Valentine Luncheon 2006
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
9 guests arrive at noon
Menu
Cranberry Hearts
Hot Peach Tea
Peach Schnapps
Crab Vichyssoise
Black Bread with Whipped Butter
Riesling or Limeade
Oysters Rockefeller
Spinach Salad
Orange Juice
Sorbet
Roast Duckling and Morels in Cream Sauce
Dumplings
Ginger and Honey Glazed Carrots
Steamed Broccoli with Lemon
Cabernet Sauvignon or Pepsi
Chess Bars
Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
Mixed Berry Medley
Demitasse or Chocolate
Recipes
Cranberry Hearts
* Spread slices of a sturdy white bread with softened regular cream cheese. Chill. Use heart shaped cookie cutter to cut out heart shapes. Chill cans of smooth cranberry sauce, open on both ends, slide cranberry out, then slice onto cold platter. Use smaller heart shaped cookie cutter to cut out heart shapes, then carefully place them in the centre of the previous. Pipe a small rosette in the centre of each, chill thoroughly, serve on paper lace covered plate.
Hot Peach Tea
Crab Vichyssoise
4 cans cream of potato soup with 8 cans of heavy cream and 4 cups of "half&half", in blender, process until perfectly smooth. Chop one leek, and sauté until completely cooked in 3 sticks of butter. Then add 1 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. white pepper, 1 T. onion powder, and 1 cup clam juice. Put product into blender, blend until completely smooth, then incorporate into soup mixture. To serve: Put 5 pieces of lump crab in each soup cup, ladle in cold soup, top with chopped chives.
Black Bread with Whipped Butter
White Wine or Limeade
Oysters Rockefeller
- (double recipe)
- 36 fresh oysters on the half shell
- 12 tablespoons butter
- 6 tablespoons finely minced raw spinach
- 6 tablespoons minced onion
- 3 tablespoons minced parsley
- 10 tablespoons bread crumbs
- dash Tabasco sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add all the ingredients except the oysters. Cook, over low heat, constantly stirring for 5 minutes. Cool. Divide the topping into 36 equal portions. Place one portion on each oyster. Broil until topping is brown. Serves 6.
Spinach Salad
* On each salad plate create a wreath of fresh spinach leaves, stems toward the plate's centre. Then a circle of slices of hard boiled eggs. Tear fresh spinach, thinly slice a red onion and separate the rings, coarsely chop tomatoes, cube Swiss cheese, and toss together. Spoon into the centre of plate, mounding. Chop 1 package of bacon, fry until crisp. Stir 1 cup of red wine vinegar, 4 T cornstarch, and 1 cup sugar, until dissolved. Pour all at once into hot bacon and bacon grease and cook until thickened, slightly. Serve hot, with salad, each guest will dress her own.
Orange Juice
Sorbet
Roast Duckling and Morels in Cream Sauce
* Roast ducks according to instructions, and allow to cool. Remove skin and reserve. Remove meat from bones, do not cut into tiny pieces, it should be recognizable as meat. Break, cleave, or crack the larger bones and put into a stock pot with 2 quarts chicken stock, 1 cup white wine, 3 chopped onions, 1 head of fresh garlic, 2 T paprika, 2 T tarragon, and any duck fat that drained from the birds during the roasting process. Add 1 tsp salt and boil, covered for two hours. Uncover, simmer for 30 minutes. Remove bones and discard. Pour liquid through a sieve that has been lined with a new nylon stocking. Rinse the stock pot with hot water, then return the clear broth to it. Add the morels, (mostly whole, but break any that are very large), and simmer to reconstitute, for 20 minutes. Add morels to meat. On baking tray pop skins under broiler to crisp, watch very carefully, remove them as they crisp, but before they burn. Chop the skins and reserve. Add Wondra to stock, and simmer to thicken, then whisk in 1 carton of beaten sour cream, into which you have incorporated 4 beaten egg yolks. Cook through, whisking constantly. Season with salt and coarse black pepper. Add to meat. Dust with paprika, top with crisped skin. Serve hot.
Dumplings
Ginger and Honey Glazed Carrots
Slice baby carrots into, rather thick, ridged slices. Boil in salted water. Combine ½ cup honey with ½ cup brown sugar, 1 cup butter, dash salt, 2 T minced candied ginger, and warm. Dissolve 2 T cornstarch into 1/3 cup apple juice concentrate, stir into sauce and heat until thickened and glossy. Toss with cooked carrots, serve.
Steamed Broccoli with Lemon
* Add lemon juice to the water under the broccoli, and serve with grated lemon zest scattered over top.
Wine or Pepsi
Chess Bars
Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
Mixed Berry Medley
* Fresh blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries
Demitasse or Chocolate