A winter dinner party

I've got some friends coming over for dinner tonight so I thought I'd get my menu on record!  It's also a way of keeping track what I cook!  I just made a celeriac and leek soup, and I think I might finish that with some truffle oil just before serving.  I think the truffle will go really well with the earthy flavours of the celeriac.

Main course will be a few recipes from Marcella Hazan - I was looking through her Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking again last night and she never ceases to inspire me!  I'll do her pork chops in marsala and  red wine, together with braised carrots, and some nice creamy polenta to go with that.

Dessert is - as it mostly is - one of my own concoctions.   I hadn't made pannacotta for a while so I did a plain vanilla pannacotta - it's setting in dariole moulds in the fridge now.  Last night I quartered a quince and stewed that in some water with sugar and chinese five spices, and at the end I added a nice ripe comice pear - just for a few minutes so it didn't over-cook.  So that will go with the pannacotta, together with a sauce I made this morning - a reduction of dry amontillado sherry and dark chestnut honey - a last minute idea I had!  It's a pretty aromatic sauce - what with the nutty sherry and the strong flavour of chestnut honey -but then the pannacotta will be quite neutral so I think it will go well with that and the spicy pears. 

Back!

It's been a while since I've posted something here - and in defiance of the 'start a blog and never post again' syndrome I've decided to pick it up again!  One of the reasons for starting again is because I stumbled upon a brilliant blog by a young chef, Aidan, it's pretty inspirational how this guy writes about food.  Read his stuff here.

Another reason for the long silence is that lots of things have happened in my life since my last post in 2006 - not in the least that we bought a flat wit a nicer and bigger kitchen!  So I've been cooking / baking away for the last year or so.  I've also been rather busy with studying for the WSET Advanced level certificate in wines and spirits - serious stuff and quite time-consuming!  I'll tell you more about it later.  

Anyway - as I'm writing this there's a batch of lovely brioche loaves in my oven.  I've done brioche before - following a recipe by Gordon Ramsay, but this time I've used Dan Lepard's recipe from the Guardian baking supplement which came out two weekends ago.  It's brilliant - I can smell the lovely brioche with a certain undertone of marzipan!