Sunday 1 March 2015

Table for Ten returns - for one night only!


Hi again from Table for Ten!
 
It’s been a couple of years since Ros, Edi, Clare and Justine have got together because we’ve all been busy with life but we are reviving our fun and delicious supper club for one night only on March 7th. Check your diary and see if it’s free because we’d love to see you again.
 
For an amazing reason
 
The Big Dinner is being run throughout the country by our friend, the extraordinary 500 miles inspiration,  quadruple amputee Olivia Giles as a huge online event to raise funds of £500,000 to help people stand up and walk again by raising funds for artificial limbs for people in Africa - you can find out more here: www.bigdinner.co.uk 
 
Our menu is still being finalised, but will be inspired by African flavours, herbs, spices and traditional dishes with a contemporary twist and communal sharing so come along and be part of this major fundraising event which we feel so proud to be part of. 
 
If you've previously come (or planned to come!) to one of our previous suppers, and if you enjoyed it, tell your friends about this very special event!  Remember there are only ten places around the table so book now.
 
We have committed a minimum £250 to the charity which will be an amazing step to freedom. Each guest will be asked to make a donation of £25 for a delicious sharing feast which will be a wonderful contribution to make an incredible life changing difference to someone across the world who together we will stand up and toast together on the night.

Tuesday 11 September 2012

Feedback from Alex, a happy guest:

To the fantastic team at table for ten !
I had such a lovely evening last night...
As a first- timer I was nervous beforehand but was immediately made to feel so incredibly welcome! Edi's home is beautiful, the food was delicious and the attention to detail was wonderful all of which made it a very special evening. I met some wonderful people and entertainment from the queen of tarts topped off a fabulous night!

Thursday 6 September 2012

Our Next Supper Club

Our next supper club will be on Saturday 29th September. We'll be cooking a menu from entirely Scottish produce/ingredients (even down to our salt!) and we're very excited about it because we're going to be using produce that we have grown on our allotment. 

We're also going foraging and will hopefully be able to serve up some wild accompaniments!


 
Some of our salad and our thriving peas!






Our menu for the evening will be:


Freshly picked salad with home-cured bacon
~
Slow-braised Grierson beef with heritage mash
~
Tarte tartin with lemon verbena ice cream
~
Coffee, tea & petit fours


If you'd like to come and join us, please click here for details of how to book.

Monday 30 July 2012

Sunday 8 July 2012

Notes from our Chinese Banquet

The lateness of this blog entry is testament to what a fun night we all had back in early May - I think we've only just recovered from the festivities!

Preparations for our Chinese banquet began - literally - weeks in advance, with a 'trial' feast at one of our homes. Lucky friends who got to partake in a day of assembling haggis wonton, vegetable spring rolls, various other dim sum and of course homemade crispy duck. Who would have thought there were culinary uses for bike pumps, desk fans and coat hangers...

The day itself was a frenzy of activity, prepping all the veg and sauces (a personal fave was the sweet chilli dipping sauce), and making homemade noodles. Thank goodness for the Kenwood pasta rolling attachment!

We knew this would be a slightly frantic evening - having tasked ourselves with eight different dishes to serve up. That's where all of the advance prep came in handy, you see.

As guests arrived, we served up a selection of tasty dim sum - including the aforementioned wonton, spring rolls, and marbled tea eggs. 

Moving into the dining room, we served up a delicious fresh tomato and eggflower soup - quite simply fresh tomatoes, a flavoursome chicken stock and whisked egg stirred through at the last minute.




To follow, the piece de la resistance (or so we thought till another couple of fantastic dishes were served up): the Peking Duck. That bit about the bike pump, desk fan and coat hanger...? Well, all that effort paid off, as did the blood, sweat and tears spent making approximately 40 Chinese pancakes the night before. 






On to the next course - a jasmine tea sorbet to cleanse the palate - before we moved onto the next round! Served fresh from the wok and as they were ready (in typical Chinese banquet style), we feasted on bean sauce noodles with pork (the next mindblower), sweet and sour prawns (not a bit of MSG in sight) and crispy chicken dumplings, all accompanied by stir fried greens with a home made hoisin sauce. Whilst we knew that the food was going down well, even the cooks struggled to concentrate on prepping the final course as we gobbled up the leftover pork noodles. 
We closed with an Asian themed dessert - kumquat fondants with lychee icecream. Pleasingly crisp on the outside puddings, with an oozing centre of whisky flavoured kumquat marmalade.
To top off an already superlative evening, we were treated to our very own jazz performance from one of our guests, Edinburgh's @queen_of_tarts, who as well as hosting her very own high teas, can sing for her supper! 











Sunday 6 May 2012

Recipe for Kumquat Fondants with Lychee Icecream

Here's an approximation of the recipe I used for our Chinese Banquet's dessert. I say an approximation because both recipes are mixtures of other recipes, so I need to remember (in my currently slightly sleepy state following a fabulous evening) exactly what the changes I made were...

Here goes:

For the ice cream


I adapted a recipe for Cinnamon and Basil ice cream from an ice cream recipe book I have. If you have never eaten Cinnamon and Basil ice cream, give it a go, it is divine.

You will need:

600ml full fat milk
8 egg yolks (check out Honey Wild's website for ideas on what to do with all those egg whites)
225g caster sugar (maybe a bit less, given the lychee syrup below)
360ml double cream
Can of lychees in syrup

Bring the milk to a low boil. Whilst this is happening, mix the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl. Remove the milk from the heat, and slowly pour into the egg mixture, before returning the eggy custard mix to the pan (you may want to use a new pan / wash the pan quickly in case any of the milk has stuck to the side). Place over a medium heat, stirring all the time, until the custard thickens (it won't get really thick, so don't worry if it's not). Coating the back of a spoon is thick enough.

Remove from the heat, leave to cool, and chill.

Meanwhile, drain the lychees, retaining a bit of the syrup. Pop in a blender, with a bit of the syrup (remembering, the ice cream custard needs to be sweeter than you would have it normally, as the freezing process, for reasons I do not understand, loses some of the sweetness. To taste, you may want to use more syrup and less sugar).

This lychee puree along with the double cream can now be added to the custard mixture. I normally at this stage add a splash of something stronger - but for the life of me can't remember which bottle was nearest the kitchen at the time, Calvados maybe? This bit is optional of course!

Now churn the custard in an ice cream maker, or, if you don't have one, pop in the freezer, taking it out regularly to stir by hand so you don't end up with an ice cream ice cube. Pop in a container in the freezer, but take out about 30mins before you need to serve it and leave in the fridge.


For the Fondants


Firstly make the kumquat goo.

I got my kumquats from Global Fruit and Veg opposite Barclay Church in Edinburgh, as they're not something you can buy in every supermarket. They will reduce quite a bit in cooking so - and this isn't very helpful - I tend to get about a bag full, and make extra.

Slice and seed the washed kumquat. If you could do this over a pan to save up all the juices, then all the better, but mind your fingers, as they're quite tricky to handle!

Add enough water to the pan to half cover the sliced kumquat (you can add more as you go along if you want a gooier syrup) plus two or three tbsp caster sugar.

Bring to a simmering boil and cook until the kumquats are soft and the liquid becoming syrupy. Depending on evaporation, you may want to add further liquid at this stage. Taste and, if necessary, add a bit more sugar at this stage and allow to dissolve and become syrupy.

Add a splash of whisky (to taste).

Now put the mixture into an ice cube tray. Knowing this may influence how syrupy you want to make the mixture, as what goes in to the ice cube tray as syrup, will ooze out pleasingly from the finished fondant.

Freeze these kumquat cubes for a minimum of 2 hours, or any time before you actually assemble the fondants.



Now for the fondants batter (thanks to LaRousse's Moelleux et Fondants book - translation errors all my own). These quantities make four, I did a multiple of this for the Supper Club:

2 eggs
100g icing sugar
100g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
Spices to taste - I used about a tsp each of cinnamon and ginger (my addition)
100g melted salted butter - plus butter for greasing
4 ramekins

Pre-heat the oven to 180c. Grease and flour the ramekins.

Beat the eggs and sugar for about 5 minutes, till light and fluffy. Fold in the rest of the dry ingredients.

Finally fold in the butter.

Use two thirds of the batter to part fill the ramekins, then pop into each one a kumquat ice cube. Use the remaining batter to cover the ice cube.

Pop in the oven for between 16-18 minutes (according to my French recipe book). In reality, mine took a minute or so longer. You want them to be golden and slightly crisped on top, but not dried out.

Once out of the oven, use a palette knife to loosen the little fondants from the ramekins, invert onto a plate, dust with icing sugar, and serve with a generous dollop of the ice cream.





Wednesday 11 April 2012

Allotment progress

We've been making slow but steady progress with our organic allotment.  The battle with the perennial weeds, rye grass and the weather has made it a bit more challenging but a few weeks ago we finally cleared the entire plot and have been anxiously waiting to get some crops in. Yesterday we received our potatoes which have been lovingly chitted in Perthshire and we finally planted them in the ground!  Typically, just as we finished planting, the dark clouds over us relieved themselves of their hail stones and we got pelted! Don't you just love Edinburgh weather!?

Drum roll as the first one goes in!


Our first earlies are Sharpes Express, a heritage potato dating back to 1901.  This should be a good all-rounder and we expect to have some from around June.

Our second early crop will be Charlotte potatoes, which should be ready to serve up in some delicious summer salads.


Potato #1 in all it's glory!
We'll be planting more vegetables in the next few weeks so do come back to see how we're getting on!

Justine, proud of her first planting!