Couples Dinner Night

We had three lovely couples at our place for dinner the other night. I was racking my brains as to what to cook for a party of eight and decided that the theme for the night shall be “comfort food”. It was a fairly warm night, which was a shame because the menu would have been terrific if it had been a nice cool evening.

We began the meal with some lovely mushroom soup prepared by my hubby. The soup consisted of a mix of brown and white button mushrooms and portabellos. It was rich and creamy, and the added touch of sour cream was just about perfect. The mains were homely comfort food – Shepherd’s Pie and Ratatouile. I like to make my Shepherd’s Pie filling with a mix of minced pork and beef. I feel that it gives extra flavour. The mash potato was crisp on the top but soft and fluffy inside. The key to good mash is good potatoes with a generous dose of butter and milk.

The other main is ratatouille, made using Julia Child’s recipe. I’ve done ratatouille a couple of times before, but never using this recipe. Her recipe is rather tedious, as it calls from frequent basting of the vegetables in their liquids. The result however, was well worth the effort. The vegetables were full of complex flavours. Some of our friends don’t typically enjoy the vegetables that go into ratatouille (eggplant, zucchini). Nonetheless, they found this dish very tasty.

By the end of the meal, everyone was stuffed. However, no meal is complete without dessert. For dessert, I chose something that I could prepare ahead – Pierre Herme’s Tri-Creme. The dessert is essentially three layers of cream. The base layer is a coffee creme brulee, without the caramel topping. In the middle we have rich chocolate cream made with Valrhona 64% chocolate. The freshly whipped cream at the top helps to balance out the richness of the dessert. As with all of Pierre Herme’s recipes, this one was a sure winner.