Before Xmas 2012, myself and my wife attended a small dinner party (6 of us) hosted by some friends and everyone had heard how well my previous attempts at Beef Wellington went. After much persuasion I caved in and agreed I would cook for the next dinner party in Feb 2013.
So of course, what to cook? I wanted to try and show how good British Cuisine is but unfortunately when you google “Typical British Food” you get bubble and squeak, toad in the hole, english breakfast etc. Nothing wrong with those mind you, they are real comfort foods but not really dinner party material.
So, I did some research with a little help from Ester and I came up with the following very ambitious menu which I prepared yesterday. I started preparing at 10am and did not finish until 9.30pm so that was 9 and a half hours of back break just prepping the mise en place!!! I think if I included the time it took to buy everything and cook everything, I probably spent around 15 hours in total.
However the menu and serving went off without a hitch and I had some very happy guests who I think were a bit shocked that the “guiri” could output a first class menu such as this AND keep it British.
The only disappointing thing about this menu was that 15 hours of work just gets eaten in a couple of hours!! LOL
I really hope this post will help anyone else interested in serving a british style menu to their guests, however a word of warning. Be prepared to put in some work as this menu takes a lot of effort and cost.
My wife said to me that it would have been cheaper to just take everyone to a Michelin star restaurant but for me it was well worth the effort!! (but I wont be doing it every week).