I have found a soulmate at school – somebody who is obsessed with food as much as I am (she must be, she used to be a chef). She is extremely knowledgeable and knows which ingredients go well together and how to pair food and wine, also knows which cheese to choose, what vegetables are in season and where to buy the best food at Borough market. Whenever she talks about food, I wish I had a dictaphone, because I’m scared I’ll forget everything. I want to know that much about food as well! One day maybe…
Actually I feel more comfortable in the kitchen than I did a year ago – around the time when I started this blog – so this is progress, right? I guess it all comes with practice. Same time next year I’ll be making tender horseradish terrine with one hand and chicken liver mousse with other, and in the mean time, put together a roasted cod with sea beans and oysters and matzo almond brittles. Or maybe that is too ambitious. After all, it’s the credit crunch, nobody could obviously afford to buy oysters.
Enough of that. Actually I wanted to tell you about a dinner party I recently hosted with my friend. It was great fun putting together the menu, discussing the seasonal food and shopping for the necessary ingredients. To everyone who is planning a dinner party – or just likes to cook – keep an eye on the BBC’s seasonal calendar. It’ll give you the list of ingredients that are in season and suggest the recipes to use. A very useful tool!
But now about the dinner party. This was the table setting.
This was the menu:
Sea scallops with winter salad & salsa verde
Veal cacciatore with polenta & bitter greens
Cheese
Petits Fours
We started with rich seared scallops with crunchy salad of white beans and red onion, topped with oven-roasted bread. I hope I remember the recipe:
# Soak cannellini beans in water overnight. On the day of the dinner, boil the beans in salted water together with a carrot and an onion (cut into two), a couple of bay leaves and rosemary springs. When beans are ready (still a bit crunchy, not mushy) drain them, and save the stock (you can use it for soups or whatever you wish the next day).
# Prepare salsa verde: mix 2 tbsp coarsely chopped parsley with minced garlic clove, 1 tbsp capers and 100 ml olive oil. Add lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. For smooth consistency, you might want to blend the sauce. We didn’t.
# Chop red onion and sauté in oil to bring out the flavour. Then mix onions with the boiled beans. Stir in generous handful of chopped parsley and black olives, also add a tablespoon of capers. Season with salsa verde and lemon juice.
# Prepare the bread: place bread slices on an oven dish, drizzle with a little bit of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Toast at 180 degrees C for about 10 minutes, or until the bread is crunchy (not burned).
# Prepare the scallops just before serving the dish. Here are some tips for searing the scallops. I learned from my friend that you need to wash scallops with ice-cold water and make sure that they are patted dry before you start searing them, otherwise they will not brown. That is the reason why my seafood snacks did not brown (I placed them on a grill pan ‘wet’, straight after removing from the marinade). Also, the pan needs to be hot when you start searing the scallops. To prevent olive oil from burning, take a spring of rosemary leave and twirl it on the pan in the hot oil for a couple of seconds prior searing the scallops.
# To serve: place the salad on the serving plate, top with scallops (we used 2 scallops per portion) and bread. Drizzle with salsa verde and serve.
For the main course, we served veal with polenta and sauteed pak choi.
For veal, we used this recipe. My friend did most of the work, seasoning and browning the huge veal shoulder and chopping all the stuff for the sauce. I was basically watching and taking notes. We cooked the veal the day before, so that in case we mess it up, we would still have time to buy some roast chicken at the local Morrison’s. Luckily, everything went well. I had some trouble slicing the veal (it was a HUGE piece of meat) – so here’s a tip: if you are buying a veal shoulder for 6 people, make sure it is properly sealed together, otherwise the slices won’t hold together.
Witnessing the cooking of polenta was also a new experience for me. At first glance, it seemed super-easy: just boil the water, add salt and stir cornmeal into the bubbling water, keep stirring for about an hour [sic!], then add butter and grated Parmesan cheese and serve. Make sure you don’t add the polenta too quickly to the water or it will turn lumpy (in the end, we needed to sieve some of the polenta, but it was still quite creamy). Check the approximate quantities here. All in all, polenta is easy to make, you just have to make sure that you have :
a) a right-sized heavy-bottomed pan (if the pan is not very big, it is hard to stir)
b) boiling water at hand so that you could add it to the polenta when there is a need; and
c) strong biceps for stirring.
Cook it slowly, stirring constantly, over very low heat. The hot polenta may spatter as it cooks, so use a long-handled wooden spoon. Here are some more tips for polenta:
■ Use a whisk when adding polenta to simmering water.
■ A flat, wooden paddle is the best stirring device and will help prevent lumps.
■ Keep stove heat low while stirring.
■ Add salt to water and check for seasoning before allowing polenta to set.
■ Polenta can be cooked in stock instead of water for extra flavour.
■ Slabs of cooked, set polenta can be frozen, but will be watery. Drain well before using.
■ Too much butter or cheese will prevent setting.
■ Add a little extra water for soft polenta and serve immediately.
■ The leftover can be cooked in the oven the next day.
For the greens, we washed and chopped pak choi (placed stems and leaves on separate bowls) and sautéed with oil just before serving. First sauté the stems and then add the leaves – otherwise, the leaves will go mushy.
When serving the dish, place a generous spoonful of polenta on the plate, top with a slice of veal, sauce and greens and sprinkle with chopped parsley. Voila!
Cheese course was served with fresh bread and quince paste - something I have to admit that I tasted for the first time in my life. It was great!
We decided to offer petits fours instead of a ‘proper’ dessert as the cheese course was quite rich – and also, because I did not have enough plates for 3 courses for 6 people…but it turned out quite well. Petits fours consisted of almond biscotti and truffles. For the latter, I used the recipes that I have tried before: oreo truffles, white chocolate truffles with pepper-warm coating and peanut butter truffles, experimenting a bit with the latter by adding some Baileys to some of the batter. Also, different from Bakerella’s recipe, I coated oreo truffles in dark chocolate and then in unsweetened cocoa powder – there is obviously no such thing as TOO much chocolate in a truffle.
The biscotti came out quite nice as well. Firstly, I have to say that I had no idea making biscotti can be that easy! If you want to impress your guests, biscotti should definitely be on your menu – just don’t tell anyone that those divine Italian cookies are super-easy to make. The recipe is below; note that there is no butter in the recipe – that is no mistake (you don’t need it):
# Toast 150 g almonds at 160 degrees C for about 10 minutes. Cool and chop coarsely. Set aside.
# Mix 300 g flour, 1 tsp baking powder and ¾ tsp aniseed (I did not have it at hand, so I used cardamon instead).
# In another bowl, combine 3 eggs, 200 g sugar and a bit of lemon zest (not necessary if using cardamon). Using a mixer, beat the batter into thick consistency.
# Carefully fold flour into the batter. Add chopped almonds.
# Prepare two loafs of ‘bread’ from the batter on a pan covered with parchment paper (make sure that there is enough room between the loafs, about 8 cm, otherwise the loafs might melt into one big biscotti). Bake at 180 degrees C for about 25 minutes.
# Using a sharp bread knife, slice the hot loafs into 1-cm thick slices, place them back on the pan and roast in the oven at 160 degrees C for 10 more minutes to get the crunchy texture.
# Store in covered container at room temperature (not in the fridge).
It was a lovely evening and we agreed to continue the dinner party tradition. Actually I have already learned about the secrets and wonders of Indian cuisine. Will blog about this experience shortly. In the mean time, keep on cooking!
