Celebration Dinners!
Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2016 9:27 am
A thread for us to showcase dinners we are planning to celebrate particular events, to explain our choices and offer constructive criticism, advice and tips.
I'm planning a dinner for two guys I work with, one German, the other French, both in their mid twenties and good friends, to celebrate Tom (the French one) finally passing his degree after six years of study and repeated failures of each year (another story). Since he's been working at the shop I've been bullying him, cajoling him, bribing him and generally driving him from behind to get him through. This dinner is my final bribe to get him over the last hurdle, a dinner cooked by me and Mrs P for him and is best mate. Tom is a gastronome who lives on crap because he's too lazy to cook proper food, and so I'm going to serve him crap elevated to the gastronomic.
For appetisers with a glass of champagne I'll serve simply kalamata olives and ciabatta with a balsamic/oil dip.
Starters of thin and crispy pepperoni pizza (small pieces) with grated parmesan, oil and truffle and a small dressing of light salad leaves.
Next comes char grilled fillet steak (medium rare), three times cooked French fries and sun-blush tomatoes with a wine reduction used to deglaze the pans. Just a teaspoon of this on each steak. Warm crusty bread to mop up the steak juice.
In a nod to Toms frenchness we'll have our cheese next before dessert - a roqforte, a cruncher and a stinking bishop ( to show that we can do the hard stuff here as well) - then finally, round off with a sticky toffee pudding and melting marmalade ice cream.
Coffee and petit fours and a glass of brandy to dot the i's and cross the t's.
I'm planning a dinner for two guys I work with, one German, the other French, both in their mid twenties and good friends, to celebrate Tom (the French one) finally passing his degree after six years of study and repeated failures of each year (another story). Since he's been working at the shop I've been bullying him, cajoling him, bribing him and generally driving him from behind to get him through. This dinner is my final bribe to get him over the last hurdle, a dinner cooked by me and Mrs P for him and is best mate. Tom is a gastronome who lives on crap because he's too lazy to cook proper food, and so I'm going to serve him crap elevated to the gastronomic.
For appetisers with a glass of champagne I'll serve simply kalamata olives and ciabatta with a balsamic/oil dip.
Starters of thin and crispy pepperoni pizza (small pieces) with grated parmesan, oil and truffle and a small dressing of light salad leaves.
Next comes char grilled fillet steak (medium rare), three times cooked French fries and sun-blush tomatoes with a wine reduction used to deglaze the pans. Just a teaspoon of this on each steak. Warm crusty bread to mop up the steak juice.
In a nod to Toms frenchness we'll have our cheese next before dessert - a roqforte, a cruncher and a stinking bishop ( to show that we can do the hard stuff here as well) - then finally, round off with a sticky toffee pudding and melting marmalade ice cream.
Coffee and petit fours and a glass of brandy to dot the i's and cross the t's.
definitely a feast