Glancing back over the past few weeks I realise haven’t talked about food for at least a day so it must be time to breach that favourite topic again. And for good reason: last night we sat down with a couple of friends and ate The Crayfish. Yes, the last remaining monster crayfish which has been lurking in the freezer scaring old ladies and small children. My sister Christine brought this and a similar one from New Zealand when she visited last month, a magnification 2+ kg Pacific rock lobster caught in person by my Dad (thanks Dad!), cooked in fresh sea-water, frozen and lovingly flown over in February.
We’ve been looking at it regularly, tempted to thaw and eat it, but it was a daunting task which required at least four people so we waited until we had people for dinner. And last night: behold, our first dinner party and yes, they were impressed. As our friend said last night, “I always tell hubby after we go to someone’s place for dinner, ‘now you’ve got to top that’. However I don’t think I can honestly say that to him this time, how on earth could he top this??”
It was fun to have people for dinner again. We’ve had a fairly constant stream of visitors since we arrived but having people pop in for dinner is somehow different. We are used to doing this fairly often back in Holland and so we’ve missed it a bit. Sometimes it’s nice to just chuck something together but since this was our first time here, and of course because we had The Crayfish, I wanted to make it a bit special.
I started off with a smooth prawn bisque to which I added whole prawn tails and white fish chunks, and topped with a swirl of cream. This was followed by grilled New Zealand green-lip mussels basted with garlic butter on a bed of greens. For the main course we had of course the crayfish, with some monster ginger and garlic coated tiger prawns for company, accompanied by a green salad, a minty salad of baby potatoes and a big bowl of home made salad cream (the kind made from condensed milk, yum!). And finally I finished with a lychee and lime sorbet which was quite frankly divine: if anybody wants the recipe I will be happy to pass it on, or check out this month’s BBC Good Food magazine.
A couple of bottles of Louis Latour Chablis washed it all down nicely and I’m pleased to say the only left-overs are a bit of salad, some sorbet and…all the legs from the crayfish! Yes it was too big for even four adults to eat, so guess what we’re having for dinner tonight…..yummmmmm!
We’ve been looking at it regularly, tempted to thaw and eat it, but it was a daunting task which required at least four people so we waited until we had people for dinner. And last night: behold, our first dinner party and yes, they were impressed. As our friend said last night, “I always tell hubby after we go to someone’s place for dinner, ‘now you’ve got to top that’. However I don’t think I can honestly say that to him this time, how on earth could he top this??”
It was fun to have people for dinner again. We’ve had a fairly constant stream of visitors since we arrived but having people pop in for dinner is somehow different. We are used to doing this fairly often back in Holland and so we’ve missed it a bit. Sometimes it’s nice to just chuck something together but since this was our first time here, and of course because we had The Crayfish, I wanted to make it a bit special.
I started off with a smooth prawn bisque to which I added whole prawn tails and white fish chunks, and topped with a swirl of cream. This was followed by grilled New Zealand green-lip mussels basted with garlic butter on a bed of greens. For the main course we had of course the crayfish, with some monster ginger and garlic coated tiger prawns for company, accompanied by a green salad, a minty salad of baby potatoes and a big bowl of home made salad cream (the kind made from condensed milk, yum!). And finally I finished with a lychee and lime sorbet which was quite frankly divine: if anybody wants the recipe I will be happy to pass it on, or check out this month’s BBC Good Food magazine.
A couple of bottles of Louis Latour Chablis washed it all down nicely and I’m pleased to say the only left-overs are a bit of salad, some sorbet and…all the legs from the crayfish! Yes it was too big for even four adults to eat, so guess what we’re having for dinner tonight…..yummmmmm!
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