San Daniele prosciutto and seared scallops with saffron and manzanilla braised leek, peas and their tendrils
Rare venison fillet and quince sauce with anchovy and asparagus stuffed zucchini flowers and taleggio polenta chips
Chaource with pecans and bread to dip (actually on the menu but postponed until dinner...)
Black cherry and almond clafoutis with eggnog crush
The San Daniele ham is my new favourite thing, I can't believe I have been getting by eating the plastic Australian stuff for years. After eating in Spain earlier this year and my new palate for Spanish jamon, I can confidently tell you this is truly up there!
The entree was matched beautifully by PDC with a fancy white burgundy, 1996 Bonneau du Martray Corton-Charlemagne.
You can tell its summer when the zucchini flowers are at the market.
I (or PDC actually) stuffed the flowers with a very quick combination of a finely sliced asparagus spear, a couple of chopped anchovies, a blob of goats curd, lemon and S+P. The flowers were panfried and then finished in the oven, the stuffing leaked a little when i turned them but still offered a powerful flavour punch that you could not miss.
Pre cooked and set buckwheat polenta, cut into 'chips' to be seasoned and panfried.
The cherries before the batter... (and during PDC's nap - hence time for a few extra photos)
We ate this with what I ended up calling eggnog crush, essentially my recipe for eggnog that I froze some of this year, in the hope of turning into a rough ice cream, yet as I discovered my taste for booze in the eggnog also stops it freezing hard, so we ended up with s slushy consistency for the 'crush', but the flavour combination was outrageously good.
The incredibly interesting thing about the clafoutis was that if I had not cooked it myself, I would have argued about the fact that I could DEFINITELY tell that the cherries had been soaked in Amaretto. But since you can tell from the first photo there was no soaking just beautifully plump, fresh, fat cherries, the flavour had come from the seeds, the exact reason why they are traditionally left in this dish. I love it, and love the way the best understanding of something comes from doing it yourself.
I hope you also had a very merry christmas
Jack
San Daniele is an excellent choice. Always loved it and preferred it over Prosciutto Di Parma. It just has such a lovely nutty flavour...
ReplyDeleteBut that's no reason to bash all Australian prosciutto. While I agree that almost all Australian prosciuttos I have tried tasted far too salty and had little to offer in terms of subtle aroma there is one notable exception.
San Marino, a smallgoods producer from Adelaide make an "Italian style" prosciutto that costs half as much as the San Daniele but tastes almost as good! I usually buy mine at King & Godfrey on Lygon Street, don't really know where else to get it :-( I had actually given up on Australian prosciutto when I tried their's at King & Godfree and boy was I happy I did!
Give it a try, it's more than worth it!
Cheers,
Marc
Sounds and looks like a delicious Christmas lunch! Thanks for sharing... :)
ReplyDelete