Sunday 15 July 2012

Bastille Day Dinner


Margaret's table setting for the meal.


Fleur de Lis serviettes


The centre piece: a small statuette Martin brought back for me from Paris,  a bottle of brandy, a few red, white & blue things and a small replica gargoyle from Notre Dame.

Initially dinner was going to be for three.

Then five.

Then six.

Then eight.

All that changed was the main: had been planning a French CafĂ© style steak and triple cooked chips.  Not too happy doing steaks properly for eight people at once so went to Plan B.

And so, the meal:

Pink fizzy drink (The Arrogant Frog brand, I couldn't resist.)
Musette de Paris CD on as mood music. (Stereotypical French piano accordion music)

Starter: 
French Onion Soup.
◊ cooked 2kg of sliced, sauteed onions in the slow cooker for 6hrs.  Will definitely do that again.

Main 
Boeuf Bourguignon
◊ Made at lunch time and put in the hay-box for the afternoon and then into the oven when the potatoes went in.

Potato Dauphinoise
◊ Nothing different here, potatoes, onion, garlic, cream & milk baked until crisp on top and soft in the middle.

Green Salad
◊ With French Dressing, of course.  Proper vinaigrette, home made.

Dessert
Tarte Tatin and cream.
◊ Used Golden Delicious apples and had enough for a double layer of apple crescents (cut into eighths).

Cheese platter was abandoned due to lack of interest.

.



15 comments:

  1. "crisp on top and soft in the middle"? Sounds like me.

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  2. Sounds like you sauteed the onions (to caramelise them) before putting them in the slow cooker. Can you confirm, as this seems a brill way of doing FOS.

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  3. PS - would be interested to hear of any experience of making a risotto in the slow cooker.

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  4. Yes, Bill, that's right.

    I usually make my risottos in the rice cooker - stirring occasionally only - haven't tried the slow cooker for that yet. That was JCosmo's idea.

    Slow cooker makes brilliant overnight porridge.

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  5. What, no photos of the actual food? :) It all sounds delicious, Lee. French onion soup sounds particularly good - what did you use for stock?

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  6. I don't seem to be able to take good food pictures - don't have a good light source and the flash is not flash, if you know what I mean.

    I made a beef stock in the pressure cooker with some osso bucco, onions, carrots etc.

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  7. And I take it that you're still snoozing after that feast!!

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  8. Went north African this weekend - Spanish Eggs, Lamb Kofta with hummus and hot carrot salad, honeyed oranges and dates with Greek yoghurt.

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  9. Sounds fantastic! You mention a 'hay box' - is that some kind of super-insulated container? It would make an interesting way to keep the food 'cooking'.

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  10. The 'haybox' is a large wooden box. I covered my casserole with Alfoil, suspended it on dowels and then filled the space around it with polyurethane foam (gap-filler squirty stuff). With a bit of fiddling I ended up with a base and a lid that would then fit over the casserole. Put a thermocouple in there once and, from 100degC, it was still over 60degC 13 hours later.

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  11. Sounds pretty neat. I love the technical talk 'gap-filler squirty stuff' LOL but I know what you are talking about. Thanks for the answer.

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  12. Hey! I wrote an article a while back about cooking with hay!

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  13. You're taking a long time of that meal, Lee. Surely you've digested it by now!!!! ;)

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  14. Knock! Knock! Anyone home?

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