On Golden Plank

Breaking Bread

So this past weekend, Steph and her group “Schola Magdalena” performed at a medieval reenactment near Waupoos,  sang Mass at the lovely St. John’s Church, and then ambled back to Toronto after a swim in Lake Ontario, and some wonderful wine tastings.

 Everyone was so friendly, and they traded their CD for some wine glasses with winery logos! They visited 4 Prince Edward County wineries. Hillier, Long Dog, Exultet and LightHall. Some of these wines will be featured with tonight’s menu.

We were attempting to find some theme for the menu, when we realized that we really felt like a nice prime rib.  Well that’s all it took. For tonight’s menu we feature food cooked on planks. We had a nice mix of guests, our trio, Jim and Kathy, who sang for many years with Shawn at CCDP and Letitia, who sings with us at Pax Christi Chorale. I think we even had all of the voice parts covered. What a nice opportunity to catch up with friends.

For our first appetizer, we went to the grocery store, up north. I asked “What do we need in the produce department?” Shawn answered “figs….  dried and fresh.”  Not being in the city, what are the chances to find both fresh and dried…….  wait, they are right over here.  Shawn made a quick fig jam from the dried figs, added this to crostini, toasted over the charcoal. We added some goat cheese and topped with fresh figs.  Fig and goat cheese crostini, what a nice light start to the evening. This was accompanied by LightHall “Progression” sparkling wine.

While nibbling and catching up, we had time to get the coals up to temperature.  Our second appetizer is a favorite of ours, and certain other members of the family…. So much so we had to make the same dish on Saturday. So after sung grace, we had Planked Crab Cakes with Horseradish Mayonnaise.  This was paired with the Hillier Creek Estates 2012 Rosé.

The crab cakes are really mostly just crab, but the smokey flavor from the cedar plank gives it another layer of flavor.

The main course featured 2 planked dishes. First a prime rib, coated in a combination of course ground coffee beans, Dijon, molasses, Maple Porter beer and green onion.  The coating forms a crust that flavours the meat and keeps extra moisture in the meat. This was cooked on a maple plank. This was accompanied by cedar planked duchess potatoes. The potatoes are piped directly onto the plank, in little volcanoes, which is filled with the demi-glace gravy. We also had sautéed Swiss Chard from our garden.  The wine for this course was from Long Dog winery’s 2010 Pinot noir Reserve “Top Dog”.

We were concerned about the timing of the meat, since it was larger than we have planked before, and it did not seem to be coming up to temperature as quickly as we expected, so we followed our gut and the meat was cooked perfectly.  I think we have burned out another temperature probe. The meat was tender and the subtle flavour of the coating was terrific.  The potatoes are always a hit, like a demi glace filled volcano, but for me the greens really stood out,  picked on Sunday evening, fresh and delicious.

For dessert, I was going to plank something, but we have a new petit-four mould, that I have been wanting to try, so we had a velvet chocolate pound cake with chocolate ganache and creme fraiche.  I think this was the right choice, since most of the desserts I was thinking of may have been too rich after a big meal. This was a nice finish to the meal. To pair the dessert we finished off the leftover wine from earlier, and tossed the bottles across the lawn.

The evening was so lovely, as the sun set and the day cooled off to evening, that we eschewed singing around the piano and instead just spent time catching up on past adventures and future plans. A lovely evening of planking, and friendship.

5 thoughts on “On Golden Plank

  1. As one of the honoured invited guests I can attest to the wonderful tastes of the whole night (as well as the conversation and some of the ‘mythical’ entertainment) and can say that I left completely satisfied and with a feeling of blessing that the whole evening was. Thank you again for the wonderful evening Shawn, David and Stephanie.

    1. Speaking of the mythical entertainment…. I was going mention our myth busters like moment, but some myths need to be honoured. Was lovely to have you for MND Letitia.

  2. holy patoota, I am so glad I met you in Gloucester. hope to see you in Worcester 2016 but in the meantime, I’m flying up on a Monday night. joke. you guys are amazing. enjoy enjoy.

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