I'm about to start a 2 day cook-a-thon for a gourmet night a friend and I are having on Saturday Night so I thought I'd share what I'm doing with the oprano gourmet family.
hopefully one day some of you will want to try my cooking badly enough you'll make the trip down under ;-)
So, saturday ....
We have 13 summer wines to taste and matching appetizer sized dishes to go with each wine ...
Here's the menu:
Sparkling Cuvee on Arrival
A selection of Breads & Cheeses / Sauvignon Blanc
A range of locally grown black & green olive tepanades & a variety of olive oils
Duo of Soups - pumpkin soup & roast potato and garlic soup / verdelho
Seafood Stuffed Mushrooms - crumbed and deap fried, topped with hollandaise sauce / wooded & unwooded chardonnay
lemon sorbet
Spicy Warm Duck Salad - roast duck served on a bed of baby spinich with a spicy plum sauce / choice of rose or Cabernet Merlot
Kangaroo Meatballs slowcooked in traditional italian meatball style / shiraz cabernet
Lime & Chilli Sorbet / Bianco Dolce & Rosso Dolce
Champagne & Berry Jellies / sparkling shiraz
Flaming Liqueur Fruit fondue / hinterland botrytis
Fruit & Dessert Cheeses, dried muscatels, grapes, qince paste, dried figs, apricots, blue cheese, goats cheese / hinterland tawny
soups & sorbets are done, i'm about to start preparing the duck to roast ... I haven't cooked it since last dinner at papa's house!
Here's how it looks right now! LOL
I'll post the finished product later ;-)
First recipe which I highly recommend
Lime & Chilli Sorbet
2 red or green chilli's finely chopped
bottle of plain mineral water - freeze for couple of hours so its pourable but icy
2 limes - grate zest & keep, juice 1 and keep other separate
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
heat sugar and water in pan until dissolved and simmer until mixture starts to thicken - cool
when cool, add chopped chilli's and lime juice and freeze until icy
put sugar, chilli and lime juice and bottle of icy mineral water into food processor, process until smooth
freeze for a few hours and repeat blending - do this as many times as possible, at least 2 - each time it gets smoother in texture
when its blended and you are freezing for the final time, take 2nd lime and carefully scrape out the pulp which is made up of little 'cells' of lime juice. swirl this through the mixture and refreeze
remove from freezer 10 minutes before serving
stay tuned