weekend feast

So the weekend put me in a food coma - we had baklava (home made), lettuce wraps (veg & non-veg), veg biriyani, cake, mango ice-cream and offcourse the Gin Bucks!

how to make Baklava
1) clarify 2 sticks of butter
2) thaw out 2 packets of filo dough
3) in a pan - lay out a layer of filo brush it with butter, lay out each sheet from whole pan and brush each sheet with butter.

4) Make a walnut, nut mixture - nuts, sugar, cinamon
5) lay 1/4 in thick layer o the nut mixture on the filo layers

6) repeat with another pack of filo layers on top
7) cut diamonds
8) bake at 350 for 1/2 hr
9) Make sugar syrup 3 cups sugar, 3 cups water, few table spoons rose water - boil till thick
10) soon as baklava is baked pour sugar syrup on top.


Lettuce Wraps Chicken filling
1) 1 lb of ground chicken - put in pan and sautee - make sure you break it up as you sautee it
2) soon as it's browned, sautee 1/2 onion and 3 cloves garlic and mix into browned meat
3) sautee 3 sprigs of scallions, 1 jalepeno and mix into meat mixture
4) Pour into this a slurry containing: 5 tablespoons soy, 2 tablespoons oyster sauce, dash of sambal, dash rice vinegar - mix everything
5) Medium heat for another 5 min and you are done!
Make 2 different sauces to accompany.
Sauce 1: Sambal, mustard, tiny bit of ketchup, oil, soy sauce, red wine vinegar (wife made with input)
Sauce 2: wife made I don't know (sweeter side)

We decided why stop with standard lettuce wraps lets have some toppings like tacos
Toppings:
1) a blackbean topping - blackbeans sauteed in garlic, ginger, soy sauce, scallions
2) Crispy noodles - store bought.