11.06.08
One Last Kitchen Disaster
Since we all love these stories to feed our collective sense of schadenfreude, I thought I would share one last one with you. It comes on the heels of my one last dinner I prepared for the good folks up at LifeStyle in Bedford. They host a weekly trattoria style dinner, which is usually great food and wonderful atmosphere, but this time I thought I would give it a whirl as their guest chef.
My dinner plan was as follows:
 The look of a perfect panna cotta. Not the look of mine… |
Anitpasto: Bruschetta with tangle of red and yellow roasted bell peppers with anchovies and capers on homemade baguettes.
Primi: Creamy risotto with Italian sausage, oven-caramelized onions and fresh thyme.
Secundi: Chicken roulade stuffed with rapini, golden raisins and Parmesan, glazed with rosemary/lavender honey on a bed of garlic polenta.
Formaggio: A selection of house cheeses and accompaniments. (I let them plan this…)
Dolci: Pomegranate Panna Cotta with grapefruit coulis and candied grapefruit peel.
All in all, a strong menu, which I thought would progress beautifully and provide texture, flavor and color contrasts that would be lovely. I had plenty of time to prepare it - in fact the day before I roasted the peppers, made the chicken roulades - no small feat seeing as how it involved de-boning three whole chickens, stuffing them, and tying them up - and made the panna cottas, and put them in the fridge to set.
I was so happy with myself about how smart I was to be so ahead of the game. The next morning I would come downstairs and make the fresh bread, and it would be smooth sailing for the dinner.
You can of course see where this is going…
Well I came down the next morning, and the peppers were marinating beautifully, the roulades were still, well, roulades, and to treat myself I thought I would have one of the many extra panna cottas I had made. I had made 24 of them, and since I don’t own 24 ramekins, I had done the genius solution of making them in muffin tins - which I have lots of. Well, I guess I should have read my own article on pan reactivity a little more closely because as soon as I took the panna cotta out of the first tin, I recognized that while the top was the beautiful dusty-rose color of a perfect pomegranate panna cotta, the side that had been touching the cup was completely gray.
Hoping maybe it was just this pan, I checked the others. Nope, all ruined. They tasted great, but looked like hell. I couldn’t serve them. And now I had just a few hours to make fresh bread from scratch and come up with a whole new dessert idea - and make it.
 Quick, simple and delicious. Nobody would have ever known! |
Well, since it was fall on the east coast, that means apples and pears are in season, so I went to my local produce stand, and bought a peck of fresh beautiful apples. With the help of my friends I peeled them, sliced them, and got them cooking down in a bourbon caramel sauce. I bought some vanilla ice cream at the store, and there we were: Fresh local apple parfaits with bourbon caramel sauce on vanilla ice cream. (Garnished of course with the pomegranate seeds I had planned to use for my original dessert…)
All in all the dinner itself went well. I overcooked the risotto a little, and the portioning of the polenta could have been better, but all in all people loved the food, and I felt that I was really just at home in this kitchen I had never worked in before. It’s amazing how far of come, and somewhat sad for me that in a way I’m now done with it.
I going to HAVE to find a way to keep up the cooking in England!
Stumble it!
