Chocolate Rosemary cream

This is amazing! Sugar, lemon juice, vin santo, cream, rosemary, chocolate.

The taste is intense. And brilliant. I think rather than a whole ramekin, you want half that amount, and served with pears.

What a wonderful taste sensation for the new year. I copied it from Andrew MacLachlan's The Making of a Pastry Chef, and its credited as being a 16th Century recipe. Marvellous stuff. Reinforces the idea that what's gone before deserves heavy research :)

Twice baked goats cheese souffles

Well.... they look a little overdone :) But tasty enough. Altho' I would choose a sharper goats cheese next time - these would be good with some bite.
I made a white sauce, added egg yolks and goats cheese. Whisked egg white, folded it in. Then baked them twice. First time in the ramekin, second without.
Not sure what you get with the twice baking. : /
Also - slower oven - this baked the outside too quick, and tho' the inside was right, i think it could stand a little more heat. 

Next time - sharper cheese. Try single baking or cooler oven on second bake.

Christmas pudding proper

Thank you Bertinet Bakery for creating this :) the best christmas pudding. So many nuts, lemon, orange, rum, fruits - just gorgeous. And it was light. Really. Gorgeous, rich, indulgent.

Messy pile of profiteroles :)

Made the choux paste, creme patissiere, cut it with some whipped double cream, filled the choux buns and dipped in chocolate. They were light fluffy and lovely :) And messy. By this point in Christmas, I wasn't too fussy about presentation - a nice pile of tasty treats.

Christmas gammon

Christmas gammon.

Usually this fills us with delight and wonder, but for some reason this year, it just wasn't the bees knees. Must be time for a change.
The marmalade and rosemary glaze is lovely. But the meat wasn't as nice as the Daylesford Organic gammon we've had the last 2 years.

Next year - some game, some bread sauce, some deep green savoy cabbage. 

Pheasant breast with port, redcurrant, thyme jus

OK - this is me trying 'neater' food.

Made some boulangeres potatoes - sliced with onions, rosemary, thyme, cooked in stock.
Put the pheasant breasts in pan, coloured them, then roasted in foil in the oven.
This meant that the skin lost its crispness, but there were lots of lovely juices.
I put port, cider (cos it was lying around), juniper berries, redcurrant jelly in the pan to get all the meat juices. Reduced.

Plated up boulangeres with beans and carrots (i just wanted something green, and the co-op doesn't do greens or kale or purple sprouting).
Then added butter to the jus, and then strained it to remove thyme, juniper berries.
All done. It was very nice - strong rich flavour from the jus. Boulangeres was a bit too salty. I need to watch out with the new finer salt I've got. Haven't gauged how much to use yet.
Pheasant was totally delicious - moist, flavoursome, well seasoned (who knew?).

Chicken liver parfait

Chicken Liver Parfait. Raymond Blanc style.


Soak 400g livers for 6 hours in milk, water, salt.
Reduce madeira, port, with shallots and thyme. Then add cognac and pureed garlic.
Whizz the raw livers in the blender. Add the alcohol reduction.
Melt 400g (!) butter, then add to the livers.

All this was too much for my little blender! I had to make it in two goes. It was also too much for my 1lb loaf tin/terrine. 400g of livers makes a LOT of parfait :)

Once it was all evenly whizzed - taste (raw livers, yes) and season.

Cover with silicon paper to stop discolouring and a skin forming while cooking.

Bake in bain marie in 130C oven for an hour. Cool for 2 hours, cover with melted butter to make sure the air doesn't get to it.

I made two. Quite unintentionally. That's a lot of parfait. The house entirely smells of chicken livers. Slightly freaked out.