The Night before the Dinner Party

I’m hosting a bit of a dinner party tomorrow night, a small affair. Originally inviting 2 couples, work commitments mean that that only 3 people are coming. There is a bit of an old fashioned theme going on, think early 80’s; courses are asparagus soup, prawn cocktail, beef wellington and finally a tiramisu..
Now I will try to bring these up to date but the retro feel is important. Lots of Soft Cell and Human League as ambient music.
Shakira has shopped for me and so tonight I thought I could prepare a few things to get them out of the way for tomorrow, namely the soup and the duxelle for the wellington.

Asparagus Soup

1kg of asparagus stalks including woody bits
900ml of chicken stock
150 g of water cress
1 medium onion
75g butter
2 cloves garlic

Melt the butter in a v large pan and chop onion and garlic. In a separate pan bring the chicken stock to a simmer. I have to admit here, given the paucity of chicken wings / thighs in the supermarket here in Jamaica, I bought the stock ready made. This is fine particularly as it was unsalted stock, do not use a stock cube as it will overpower everything else in the soup.
After the onion and garlic have fried for about 3 minutes, so softened rather than browned, add the asparagus. To make life easier, you should chop this into chunks, but not necessary. After about 10 minutes, cover the asparagus with the simmering chicken stoc. Put a lid on the pan and simmer for abot15 minutes. After 5 minutes add the watercress, chopped.
Separate the veg from the broth with a colander and whizz up the veg in a blender. Put the pureed veg and about ¾ of the broth in a pan and brong back to a simmer for 5 minutes. This is when you season, and don’t be afraid of the salt.
Now the hard part. Not difficult, just strenuous. Because we used the full stalks of the asparagus, we need to sieve out the woody bits. Pour the soup into a sieve and press through with the back of a wooden spoon. Because I am serving this tomorrow, and I want to protect the delicate flavours, I sieved this into a metal bowl, which was in an ice bath of a bigger metal bowl. This is a very good idea as it would be a pain in the arse to do all this contemporaneously with guests and preparing all the other stuff would render the effort / effect ratio too much on the effort side.
Chilled now, I will be microwaving tomorrow night and serving with a truffle cream. I think this might need livening up with a shot or two of cinzano bianco, or possibly a pastisse, but we’ll wait for the reaction tomorrow before we decide.
The more well read recipe heads wil have spotted thia as a slight bastardisation of Gordon Ramsay recipe. Gordon if you chance upon this blog, sorry, but good ideas are good ideas.

Mushroom duxelle.

For me the duxelle is the difference between a dry beef pie and a good wellington. The wellington is coming tomorrow but the duxelle can be made tonight and chilled.

500g mushrooms (brown caps would be nice but I’ll take anything available in Jamaica)
50g butter
1 large shallot
2 cloves garlic
1 cup marsala
1 cup Armagnac
1 fois gras entitier

Poach the fois gras in the Armagnac. After 5 to 6 minutes or so, remove the fois gras, add the marsala and turn up the heat, reducing the liquid.
In a separate skillet melt the butter, and add the garlic and after a minute add the mushrooms. For a really rich flavor some black truffles could be added, but I felt this would be overkill. When the mushrooms have cooked in the butter, transfer to the reduced brandy and marsala mixture. Mash the fois gras through the mixture. Simmer the mixture until the liquid has evaporated. You will need to keep stirring this. This can be stored in the fridge overnight. The butter will harden in the fridge, so the mixture has to be removed for a hour or so to be allowed to soften for spreading around the beef.

An idea for Christmas update

The book club Christmas drinks is today and I only got around last night to trying out the duffles. Fort the test I bought ingredients rather than got to too much hassle only for it not to work. Not being able to buy a pudding I used a moist Jamaican Christmas cake, reformed into balls. Ambrosia Devon custard injected into the middle and then rolled in icing sugar.

The main problem I found were that the cake was a little dry and did not hold its shape well. Plum pudding, as it is much stickier may have been better. Also, I found that small balls did not hold custard very well. The needle I was using for filling wasn’t ideal, but it was more a problem of size. Larger ball could hold a decent amount of custard, but the balance is still not quite right as there is a exponentially more cake. They looked too big too.

Anyway, have to put this down as a current failure, though will be working on them at a future stage. In the meantime, I have a pressing issue with what to serve tomorrow night. I have a little pastry left over from the beef wellington I cooked on Saturday, so it will probably just be mince pies. These will still be well received as they are not at all common in Jamaica. A little bit boring though. You will have noticed that the Wellington recipe is included in a later blog entry about the dinner party. I’m playing fast and loose with time lines but it is my weblog.

With all the effort saved by simply knocking out a few mince pies, I have decided to do a bit of a savoury dish to do; Mini ham dinners. These consist of a roast potato slice topped with a good dollop of bread sauce with a hunk of roast ham and garnished with a teaspoon of a Christmas chutney.

As it is intended to be finger food, the potato slices should be only less than 1cm thick and about 3 or 4 cm in diameter. These can be made in advance, but it is better to do prepare these to be ready just before assembling so that they retain the crispiness and fluffiness of being straight out of the oven. Par boil the roast potato slices, and roast in a baking tray for 15 minutes each side. I use a mixture of half olive oil, have canola oil for roasting, and a generous sprinkling of Maldon sea salt. Pat dry with kitchen towels to remove the extraneous oil before assembly. Asbestos finger come in handy for this.

For the bread sauce, you will want it thicker than would normally be served for a turkey dinner. Making it the night before will get a good aromatic flavor and the sauce will naturally thicken. My bread sauce recipe is very straightforward. Peel and half an onion. Stud a hand full of cloves in this and add to a sauce pan of about 250ml of double cream and 250 ml of milk. Add a few bay leaves and 3 or 4 whole pimento corns. Bring to the boil and remove from the heat. Cover and let stand for 30 minutes. Crumb 8 to 10 slices of slightly stale while bread in a food processor or blender (I remove the crusts to keep a whiter sauce). Remove the onion, bay and pimento from the infused cream and begin to stir in breadcrumbs until a smooth slightly thick sauce is achieved. The consistency is a matter of choice. I like it to coat the back of a spoon and not much more. Add a stick of butter in chunks with will melt in the residual heat in the sauce. If making the night before, store in the fridge with 2 of the bay leaves, 2 of the pimento corns, and the outside layer of one of the onions with a few of the cloves removed all submerged.

For expediency the ham I used for the party was simply 2 chubs of pre-cooked ham. I brought these to the boil in cold water and then poured the water off, to remove some of the saltiness. I did this is in a large le Creuset pot, which means I don’t have to worry about roasting pans and tin foil, though if I was doing a large leg of ham this would not be possible. There was no rind on the chubs, nor much fat to form the sticky glaze, so the “roasting” was more like steaming. To the le Creuset add a generous glass of pale cream sherry or two, and a number of bay leaves, few pimento corns and stick the hams with a few cloves. Cover with the lid and bake in the oven on a high temperature for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven, ensure there is enough liquid remaining at the bottom of the pot, and pour 2 or 3 table spoons of honey over each ham. Don’t be afraid to add another splash of sherry. Put back in the oven and after a further 15 minutes. Remove the lid, add a further table spoon or two of honey to each ham and return to the oven for a final 5 minutes.

If you are doing the ham the night before, it should be sliced down in to hearty chunks and stored in the fridge in Tupperware. Deglaze the pan with water to form a liquid to add to the Tupperware to ensure the ham remains moist. Before assembly, this can be microwaved in the sauce to heat thoroughly without drying.

Top with a chrismas chutney, either a store bought, or home made. In this case because of the aromatics of the overnight infused breadsauce and ham, I have decided against a chutney wih more of the same, and gone for a simple sweet and tangy tomato chutney. Waitrose tomato chutney is a good store bought example.

An idea for Christmas

It appears that it is not necessity that is the mother of invention, it is the wife entertaining. I have to come up with something Christmassy, finger food and sweet. Mince pies are obvious, but I like to be different. I am a big fan of Christmas pudding (especially fried in bacon fat for breakfast) and fancied doing something with this.

I want a pretty moist pudding which I can scoop out and roll into little balls. These I will dust with icing sugar and then inject with a little crème anglaise (hope they hold). These are to serve with coffee like little Chrismassy truffles, or duffles as I have decided to call them.

Finding a pudding might be a little problematic in Jamaica, so I might be making my first pudding too!