Well, winter has set in, and this dynamic duo have gone into a little bit of a hibernation period. What with a warm house and great recipes to try, it really doesn't seem that bad! However, I decided to have some friends around for dinner this coming Saturday night, and as the chef will be cooking for the patrons of his place of employ, the cooking was to be left up to yours truly. As there are about 5 people coming over, and this is not an episode of Come dine with me, I wanted to be prepared, not stuck in a kitchen, and certainly not getting stressed out.
I decided on Lasagne, Italian salad, garlic bread and Apple Crumble for dessert. Lasagne because I can kinda make that, with some help, salad and garlic bread - 'nuff said, and Apple Crumble, because that is a tried and true dessert I can do! So what's cheating you ask, besides potentially buying the garlic bread - which I'm not- and getting a ready-made salad - which is almost true? I made the lasagne with Marty on Monday and was given a basic tutorial in the finer points of cooking, froze it, and will defrost it on Friday to pop in the oven Saturday. Here's hoping it tastes delicious, that it has the right balance of sauce, but isn't too dry or runny, and the gorgeous flavours we worked on are all there!
To the first step of making this relatively easy Italian meal. The most important part and most essential ingredient is flavour. Now, I remember when my mom would make Spag Bol, and chops up the onions, carrots, garlic, and then add some bacon to it. She may have used celery too - correct me if I"m wrong mom! And now, I'm standing in the kitchen being instructed to dice some carrots, while the chef deals with the onions and celery. We're making a mirepoix (mirror-pwa), not just randomly chopping up veggies. This is the basis to stocks, meat dishes if you add bacon to it too, soups ans stews. But first, we popped some oil into the pot, brought it to a medium heat, added a couple of garlic cloves - a side note was we actually added some of our garlic-infused oil - some basil leaves, and thyme. Once this was all mixed through we added the onions and began to saute, then the onions and celery. This was cooked so that it was starting to soften, but not colour too much, and then removed so that the mince could be cooked off. This time we just used our garlic oil, which was delicious and easy to do and tasted delicious. Marty cooked the meat off in sections, added the mirepoix to it when done and then in with some tomato sauce (again we've used the Five Brothers Summer Tomato Basil Pasta Sauce) and stock. Left to bubble along while the white sauce was made.
Now the white sauce was the main reason for Marty's help as it's not something I've ever really known how to make and the 1 or 2 times it's been attempted have been disastrous. I'm not going to get into to as it's probably another discussion for another time, and really needs a demo!
Layer the lasagne, cooked for 30-40min at 180deg, and then leave to cool then freeze, if you're doing my cheat and cooking your main earlier than the party! So know, the night before all I need to do is take it out the freezer, prepare my garlic bread and cook up my apples if there's time.
On the Saturday - as I'll be working till 6pm - all that needs to happen is the table can be set, lasagne and garlic bread in the oven, salad tossed and crumble assembled to go into the oven. And a large glass of red wine poured. That sounds a lot easier then slaving away in a kitchen all day! Hopefully everyone enjoys it.
I used the mirepoix again this week to cook up a delicious Beef and Veg soup, and the flavours were lovely. Again I used the garlic oil and it gave a very subtle garlic taste without the fear of chomping into a great big clove of garlic. It is actually a French culinary term from the 18th century that was named after a Duc de Mirepoix, a region in Languedoc. This method had been used well before that, and in Italian it is known as soffritto.
Au Revoir
xoxo
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