12 course meal, lovin it

Well I have to say, as I quite often do, some days I impress myself. Not wanting to take all the credit for the medieval banquet mind you, as between Jane, Grandma Mo and Mum, everything fell into place and rolled out like clockwork.

The first course of "Moules Eclade" went reasonably well, however the strong cross winds affected the burning pine needles and hay resulting in a slightly smokier burn than we would have liked.

Course 2, goats cheese truffles. Having seen them on TV the other night Jane said she liked the look of them so I volunteered her for this course. Although a little messy in the production, the finished product looked exquisite and went down very well.

On to the third course, French onion soup. I'd started it off at 5:30am Saturday by caramelising the onions and then reducing them down, almost to treacle. The addition of stock, white wine and a small amount of seasoning and job done. Later in the day I fried off some giant croutons to complement the soup.

The last of the starters was a magnificent display of sliced meats. Dave and Chrissy had gone to great lengths, producing an apple tree former before decorating it with the meat.

And so we hit the first main course. Three legs of lamb pierced with garlic and rosemary and then slow roasted for four hours in the pizza oven. These were served up with roast potatoes, carrots, ratatouille, cabbage (with cream and lardons), boiled potatoes and mint sauce.

The second of the mains was a large salmon poached with 'herbes de provence' and butter. Sid, as he became affectionately known, unfortunately had a small accident on route to the banqueting hall leaving him tailless but he was cooked to perfection and consumed with delight.

Course 3 was the belly pork which Jane had managed to crackle to perfection. The French have a habit of removing all the fat from pork and replacing it with reconstituted fat sheets. Luckily Jane found some slabs with the fat still attached and there was more interest, and fighting, with the crackling. The last of the main courses was the beef rib. After 4 days of marinading in red wine and black pepper, this was roasted off for 2 hours. At this point I was starting to wonder if anyone would have any space left but I had nothing to worry about as very quickly it started to disappear. This was served up with some homemade horse radish sauce which had the ability to bite back and clear your sinuses.

First up on the puddings was the crème brulees which disappeared as fast as I could caramelise the tops of them.

Second up on the puddings was Chrissys home made apple pies served with local cream or custard. How people were still fitting food in I have no idea.

The final pudding, not counting the triple birthday cake, was Krusti. I made 400 and I reckon we got through 200 of them.

When we got to the cheese course, you could see people were done so we wheeled out the birthday cake, a Neapolitan of sponge, chocolate and fruit. Thank you Jill for a lovely cake.

All done and dusted, the night was an amazing success which I thoroughly enjoyed. Watch this space for future activities.