Filling the Gap

On Saturday 21st September, I will be hosting a 3 course dinner to help me raise funds for my gap year. My passion for cooking has grown a lot over the past 2 or 3 years so I am really excited about this opportunity to cook for so many friends and to have a go at large scale catering. The menu (see below) is the product of almost a year's thinking, planning, experimenting and testing. I have combined recipes, altered recipes and made up recipes. As far as possible, everything will be home made my myself or one of my fabulous kitchen helpers!

The Practical Details:
Date: Saturday 21st September 2013
Time: Arrive at 6.30pm, first course served at 7pm
Tickets: £10 per person (£5 of which covers food costs, the other £5 goes towards my gap year projects). Tables are for 6 people. If you'd like to book a table, please get in touch. If you don't want a whole table, get in touch anyway and I'll see if I can match you up with someone else!
Bring: Your own drinks and glasses, and an appetite!

The Menu (with my commentary in blue!):

Starter

Smoked Salmon & Chive Pâté – served with hand made oatcakes and salad leaves from my kitchen garden. This pâté is light but full of flavour. I have been making these oatcakes every Christmas for at least 6 years and they are always very popular in my house!

Basil & Goats Cheese Pinwheel – a delicate spiral of soufflé sponge filled with ricotta, goats cheese, sundried tomatoes and a generous sprinkling of home grown basil. Served hot with salad leaves. (V) An interesting but really delicious, summery option. The combination of goats cheese, tomatoes and basil give it a bold Mediterranean flavour. Don't let the fact it's vegetarian put you off if you're a meat lover!

Creamy Tomato Soup – home made soup served with a freshly baked crusty roll. (V) A safe option if you're not feeling adventurous, but tasty nonetheless! It's a warming soup with the deep flavour of tomatoes, with a lovely silky finish from the cream.

Main Course – all served with seasonal vegetables

Pesto Stuffed Chicken – chicken breast stuffed with freshly made pesto and mascarpone, wrapped in pancetta and served on a bed of mashed potato with a pesto cream sauce. This dish has been good fun to develop. Fresh pesto is the key to mouthwatering flavour of this dish. The basil for my pesto is currently growing in my greenhouse (there is an absolute forest of it, my pesto doesn't go easy on the basil!) and my recipe has changed slightly again, after my summer cooking course in Italy with Chef Claudio Piantini, where I learnt a couple of secret ingredients to improve the pesto even further. 

Lamb Curry – slow cooked lamb in a sauce of tomatoes, onions and red peppers, spiced with cumin, coriander, turmeric and a mild touch of chilli. Served with rice, home made naan bread and mango chutney. A rich, tomato based, Indian curry. Because it is cooked slowly, the lamb is very tender and the spices are aromatic. The heat is fairly mild (similar to that of a rogan josh). No curry would be complete without mango chutney or naan bread - my naans are filled with garlic and coriander and add something really special to the plate.

Vegetable and Bean Tortilla Cups– a crispy tortilla basket filled with a ragu of carrot, courgette, peppers and onions with mixed beans. Topped with sour cream and grated west country cheddar. (V) This vegetable ragu is packed with ribbons of carrot and courgette, with peppers, onions and smoked paprika (quite different to hot paprika, and one of my favourite spices!) adding a slightly Spanish twist. It is similar to a ratatouille, but the addition of pinto, haricot, red kidney and black turtle beans makes this a heartier, more interesting dish. The toasted tortilla basket adds yet another dimension to the textures in this dish. This is a Hairy Bikers inspired recipe! 

Dessert

Lemon and Almond Meringue Roulade – my almond meringue filled with  lemon curd and fresh whipped cream, served with a strawberry coulis. This became a firm family favourite from the first time I tried this recipe! It is a light dessert, with a tangy lemon curd which is balanced by the ground almonds in the meringue (which also help give it the right combination of crispy and chewy). If you're a pavlova fan, you'll love this!

Warm Chocolate Brownie –  made to my secret recipe, served with a hot, fudgy chocolate sauce and home made vanilla pod ice cream. My brownies are renowned amongst my friends, and it's all down to my secret recipe! And whilst cold brownies are good, nothing beats a warm brownie, especially when it's served with a gooey, fudgey sauce and home made ice cream with vanilla pod seeds. My brother is the ice cream making specialist in my household, so I will be enlisting his skills to get it just right. It's a rich dessert, but truly delicious - one for the chocoholic in you!

Lime Posset – a zingy, lime flavoured set cream, topped with fresh raspberries and shortbread hearts. Probably my favourite of the three desserts, although it's hard to pick, they're all so delicious! The lime flavour in the cream is very zingy and pairs perfectly with the fresh raspberries on top. Whilst this citrus flavour adds a certain lightness, the set cream is quite rich. The shortbread hearts are crumbly and buttery but provide a contrasting texture to the silky smooth cream.

Tea or Coffee and Homemade Cantuccini (Italian biscuits) will be served after dinner