Our 9th Anniversary Dinner

We celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary on the 14 March by throwing a dinner at home with some friends...

The table all set for dinner...

First course, a simple appetizer of king prawns sauteed in butter, herbs and tomato puree.

Main course: Oven-baked chicken with lemon, served with gratin de pommes de terre dauphinois

Recipe:

For one whole chicken (serves max 6)

2 unwaxed lemon (I grow my own)
3 strips of bacon, cut to tiny strips
1 whole head of garlic, smashed with skin
2 bay leaves
60 g butter
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup strong liqueur like cognac, brandy or whisky
salt and pepper to season

Season first the chicken inside out with salt and pepper. Put the bay leaves in the chicken cavity. Preheat the oven to 220 C. In a small saucepan, saute the bacon strips (cut to pieces called lardon in French) using the melted butter in oil and add the garlic. Deglaze with the liqueur. Season the chicken inside out with this mixture in a roasting pan, adding zest from the lemons and bake for about 1 hour until tender. Before serving, prepare a roux (basically flour fried in butter as a base for sauces) and pour in the cooking juices from the roasting tin to make the sauce. Season accordingly.

For the gratin:
1 kg of new potatoes, peeled and cut to thin slices
1 liter of full cream milk
salt and pepper
dash of nutmeg

In a pot, half cook the potatoes using the milk seasoned with salt, pepper and a dash of nutmeg. Arrange the potatoes into a gratin dish, pour in the hot milk and add pieces of butter on top before putting the dish into a preheated oven. Bake until golden. Alternately, cheese can be added at the end of the cooking to give it a crust (I used Gruyere cheese).

Salad of romaine, radicchio, sorrel with toasted cashew nuts.

For dessert, orange-olive oil sponge cake served with orange liqueur syrup, to go with a cup of French infusion (verveine).

Recipe for the cake:

1 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
5 eggs
3/4 cup olive oil
zest and juice of 2 oranges

In a mixing bowl (I don't use electric mixer), separate the yolks of the eggs from the white. Beat the yolks with the sugar and flour, add in the olive oil and half the orange juice.

In another bowl, beat the egg white with a pinch of salt to form stiff peaks. Fold in 1/3 of the egg white to the cake batter and the rest after this initial melange. Immediately put the mixture in a preheated oven (about 180 degrees) and bake for about 40 -45 minutes.

Zest an orange and cooked it together with the juice of the orange and 1/2 cup of sugar to form a syrup. Add a tablespoon of orange liqueur at the end. Serve as a sauce for the orange sponge cake.