Home Tastes Good: A multicultural Christmas celebration

With Christmas only a few days away, there are so many arrangements to make, places to go and events to attend! It can be a pretty exhausting season, but when it gets to part where you see your family and friends, have a nice meal and stay up until late just because the conversation is so good, then it´s very easy to remember why all the work is worth it!

This is my first year in Singapore and we decided not to go home for Christmas this time, so all the gatherings with friends are most welcome! While for some of us there will be no snow (it´s in fact very hot here!) or a family reunion, at least we have each others company and our food to celebrate!

Yesterday evening I had a very nice gathering with my closest neigbours, where each of us had to bring something traditional in our home countries at this time of year, since we are all from different nationalities.

Representing the Portuguese community, I´ve prepared Arroz Doce (sweet rice), very typical at Christmas in my country. My second time doing it and I´m glad it turned out very well.

The trick for a good sweet rice is milk (my father, the chef in the family, always says that!). Per each 150 grams you should have 1L of milk. It seems too much, but it´s not, as the rice needs to cook in the milk for around 30 minutes until it gets really creamy. Only in the end it´s necessary to add sugar (same amount as the rice), 6 egg yolks and 50 grams of butter (per each 150 grams of rice).

From the British family we had mince pies, which is a fruit-based mincemeat sweet pie traditionally served during Christmas season, as well as mulled wine, a red wine cooked with several spices and it´s served warm.

I had heard about this beverage, but had never tried until yesterday and it´s actually very good! And I´m not really a red wine fan. Definitely need to try this wine again but in a cold weather... and see how it warms up the body instead of making me sweat :)
That´s the thing when you live in a Tropical weather...

And last but not the least, from the French community we had not only a super delicious duck salad but also one of my favorite things in the world - cheese! And this one is quite special, since it was brought from Switzerland and ideal to prepare a dish called raquelette. Pure perfection for the cheese lovers like me!

To prepare the raquelette it´s important to have a proper appliance, so that you can grill/melt small portions of the cheese, which is then put on top of boiled potatoes along with pickles. Divine!