Chinese-Style Oxtail

From Jennifer McLagan's wonderfully innovative cookbook Bones: Recipes, History and Lore (HarperCollins, 2005), comes this aromatic dish that celebrates succulent oxtails. It's delicious with rice and a vibrant green vegetable.

Creamy Carrot Cake Cookies

These cakey cookies surround the most delicious cinnamon cream cheese icing. Both the dough and the icing can be made ahead, which allows the cinnamon flavour to get stronger. Let the icing come to room temperature before spreading or piping it.

Pumpkin and White Chocolate Bûche de Noël

Adding amaretti cookies to the creamy mascarpone filling gives this rolled cake a welcome crunch. Use a vegetable peeler to turn the white chocolate into curly shavings.

Crab Sui Mai

These savoury open-faced dumplings are a delightful appetizer to enjoy with a glass of chilled white wine.

Spicy Catfish Fillets in Banana Leaves

Grilling fish in banana leaves keeps in all the juices and adds a distinctive smoky taste, complemented here with an aromatic spice paste. Banana leaves are sold frozen at most Southeast Asian and Latin American grocery stores. Heating the leaves before wrapping makes them stronger and more flexible. You also can wrap the fish in foil, but it will not have a smoky flavour.

Chai and White Chocolate Biscotti

Dotted with chocolate and pistachios, this after-dinner treat begs to be dipped in tea.

Filipino Chicken Soup (Tinola)

Tinola, a favourite on Filipino dinner tables, is made in many variations. The most traditional vegetables used in this soup are green (unripe) papaya or chayote squash, but other green squashes and melons are used, too. Zucchini makes a fine substitute; just make sure to take out the seeds and soft core. The soup is traditionally finished with herbal leaves, such as those of the native malunggay tree, or with chili leaves, the small tender leaves of hot pepper plants, which are tasty but not hot; watercress lends a similar flavour. Use a free-range chicken; if you buy the poultry at an Asian market, you get the head and feet, too, which add lots of extra flavour to the broth.

Mini Plum Puddings

Sweet and oh so cute, these little steamed desserts are anything but old-fashioned.

CARROT COOKIES WITH CREAM CHEESE ICING

Homemade Kimchi

A traditional fermented Korean side dish, kimchi is a sweet and spicy combination of sliced cabbage, other vegetables and seasonings. About a day after jarring the kimchi, you will begin to see bubbles in the liquid; this is a sign that the fermentation process is working.