July 23, 2012
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Saturday, July 21, 2012
Saturday we had another dinner party. I’d promised Mr. Chris and David and the Smith-Fangs fancy French food and I aimed to deliver. I didn’t think it was going to take the whole day to cook but it absolutely did. Mr. Poe and I headed down to the Castro mid day to pick up a couple of things that we needed for the party. Here is is looking particularly fabulous. Hello gorgeous:
We headed home and Mr. Poe did a few things about the house and got to cooking. Ashley Jr. napped in his chair and looked particularly adorable:
He was soon joined by Mr. Poe and Mimi:
The menu was a little complex. I made stuffed shrimp, cheese wafers and puffs, and romesco sauced canapes for appetizers. I only got a pic of the shrimp. So pretty:
We served a proper first course which we very rarely do. I made filets de poisson poches au vin blanc avec vinagrette a la creme or cold poached salmon on cucumber salad with a creamy dill vinagrette on top. I used Julia’s method for poaching the salmon which was a little terrifying because it involved putting the pyrex pan directly on the gas burner which I’d never done and gave both Mr. Poe and myself terrifying visions of a cracked pan and fish poaching liquid all over everything. But the internets said that pyrex could be used over a low flame and since the internets never lie I figured I’d try it. And it worked! I brought the poaching liquid to an almost simmer on the range and then put it in the oven to finish it off. Here’s how it looked at the beginning:
And this is what it looked like when it came out of the oven and had cooled off for a while:
To serve it, I put it on some cucumbers and then I made this incredible dill sauce. It was also one of Julia’s and I had to modify a little because it called for some raw egg yolk and I’m not comfortable putting that in food that people are gonna eat. Thanks to a little miracle called the immersion blender it came out as this unbelievably rich thick beautiful sauce. Some of the exit interviews indicated that I could have used less sauce on the plate but it looked so pretty I couldn’t it. Also, next time I’m gonna work on getting vinaigrette on the cucumbers. It was kind of an afterthought and they just got olive oil, salt and pepper.
For the main course I made gratin de morue a la lyonnaise. It’s a casserole of cod and cauliflower in a rich sauce of cream and onions flavored with salt pork. It turned out very well and Mr. Poe loved it but sadly I didn’t get any pics. For dessert I made cherries jubilee which is incredibly easy and was really popular. Plus, I got to set it on fire. Win:
After dinner we managed to get Daniel and Mimi in the same chair which is unheard of. I was thinking it was gonna lead to bloodshed but she kept it together.
After dinner we said goodbye to our guests and we went to bed. We were beat!
