Sunday lunch: Jamie Oliver feast gone wrong
We recently acquired a new dining table (our first) and can now finally have people over for proper sit-down meals.
As a first dinner party, I insisted that the five friends who helped us move come round. We are very grateful to them and pulled all the stops to make this a memorable dinner.
We dusted off Dr B.'s Jamie Oliver cookbook that had been hiding, completely ignored, in the back of a cupboard for the four years I have known Dr B.
We spent Monday night selecting recipes and making a shopping list.
Tuesday night we shopped for all the ingredients we needed.
On Thursday we bought a new microwave oven and then we spent three hours cooking everything that could be prepared in advance, and preparing a spreadsheet with details of all the actions to be performed on the night.
On Friday night we hosted, we cooked, we ate. But, most importantly, we realised that you should never, ever serve something at a dinner party that you have not tried before. This was a lesson we learned the hard way:
- the ciabatta, buffalo mozzarella and pancetta threaded on rosemary sprigs were too fatty
- the marinated pot-roasted beef was too dry
- the potato and horseradish cake was unsavoury and crumbly
- the tomatoes with baby leeks and bay leaves slow-roasted in vinegar tasted of, well, just vinegar
- the clementines with fresh mint, flaked almonds, dark chocolate shavings and syrup had too many ingredients and the syrup was just sugary water
- the pomegranate gin shots looked amazing on paper, but the gin was not cold enough, it overpowered the pomegranate and who on earth can stomach a shot of gin anyway?
Our guests glossed over the imperfections more or less graciously, and I bear no criticism to the recipes per se. However, if we ever made them again, we would most certainly alter some ingredients. quantities and cooking times.
Before agreeing to have a 100% Jamie Oliver dinner, I had consulted with a friend who suggested a few tried and tested, simple light recipes. Oh, how I wish I had listened to her.
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