Dinner Party

As a gift to my mother for her birthday, I put on a dinner party for my parents and 8 of their friends last weekend.

To start

- pepperdews stuffed with creme fraiche.

-Pieces of goats milk camembert with basil leaves wrapped in proscuitto.

- I also bought a half baked loaf of sour dough, and served this freshly baked in bite sized pieces with basil pesto, preserved chargrilled mushrooms and a small bowl of balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Entre

As an entre I made the mushroom tarts I have blogged about in the past.

Main

For the main I made a honey glazed pork belly with baked apple, mustard riced potato and green beans. Recipe below.

Dessert

I made a lovely lemon tart and raspberry coulis, which I served with creme fraiche. I will post the recipe separately in the coming days though, or this will be a ridiculously long post. And it is nice to have each recipe discretely posted, I think.

Honey Glazed Pork Belly

Served with baked apple, mustard riced potatoes and green beans.

First, chop two carrots and a leek into large chunks. Place these with 5 bruised cloves of garlic and 5 bay leaves in the bottom of a roasting dish.

On top of these place your whole pork belly, and pour over a litre and a half of chicken stock and half a bottle of sweet white wine. Cover with tinfoil and broil in the oven at 220*C for about 2 hours.

While that cooks, boil your potatoes until soft. Put them through a potato ricer, season and stir in half a cup of cream and a couple of tablespoons of whole grain mustard.

Peel and core your apples (enough for half an apple per person), cut them in half and brush with oil. Bake until tender.

Once the pork is cooked through, take it out of the baking dish. Drain on a wire cooling rack, then place under the grill to crackling-up the skin.

Take a couple of ladles of the juice the pork was cooked in, add 3 or 4 tablespoons of honey and reduce. At the same time, steam your green beans.

To plate, place a dollop of the riced potatoes in the centre of a plate. Put a baked apple half and some beans beside it, then put the pork on top of the potato and pour over a couple of tablespoons of the glaze.

Some notes

Although it is nice to eat meat without bones, choose a pork belly that still has them in. Removing the bones from this cut essentially involves taking off the bottom layer - so you are left with only the very fattiest bit, and much less actual meat.

Your beans will look more attractive if you trim them all to the same size.

I initially forgot to take a picture before the plated food went out of the kitchen, so the image you can see was taken after my step father had begun to disassemble it. The plating was actually much tidier when the dishes left the kitchen, I promise.