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Let's start with the less successful element of dinner first, shall we?
I decided that I wanted to make this gorgeous wholemeal
salt-kissed buttermilk berry cake from Arika's blog. But instead of following the directions properly I substituted 1 cup of ground almonds for some of the flour, and decided that they would be a cute dessert done in my individual silicon rose moulds.
Fortunately there was too much batter for the rose moulds, so I also made 4 in friand tins, which is the only reason we were able to serve cake for dessert. I swear those rose moulds are getting kicked to the curb. This is the second thing I have made in them and the second disaster. They are not getting a second chance! I reduced the cook time slightly because I was doing smaller cakes, the knife tested clean, and then when I tried to turn them out they splodged onto my cake rack in a puddle of raw batter and dribbly raspberry juices. What a waste of ingredients!
The ones in the friand tin, however, turned out beautifully. The combination of sweet and salt was delicious - although I wouldn't want to eat a lot of it. And if I make it again I am definitely just making one big cake!
And on to better things...
One of our friends is quite a particular eater. She prefers lean meat, well-done, and will turn her nose up at the delicious crispy burnt fatty bits on a barbecued rib eye steak. Weird-o. So Paul decided to get a nice (and just quietly -
hideously expensive) piece of fillet and make one of his famous beef wellingtons.
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Although I can't quite figure out how he became famed for his wellington when I make the duxelles that makes it good...
So - I sauteed a punnet of chestnut mushrooms, finely chopped, in butter with some garlic & thyme, added some soaked, drained and chopped dried wild mushrooms (a mixture of porcini, chanterelle and a bunch of other stuff) and a slosh of JD and cooked it slowly until it was really dry, cooled it and then blended it to a rough paste with a spoonful of mustard to bind it. I thought it should have been Dijon mustard, but Paul insisted that hot English was the thing. So English
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it was.
Paul then panfried the piece of fillet really well to get it nicely browned and half cooked. The problem with a wellington is the pastry insulates the meat and it becomes much harder to judge how well done it is - but you don't want a totally cooked piece of meat to go in because it won't exchange flavours with the pastry properly.
The cooled meat went on a piece of all-butter puff pastry, rolled out quite thickly, then it was smothered in the duxelles.
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Another layer of pastry over the top, some crimping and a bit of cute pastry doodad on the top and into the oven.
He started it at quite a high heat, then after about 15 minutes turned it down to 160C for another 35 minutes or so.
It was delicious! The meat was buttery soft, the duxelles added a rich foresty flavour and the pastry shows why butter puff beats the weird pre-rolled stuff with all the hydrogenated vegetable fats etc. Our friend totally demolished her portion, so we'd have to say that, despite issues with the dessert, this was a very successful dinner!