mwolfenden
Assistant Cook
Hi everyone
I'm new to the forum, but it looks a fantastic place with lots of enthusiastic helpful people so I thought I'd make the most of it! I'm a relatively new cooking enthusiast so am very much on a steep learning curve but I feel like I'm slowly getting somewhere! As part of my gifts for my girlfriend's 21st next week I will be cooking her and 3 of her friends a 3 course (posh - hopefully!) meal - as it's for such an occasion I want it to be perfect!
Anyway so I've spent a long time trawling through different recipe books and thinking hard about what she does and doesn't like and have tried to come up with a menu that she will enjoy but that is reasonably balanced and will hopefully work well. Not having much experience coming up with whole menus though I've found it pretty difficult but I think I've finally got somewhere. So here is my idea - perhaps you would be kind enough to offer any helpful suggestions on alternative ways of doing the dishes, good garnishes, better flavour matchings etc.. or even just advice on how to devise a good menu! Clearly you won't know exactly what she does and doesn't like but as a brief idea she is a fan of fish, seafood, chicken, chocolate, icecream etc but not such a fan of red meats, potatoes.
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Tiger prawn risotto
(small serving as a starter, with prawn meat in and one or two large whole tiger prawns on top)
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Seared trout fillet on a cucumber/tomato (dressed) salad, wilted baby gem lettuce leaves and a vine ripened tomato and basil butter sauce
-------
Hot chocolate fudge brownies with homemade vanilla icecream and strawberry coulis
(with a fresh strawberry on the brownie plus a bit of a fancy decoration on the plate made from piped chocolate with gaps filled with either strawberry or passionfruit coulis to get some bright colour contrast - but I also absolutely adore passionfruit coulis!)
(any suggestions of peoples favourite brownie recipies would be useful as well - the ones I've made before are the ones from Jamie Oliver's book... which were very good - so I'll be doing those unless anyone has any better ones?!)
------
I look forward to hearing your comments. I've made most of the dishes (or at least parts of the dishes in different situations) before - so I'm reasonably confident I should be able to pull it off with a tail wind and a bit of luck
Thanks!
Mark
I'm new to the forum, but it looks a fantastic place with lots of enthusiastic helpful people so I thought I'd make the most of it! I'm a relatively new cooking enthusiast so am very much on a steep learning curve but I feel like I'm slowly getting somewhere! As part of my gifts for my girlfriend's 21st next week I will be cooking her and 3 of her friends a 3 course (posh - hopefully!) meal - as it's for such an occasion I want it to be perfect!
Anyway so I've spent a long time trawling through different recipe books and thinking hard about what she does and doesn't like and have tried to come up with a menu that she will enjoy but that is reasonably balanced and will hopefully work well. Not having much experience coming up with whole menus though I've found it pretty difficult but I think I've finally got somewhere. So here is my idea - perhaps you would be kind enough to offer any helpful suggestions on alternative ways of doing the dishes, good garnishes, better flavour matchings etc.. or even just advice on how to devise a good menu! Clearly you won't know exactly what she does and doesn't like but as a brief idea she is a fan of fish, seafood, chicken, chocolate, icecream etc but not such a fan of red meats, potatoes.
--------
Tiger prawn risotto
(small serving as a starter, with prawn meat in and one or two large whole tiger prawns on top)
-------
Seared trout fillet on a cucumber/tomato (dressed) salad, wilted baby gem lettuce leaves and a vine ripened tomato and basil butter sauce
-------
Hot chocolate fudge brownies with homemade vanilla icecream and strawberry coulis
(with a fresh strawberry on the brownie plus a bit of a fancy decoration on the plate made from piped chocolate with gaps filled with either strawberry or passionfruit coulis to get some bright colour contrast - but I also absolutely adore passionfruit coulis!)
(any suggestions of peoples favourite brownie recipies would be useful as well - the ones I've made before are the ones from Jamie Oliver's book... which were very good - so I'll be doing those unless anyone has any better ones?!)
------
I look forward to hearing your comments. I've made most of the dishes (or at least parts of the dishes in different situations) before - so I'm reasonably confident I should be able to pull it off with a tail wind and a bit of luck
Thanks!
Mark