Dan's Birthday Dinnerparty

My friend Dan celebrated his mid-thirty birthday last week, so this was a little celebration dinner, hosted by myself and attended by Dan and his partner Elizabeth. For some odd reason I had a 'No' in the diary column next to Elizabeth's preferences - but when I rang her up to ask how bad her diary intolerence was, she told me she didn't have one, liked diary, and I'd actually asked her that before. So much for my vaunted documentation! This was quite pleasing though, as it put the tumeric sauce I'd removed from the menu back on it.

Dan & Elizabeth brought the alcohol; a very nice bottle of New Zealand methode champanoise (not that I'm biased or anything!) and a smooth and lovely bottle of Merlot.

The meal was as follows:

Entrée: Panfried Scallops on Couscous with a Turmeric Honey Sauce
These were beautiful, hugely fat Scallops from the traditional fishmonger in Turnham Green. About £1 each, and an absolute steal at that price when you compare them to the thin, flabby specimens seen at Tescos for the same price. The Turmeric Sauce is a recipe I originally made up for fresh anchovies, and I fiddled with it a bit. It has quite a strong, mellow taste that really complements the shellfish. Sadly, you really have to use fresh turmeric with it - trying it with dried turmeric is the difference between freshly made macaroni cheese and boxed Kraft macaroni cheese. (ick) These recipes employ a reasonable amount of sherry, mostly because I think Scallops + Sherry = Match Made in Heaven.

Turmeric & Honey Sauce
150 ml very heavy cream
2 inches of fresh turmeric
1 Tb Honey
Sherry, several splashes/tablespoons
1 tsp cornflour
1 pinch salt

Peel the turmeric. I strongly suggest you use gloves.
Grate the turmeric. If you haven't used gloves, your hands by now are stained a delightful shade of Van Gogh yellow for the next week.
Put the cream and turmeric in a saucepan and heat gently for ten minutes to seethe the turmeric. The turmeric will not only colour the cream a brilliant sunflower yellow, but also any non-metal objects you care to stick in the pan.
With the sauce at a rolling simmer, add the sherry and honey and stir until the honey is dissolved.
Add some of the sauce to a teaspoon of cornflour and stir until dissolved.
Add the cornflour mixture to the sauce, stir in and then keep on a low simmer for about ten minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens.
Taste. Season. Use white pepper rather than black, if you have it (purely for aesthetic reasons).

Scallops
Gordon Ramsay, quoted from "Olive" Magazine, Dec 2004 issue, p.30

"Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a large non-stick frying pan until it is just smoking. Put the scallops in the pan evenly starting at 12 o'clock and working around the edge, so you'll know when to turn them. They need about 30 seconds on each side so once you get around to the top again start turning them over, then when you reach the top again take them out. Put them on kitchen paper on a plate."

Couscous
1/2 cup Couscous
1 handful of Coriander, chopped finely
1 cup Water
1 dash Sherry

Put the couscous in a bowl.
Boil the water and pour over couscous.
Add sherry and half the chopped coriander and cover.
Let stand for 10 - 15 minutes.
Stir in the rest of the coriander just before dishing up.

Putting it all together
Reheat the sauce if necessary.
Ladle the couscous into the middle of the plate.
Place the scallops on top. We ended up with 4 halves each.
Ladle turmeric sauce on top of the scallops.
Garnish with a piece of fresh parsley and serve.

Soup: Chilled Chilli-Melon
This was really a bit of an experiment. I'd been looking through various cold soup recipes (it's been hot) and this developed from there. Initially I was going to try cucumbers, but then I decided a sweet base would work better with the contrasting ingredientss. Prettymuch all the European recipes had cream in them, but I wanted a crisper edge to the taste and didn't want to dilute the flavor with diary. So this derives from both Thai and European cold melon soup recipes. We decided that it needed a couple of tweaks - firstly, it needed to be processed longer, into more of a liquid (it also thickened a bit in the fridge). Secondly, more chilli needed to be added. Elizabeth and I could taste it but Dan couldn't (the man has an asbestos mouth when it comes to spicy foods though!). Dan (also a keen cook) suggested an alternate topping could be shredded and toasted Black Forest Ham - definitely a good idea. Other than that we all liked this and thought it was definitely worth repeating. Here's the revised recipe:

Chilled Chilli-Melon Soup
1 1/2 Galia Melons (Honeydew or any other similar sweet melon would work)
150 ml dry Cava/Champagne/Methode Champagnoise
1 medium hot green chilli (or hotter if you like "HOT!"), sliced very very thinly into shreds
1 inch cube fresh ginger, grated
1/2 tsp white pepper
1 rasher Bacon or equivalent of Black Forest Ham per person
Butter

Cut the melons in half and de-seed them. There's one half left over for breakfast.
Cut the flesh of the melon out and put it in the food processor (if you don't have one, it's a messy job with a hand masher for you!).
Add the champagne, grated ginger, pepper and most of the sliced chilli pieces.
Whizz until liquidised finely.
Taste. Adjust ingredients to taste.
It's best to leave this overnight for the taste to develop, so add any further chilli to the strength you require.
Just before serving, cut the bacon rashers/ham slices into strips and fry in butter until crispy.
Taste soup and if you aren't using bacon, season with salt.
Garnish soup with bacon/ham crispies and serve.

  Main: Stuffed Quail with Berry Sauce on Alfafa bedding, Sweet Potato Mash, and Asparagus & Pea Jelly
The Quail were bought at Macken Bros Butchers in Turham Green, neatly stuffed and trussed already. I love it when someone else does all the fiddly bits for me! They were absolutely delicious - tender, tasty, nice texture, and the herby stuffing complemented them well. I just popped them into the oven at GM7 for 25 minutes with a brushing of oil and then they were done.

The Berry Sauce was a reduction of a pot of Yeo Valley Organic Red Fruit Compôte (a blend of strawberries, apples, blackcurrants, blackberries and organic sugar) with a splash or two of red wine and some powder forte. The Sweet Potatoes were cooked the night before, then seasoned and mashed with cream and some chiffonaded flatleaf parsley. I reheated and then moulded it into rounds with rings (very twee!). Simple, but very yummy and went down particularly well.

The Asparagus & Pea Jelly, also made the night before, was a bit of a disaster - I put it in the bottom of my housemates' fridge, which was turned down too low, so it froze. Argh. The peas were inedible (Tina peas! Tina peas!) but the asparagus was OK as they hadn't absorbed the liquid so much. It was rather a waste of good asparagus though. Here's how it was supposed to go:

Asparagus & Pea Jelly
2 Sheets Leaf Gelatine
400 ml Boiling Water
50 ml Vermouth
200 gm Asparagus Spears
1 cup Peas

Soften the leaf gelatine in cold water.
Cook the asparagus at a rolling simmer until just tender (4 - 5 minutes). Remove from water.
Use the water to cook the peas. Remove from water.
Measure out 400 ml of the water. Strain any pieces out of it.
Add the gelatine to the boiling water and vermouth, and stir until it has dissolved.
Lay the asparagus on the bottom of your dish (or dishes).
Cover with the gelatine liquid.
Place the peas on top of the asparagus.
Cover with the gelatine liquid.
Let it cool on the bench for 15 minutes then put it in the fridge for at least a couple of hours to gel.

Dessert: Indian Jelly Sweets Whose Names I Don't Remember and Mango Sorbet
A very nice Indian sweetshop has opened at the new supermarket complex beside my train station, and I intend to eat my way through every single sweet. I started off with these delectable looking offerings - aren't the colours just gorgeous? The flavors were: Yellow - Pineapple, Green - Pistachio, Orange - Mango, Red - Raspberry. The Pineapple was tasty but almost impossibly chewy, although Dan was very keen on it. I thought the raspberry was uninteresting, but the other two were delicious. The Mango Sorbet was snaffled from my housemate Tanya's freezer and was also tasty.

Social-wise, I had a great time (thank you Dan and Elizabeth for being such lovely guests). Foodwise, it was a pleasant dinner. A few too many minor errors to make it wonderful to my mind, but not bad.

Comments

[johanna]

oh wow - this looks absolutely delicious! i wish i had friends like you! instead, i spent my husband's birthday yesterday at Le Cercle, which comes highly commended, but even despite being seated next to a table of absolute ignorants reeking of cheap perfume and talking far too loud in the broadest sociolect the food was quite disappointing. i will take some time to blog about it, but i wish i had been invited to Dan't soiree instead ;-)

[Thalia]

What a lovely sounding meal. I shop at both those places on Turnham Green, but now want to know where the indian sweet shop is!

I still can't see some of your posts (e.g., Navarros) - do you know what the problem is?