A&S Journal Competition: Feast Cooking
So, the feast on May the 9th came and went astonishingly quickly, and I still haven't written anything about it.
Here we go then. The evening before the feast was spent trialling my pasta maker while Katherine made biscotti. The pasta maker was a definite success, and the filling worked, but by the time everything was done, it was late and I was exhausted, so I decided that the pasta could instead be made during the afternoon at the hall, which seemed entirely sensible.
I also managed to get dough made and risen, and left it again to rise (coated in oil) over night. However, I'm not especially happy with the recipe I'm using currently, and suspect that my bread rolls would improve greatly with a little more patience on my part, so am going to have to work on this some more. Of course, I'm sure the spiffy French book that I really want from Amazon would totally help, here, or maybe that's just me trying to justify buying it... (sadly, realistically, it's well down the list of things to buy).
Saturday morning was bloody frantic. I had pretty much everything, but it being Auckland, the simple trip to one butcher shop to pick up the fat I needed, and another on the way back to pick up beef ribs, still took well over an hour. And of course I forgot that part of the point of getting the beef ribs especially early was to massacre the hell out of them - well, tenderise them, at least - so that they could sit and marinade well in advance. But never mind.
The afternoon passed very quickly, and I was very glad both for the prep I'd done ahead of time (this made a HUGE difference), and the for the help I had in the kitchen (it's extraordinary how much more can be done with an extra pair of hands to do them).
First excitement of the afternoon came with unwrapping the ducks, to be surprised first by feet, and then by the head. At this stage I was thinking "ewh! Gross!". This was followed shortly thereafter with "well, I could squeal and act like a girl over this, or I could just get on with it and deal to it". I took the latter course of action, found a cleaver, and chuckled merrily as I chopped off the heads and feet. You can do a very fun little dance with the duck feet, as everyone in the kitchen found out, sort of reminiscent of the scene in Benny and Joon where Sam makes the hot dogs dance. It was also totally handy to have the duck heads there, as it meant I was able to get a good look at their tongues (which I've only seen in passing in live birds, as they gobble bits of bread), and verify that yes, if you had enough of the things, you probably could make a dish of ducks' tongues, as Scappi did, and (apparently) as they did in Venice. I don't think I want to get enough ducks to go tongue-gathering and make that dish though.
Second excitement came when I went to get Ludwig making tortellini and realised that the SINGLE ITEM I had failed to bring with me was the tortellini filling. Fortunately a few quick phone calls by Katherina, and our helpful local Baron was able to extract this from my house and bring it to site with him. The downside of this was that my fantastic plan of getting this out of the way in the afternoon was singularly thwarted by the forgetting of the filling, but never mind.
I relaxed a bit when I realised that people were really just drifting into the hall, and even though the first course was scheduled for 6pm, people still weren't garbed at 5.45pm, and no-one seemed to be in a hurry. The Braithwaytes arriving was a godssend, as all of them were extremely helpful, and it meant I was able to show Edward how I wanted the trays for the first course set out, and leave him to it. I really like the layout of the cold credenza (sideboard) course, followed by hot kitchen course/s, followed by cold credenza course. This worked really well. I relaxed a little again once the first set of trays was all laid out and ready to go, and I could gear shift to working out in what order I was going to send out the kitchen course.
Kitchen course ended up going out with mostly the veges first, followed by ribs, a couple more veges, then the duck and tortellini. The original intention had been to start with the duck, but due to aforementioned tortellini filling incident, that's not how it worked. As it was, it worked out very nicely and everyone quite happily ate loads of veges followed by a little bit of meat.
It was a most bizarre group of people though: They were all bloody raving (in a good way) about the broad beans. People do not rave about broad beans, this is not a natural human reaction to broad beans. Did someone not tell them this?
The duck went out and everyone enjoyed it, and was surprised that it was duck since I'd cooked it in brine and brining seemingly does wondrous things to fowl that people don't normally enjoy so much (however, it's really not worth the bother with chickens, just roast the damn things). I was surprised too, it was lovely and tender and just right. But then, I enjoyed the brined turkey at Christmas as well, for all those reasons, and usually I hate turkey and find it too fatty and gristly. So the magic of brining worked. I was a little dubious about this, because when you cook a bird in a pot of boiling water with salt in, it essentially looks like a bird that's been cooked in a pot of boiling water, and the skin's still pale. However, damned things bloody fell apart on extraction from the pot, which boded well for eating if not for presentation. The tortellini (which actually were more of a ravioli shape, but it was my first ever attempt at pasta at all, so the fact that they resembled pasta was a plus) were strategically draped over though, and this helped disguise the poor buggers. I could also see why Scappi said to remove the legs entirely (I'd just taken off the feet) and also the wings. Both items decided to opt for the bare-boned look on removal from the pot.
Androu arrived to help in the kitchen (having spent the whole day moving) some time prior to the duck going out, and this was again a huge plus to me, as he'd made pasta before and was able to churn the stuff through the machine with much greater efficiency than I could. He was surprised that the recipe I was using didn't take eggs, so was I, a little, but it was my first time making pasta so I didn't query it too much (and with no specific measurements, decided I could probably go fairly light on the sugar). It turned out really yummy though, and I'm totally making more pasta, and learning to fully-utilise the machine thingummy.
Was again relieved with the whole cold credenza course for dessert. This made life easier. It meant that while everyone was finishing off the main kitchen course (apparently there were protests along the lines of "no, no, I'm full, I can't possibly eat anymore, well, alright then, just a little"), I was able to tidy the kitchen a little and get the dessert platters ready. I was even happier when I realised that my kitchen hands were happy to chop pears, and I was able to go get dressed and dance for a bit.
The dessert looked lovely when it was set out on the credenza (oh yeah, Katherina built a credenza, it was totally awesome), and I managed to snap a couple of pictures before people dove in. I'll post them up once I've downloaded them.
Was very glad when the evening was over, as I was exhausted. Didn't stay dressed for much longer than I danced for, slipped straight back into mundanes because I was uncomfortable in the garb from having stood and worked all day and then put it on tired, and I wanted to go start cleaning the kitchen.
It was also good to see that the right amount of leftovers was achieved - just enough to indicate that people had had enough, and not too much to indicate that I'd overshopped massively (I had spent the week prior simultaneously worrying in both directions).
The downside of that kitchen to work in was only having the one household stove to work on, which was a wee bit tricky, but just manageable. Also finding that the oven part ran on the hot side, and with no sense of smell this nearly threw me off at the start, because I found I was having to check things sooner than I expected (unless the stove's caught fire, I can't tell if something's burning except by visually checking for cookedness), but once I got into the swing of it it was fine.
The things that made the biggest difference to me were having ready and willing help, and those extra few people who came in to the kitchen and asked me "what can I do?", and the general supportiveness of everybody that was there.
It was nice to get some good feedback on the food itself, and I heard a lot of people talking about the food, which I think I just noticed more because I was listening for it. It was interesting, because for every one person that didn't like something, there were four or five others saying they loved it. So, while I didn't like the ciambelle, Katherina loved them and ate heaps. She disliked the biscotti, but Emrys ate five or six of them, and so on. And I have heaps of ideas to play around with now, and loads more that I totally want to try out.
But first, I have to do the official write up for this feast (in progress atm, I think I'll finish it tomorrow night as I'm computered-out currently), and then cook St John's (not the feast, just the meal plan), which is going to be Anglo-Norman in flavour, but I'm not allowed to look at those books until I've done the write up, so I have an incentive to finish this week. It's mostly there, just requires a little more thought and a little more typing. But once I've done St John's, then I want to go back to playing with Scappi some more.
Thank you to everyone that came to the feast, I enjoyed cooking for you. And thank you to my kitchen helpers, your work was greatly appreciated, and I couldn't have done it without you (well, I could have, but everyone would've been eating about midnight).
I think overall the event went really well, and everyone seemed to have a good time. The hall set up and seating arrangement that Katherina organised looked really good, and apparently worked well for table service too. I certainly enjoyed myself, in a very tired sort of a way by the end, and I think it went alright for a first feast. I learnt some, and I have new things to aim for, which is important. And no-one got food poisoning (mind you, I'm quite careful about that when I'm cooking for other people - my stomach can handle just about anything, with the lack of sense of smell, since I often miss if something's gone off, but if I'm cooking for someone else, I become bloody paranoid about it).
No-one was harmed in the making of this feast except two ducks, two to four chickens (depending on which breasts those were in the tortellini), and any number of giant cows (depending on which ribs those were). And I didn't even burn myself.
Here we go then. The evening before the feast was spent trialling my pasta maker while Katherine made biscotti. The pasta maker was a definite success, and the filling worked, but by the time everything was done, it was late and I was exhausted, so I decided that the pasta could instead be made during the afternoon at the hall, which seemed entirely sensible.
I also managed to get dough made and risen, and left it again to rise (coated in oil) over night. However, I'm not especially happy with the recipe I'm using currently, and suspect that my bread rolls would improve greatly with a little more patience on my part, so am going to have to work on this some more. Of course, I'm sure the spiffy French book that I really want from Amazon would totally help, here, or maybe that's just me trying to justify buying it... (sadly, realistically, it's well down the list of things to buy).
Saturday morning was bloody frantic. I had pretty much everything, but it being Auckland, the simple trip to one butcher shop to pick up the fat I needed, and another on the way back to pick up beef ribs, still took well over an hour. And of course I forgot that part of the point of getting the beef ribs especially early was to massacre the hell out of them - well, tenderise them, at least - so that they could sit and marinade well in advance. But never mind.
The afternoon passed very quickly, and I was very glad both for the prep I'd done ahead of time (this made a HUGE difference), and the for the help I had in the kitchen (it's extraordinary how much more can be done with an extra pair of hands to do them).
First excitement of the afternoon came with unwrapping the ducks, to be surprised first by feet, and then by the head. At this stage I was thinking "ewh! Gross!". This was followed shortly thereafter with "well, I could squeal and act like a girl over this, or I could just get on with it and deal to it". I took the latter course of action, found a cleaver, and chuckled merrily as I chopped off the heads and feet. You can do a very fun little dance with the duck feet, as everyone in the kitchen found out, sort of reminiscent of the scene in Benny and Joon where Sam makes the hot dogs dance. It was also totally handy to have the duck heads there, as it meant I was able to get a good look at their tongues (which I've only seen in passing in live birds, as they gobble bits of bread), and verify that yes, if you had enough of the things, you probably could make a dish of ducks' tongues, as Scappi did, and (apparently) as they did in Venice. I don't think I want to get enough ducks to go tongue-gathering and make that dish though.
Second excitement came when I went to get Ludwig making tortellini and realised that the SINGLE ITEM I had failed to bring with me was the tortellini filling. Fortunately a few quick phone calls by Katherina, and our helpful local Baron was able to extract this from my house and bring it to site with him. The downside of this was that my fantastic plan of getting this out of the way in the afternoon was singularly thwarted by the forgetting of the filling, but never mind.
I relaxed a bit when I realised that people were really just drifting into the hall, and even though the first course was scheduled for 6pm, people still weren't garbed at 5.45pm, and no-one seemed to be in a hurry. The Braithwaytes arriving was a godssend, as all of them were extremely helpful, and it meant I was able to show Edward how I wanted the trays for the first course set out, and leave him to it. I really like the layout of the cold credenza (sideboard) course, followed by hot kitchen course/s, followed by cold credenza course. This worked really well. I relaxed a little again once the first set of trays was all laid out and ready to go, and I could gear shift to working out in what order I was going to send out the kitchen course.
Kitchen course ended up going out with mostly the veges first, followed by ribs, a couple more veges, then the duck and tortellini. The original intention had been to start with the duck, but due to aforementioned tortellini filling incident, that's not how it worked. As it was, it worked out very nicely and everyone quite happily ate loads of veges followed by a little bit of meat.
It was a most bizarre group of people though: They were all bloody raving (in a good way) about the broad beans. People do not rave about broad beans, this is not a natural human reaction to broad beans. Did someone not tell them this?
The duck went out and everyone enjoyed it, and was surprised that it was duck since I'd cooked it in brine and brining seemingly does wondrous things to fowl that people don't normally enjoy so much (however, it's really not worth the bother with chickens, just roast the damn things). I was surprised too, it was lovely and tender and just right. But then, I enjoyed the brined turkey at Christmas as well, for all those reasons, and usually I hate turkey and find it too fatty and gristly. So the magic of brining worked. I was a little dubious about this, because when you cook a bird in a pot of boiling water with salt in, it essentially looks like a bird that's been cooked in a pot of boiling water, and the skin's still pale. However, damned things bloody fell apart on extraction from the pot, which boded well for eating if not for presentation. The tortellini (which actually were more of a ravioli shape, but it was my first ever attempt at pasta at all, so the fact that they resembled pasta was a plus) were strategically draped over though, and this helped disguise the poor buggers. I could also see why Scappi said to remove the legs entirely (I'd just taken off the feet) and also the wings. Both items decided to opt for the bare-boned look on removal from the pot.
Androu arrived to help in the kitchen (having spent the whole day moving) some time prior to the duck going out, and this was again a huge plus to me, as he'd made pasta before and was able to churn the stuff through the machine with much greater efficiency than I could. He was surprised that the recipe I was using didn't take eggs, so was I, a little, but it was my first time making pasta so I didn't query it too much (and with no specific measurements, decided I could probably go fairly light on the sugar). It turned out really yummy though, and I'm totally making more pasta, and learning to fully-utilise the machine thingummy.
Was again relieved with the whole cold credenza course for dessert. This made life easier. It meant that while everyone was finishing off the main kitchen course (apparently there were protests along the lines of "no, no, I'm full, I can't possibly eat anymore, well, alright then, just a little"), I was able to tidy the kitchen a little and get the dessert platters ready. I was even happier when I realised that my kitchen hands were happy to chop pears, and I was able to go get dressed and dance for a bit.
The dessert looked lovely when it was set out on the credenza (oh yeah, Katherina built a credenza, it was totally awesome), and I managed to snap a couple of pictures before people dove in. I'll post them up once I've downloaded them.
Was very glad when the evening was over, as I was exhausted. Didn't stay dressed for much longer than I danced for, slipped straight back into mundanes because I was uncomfortable in the garb from having stood and worked all day and then put it on tired, and I wanted to go start cleaning the kitchen.
It was also good to see that the right amount of leftovers was achieved - just enough to indicate that people had had enough, and not too much to indicate that I'd overshopped massively (I had spent the week prior simultaneously worrying in both directions).
The downside of that kitchen to work in was only having the one household stove to work on, which was a wee bit tricky, but just manageable. Also finding that the oven part ran on the hot side, and with no sense of smell this nearly threw me off at the start, because I found I was having to check things sooner than I expected (unless the stove's caught fire, I can't tell if something's burning except by visually checking for cookedness), but once I got into the swing of it it was fine.
The things that made the biggest difference to me were having ready and willing help, and those extra few people who came in to the kitchen and asked me "what can I do?", and the general supportiveness of everybody that was there.
It was nice to get some good feedback on the food itself, and I heard a lot of people talking about the food, which I think I just noticed more because I was listening for it. It was interesting, because for every one person that didn't like something, there were four or five others saying they loved it. So, while I didn't like the ciambelle, Katherina loved them and ate heaps. She disliked the biscotti, but Emrys ate five or six of them, and so on. And I have heaps of ideas to play around with now, and loads more that I totally want to try out.
But first, I have to do the official write up for this feast (in progress atm, I think I'll finish it tomorrow night as I'm computered-out currently), and then cook St John's (not the feast, just the meal plan), which is going to be Anglo-Norman in flavour, but I'm not allowed to look at those books until I've done the write up, so I have an incentive to finish this week. It's mostly there, just requires a little more thought and a little more typing. But once I've done St John's, then I want to go back to playing with Scappi some more.
Thank you to everyone that came to the feast, I enjoyed cooking for you. And thank you to my kitchen helpers, your work was greatly appreciated, and I couldn't have done it without you (well, I could have, but everyone would've been eating about midnight).
I think overall the event went really well, and everyone seemed to have a good time. The hall set up and seating arrangement that Katherina organised looked really good, and apparently worked well for table service too. I certainly enjoyed myself, in a very tired sort of a way by the end, and I think it went alright for a first feast. I learnt some, and I have new things to aim for, which is important. And no-one got food poisoning (mind you, I'm quite careful about that when I'm cooking for other people - my stomach can handle just about anything, with the lack of sense of smell, since I often miss if something's gone off, but if I'm cooking for someone else, I become bloody paranoid about it).
No-one was harmed in the making of this feast except two ducks, two to four chickens (depending on which breasts those were in the tortellini), and any number of giant cows (depending on which ribs those were). And I didn't even burn myself.