So this is the final post. The last four recipes have been cooked, I can return to a life of beans on toast, with occasional fish fingers and chips thrown in for good measure. This is a four recipe post, so I'll jump right in.
Firstly: pheasant. I hadn't eaten this game bird in years, to be honest, I didn't think I liked it (for the reason that it did not taste like chicken). I wasn't even be supposed to be cooking it for Green Eggs and Ham, but the butcher was out of rabbit. I pot roasted it using
this recipe (it has white wine, cream and sweetcorn mash). The bird I bought was rather large, so I just used one, rather than the two suggested.
The smell of game is alarming, much stronger than meat you buy in the supermarket. I questioned whether we should eat it, but Sam was hungry and grew alarmed that I might bin it when I suggested that it wasn't fragrant, so full of trepidation I pressed on. It hadn't quite been drawn properly--and I don't mean that the giblets were included. Sam had to be a knight in shining armour and rescue me from the offending innard: I am squeamish in the extreme. However, after bubbling away on the stove for a hour and being served on its bed of mash, with carrots from the pot, it came out as a rather delicious supper. The sweetcorn complimented the strength of flavour in the meat. Pheasant, I am pleased to say, was not at all as I had remembered it.
The second dish was a pudding from
Olive Magazine's December issue: raspberry and mascarpone terrine. I'm afraid it's not online, so I'll describe as best I can: it's a layered dessert, done in a loaf tin, comprising layers of: sponge fingers (should be soaked in sherry, but I used brandy); mascarpone and cream, which are slightly set with gelatine; raspberries; and raspberry coulis, topped off with more whipped cream and raspberries. Sounds good, festive and calorific, right? Well it was--although I blew my dinner guests' heads off a bit with the switch in alcohol.
As bread has been my big victory of this project, I felt it wouldn't be right to write the final post without doing another loaf of bread. This week I tackled Dan Lepard's cottage loaf from
Short and Sweet. The difference with this one, is that you use half of the flour to make a 'sponge' over a few hours before you make the dough. This did make nice bread, however I really couldn't taste the difference between this and his simple bread--perhaps my bread tasting palate is defective. Becoming able to make bread has taken the best part of this year, but now I am quite smug with the pleasure of being able to do it.
So, lastly: lasagne. My mum's lasagne is one of my favourite things ever and I've never bothered learning how to make it, as I always put an order in when I go home. I'm finishing up with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's butternut squash and fennel lasagne, which is not at all like Mum's. This is from his
Veg Everyday book. It has a bechemal sauce, which is infused with peppercorns, onion, celery and bay leaves, pasta, a layer of roasted butternut squash, a bit more sauce, another layer of pasta, a layer of sautéed fennel (I used a third of the 750g recommended, as I think massive amounts of fennel make food taste like soap, so I replaced with caramelised onions), goats cheese (lots), the rest of the bechemal and a layer of cheddar. Vegetarian lasagne is often an extremely dull meal of mean ratatouille slapped in between pasta sheets and a poor replacement for it's meaty, savoury cousin. Hugh F-W has come up with something altogether different, and it seemed to go down well with carnivores and vegetarians alike. Friends E and G and baby O came to join us for a final lazy blog lunch. The lasagne takes a while to make, so I made some vanilla ice-cream the day before, and also bought the starters from a farmers' market. It was the perfect to celebrate the end of 2012 and this challenge: with an old friend, her husband, their baby who was born this year and Sam. I may not cook as many new recipes in 2012, but I'm fairly sure that boozy lunches and dinners with friends will remain on the menu. Thanks so much for reading.
The smell of game is alarming, much stronger than meat you buy in the supermarket. I questioned whether we should eat it, but Sam was hungry and grew alarmed that I might bin it when I suggested that it wasn't fragrant, so full of trepidation I pressed on. It hadn't quite been drawn properly--and I don't mean that the giblets were included. Sam had to be a knight in shining armour and rescue me from the offending innard: I am squeamish in the extreme. However, after bubbling away on the stove for a hour and being served on its bed of mash, with carrots from the pot, it came out as a rather delicious supper. The sweetcorn complimented the strength of flavour in the meat. Pheasant, I am pleased to say, was not at all as I had remembered it.
The second dish was a pudding from Olive Magazine's December issue: raspberry and mascarpone terrine. I'm afraid it's not online, so I'll describe as best I can: it's a layered dessert, done in a loaf tin, comprising layers of: sponge fingers (should be soaked in sherry, but I used brandy); mascarpone and cream, which are slightly set with gelatine; raspberries; and raspberry coulis, topped off with more whipped cream and raspberries. Sounds good, festive and calorific, right? Well it was--although I blew my dinner guests' heads off a bit with the switch in alcohol.
