Entrée:
A selection of vegetable ravioli, filled with:
mushrooms, tarragon and reduced porcini tea,
or oven-roasted Pugliese tomatoes and garlic,
served with minted pea puree, and a roast pepper sauce.
Having recently rediscovered the joys of my pasta machine we've been enthralled by making ravioli. Mr. S-C worked on refining his favourite mushroom filling and I prepared a roasted garlic and tomato filling to provide choice for my son who has an aversion to mushrooms. In the event he did have two of the extremely well flavoured mushroom filled pasta and pronounced them good so a small success there I think.
With the ravioli we prepared a smoky red pepper sauce with just a hint of chilli heat and intended to make a minted pea puree as well but time ran out and we served the peas as up market mushies.
Main course:
Rösti, topped with marinated tempeh on a bed of spinach served with glazed carrots and a red wine reduction.
The main course suffered a little because of the attention to detail lavished elsewhere. I've never been good at making rösti and can't imagine why I thought it would be any better this time. In fact this was the closest I've ever come but they were still unpleasantly greasy and a little bit disappointing.
Whilst fretting over this I mistimed the tempeh completely and instead of turning out something sticky and glazed ended up with a softened, simmered sort of mixture which didn't look as appetising as intended. Luckily everyone enjoyed it enough to ask for seconds so we had no leftovers to look accusingly at us every time we open the fridge.
Dessert:
Cardamom suffused chocolate tart filled with crème pâtisserie and raspberries served with a coulis de framboises.
This pudding was designed to recreate one of the puddings made by the winner of this year's Masterchef. In the restaurant critic's episode James made a chocolate pastry tartlette with raspberries which wowed the sour faced looking woman.
Mr. Stripey Cat pulled out the stops for this and created an amazing chocolate pastry that is so good it really is going straight into the book. He says it's the appliance of science but it seems greater than that. Tart cases were baked and I made a confectioner's custard analogue to fill them. They were sat on a puddle of smooth sweetened raw raspberry puree and topped off with the prettiest raspberries, looking fantastic.
Delicious as they were I'm afraid they confirmed my prejudice against using fruit and chocolate together. The raspberries were too strong a flavour even when combined with the densely chocolatey pastry and totally masked the cardamom scent so the tart never amounted to more than the sum of its parts, each yummy but competing rather than complementing.
Petits Fours:
Tiny Treacle Tarts
However, with the trimmings of the pastry we also created some tiny treacle tarts. Served with espresso after the meal they were orgasmically marvellous, the cardamom shining through, the sweetness of the treacle luscious and crispness of the pastry satisfying.
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