Cooking with old friends

I know Steve and his lovely wife Sam through my brother. Steve asked me  to come around and teach him and his friends something unique in the kitchen and have some fun whilst doing it –  it just so happened to fall on Halloween.

We had a big menu to get through, so I made sure that we started early enough to ensure that we wouldn’t be eating too late. On our menu for Halloween was a scrumptious starter of Fresh Green Asparagus with Hollandaise Sauce along with a Marinated Salmon and Crab dish.  For main course we made individual Beef Wellingtons with seasonal vegetables and roast potatoes. For dessert I came up with three choices as everybody was keen to learn something different; we made Eton Mess with a twist, Chocolate Fondant and for Gordon, Passion-fruit Soufflé.

 A few of the guests already knew how to make the basic dishes, but what I hoped to show them were the little secrets of each dish that would make them just that little bit special and based on the feedback it looks as if I achieved my goal.

The cooking went well with everybody enjoying themselves and getting involved but what is an evening of cooking without great wines?  We started with chilled champagne, moving on to a smooth Sancerre.  My favourite however, was a lovely bottle of Tignanello 2005 and we then rounded off the meal with a Tokaji Aszu 5 Puttonyos 1995 (a sweet wine) with dessert.

I am going to leave it there as I think the photos say it all  –  just wanted to say thank you to Steve, Sam, Charles, Gordon and Nadyne for a very enjoyable evening. See you soon guys!

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