A Dean’s Dinner

A Dean’s Dinner

            ‘The Dean is coming to dinner on Saturday’ my mother announces walking in to the kitchen on Thursday, ‘would you mind???” I know my place. I also know I would not be keen for the reputation of the cooking in this household to be totally ruined, especially because the Dean is a fellow foodie. The limitations are as follows, I have two days only, I would like to join in the fun and chat and we need little to no leftovers because we leave for Lincoln the next morning. Challenge accepted. So I do my research on the Great British Menu website and find three manageable recipes that appear to fit all my restrictions.

            I find recipes can be adapted as to how you feel, but sometimes they can be useful. When following recipes I tend not to measure things out and often if I think extra herbs or spices should be added I do. For the first course – Scallops with celeriac and truffle puree, apple caramel and apple jelly- http://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recipes/scallop-celeriac-recipe - I learned the best way to cook scallops perfectly. 30secs on a searing heat before flipping them and putting them in the oven for 1 min, every time.

            The Duck course was the biggest success, further proof that often the simplest dish can be the most effective if the flavours are right. Duck with braised lettuce, pea and bacon. If anybody is planning on going on come dine with me anytime soon I strongly advise you take a similar view to me and always slow cook, because the most irritating thing to do during a dinner party is frazzle your hair, melt your make up and set the fire alarm off while overcooking a piece of meat. http://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recipes/slow-cooked-gressingham-duck-legs-recipe

For the carb garnish I turned to Nigella, a women who taught me that butter is the answer to everything with her really quick roast potatoes, another cheat. The only thing I did different from her simple method of deep frying gnocchi was use a dash of truffle oil and add garlic to the oil for flavour, delicious.

            For the final course I wanted to do something unusual (although I’m not sure anything can top the pigs ears I once insisted upon serving up for one of my parents dinner parties, thank you so much to them for putting up with that). I chose an Avocado mousse with dark chocolate ganache but decided that that simply wasn’t enough. http://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recipes/avocado-lime-chocolate-parfait-recipe So I accompanied the dish with a raspberry coulis, chocolate shard and pine nut brittle for added crunch, surprisingly delicious. (although it did melt a little in the heat of the kitchen). 

Macarooooon

Macarooooon

            My mother had the wonderful opportunity this year to work in Paris for a couple of weekends. Being the fair, equal rights sort of person that she is, we each got a weekend. She first took my dad (only fair, he is the oldest), then my sister got a chance and finally me. The only issue was that she happened to pick the weekend right at the end of term, but just before choir tour so naturally all the musicians in the university had been in the pub the night before. I had to be in London early for the Eurostar so I of course just dragged myself out of bed without bothering with make-up or contact lenses or brushing my hair for that matter, figuring I could do that all on the train, and anyone up at that hour was crazy anyway so they wouldn’t care what I looked like. What I had failed to factor in was the large number of people with a similar agenda leaving Cambridge on the same train. Not only was there no space, let alone a seat for me to make myself look like a normal human being, but also I was forced to make conversation all the way down to London looking like a trampled hag.

            This wasn’t the only issue of the downward journey. I had forgotten my phone with the wilful ease of someone who believes a phone wouldn’t be necessary and that it might be nice to have a couple of days detoxing from constant communication. A brilliant idea but I now had no way to contact my mum who I was meant to be meeting somewhere in the vague interior of St Pancras. There was less than 30mins to go before the Eurostar left when I finally decided that I had no option but to ask the nearest policeman to borrow his IPhone, sometimes it helps to be an innocent looking girl.

            When we finally arrived in Paris I was left to wander while my mother did the work she was actually there to do. There was only one thing on my mind. Macaroons. I spent the entire afternoon on a blissful macaroon tour of Paris. I would spot a patisserie, wander inside, assess the quality of the macaroons and if I liked the look I would buy one (I think I totalled 8, which is a lot of sugar for one afternoon). There’s something about French macaroons that Marks and Spencers just can’t replicate. The flavour sensation is so much more vibrant and the texture is sublime. I find it hard to knock Pistachio off the top spot for flavour but the unique carrot and orange flavour I had at one place or the cassis from another almost did. In fact the only macaroon that disappointed (and we are talking very little as I find it hard to be disappointed in any macaroon) was the praline, it lacked the intense flavour of the others.

            All in all as I wandered round Paris I discovered one thing, the French are as obsessed with food as I am. They sell everything with either sexy poses or food. Handbags are surrounded by cupcakes and mannequins are adorned with baguettes. If only I had actually taken French GCSE I would happily move to Paris for good.

The Big Breakfast Dinner

The Big Breakfast Dinner

So the man who lives upstairs is coming to dinner…. (this isn’t as creepy as it sounds, there is actually a flat that is adjacent to ours).  The young man who lives upstairs frequently pops over clutching a bottle of red wine, for good food and conversation. The state of the fridge is as sorry as ever and the torrents of rain are encouraging me not to leave the house. On top of that I really need to tackle the bombsite that I have called my room for the past 3 years in an attempt to pack for my final year. There is little in the fridge aside from the chocolate making ingredients for birthday presents, at least there is some peanut butter ganache (150g Bourneville chocolate, 2 dollops of peanut butter, a pinch of cayenne melted together) that I can pass as sauce for ice cream for dessert. There is even a little pine nut brittle left over from the Dean’s dinner that would compliment this perfectly and I might even throw in a few frozen raspberries for colour, so dessert is under control.

            There is always the salmon. I feel bad that I seem to never give my parents any meat. I constantly construct my meals around fish and leftovers, and this is no exception. I spotted some mashed potato in the back and had the idea that to make things a little different I would make breakfast for dinner. I’ve never made potato pancakes before but I thought I would have a go. Potato pancakes, confit salmon, horseradish crème fraiche and green beans with almonds. So I begun by putting a good 3 inches of oil into a deep frying pan with a dash of truffle oil, a squeeze of lemon juice, peppercorns, a bay leaf and some salt. Then I whisked 2 eggs, 125ml milk, salt, pepper, lemon juice, vanilla extract and the mash together before adding a dash of baking powder and 75g flour to create my pancake batter. Then I mixed a large spoonful of horseradish into two spoonful’s of crème fraiche with black pepper and then I dry toasted some flaked almonds. Then I went to the gym, as you do.

            Feeling incredibly, virtuous, sweaty and fired up to the soundtrack of Katy Perry’s ‘Roar’, I set about finishing off the supper. It was quite a simple assembly job at this point. I set the oil to a low simmer and put the salmon in and covered it.

Meanwhile I heated a large frying pan with a knob of butter in it till melted then placed a few dollops of pancake mix in and cooked each for about 2-3mins on the bottom and 1min after flipping them. For the salmon I turned the salmon about 4mins in and cooked for a further 4mins before turning off the heat and leaving them to sit in the oil for a little. Then I steamed the green beans, drained and mixed them with the almonds and a grating of parmesan. It was quite tasty, but the pancakes could possibly have done with a drizzle of the salmon oil. Not quite breakfast but I think it’s time pancakes branched out to other meals. Is it awful to say I’m seeing the flip side of pancakes…..

                                          

Everybody needs good neighbours

Everybody needs good neighbours

            It is always an exciting moment when the neighbours come to dinner. I’d been asking my parents to throw a dinner party for ages and as an added bonus the neighbour is a fellow foodie! So since the Great British Menu website had been so successful for the Dean’s dinner I decided to replicate that success. They turned up for dinner with the man who lives upstairs thrown in for good measure and I started my cooking following a couple of glasses of champagne and a little conversation.

            My opening dilemma was that of the plates. I didn’t have enough for both starter and pudding of the square variety and my mothers suggestion that I just ‘wash them up’ led to a lecture from me that I wasn’t Cinderella and was in fact doing this party for them out of the goodness of my heart. (Who am I kidding, its more fun for me than them!) After this she kindly conjured up some extra plates from somewhere and preparation could begin. I pretty much prepped everything before(the biggest secret of my dinner parties). For the starter I had decided on goats cheese, beetroot and olive tuile. http://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recipes/goats-cheese-recipe-beetroot-black-olive I made the mousse (filling my beloved piping bags) and chopped the beetroot with ease and the balsamic glaze was easy too. The tuile I approached with difficulty. My hands may be somewhat numbed thanks to years of thinking I was too good for oven gloves but it is still a challenge to shape tuiles when they are incredibly hot but harden as soon as they cool. I think if I made tuiles again I would invest in a silicon mat, because the hardest part was making the mixture thin enough on the baking tray and a silicon mat would have helped this process as well as allowing me to shape it without leaving burns all over my fingers. After about 7 attempts I had enough misshapen tuiles to pass off in the starter and actually felt rather proud that I had been teaching myself more diverse techniques. Yes they looked like slightly odd pieces of bark but I decided that added to the charm of the plate. I designed the plate once again in what my sister calls my Modrian style. 

            The main was my Achilles heel. The main course at the last party had been a little cold because I had taken too long plating up and here with my braised pork, wild mushroom and fondant potato it was going to be hard making the greyish meat look attractive. (I hasten to add here that apparently this was delicious, think pulled pork) http://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recipes/pork-neck-recipe-wild-mushrooms-wild-garlic The other issue I had had earlier that week was the lack of wild garlic in early September. So I messed around a little with the recipe (apologies Christoffer Hruskova). Luckily there is a very good butcher and fruit and veg stall near where I live so I managed to get the pork neck (a lovely cheap meat by the way) and a lovely mix of wild mushrooms, dried. As a pitiful compromise for the lack of wild garlic I decided to use a mix of normal garlic and spinach. That and rehydrating the mushrooms overnight made up for the lack of ingredients plus the smell of the mushrooms was amazing as they rehydrated. I also substituted the berries with goji berries (apparently a superfood) and figured truffle was too expensive so used truffle oil instead. This was almost the most successful dish of the evening.

            However the real success was the mango millefeuille. For the main course my dad had opened the really good red wine and I was one glass down as I plated this up, I think it added to the overall rugged charm of the plate. An unusual dish, this veered away from my usual devotion to modern French style cooking. My dad was even keen on the caramelized chilli (I expect the gold leaf on top helped too, people are generally like magpies).  http://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recipes/caramel-mille-feuille-recipe-mango-chilli Admittedly the pastry sheets I made were on the more obese side than the ones in Frances Atkins’ picture, and there was slightly less gold leaf, but the neighbor sent a nice card over afterwards so I must have done something right. 

(their photo not mine)

Truffled Bacon Pasta

Truffled Bacon Pasta

It’s only a few days till I go to Uni and I’ve been to London all day, for once the last thing I feel like doing is cooking. But mum and I have to eat. Because we have realised once I leave, virtually no-one is eating at home I decide that the only thing is to cook a simple pasta dish with what I can conceivably find in the freezer. The other problem is that my mum has headed out to help out at the schools ‘Boden evening’ – possibly the most middle class you can get – and I have no idea when she is back so a speedy dish is of the essence. The good news is dad is in France so we are allowed to have onions! There was a little cream and some bacon in the freezer - a carbonara would work rather well.

            When she finally walked in the door I was given my instructions with military precision, we had all of 15minutes before she returned to hoard the perfectly twee mums clothes that make up Boden. She was rather chuffed with her purchases, and at a discount. So I was looking for a very quick meal. I chopped up the half frozen bacon and fried it, simultaneously boiling pasta in another pan. I sprinkled a little salt on to the bacon and at this point spotted some dried mushrooms in the cupboard so I rehydrated them with a small amount of boiling water. When the bacon was crispy I added the whole lot of mushrooms and water to the pan, a little more salt, some chopped garlic and some dried herbs de provence. Thyme would be the best herb at this point but I had none. (pardon the pun) I let it bubble a little before adding a splash of sherry vinegar, some cream and a drizzle of truffle oil (my new favourite ingredient – lifts any dish). I added beans to the pasta’s last few minutes of cooking then poured a little pasta water into the sauce, drained the pasta and mixed the sauce in. Good thing there was enough leftover for lunch the next day – even better cold.