Celebrating an engagement
Andy and Emma get hitched! Or plan to. Sometime. In the future.
So Andy proposed to Emma (friends of The Whole Milk Club). This is a BIG thing (I'm told), so we thought we would cook and open a bottle of Champagne in their honour.
Usually, we use a mixture of recipes from books and made up by ourselves when we entertain, but on this occasion we felt creative and designed the entire menu. We started by deciding on a few main ingredients, then putting together three dishes. For once, we did some experimenting earlier in the week, and on the morning of the meal we dashed out to a well known DIY store to purchase a blow torch.
Here is what we came up with and the wines we paired with them:
King Scallops, bhaji, fresh mango, yoghurt, passion fruit chutney
Machherndl Kolmütz Grüner Veltliner 2014
Honey truffled torchon of smoked chicken, woodland stuffing, potato & celeriac foam, sautéed potato, sherry jus
Bestheim Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Mambourg 2012
Toasted rose water mallow, lychee jelly, raspberry ice cream and coulis, rose syrup
Hugel & Fils Gewurztraminer Vendage Tardive 2003
The starter was conceived from recent dishes we have eaten. The crab dishes at La Perla and Restaurant 23, in particular. (see previous posts)
Dessert was inspired by the flavours in Pierre Hermé's famous "Ispahan" macaron.
The Main course was completely created by the ingredients we already had at home!
Generously, our guests brought a selection of cheese with them, along with truffled honey from the Fine Cheese Co. (We pick our friends carefully). We served it between the chicken and dessert and drank a bottle of Patricius Tokaj "Katinka" 2013. Delicious!