The build up to our 10 course tasting menu Valentine’s Day Dinners was possibly one of the hardest that we’ve ever experienced. I hadn’t checked my stock of flours properly and therefore days before the first event realised I didn’t have enough flour to either make all the pasta nor to make the pastry for the pithiviers! Twitter appeals and google searches sourced new supplies – but only half of it arrived in time!
I was left facing making flour substitutions at the last minute for the pastry – only to find it didn’t work!
Fortunately I had recently been the lucky recipient of a batch of gluten free, dairy free puff pastry courtesy of Fria. They sell their frozen puff pastry in Sweden and Norway and were interested in my view of the product and whether or not I felt there was a market for it in the UK. My answer to the latter question was YES – and it seemed people on twitter shared my view when I asked!
As always with back to back dinners, despite serving the same menu the different mix of guests ensured that Friday and Saturday were both very different events.
My aim for the menu had been to provide some of the classic foods and flavours associated with “love” whilst keeping true as much as possible to seasonality and locality. I am fortunate to receive lovely Kentish fruit and vegetables from Foodari, and our butcher J C Rook & Sons supplied us with some lovely venison shoulder for the pithivier’s ragu filling. As always I was also seeking to offer as many normally “off limit” foods as possible to our coeliac guests.
We started with something spicy – a trio of Indian amuse bouche.
Tandoori chicken pieces were served in a Chinese spoon on top of a mango chutney, a whole green chilli stuffed, battered and deep fried at the last moment, and a shot glass of tomato rasam (a spicy thin soup).
These went down well. Guests were advised (especially if they weren’t used to spice) to down the shot in one. It was the most popular item of the trio judging by the comments made by diners!
We had blanched the chillis for 30 seconds before stuffing which had taken some of the kick out of them.
Our vegetarian guest on Saturday had tandoori paneer to replace the chicken. In all the rush of the week it didn’t occur to me – fortunately until just BEFORE I served – that the chilli stuffing was not vegetarian! To make up for it we served her a very generous portion of paneer in a Chinese serving spoon!
The second course was a simple beetroot salad.
The (local) beetroot had been slow roasted for several hours. I cut three heart shaped portions per person then diced the rest. The dice was tossed in a horseradish, mustard and sour cream dressing (using soya cream for our dairy free guest) and piled in the centre of the place.
Deep fried caperberries were sliced and scattered around the plate along with some more of the dressing. The centre of the caperberries were a subtle pink which added to the visual appeal.
Sadly guests on the Saturday night missed out on the capers – I didn’t see the pot of them until after the course had been served!
Our third course was fresh gluten free egg pasta.
Twitter followers were aware that my original plan had been to make garganelli. This involved making the pasta, rolling it out to the thinnest setting, cutting into equal squares, then hand rolling each one on the diagonal. They also had to be rolled over a ridged surface to give the characteristic ridges.
As you can see from the picture, I succeeded! The problem was that it was taking an hour to do enough pasta to serve two people! As I didn’t have 11 hours prep time to spare I had to abandon that idea. However they will be on an Annie’s menu one day – I’m determined!
I decided instead to make tagliattini – a narrower version of tagliatelle. This is often served with shrimp and so I chose to make a vodka saffron sauce. Plum tomatoes were slow roasted for 3 hours in vermouth to make the tomato element of the sauce. It was served almost broth style – the egg pasta tasting almost exactly like fresh egg noodles! King prawns were added to the sauce just before service (except for our vegetarian diner).
This was the least visually appealing of our dishes! Interestingly the guests on Friday practically licked the bowls clean and really enjoyed the dish, especially the saffron. Saturday’s guests didn’t all seem as keen. I think the flavour combination of the vodka and the saffron was not what they might have expected when to look at, they would have been expecting a tomato sauce.
The last of the starters was, for me, one of the highlights of the meal. I was determined to push myself with this menu and, as I wanted to serve asparagus whilst they were still in season, and realising that I had never made a hollandaise sauce, I wanted a dish that captured that classic pairing.
The asparagus were lightly blanched and served room temperature. I decided to make a Maltaise sauce instead of a hollandaise – using blood oranges to make the most of their seasonal availability. Of course the sauce has to be made fresh at the point of service – and my first batch scrambled! I was devastated until I realised that I had used the wrong saucepan and my bain marie bowl was touching the simmering water underneath. This was quickly rectified and thankfully the second batch came together perfectly. It was too loose after adding the blood orange juice to serve straight on the plate so we served it in a small dish so that the spears could be dipped.
The crowning glory was a deep fried poached egg! My husband had managed to perfectly judge both the poaching and the frying(a fact that only became clear of course AFTER guests cut into the eggs making for a tense few moments). We listened with relief to the oohs and aahs as the runny yolks were released over the asparagus.
Comments in the visitor’s book shows that it was one of the most popular dishes of the night!
Guests were then served a palate cleanser in the form of our beautifully tart lemon sorbet.
Next were the pithiviers! Earlier in the week I had marinated cubed venison shoulder in a bottle of red wine for a day. The meat was then slow cooked for eight hours in more red wine to form a lovely rich ragu. Once chilled, this form the filling for the pithiviers.
On Friday we utilised the Fria puff pastry. It was a joy to work with, handling just like normal pastry, and it didn’t tear or stick. The pies were roughly shaped as hearts. They came out of the oven golden brown as you would expect. The picture doesn’t show it clearly but the edges of the pies were puffed so that you could easily see the layers.
I was very impressed with how the pastry handled and hope that Fria decide to bring it on to the UK market. Guests who were not gluten free said that they could not have told it wasn’t “normal” pastry and our gf guests were very pleased to be tasting something that had been forbidden to them for so long.
On Saturday evening I had got hold of enough flour to make my own pastry. It is a secret recipe that I have come up with myself.
It was extremely gratifying to have the pastry so well received – several guests are requesting that I make pies on a regular basis to courier to them or that I find a way to market the pastry myself!
Our vegetarian guest had a pithivier filled with a delicious combination of lightly roasted cauliflower, feta, leek and courgette which was served with a thick tomato sauce. The venison pies were accompanied by a red wine sauce – sadly a very thin sauce on Friday night!
All the pithiviers were served on a bed of celeriac puree together with caramelised banana shallots and chestnuts.
The sixth course of the evening was a cheese course. This too had been victim to several hiccups – not least on Friday night when I went to cut the blue cheese and found that it was off! Thankfully I had some Bresse Blue in the fridge – enough to go around!
We also served a wedge of Ashmore, one of our favourite Kentish cheeses. Friday’s guests had whipped brie on top of caramelised pears – Saturday’s guests simply had the cheese served in wedges.
We added some Nairn’s Oat Cakes. Normally we would make our own biscuits or serve a chutney but time got the better of us!
After the cheese we served an Annie’s special – a champagne sorbet. Supperclubs are not meant to offer alcohol to guests (unless the owners hold a licence) so serving an alcoholic sorbet is our way of toasting our guests without breaking the licencing rules!
The sorbet was, as always, very popular and helped to refresh the palate before the dessert course.
I wanted something indulgent for dessert – something decadent. I couldn’t make my mind up so I ended serving a trio of desserts.
Firstly there was a rather ugly, individually iced chocolate torte. Ugly, because the kitchen was SO cold when I made the ganache that it set as soon as it was poured out and I had to spread it to cover the cake – a definite no-no for a torte! Both layers did of ganache did the same thing!
The second dessert was a Tiramisu. I know how much our coeliac guests appreciate having a gluten free Tiramisu! The picture isn’t very appealing – the Tiramisu was “drunken” in more than one way, full of brandy and therefore threatening to topple over as soon as the squares were cut!
Our dairy free guest was only served one dessert – but it was a gluten free dairy free Tiramisu the size of a saucer so I think that made up for it! As he is one of our regular, most loyal diners we had also made him a second Tiramisu to take home but sadly we all forgot that by the end of the evening and he went without 
Finally, there was a mouthful of a raspberry cheesecake. The base came out FAR too thick and the filling far too thin so I personally was not happy with the cheesecake. Fortunately it tasted great and I don’t think anyone was bothered! I refuse to serve strawberries in February (unless they are in the form of a preserve) but the raspberries had been picked in season and frozen so I was happy to use them for the set topping. Chambourd liquor gave the creamy filling a subtle hint of raspberry to match.
The final course of the evening was different each night. On Friday I had made a chestnut truffle mix, the same as the ones we served at our Christmas dinners. For some unknown reason it did not set (unlike the ganache!). Thinking on my feet, I spooned it in to tiny coffee cups and topped it with a Cointreau whipped cream.
On Saturday we were happy to offer guests some biscotti. They were Juvela’s Biscotti Bites kindly sent as a free gift from Simply Free with our bulk order of vegetable suet (for my pastry!). Seeing as a number of guests had decided to take their desserts home in a “doggy bag” (read Chinese takeaway plastic pot!) as they were too full, I think the biscotti were just right to go with their coffees!
It was an exhausting week, two very hectic dinners, but we were very happy and satisfied by the end of the weekend to know that we had served twenty two guests a lovely dinner as part of a special night out. I was also pleased to have survived my self imposed “stretching” as a cook.
Our next dinner is our St David’s Day dinner on 3rd March, celebrating the classic flavours of Welsh food – only one place remains so if you fancy it, you need to book quickly! If we are heavily over-subscribed we may open up a second night on Friday 2nd.
Following that will be our afternoon “high tea” for Mothering Sunday on Sunday 18th March.
See our booking page for details.
