Birthday Meal - Steak & Oyster Pie

It was my partner A's birthday last week.  He requested a pie.  This request became my first weekly recipe.  I looked at 'England's Finest Heritage Food and Cooking.  My criteria was:
1.  Puff pastry (personal preference)
2. Not chicken (I don't like how it re-heats)

Anyway, found the recipe very quickly and didn't look at any more books.  I planned to make the pie filling the night before, so all I would need to do was top it with the (ready made) pastry the following day.  This is even mentioned in the recipe.  This decision raised the question... shall I add the oysters the night before as well - I don't consider giving food poisoning an appropriate birthday present!!??  I even asked the fishmonger who said it would be OK but A was unhappy.  We reached a compromise - A shucked the oysters the following morning leaving them in a sealed tub.  I added them in the evening when I was making up the pie itself.

Making the pie filling was no real problem.  Much like making a stew.  I really wanted to add chopped bacon as I find it adds to this sort of food but resisted as 'it was not in the recipe'.  I used Old Speckled Hen ale for no other reason than we had it in the house, out of date but I thought it tasted OK.  Obviously not as worried about food poisoning when it comes to alcohol!!!!!. 

It was all very straight forward. My main comments are:
- I did not reduce the sauce to the quantity stated in the recipe.  It looked like there was the right amount already and I was hoping there would be enough to make into gravy.
- I do not own a large pie dish so made two smaller pies from same packet of puff pastry (which used more than if making one large pie).
- After cooking the pie itself, I would have liked the sauce thicker so would add flour / cornflour next time.  But that might just be a personal preference.
- Interestingly the oysters stayed very plump and soft despite being cooked for an hour in the pie (from cold).
- I liked it cooked in ale.  You could add red wine which I have added to stews in the past.  I found the addition of ale did not overwhelm the taste the way red wine can.
- The recipe was for six and there were five of us.  There were left-overs, which were happily eaten by A over the following two days.

Second Recipe - Dinner Party

We had invited two good friends over for dinner so true to my principles, I picked recipes from my book collection.  Unfortunately I did not decide what to make until the night before, breaking a cardinal rule about preparing for a dinner party.

I found the starter pretty quick: Carpaccio of Beef from 'Jamie Does...'.  I decided on this as I had also seen the TV episode and it looked very easy to make ( no cooking involved so it would be)!!!!.  We have had this dish before in Bologna several years ago.

I bought 300g of fillet steak as per the recipe and got the butcher to cut into six slices, for me to bash later.  This was done without problem and I didn't tear.  I strayed from the recipe re the salad garnish.  Wrong time of year for courgettes and courgette flowers so I improvised using watercress and mixed salad leaves. None homegrown.  I added mustard to the lemon and olive dressing which is suggested in the recipe, and I have read in other recipes.

When it came to eating, the meat was so very tender and you were not really aware of eating raw meat, due in part to the salad dressing.  Even 11 year old daughter ate it (after watching us eat it first to make sure we were 'not poisoned from eating raw meat'.  I reminded her that her favourite parma ham is raw.  The recipe is 300g for six starters, which five of us ate.  Not substantial, but luckily we had olive, cornicions, capers and anchovies on sticks, and grissini artigianali with our prosecco before dinner.  I must stress we do not eat like this every week - but I do watch a lot of 'come dine with me'!

I would have liked to have picked the main course from the same book - just felt right to do so.  I was tempted by Vongole but the shopping trip did not manage to buy any clams.  Also the weather was too nice to make a lovely stew so I decided to stick to an Italian theme, just to be safe.

Plan B was linguine frutti da mare from 'Rick Stein's Seafood Odyssey' using whatever seafood we could find (prawns, mussels and a bag of mixed seafood from the fishmonger, and also a few scallops that were in our freezer).

As you can see, I have cooked this recipe before!!!! I followed the recipe to the letter. I did not weigh the seafood, as it was mostly unshelled - so I figured I was allowed a bit of leniency!  The wine used was pinot grigio only because that was what we were drinking. 

Dessert was my old staple, lemon tart from '1000 Italian Recipes. Made earlier in the afternoon.  I buy a ready made sweet pastry case and make 3/4 of the filling (butter, cream, eggs, sugar, lemon juice and zest).  I also bake it for longer than the recipe as it always looks too 'wobbly'when following the recipe timings - but who knows, maybe it sets when it has cooled down.

We finished with cheese board and the remainder of my home-made limoncello.  All in all, very successful (but they haven't all been)!

Tips:

- don't cook a starter, or at least cook it in advance.

- make dessert earlier in day.

- prepare all the ingredients so all ready when it comes to cook.

- if you are going to cook when your guests are there, make it something that does not take longer than 15 minutes.  I chose to cook after we had eaten the starter so there was was not a long wait.  Nor was it a case of getting the main course out immediately after the starter.

- finally, use real napkins if you have them! no point in having them if you never use them!

The things I have learned are preparation; having a really nice set table; a flower display that suits the table setting; and thinking about who you are cooking for.  And also someone to help with the clearing and washing up!