Another Friday night dinner party

We had friends over for dinner on Friday, and a good time was had by all, so here are some of the recipes from the dinner party.

Starter: Deep fried crab balls with Thai pea dip

Take one tin of drained crab meat, to it add 2 tablespoons of soft butter, 1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard, 2 tablespoons of breadcrumbs, 2 egg yolks, a splash of tobasco and season.  Form into little balls by rubbing in floured hands, then coat each ball in flour, refridgerate for at least 30 minutes to firm up before frying in some vegetable oil.

For the pea dip, boil a cup of fresh or frozen petit pois peas until soft and tender, then drain and whizz up in a blender until they form a puree, add a teaspoon of green thai chili paste and a teaspoon of yoghurt, serve either immediately while warm or refridgerate until needed.

Main: Asian Salmon with spicy noodles

Next time I buy the salmon steaks, because it took me over an hour to pin bone the fish.

I cannot take any credit for the recipe because it is Jamie Oliver's from his 30 minute meals.

Into a food processor, add 1 medium onion peeled and quartered, 2 cloves of garlic, a 2 cm piece of peeled ginger root, half a large fresh green chili, a teaspoon of soy sauce and the juice of two limes, whizz together to create a slurry mix.

Into a shallow oven proof dish, drizzle a little olive oil, spoon in the spicy mix, and add the salmon skin side up, sprinkle over a tablespoon of chinese 5 spice.

This will need to cook for about 20 minutes at 180°C.

For the noodles, start by making a spicy broth base.  Fry 1 onion finely chopped, 2 cloves of garlic, 2 cm of peeled and grated fresh ginger and half a finely chopped chili, add a teaspoon of Chinese 5 spice, and 3 teaspoons of cornflour, then pour in about a litre of chicken stock to a 250g packet of dried egg noodles.

Just as a digression here, I hang my ginger root from a piece of kitchen string in a dark corner and after about a week it starts to sprout.  I have successfully cultivated ginger for the garden from these sprouting corms, leave until the green tips are at least 10 centimetres long, then plant a 5 cm by 5 cm section of the root in the ground until just the top 1 cm of the green tip is showing.  The first year you will just get some green foliage but by year 2 you should have enough root to either harvest or split into other plants.

Dessert:  Lemony cheesey titchy puds

OK - I admit this recipe is the biggest cheat around (thank you Nigella for the idea) but it is very quick, very easy, and very very very yummy.

Take a packet of biscuits, for us the ones normally left at the bottom of the biscuit barrel unloved and uneaten are custard creams, and whizz them up in a blender.

The joy of this is that you don't need to add any butter, the cream sticks the base together.

Stir together a 125g tub of ricotta or the like, 4 tablespoons of lemon curd, and the juice of one lemon to form a rich lemony cheesey cream.

Press the biscuit base into individual little pots, I used some glass tealight holders, then spoon over some of the creamy mixture and leave to refridgerate for a couple of hours before eating.

The final touches for our evening were - 4 bottles of faux champagne fizz, and 3 bottles of red wine.

Another Friday - another dinner party

Tonight's dinner party menu:

Fishy blinis
Rabbit in mustard sauce with garden carrots and 
hedgehog potatoes
Meringue mess

I make my own little blinis in an escargot pan, I remember when I picked it up at a car boot in France, the lady selling it went to a lot of trouble to explain to me how to cook snails, then looked totally horrified when I said that I would be using to make blinis and fry quail eggs in instead.

The batter is a very simple recipe:

1 large fresh egg
3 heaped tablespoons of self raising flour
pinch salt
enough milk to create a thick but still runny batter (thickness of double cream)

To make sweet dipping blinis for chocolate, hazelnut spread and jam, just add a tablespoon of caster sugar and a couple of drops of vanilla extract to the mix.


For the rabbit (this one an even closer to home kill than the wild boar last week as it was in the front garden last year), joint the rabbit, which essentially means separating its back legs from the spine, crack the legs open at the pelvis then cut round with a sharp knife, there is just a thin stretch of muscle then holding them to the spine.  Then with a cleaver, chop through the spine just behind the front legs, cleave in half, then cleave the saddle into two pieces and cleave in half again, you should end up with 8 pieces of rabbit on the bone.

Fry the rabbit in a large casserole dish in a little olive oil with salt and pepper, then add a glass of white wine, 2 large onions quartered, 2 large cloves of garlic, several sprigs of fresh marjoram and a litre of good thick chicken stock - I am using the duck stock I made yesterday.  When this reaches the boil, add 2 heaped teaspoons of whole grain mustard and put in the oven for a couple of hours at 180°C.

An hour before serving add 200 ml of double cream, season again, add a pinch of cayenne pepper and leave to cook in the oven at a low heat for the final hour.

I can not remember where hedgehog potatoes came from but they are really easy and a quick way of making jacket potatoes.  Use a thin skinned potato like a Charlotte, scrub clean and place in a baking tray,  1 large or 2 small spuds per person.  Cut slices along each spud three quarters of the way through, spinkle over sea salt, some black pepper and drizzle with a bit of olive oil, cover with tin foil and bake in the top of the oven for 1 hour at 200°C.

For pudding it was Thea's choice, her favourite and something I only make in the Rayburn because they take a couple of hours to cook, meringues.  A good way of using up surplus eggs too.

I never gave this much credence but having had to make two lots on Friday, I am now convinced that meringues must be made in a metal bowl.  

With an electric whisk whip up 4 egg whites into soft peaks, add a pinch of salt, then gradually introduce 280g of icing sugar whisking continuously to create stiff peaks, then a splash of vanilla extract.

With a metal spoon create separate pools of meringue on some baking paper on a tray, spread well apart.  Bake in a low oven for a couple of hours.

Into these I poured some warmed cherry jam and topped with chantilly cream, then finally a little meringue hat with some melted chocolate dribbled over.