Greedy Guinea Pig Club May 2018

First off, apologies for posting so infrequently.  Dan is away most of the week, so our cooking is pretty monotonous and mostly stuff you’ve seen before (tomato and mozzarella risotto, lemony lentil soup etc).

So we were particularly excited to do a Greedy Guinea Pig Club and stretch our culinary muscles.

This was a pleasant little three course number for eight people, taking influence from the Tuscan end of Italy.  The guests included two Guinea Pig newbies.  One of whom was actually Italian and had never eaten a scallop before.

That was slightly nerve-wracking.

We started with Scallops wrapped in Pancetta on a Leek Puree with a Coral Ragu

Most of that is pretty self explanatory, but the coral ragu was something slightly different.  It used a mire-poix base, finely chopped coral (the orange bit of the scallop), tomato puree and white wine vinegar. It was incredibly strongly flavoured, to the point that we forewarned the Guinea Pigs about it.

Dan wasn’t a fan at all, but several of our guests seemed to really like it.

We were pleased to note that the scallop virgin was also a fan.

The main was Roast Pork Belly with Tuscan Herbs, plus a Lentil, Tomato and Spinach Stew.

We forgot to take a photo of this one, so have a picture of the pork joint before we cooked it.  All beautifully rolled up and stuffed with lots of homegrown herbs, garlic, and salt.

The pork was delicious.  We had been concerned about rolling pork belly and the quantity of fat inside the roll, but the salt fixed that wonderfully.  Plus the crackling crackled.

The lentil stew was okay.  It suffered slightly from being put on cold plates (we only have one oven so plate warming is a bit of a struggle for us).  I think we would definitely do the pork again, but probably serve it with good crusty bread instead.

We finished on an absolutely lovely Pear, Frangipane and Amaretti Tart.

Congratulations to Dan for making it look exactly like the recipe picture.  Also for successful pastry work in a very hot kitchen.

This was really very nice.  Lots of people came back for seconds.

I may have eaten the last slice for breakfast.

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There’s no Greedy Guinea Pig Club in June, because we want to play with the Barbecue a bit.  Although chances are, if you rock up to Chateux Catchpole on a Saturday evening (regardless of weather), we will have cooked too much meat and may offer you the excess.  It is the nature of the beast.

However, the Club will be back in July, when we intend to do a Rick Stein / 70s / 80s relaxed summer lunch.  Hopefully in the garden (that is weather dependent).

It feeds approximately 8, and we don’t have a set date yet.

Menu is:

Pouched Salmon with Cucumber & Dill Salad

Italian -Herbed Roast Chicken

Tomato & Watercress Salad

Potato Salad with Spring Onions

Roast Beetroot Salad

Strawberry & Vanilla Shortcake

It will be a challenge to see how much of this can be homegrown.  Also I’m looking forward to an excuse to make a batch of mayonnaise.

Plus we’ll have to learn how to debone a whole chicken.  Every day’s a school day.

Perfect Chocolate

April has been busy.

April is also Dan’s birth month, hence the increase in chocolate based desserts previously.  It continued with a bought of massive silliness in the form of an ice cream sandwich.

The silliness doesn’t stop with the sandwich concept (yes those are chocolate digestives), the ice cream itself definitely counts as ridiculous.  Instead our usual homemade custard based stir frozen this used a tub of Bird’s premade, cream cheese and icing sugar, and was so gelatinous when finished it didn’t need stir freezing at all.

Dan made short work of it.  It barely lasted a week.

Compare that with the Pistachio Gelato that lingered for a couple of months and we have a clear winner.

Dan also got a recipe book for his birthday called “Perfect”, which is a spin off the Guardian’s “How to Make” column.  It has lots of promise and also makes lots of promises.

It includes a recipe for perfect ragu.  Amongst all the names she mentions the blessed Delia doesn’t turns up once.  Delia has been providing this family with her ragu recipe for decades.  Her absence is almost an insult.

Plus the recipe uses white wine not red!

Outraged, we had to try it.

It is really bloody good.  Not sure it beat the blessed Delia, but we’ll have to do some sort of taste test for that.

Our main complaint was that the recipe only served four.  Which for four plus hours of cooking seems a little mean.

One of the main reasons we haven’t blogged that much, other than lack of time, if we have been falling back on old favourites a lot, and I’m not convinced a long list of links to previous posts makes good reading.

Case in point, we returned to Pork and Pistachio Terrine.  Always lovely with Rye bread and home made pickle.

Childish Chocolate Ice Cream Recipe

300g Plain Chocolate

500g tub of ready-made vanilla custard

400g cream cheese

100g icing sugar

100ml milk

Melt 200g of the chocolate into the custard.  Whisk the icing sugar and cream cheese together, then whisk in the chocolate custard until combined.  Gradually whisk in the milk and chill for 15 minutes.

Lay out some grease proof paper.  Melt the remaining chocolate and drizzle it over the paper with a fork.  Let it cool, then break it all up into little shards.  Stir into the chocolate custard mix to make a slender chocolate chip affair.

Tip it all into a freezer proof container and freeze.  Done.