Gastroporn

[desperance]

Well, it's not really porn, just a menu; but for those of you who wondered - or indeed asked - this is what I did for dinner last night with shewhomust, durham_rambler, and special guests Anne, Dick and fjm.

For cold starters - its being always easier, I think, to have food on the table before people get there - I made a ham hock - no, let's be honest, a ham shank terrine, which is the easiest thing in the world (simmer shanks with flavourful veg until tender, a couple of hours; cool in the water; flake the meat. Mix it with lots of parsley and a little of the water; pepper; stick it in a mould with weights on and chill overnight) and chicken & walnuts in a walnut mayonnaise (which I invented, as a version of Circassian chicken for a gluten-free diet. Again easy: poach chicken as above, and shred it when cold. Make mayonnaise with walnut and groundnut oil whisked into a whole egg and a tablespoon of walnut or other vinegar, a little at a time; mix with chicken, and season).

For hot starter, to follow: mushroom and pumpkin soup. Simplicity itself. Are you picking up a theme here?

Main course: confit of partridge, with Puy lentils. My post-operative feeling about this is that once the bird gets larger than a quail - which are lovely, confit'd whole - the traditional approach is probably right, that you should only confit the legs and pan-fry the breasts. I'll do that next time. On the other hand, shewhomust was surprised how well the breasts had confit'd, so I guess it's a matter of taste.

And then there was cheese, and I decided that I could get away with not making the dessert I'd planned (a kumquat and apricot compote), because people were groaning and turning faint already, so we nibbled on fjm's housegifts of marrons glaces and florentines.

And halfway through, Anne expressed astonishment at how cool I was being; but what she hadn't noticed, see, is that apart from the dessert - which I did not make - everything but everything had been cooked beforehand, because it was that kind of food, and at most needed heating up. Given that I wanted to spend the day talking to fjm and the evening being tolerably unstressed, I thought this was a good plan; the astonishment is that I managed to carry it off. Feeding people and stress go hand in hand, ordinarily; yesterday the stress got left behind, and I am pleased with myself.

Comments

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

You're always welcome down here! Although we may have to fight for the kitchen as T and I love to cook (though after reading the above, I'm not going to put up much of a struggle...)