Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Truffles

The last Hurrah, this is it, the best food I have ever cooked, paired with the best wine available. Truffles.... What more to say?

As a big final cook-off for Llew... he did truffles! We got 21 people total together from ENE (and a few outsiders) for 5 courses (plus two amuse bouche and a palette cleanser) with 6 accompanying wines.

First was Llew ordering the $620 worth, 1 pound, of snap frozen French black winter truffles.



Plus the slicer.



Preparation and pre-cooking (notice the shorts...).



First amouse bouche was a cranberry and raspberry 'caviar'. While the rest of the meal was traditional french, we needed to start with molecular cuisine, and let Llew play with his chemistry set (Calcium carbonate and sodium alginate to be exact).



Matt makes it go 'pop' on the tongue. Huh.


David says, "Interesting".

Heidi and David watch with intrigue as Noemi makes the fake caviar.



I say, "Cheers!"


Heidi says, "Hmmm".


We cleared the living room of couches and furniture and hired 2 8-foot tables. We borrowed the necessary chairs and did fit the 21 people in! Plenty of room actually.


With Llew at the head of the table to describe everything (and smiles from Teri and Kamyar).

After the amuse bouche of caviar and a cream of asparagus soup, served with proscecco, the first actual course was onions... well actually sweet onions, baked in salt (yes of the road kind that is used to de-ice in the winter here), scooped out, and filled with a cheese bechamel sauce, fried onion carvings, a raw egg yolk, thyme, truffle, more cheese sauce and a final scattering of cheese to finish. The inspiration came from Bender, a great Aussie chef :)



with more truffle sliced over the top of course.




Plating, plating, plating. Alex! Sauce NOW!


The second course was de-boned chicken stuffed with turnip greens and mushrooms, served with asparagus, roast Brussels sprouts, and a white wine beurre blanc sauce.


Between every course was the clean-up crew. We actually had enough plates, cutlery and glasses - nearly all borrowed - to do it all, but it was very necessary to clean up as we went, otherwise the end would have been baaaaaaaaad!

The third course was pasta. But not just any pasta, fresh pasta hand made that day by Atossa (her first time!) with powdered dried porcini mushrooms throughout the fresh pasta. It was tossed in butter, olive oil, garlic, red chili flakes, and topped with grated Parmesan cheese, chives and of course, truffle...



Nadia going hard with the parmesan.


After this was a pallet cleanser; cucumber and meyer lemon sherbert. Simply take a whole cucumber, peeled and deseeded, blitz in a food processor, add an equal volume of sugar syrup, the zest and juice of two meyer lemons and blitz for a minute or so. Then add a tablespoon of yogurt (to get the sherbert buzz on the tongue). Allow to freeze in a glass dish in the freezer then scrape with a fork.



More plating... The fourth course was beef. But (of course) not just any beef, but a french classic, Tournedos Rossini. Basically a fillet steak, wrapped in bacon, placed on a fried bread round, topped with a slice of fois gras, truffles and perigueux sauce. We served this with roast veg... delicious :)





The fifth and final course was a simple custard tart flavored with a truffle infused honey. This was made in a cake tin for extra depth, and served with a stewed rhubarb and blackberries sauce...




All having fun - and lots of wine.


The final treat was that everyone went home with truffle-infused oil.


Llew had a ball describing everything. He got a huge round of applause for it all. Yay.

In the end we went though 8 truffles, 17 bottles of wine, 17 sticks of butter, 2.5 litres of cream, 4.5 dozen eggs, 3 chickens, 21 onions, 21 steaks, 21 slices of fois gras, 105 plates, 84 wine glasses, umpteen dozen pieces of cutlery. All for 21 very full, happy people.

No comments: