Dinner party

[ghoti_mhic_uait]

I love having dinner parties, they make feel competent, plus the artifical ruleset of laying out the cutlery, and course order, and so on, is rather like a game and if I feel overwhelmed I can dive into the kitchen.

Yesterday we had one which was all chocolate, because it was Tom's first and he's rather fond of chocolate.



We had:

Cocoa flat breads with avocado in cocoa balsamic, mango & cocoa nib yoghurt and salted vinegar

Love the flat breads, will make again, generally good balance of flavours

Pomegranate Soup
So simple so delicious! Pomegranate juice, pomegranate powder, celery salt, and a splash of cocoa balsamic.

Roquefort & Cranberry endives
The cranberry sauce had both cocoa and cocoa balsamic in. But, roquefort cream with whole cranberries fried in cranberry sauce and walnuts on endive leaf.

Beetroot pavlova
|This was my weakest dish in some ways, because the meringue kind of didn't. But beetroot meringe, tofu ganache (made iwth white chocolate horseradish) and beetroot carpaccio (with more of the cocoa balsamic) From the Hotel Chocolat cookbook (as were the flatbreads above)

Rainbow salad (from Hotel Chocolat book)
goats cheese balls rolled in crushed walnuts and cocoa nibs, puy lentils with spring onion, and roast butternut squash/sweet potato. Recipe said have it all at room temperature, I'd have preferred it with hot vegetables, I think.

Sorbet
cocoa and mixed berries

Savoury millefeuille

WHite chocolate dulche de leche

Sparkle cake with poached pears.

THe cake didn't sparkle, but was delicious. Must try again, maybe even for Pesach?


And I made chocolate covered coffee jellies - coffee with a few drops of cardomom extract, vegegel to set firm, coated in dark chocolate - and white chocolate stuffed apricots - white chocolate melted with cream and chai latte spices - to go with cheese and biscuits. I didn't make the biscuits, they were Waitrose.

Wine as asked by T:

I didn't get wine for every course, and I forgot to buy sherry at all so delegated to Tom. But I got four wines, paired to important courses.

For the endives (but also soup and pavlova), a white burgundy. Endives and white burgundy is fantastic pairing, as is anything sharp or vinegary.

For the salad, a pinot grigio. We drink a lot of pinot grigio because it pairs so well with light mushroom dishes, sweet potatoes, slightly sweet savoury dishes, or our general diet choices. (For spicy I go Vinho Verde by default.)

For the millefeuille, a Chilean Merlot, which worked really well with the earthy deep notes of the dish.

For pudding, a moscatel, again, my preference for creamy or very sweet dishes, and I used some to poach the pears so obviously it was going to work.

I'm putting a lot of work into wine pairings at the moment, and I feel like it's paying off, so it was really gratifying that fivemack agrees.

Comments

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

It was delicious and amazing; I would never have thought of mushrooms in chocolate sauce, but they were spectacular. The sparkle cake was so concentratedly splendidly a chocolate thing that I don't think I'd have been able to eat more than the one and a quarter portions I had, which is not something I would ever have foreseen myself saying about chocolate. The beetroot carpaccio was so pretty with the candy-swirls in the beetroot. And oh the white chocolate apricots.

(would you mind adding the wine pairings? so much tasty wine!)

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

Also you were even more pretty than you normally are.

[kaberett.livejournal.com]

you are ADORABLE and also I love reading about your dinner parties and cooking!

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

Thank you on both counts :)

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

I feel I ought to confirm that ghoti is, indeed, adorable and I am amazingly fond of her

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

:P that was a plural you.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

Wow, that sounds amazing :-)

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

It was pretty good :)

[naath.livejournal.com]

omnomnom chocolate

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

:)

[stephdairy.livejournal.com]

A lovely evening, with fabulous food throughout! The mille feuille was probably my favourite course, but I loved it all!

(Sorry I turned into a pumpkin so soon afterwards!)

(S)

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

Thank you for coming :) Everyone turned into a pumpkin just after you, so don't worry!

[liv]

It was amazing amazing amazing, so delicious that I am basically still blissed out. I loved the roquefort endives, which is another of your clever things where you put together a lot of ingredients I don't really like and make something wonderful.