive.  Hmmm…. “Tet Offensive” sounds like a good name for another Lunar New Year cocktail.