So this Monday we have one of our regular guests. Dave and I arrived at Steph’s with our usual accoutrements to serve our dinner and lo and behold Steph and Bruce were already sitting on the deck, chatting and enjoying a glass of wine. We quickly put our stuff inside and a glass of wine was placed in our hand. Now, we were ready to start! A last minute addition to our guest list was Luke, who arrived a little later. This Monday the menu is heavily influenced by Asian cuisine. The starter was Lobster Summer rolls with a chili mayonnaise : a dish I had attempted before but I think this time I have gotten the knack of tightly rolling them.
The rolls were light and fresh tasting with a burst of flavor in the middle as a result of a vinegar gelee you make with vinegar, lime juice, and elderflower syrup. The chili mayonnaise made with Sriracha added a little heat on the finish. These were so good that we polished them off very quickly. We then moved on to our next course which was a Hot and Sour Soup. We had an interesting outing at the T & T supermarket sourcing out some of the ingredients but our persistence paid off.
We usually serve soup in the winter, but I have been wanting to make this soup for some time and am glad we did. It had lovely flavours, but a note for next time, to crank up the heat, just one more notch.
Our main tonight is another dish I have been wanting to make and luckily T & T supermarket had kingfish. The only problem was that they were cut as steaks and I wanted fillets. I had the fishmonger cut a side of a fresh kingfish and I filleted the fish at home into equal portions. The portions are then marinated in a Sesame Ginger Paste. To complete the dish a portion of cooked sticky rice is placed in the centre of a banana leaf, the fish placed on top, then drizzled with a hot BBQ fish sauce and then topped with diced mango. They are cooked on the grill and to serve we placed the bundles on the plate and carefully opened them up and drizzled a little more of the BBQ fish sauce and served with soy sauce, for dipping, and we dined on Sesame Ginger KIngfish.
This dish was absolutely stunning with so many flavours – ginger, sesame, mango – and a nice heat from the hot BBQ drizzle . We all commented that the sticky rice on the bottom and fish on top, that this was a riff on sushi but a warm version.
For the finale, we ended with an interesting dessert: Passion Fruit Pavlova. What makes it interesting, is that the meringue is made in a silicone demi-circle mold and cooked at a very low temperature for several hours and then carefully unmolded and served with a passion fruit sorbet in the middle and then another demi circle placed on top to look like a globe and garnished with passion fruit seeds on top.
Well, talk about the wow factor. This was truly impressive and a lovely end of meal dessert – light and refreshing on a warm spring day. We finished the evening with playing selections from Elijah and me attempting to sing the tenor arias.
The following Monday we have one guest that we had dined with prior to starting our blog, so we are happy to have her again to include her in our chronicles of breaking bread and sharing with friends; we have our trio, Christie and Tom. Tom messaged to say he was running late due to a vet visit, so we started with a new dish in our repertoire: Grilled planked Lobster Cakes with a brown butter glaze. I know – decadent, right?
Well, these were absolutely delicious but we still need to tweak the recipe so it’s at par with our cedar planked crab cakes. Tom arrived shortly thereafter and a lobster cake was quickly placed in front of him. Our meal continued with everyone now present. Since, we had guests that had an aversion to dairy and garlic my challenge was to come up with a menu that didn’t have these items. No problem! The next course I had to adjust and came up with a different version that didn’t have the cream cheese and used an egg and some bread crumbs as the binding – easy, peasy! Next up, Chicken Supremes stuffed with crab meat and spinach. On the weekend, we visited Shawn’s parents and stopped at roadside fruit and vegetable stand. We picked up a few items to feature with our meal. To that end, we made a spring risotto to go with our main using fresh Ontario green peas and fava beans.
The dish was finished with a drizzle of lemon oil around the plate. This dish certainly impressed and will definitely be in our rotation of dishes we serve.
We also had purchased some fresh Ontario strawberries so it was fitting that we served them with a light, airy dessert : a beautiful Lemon Chiffon cake!
Since we had a late start and a large amount of great conversation, it was getting rather late for gathering around the piano as per usual. So, being a school night for some we packed up our things and said adieu.
