For my husband's birthday weekend this year, I surprised him with a special eight course dinner on the eve of his birthday.
The Third Course: Salad Greens with fresh water chestnuts, slow roasted beets and Chinese plums. I dressed the salad with a Maile Dijon vinaigrette.
The Fourth Course: We love Sashimi and so I made him checkered Hamachi(yellow tail) and salmon sashimi plate with Kaiso seaweed salad. I purchased the kaiso seaweed salad along with Grade A raw fish from a local Japanese market.
The Seventh Course(Main course): Twiced cooked pork belly with roasted garlic mashed potatoes. This took the longest to make. I bought a huge slab of fresh rindless pork belly from one of my favorite local butchers and braised it in juniper berries, allspice and other aromatics for hours. Then, I cooled it down, rubbed it with LOTS of Maile whole grain Dijon mustard and other pork friendly spices like oregano. I baked it in a 350 degree oven until it was golden brown. Three cheers for pork belly.
The Seventh Course/The Cheese Course: We love the Cheese Course at L'Espalier and Adjour'hui so I included a cheese course in his birthday menu. I picked two cheeses, one of which he is familiar with and loves -- Gruyere. The other one is an amazing and very creamy "double cream" blue cheese called St. Agur from the Basque region of France. I added gigantic fresh blackberries and homemade honeyed quince chunks.
The final course -- I kept the dessert course simple. This homemade chocolate malt pudding is made with lots of melted Dove chocolate bars and malt milk powder. I garnished the pudding with "white chocolate pearls."
3 comments:
Oh. My. God....you have been busy, Jen! I can't let Jeff see this post, he'll wonder why HE didn't get an 8-course feast for his birthday :-)
this is soooo sweet...8 course meal!! omg! you gave me an idea...=) but i know this is going to be tough..=)
Unbelievable!! Jim is a lucky guy.
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