Saturdays Dinner

So on Saturday night we had some friends over to stay from Shrewsbury, we only see them about once a year and they are real foodies so pull all the stops out.
The plan for the meal was Salad Niscoise with seared tuna and poached quails eggs followed by deboned and stuffed chicken, fennel with parmesan, vichie carrots, runner beans,and fried new potatoes followed by lemon and almond tart and homemade cheese and biscuits. All set. So Thursday I go to Global Fruits in the Buttermarket where I buy all my veg, the only shop in Ipswich to stock quails eggs and they hadn't had their delivery that week. We went back on Friday to see if it had arrived and no quails eggs again. Rethink , rethink until on Saturday morning the lovely Dan from aforesaid shop rang to say they had got some in and would deliver them round to work in the afternoon. Star!!!!

So Salad Niscoise with finley sliced tuna steak, seared for a few seconds, to cut the tuna really thinly pop it in the freezer for about 1/2 hour before you cut it. Quails eggs if you have ever tried to break one have a really thin shell but a tough membrane so you have to saw a little nick into them with a serated knife without nicking the yolk. (several did get nicked and put aside for another day!) Pop them into boiling salted water for 2 minutes then out into a bowl of cold water. Just before serving pop them back into boiling water for 30 seconds. Toss the salad of new potatoes, tomatoes, cucumber and leaves with classic dressing, place the quails eggs and tuna on the top and hoorah there we go delicious!

Next course deboned and stuffed chicken, it sounds like an occult mystery to debone a chicken but there are loads of films of it on youtube and its quite easy if not a little fiddley. Stuffed with a pork layer and a chicken liver pate layer and then baked in the oven for a couple of hours. It really needs to be rested for at least 45 minutes before carving. Served with slices of fried new potatoes, vichie carrots which are glazed with butter and sugar, runner beans and fennel with parmesan. Fennel isn't really my favourite vegetable , too aniseedy and sweet. However the halved fennel bulbs were braised in the oven for an hour with chopped fennel stalks, butter and white wine. When done the bulbs are removed and placed in a dish cut side up. Parmesan is then mixed with some of the strained juice and spread on the top with more grated parmesan, grill for 5 minutes till golden. Fantastic, don't knock it till you try it! the sharpness of the parmesan really counterbalances the sweetness of the fennel. A definate must again!

Finally Lemon and almond tart from Julia Child's Mastering the art of French cooking.  A crispy pastry with an almondand lemon custardy filling baked and left to go cold. Julia puts a lemon syrup on the top but I thought that would be too sweet so just sprinkled some lemon zest and marigold petals on the top. Apart from the slightly rustic looking pastry edge it was delicious with cream, one of those things you just want to kidnap and eat the whole thing yourself!! Perfect with home made lemon balm wine.

Finally home made cheeses and biscuits, more of which on another day.
Stuffed!