Roman Feast

I forgot to photograph this damn!

We had a Roman Feast for 11 on Thursday.  It was pretty successful.  The Romans ate 3 course meals with a variety of dishes at each course.  This is what we had.

Olives, onion relish, cheese relish (a dip), Apicius' pork morsels, fish dumplings, barley bread, spelt bread

Ferculae:(roasts) pork with cumin sauce, chicken with ginger, lentils and chestnuts, green beans with coriander sauce, a salad (which consisted of mozarella, nuts, cucumber, capers, chicken livers with a thick dressing containing mint and egg yolks.

Apples, soft cheese, honey cakes, olives, Alexandrine dates

I think the third course was the least successful - probably because I didn't serve snails - a common feature of the last course.

Roman food is unusual, but quite good.  People really liked the fish dumplings, the onion and the cheese relish,  and the roasts.  I loved the salad - it was great.  I think the dates were a bit over cooked, the honey had got like toffee so they were crisper than they should have been.  Robert suggested we should do another Roman meal, but I need to think about whether I want to broaden this - get more people to join the mailing list and do this a bit more often.  

Ides of March

Tomorrow is the Ides of March and I am having a Food Odyssey dinner - I have been unable to source any silphium or make any garum - but I'm hoping to do something reasonably authentic.

Roman dinners were 3 courses of mixed dishes: first some hors d'oeuvres - a variety of little dishes, then the middle course was roast meats of various kinds, the third course had both sweet and savoury elements - which might include snails.  Dormice were served as a starter.

There is an earnest temptation to make the food more civilised: I remember making a Roman cake once which wasn't very nice, because I think it had no fat/oil in it.  I think when I make it tomorrow I will put some in. Similarly there are some Roman fish balls that I'm going to make which are really rather like the Turkish fish sticks I sometimes make, only missing an ingredient - and some of the date pastries are not unlike something in Claudia Roden's book.

This evening I prepared a little, first by straining yoghurt - to make some soft cheese, and by soaking some dried chestnut to make a chestnut and lentil dish, also defrosting some fish (for fish sticks) and some chicken livers for a salad.

I think the menu will be roughly:

1: Olives, radishes, cheese dip, pork morsels al'Apicius, fish balls
2: Pork in wine honey sauce,  Chicken in a fruity sauce, chestnuts and lentils, mussels?, green beans, a Roman salad
3: Roman cake, apples, pears, nuts, yoghurt cheese, custard

I think I've left something out.  And lots of nice bread (I am trying to make sourdough and it's not working - too cold I think, although I made some 2 weeks ago).  I bought some fresh yeast so I'm making a starter tonight, hope that will help. The most challenging thing about these are that the methods are slightly different, and the ingredients and combinations ditto.  I will have to be chained to the cookbook.

All this means that cooking for my mother-in-law on Mother's Day will be very laid back in comparison.

Well?

Yes - I have been cooking over Christmas - so much cooking that I spent most of January wanting to take time off.  We have a Colombian student here now - and have had 2 Chinese students - so there was a week of making chinese oriented food - sadly one of them didn't like chicken - but they mostly had pork!

Now I am back into the good old wintry carb foods: pasta, chilli, pork and beans, red cooked beef/pork, stews, sausages, chicken pie, lots of nice veggies.   Last week I bought some sweet potatoes, so that I could make a really nice gratin I had at Claire & Kai's - this week I felt very strongly that due to my efforts to extricate myself from our sofa, it might be time to do an Atkins diet for a bit - with a view to a long-term low-carb lifestyle....The cold winter is over - I hope, so no more dumplings: steak and kidney pudding eventually will appear...

At the moment I really am not in the mood to cook, because I am writing.... I would show you lovely photos of food - were it not for the fact that my camera is broken.

A birthday feast

The annual birthday feast for M and his family took place yesterday.  

We ate smoked trout souffles and salad,  lamb stuffed with fruit, rice and spices, pommes dauphinoise, carrots, peas, ratatouille, and that nice fractal vegetable, whose name I have forgotten.



This one!

Then we had one pudding - I made the executive decision to just do one, it was some fantastic hazelnut and cinnamon merginues with home made ice cream and chocolate sauce.

There was mild consternation when Tom and Mark went to help themselves to second helpings, saw the chocolate sauce and thought it was gravy and poured it over their veg.   I don't think I would ever make such thick dark gravy under any circumstances.   There was still plenty left over for the pudding.

Christmas Food

Christmas food is taking up a lot of time at present.  Our Christmas is spectacularly difficult, because we have Mark's birthday as well - and that requires a separate feast to cope with.  And this year I am going in to hospital on 23rd for the day - so I need to be especially organised as I will not be allowed to cook for 48 hours.

It is tradition for my family to eat cold ham and turkey on Christmas Day for breakfast, but I think that will have to be changed this year.  We then have turkey and everything else, followed by Christmas pudding and an alternative pudding for the boys.   Last year I didn't make a Christmas pudding as it was just us, we had homemade sticky toffee pudding instead, which was very good.   This year we will have Christmas pudding and chocolate roulade (chocolate log) for the boys. 

There are two types of stuffing: sausage and chestnut - which is frozen and ready in advance, and "the other one" - which depends on what I feel like - sometimes I make a rice/fruit/nut and spice one, sometimes it's a lemony one, sometimes it's just veggies - this is meant to keep the turkey moist.   We usually have potatoes, sprouts, carrots, peas, parsnips and red cabbage.  And bread sauce and cranberry sauce, and sausages and bacon rolls.  So far, so traditional.

On Boxing Day my youngest brother and sister-in-law are coming.  This year I think we'll have the ham hot, with pommes dauphinoise, more red cabbage and salads.   Followed by: tiramisu or trifle, more chocolate log, cheese...

I was very shocked yesterday when I went shopping - we seemed to have spent more on food than anything else, yet I bought few obviously extravagant items - however, I have got just about everything except the turkey, and of course we'll need more fruit and veg.   I didn't see any lychees.  I love lychees and feel deprived without them, no one else does.

How it went

Today’s Book Group lunch was really nice – although I have learned some lessons.  The first is, the new gravadlax recipe I used isn’t as good as the old one (which I think involved brandy or vodka as part of the cure).  Also, I think using gros sel de Guerande was a mistake – it’s just too gros and didn’t dissolve (should have used more dill too – but that’s Ocado’s fault).

The caraway seeds in the bread were good.   The lamb was good, but I seem to have got into the habit of not putting enough salt into things.  So needed salt.  Veg fine, the veggie alternative seemed OK – plenty of it left – so that’s supper sorted out!

Puddings; liked the orange brulee very much – but should have put a lot more icing sugar on the top and had more of a crust.  Chocolate cake good – but I think it would have been better if I’d put marsala in it – don’t think the coffee liqueur idea is that great – as I didn’t have any I used a mix of instant coffee, brandy and arack (a flavourless liquor from Sri Lanka which I have had a bottle of for years.  My in-laws gave it to me and I never drink it, just use it where I need a bit of booze.  The cake was meant to be a tiramisu thing, but I’ m sure marsala would be more appropriate.

Now I have to plan mark’s birthday feast for my in-laws – when asked what he wants, he usually says “Steak and kidney pudding and brown bread ice cream.”  This is a fine meal, but we can’t do it every year.... also, I am keen to find a better ice cream recipe.

One of the great mysteries about recipes is how more ingredients don’t necessarily improve the dish – but I think the BB ice cream needs something more – bread crumbs, sugar and cream are good – I think rum may have been mentioned as a remarkably versatile flavour enhancer for sweet things.  In Italy they sell a wonderful thing called rhum alla fantasia – they sell it in 75 cl bottles, but it’s actually just rum flavouring, not alcoholic at all.

The Book Group Lunch

To,orrow is the book group annual Christ#as lunch - which I host every year.  It has a si#ilar for#at each years - a starter, a #ain course with several vegetables, a vegetarian alternative and 2-3 puddings.

Usually the #ain course is the least interesting part of the #eal, although the Sal#on en croute with crea# and herb sauce is very popular.  I have done this every year since 2004 I think.  It's always easy to find lots of starters and puddings, but #ain courses are difficult so#ehow - there was a very good ga#e pie a couple of years ago, I have done venison in the past, a stuffed pork was quite nice, but I rather fear that the dish I will be cooking to#orrow is one I have done before - Agnello al agrodolce - I do it because it is reliably delicious and what #ore can one ask for - unless of course one is one of the people who finds la#b indigestible because of the fat - this is usual because your bile ducts are under-producing!   Anyway, there is a veggie alternative, leek and fennel tart (i.e. a quiche).   #ashed potatoes, green beans and squash cooked with cina#on and chilies.   The puddings are both new this year - a chocolate cake with a sort of tira#isu topping - and an orange tarte with a brulee topping.     But the thing I a# looking forward to #ost is the gravadlax - this is one of #y favourite things - it is so delicious.  I've #ade so#e bread with caraway seeds in to eat with it, and the fa#ous sauce. 

Tonight I have the tart - but not the brulee topping, the la#b, the sal#on, and the cake ready - but a lot of asse#bly work, and tidying up to#orrow #orning!