I worked with my Hot Cuisine Club members last night to put out a fundraising dinner at St. Patrick High School. Funds we raised will help us pay for our trip to California next March break. This is the menu we went with:
Arugula Salad with Roasted Beets,
Goat Cheese and Toasted
Pecans
Squash Ricotta Ravioli with
Green Kale and Sage Cream
Turkey Confit topped with
Turkey Breast stuffed with
Turkey Apple Sausage
Sage Jus
Sweet Potato Risotto
Braised Red Cabbage
Honey Glazed Carrots
Cranberry and White Chocolate Bread Pudding
Peaches and Cream Corn Ice Cream
Toasty Pecan Streusel
Honey Carrot Sauce
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I love beets (see my last post below) so it was only fitting that we
start with a salad that had roasted beets in it. There was also a beet
vinaigrette on the bottom of the plate to add to the flavour of the
greens that were lightly tossed with blood orange olive oil and uzu
vinegar. A little goat cheese crumbled on top completed the dish.
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| Cody and Harrison make the pasta |
The pasta dish was made in the class using a technique for combining 2 flavours of pasta to create a striped sheet. This was then stuffed with a butternut squash filling and served with a sage and green kale cream sauce.
The main course was a traditional turkey dinner prepared a bit differently. The turkey was first broken down to create 3 different components. Some of the thigh meat was used to make a turkey sausage mix that was then stuffed under the skin of the boneless turkey breast. These little roasts were then cooked right before service, giving us a nice moist and juicy turkey, not dried out as might happen with a normal roast turkey. The legs were first cured in salt, onions, thyme, pepper and juniper berries for 2 days, then cooked slowly in a bath of turkey fat. This slow process makes for moist and tender fall-off-the-bone turkey. Top it off with some sage jus for a great turkey taste.
The potato risoto wasn't a rice dish but rather potatoes and sweet potatoes cut into small cubes and then cooked like you would make a risotto. The result is a kind of chunky smashed potato with a kind of gravy flavour built right in. The carrots were ruby red carrots (thanks Lone!) that were cooked sous vide. They were vac packed with honey and butter and cooked very slowly in hot water, then reheated for service. Great way to preserve and intensify the flavour of the carrot. 
The dessert was a traditional bread pudding with a bit of a twist. We tried a carrot sauce thickened with agar, topped the pudding with a spoon of white chocolate ganache and added a peach sphere on top of that! Playing with a little molecular gastronomy, the sphere was created using sodium alginate and calcium lactate. It looked like an egg yolk and behaved in the same way, oozing out over the dessert when poked with a fork. The flavour of the peach sphere matched the ice cream with, made with peaches, corn and white chocolate.
