Not many people know that the weather in Dubai can change too. It is not all hot; in December it can rain from time to time and if it does, it will make headlines in the local newspaper!

This morning, at 06:45am, out of my window onto Sheikh Zayeed Road

Christmas, celebrated around the world is just around, the corner. Even here in the Middle East one feels a bit of Christmas now and then; in hotels we feel it all the time as this season is our busiest time with the production of the Christmas goodies.

There are many variation of Gingerbread houses and one of them, mine, is pictured above as a very traditional Gingerbread house. It is actually build in a few steps easy to follow. The preparation of the dough is almost the same and of course, there are many different recipes.

Roll out the dough to a thickness of 7mm, cut the parts with the help of a stencil and place them on a baking tray. Brush with milk and let to dry. Before baking brush once more with milk and bake the parts at 185 Celsius until golden brown. All parts need to be cooled before assembly. Start joining one side wall with the back wall by piping some royal icing sugar on the base and on the joints of the walls. Repeat this step with the other side and front wall. Place the roof on top and secure with some fabric masking tape. This usually takes about 15 minutes to stay in place. Pipe the icing around the house to decorate and affix the variety of Christmas cookies onto the roof. Dust with icing sugar and decorate as per your liking.

One of my favorite cuisine must be the one from Thailand and I call it my comfort food since I just love to eat any Thai dishes. Thai cuisine is known for its balance of five fundamental flavors in each dish or the overall meal – hot (spicy), sour, sweet, salty and bitter (optional). Although popularly considered as a single cuisine, Thai food is really better described as four regional cuisines corresponding to the four main regions of the country: Northern, Northeastern (or Isan), Central and Southern. Southern curries, for example, tend to contain coconut milk and fresh turmeric, while northeastern dishes often include lime juice. Thai cuisine has been greatly influenced by its neighbors, especially India, China, Malaysia, Laos. Many dishes are in fact Chinese dishes adapted to local tastes.

S created above dish for a competition here in Dubai, her brief was to combine Thai flavors and present the dish western style with a modern twist.

Pan fried sea bass with stir fried seafood in red curry sauce

Plakrapong Rad Sauce Talay Pad Pet

1500 gram Sea Bass filet

200 gram Crab meat

100 gram Clam, fresh

100 gram Shell, fresh

100 gram Thai Basil

30 gram Thai egg plant

20 gram Red, hot chillies

10 gram String beans

10 gram Oil

20 gram Chicken stock

1 stick Lemon grass

2 gram Galangal

10 gram Pepper, green

100 gram Thai Rice, steamed

200 gram Aspargus

Sauce Pad Ped

300 gram Curry paste, red

750 gram Coconut milk

5 gram Oyster sauce

5 gram Fish sauce

3 gram Palm sugar

3 gram Kha chai

20 gram Lemon leaf

10 gram Oil, vegetable

Add the oil to a pot with curry paste and saute for 3 minutes until curry paste is incorporated with oil. Fry the fresh clam, shell and crab meat. Add lemon leaves, coconut milk, Kha chai, Oyster and Fish sauce with palm sugar and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the beans, egg plant, pepper and asparagus. Finish off with the chillies and Thai Basil.

Marinate the sea bass with the fish sauce, sugar and Galangal. Pan fry fillets from both sides and serve with the curry sauce and steamed rice.

The ingredient found in almost all Thai dishes and every region of the country is nam pla (Thai น้ำปลา), a very aromatic and strong tasting fish sauce. Shrimp paste, a combination of ground shrimp and salt, is also extensively used.

Thai dishes in the Central and Southern regions use a wide variety of leaves rarely found in the West, such as kaffir lime leaves (Thai ใบมะกรูด). The characteristic flavour of kaffir lime leaves’ appears in nearly every Thai soup (e.g., the hot and sour Tom yam) or curry from those areas. It is frequently combined with garlic, galangal, lemon grass, turmeric and/or fingerroot (krachai), blended together with liberal amounts of various chillies to make curry paste. Fresh Thai basil is also used to add fragrance in certain dishes such as Green curry. Other typical ingredients include the small green Thai eggplants, tamarind, palm and coconut sugars, lime juice, and coconut milk. A variety of chilies and spicy elements are found in most Thai dishes.

Other ingredients also include pahk chee (cilantro, sometimes known as coriander), rahk pahk chee (cilantro/coriander roots), curry pastes, pong kah-ree (curry powder), si-yu dahm (dark soy sauce), gung haeng (dried shrimp), pong pa-loh (five-spice powder), tua fahk yao (long beans or yard-long beans), nahmahn hoi (oyster sauce), prik Thai (Thai pepper), rice and tapioca flour, and nahm prik pao (roasted chilli paste).