New Year's Dinner

New Year's Day is actually also my birthday, and my perfectly spectacular spouse, who does most of the cooking around here because he is just better at it, completely outdid himself making dinner. Seems appropriate that the anniversary of the day I was born into my half-Chinese and half-Indian should start with a traditional Chinese breakfast and end with a traditional Indian dinner.

Adam started this Wedding Lamb Biriyani last night, after finding it on the Serious Eats blog. It's adapted from The Splendid Table's How to Eat Weekends, by Lynne Rossetto Kasper and Sally Swift.

You can't see it because it's hiding under the mound of saffron-y rice, but there's a beautiful pile of lamb shoulder braised in a paste of ginger, garlic, onions and cashews.

Adam also made Madhur Jaffrey's Gujarati-style green beans, brightly flavored with mustard seeds. 

Dinner with all the fixings: crisp-fried onions, puffed raisins, browned cashews, and raita

And for dessert, Gramercy Tavern's Gingerbread, found on Smitten Kitchen. This is my favorite cake, ever, of all time, in the entire world. I always tell Adam that it's one of only two desserts I would choose over a chocolate dessert (the other one being Adam's strawberry shortcake). Tonight Adam made this gingerbread WITH COCOA POWDER AND CHOCOLATE CHIPS IN IT. It was cake to cry tears of joy over, seriously. 

Such an amazing meal! I'm grateful to the gills for my wonderful partner, I'm full of delicious spice, I'm pleasantly sleepy--and honestly, I'm kind of relieved that I have a nice, light, balancing breakfast of leftover plain congee, beet greens and a tea egg planned for tomorrow.