Luxury five-course dinner - with three small main courses

The last weekend at home, before travelling to South Africa, we chose to serve a really luxurious five-course dinner for us and for Peter's son Robin and his wife Alexandra. It was a long and pleasant afternoon and evening, with many luxurious and delicious flavours.

Luxurious five-course dinner

A five-course dinner can of course be organised in many different ways. Peter has long been experimenting with main courses and sauces, so the focus was on several small main courses, like a tasting menu. We made the starters and desserts a little simpler. Here is the whole menu in brief:

• Appetiser/drink snacks: Crusts with batters
• Main course 1: Cod loin with cauliflower puree
• Main course 2: Lamb fillet with baked sweet potatoes
• Main course 3: Wagyu steak with almond mashed potatoes
• Dessert: Ice cream with rhubarb

If you want to make a "quick and easy" five-course menu, this might be the one for you. not the best proposal. Peter wanted to go in to practise different steps and make sauces from scratch, and these dishes required a lot of preparation in the days before.

We did all sauces in advance and often it is easiest to make a little too much. We usually freeze the sauce in portions, so you can make just the right amount when the time comes. Serving all this at once means a lot of work, but feel free to use the menu and recipes as inspiration!

Appetiser / cocktail snacks: Crusts with batters

We chose to start the dinner with a simple starter, or rather a cocktail snack, already at 3 pm in the afternoon. You need some time to eat your way through so many dishes ... and our purpose in meeting was also to plan the common part of our South Africa trip together. We simply served crusts with three different sauces. You can find recipes for the first two scrambles at the link above.

• Artichoke scrambled eggs
• Scrambled eggs
• Brie cream with marmalade

Ingredients for Brie cream

• Brieost
• A little cream
• Salt and pepper

Make the Brie cream as follows

Cut away the edges of the Brie cheese. Blend with a hand blender to a soft cream. Add a little cream to get a good consistency. Serve with crisps and various jams and marmalades. We searched the fridge and found fig jam, rhubarb jam, blackcurrant jam and champagne curd. Wow, how good this turned out!

Main course 1: Cod loin with cauliflower puree

The first main course was perhaps the all most delicious: cod loin with fluffy cauliflower puree along with a range of different accompaniments, making this a really exciting dish. We made four small portions, but you can of course make a whole main course instead if you wish.

Ingredients:

• Cod back
• Bacon
• Cauliflower puree (one head of cauliflower, cream, milk, salt and pepper)
• Pickled red onion (any amount of red onion, 1 dl red wine vinegar, 2 dl sugar, 3 dl water).
• White wine sauce (celery stalk, charlotte onion, one carrot, three mushrooms, 50 cl of white wine, bay leaf, a whole clove of garlic, a sprig of dill, 50 g of Gruyere cheese, 5 dl of cream, 125 g of butter, 2 tbsp of wheat flour, salt and pepper)
• Orange sauce (2 tbsp caster sugar, 2 tbsp white balsamic vinegar, 0.5 dl concentrated chicken stock, 5 dl water, 2 dl squeezed orange, 0.5 tbsp ginger, 2 tsp cornflour mixed in a little water, 2 tbsp butter)
• Soya beans
• Pea shoots

Do this:

Cauliflower mash: Chop the cauliflower (or blend it in a blender). Cook the cauliflower in cream (about 1 dl) and milk (about 1 dl) for 30 minutes over medium heat. Blend with a blender directly in the saucepan. Add salt and pepper.

Cod loin: Cook in sous vide (2 hours at 52 degrees centigrade), or simmer in water until it reaches 52 degrees centigrade. Serve on top of the cauliflower puree.

Pickled red onion: Bring the stock (red wine vinegar, sugar and water) to the boil. Remove the saucepan when the sugar has melted. Pour the stock into a bowl. Slice the red onion and add it to the bowl. After 24 hours, the pickled red onion is ready.

White wine sauce: Cut all the vegetables and root vegetables into 2cm pieces. Fry all the vegetables in a pan until soft, about 10-15 minutes. Pour in the cream and wine and cook over a low heat to reduce the cream, preferably by half. Strain. For a thicker consistency, mix 100 grams of butter and 2 tablespoons of wheat flour. Pour into the pan. Flavour with salt and pepper. If you wish, you can add some sparkling wine.

Orange sauce: Pour the vinegar, stock, water and sugar into a saucepan. Let the sugar melt in the pan. Add the ginger and orange juice. Reduce by half. Add the cornflour, which you stir into a little water, and whisk into the sauce. Add the butter.

Main course 2: Lamb fillet with baked sweet potatoes

The second main course was lamb fillet, which is a favourite for us, along with baked sweet potatoes, which is also a favourite. We have previously tried topping the sweet potato with feta cheese scrambled eggs. This time we used crumbled chèvre instead. Very tasty! In addition, there were a bunch of tasty accessories.

Ingredients:

• Fillet of lamb
• Sweet potatoes
• Goat
• Asparagus
• Bacon
• Small tomatoes on twigs
• A few cloves of garlic
• Game sauce (celeriac, a carrot, a charlotte onion, a parsnip, about 10 cm of leek, 20 whole juniper berries, 150 grams of butter, 5 dl of cream, bottled game stock, a little soy, blackcurrant jelly, salt and pepper)

Do this:

Oven-baked sweet potatoes: Preheat the oven to 200 degrees centigrade. Cut the sweet potatoes in half lengthwise. Place them on baking paper on a baking tray, flat side down. Brush with olive oil. Leave in the oven for 25 minutes. Remove the sweet potatoes and turn them over. Brush the halves and return to the oven for about 15 minutes. Crumble the chèvre over the sweet potatoes.

Fillet of lamb: We cooked the lamb fillet in sous vide, 2 hours at 57 degrees. Remove and wipe dry. Fry on high heat in a mixture of butter and olive oil, 2 minutes on each side to get a nice sear. An alternative is to cook it in the oven. Pre-fry the lamb fillet in butter and olive oil, 2 minutes on each side, over high heat. Place in the oven, at 125 degrees, to 57 degrees.

Vegetables in the oven: Pre-fry the asparagus for a few minutes in extra salt. Wrap them in bacon. Put them in a mould together with the garlic cloves and tomato on a sprig. Place everything in the oven for the last 15 minutes of cooking the sweet potatoes.

Wild sauce: Crush the juniper berries with a mortar and pestle. Cook the vegetables and crushed juniper berries in butter until soft, about 10 minutes. Add 2 tbsp wheat flour and stir to avoid lumps. Add the stock, cream and soya. Cook for 10-15 minutes. Strain. Flavour with 1-2 tablespoons of blackcurrant jelly and salt and pepper. If the sauce is too thick, add more cream or milk.

Main course 3: Wagyu steak with almond mashed potatoes

Wagyu beef is perhaps one of the most expensive meats you can buy in the world, due in part to limited availability and costly breeding and rearing. Peter has been curious to try it for a long time, and now we decided it was the right time.

We were going to cook a luxurious dinner, and each main course was going to be a small - as a third of a portion approximately. The dish was very good, with the wagyu beef ... no, it was not worth the money actually.

Ingredients:

• Wagyu beef
• Almond mashed potato (a bag of almond potatoes, 2 egg yolks, 125 grams of melted butter, possibly some cream, salt and white pepper).
• Red wine sauce (celeriac, celery stalks, a carrot, a charlotte onion, a few sprigs of parsley, parsnip, 2 tbsp of tomato paste, a bottle of red wine, 3 dl of veal stock, butter, wheat flour, salt and pepper)
• Broccoli
• Haricot verts
• Small whole mushrooms

Do this:

Wagyu beef: Leave the wagyu steak at room temperature for two hours before cooking. Rub salt and pepper on both sides. Fry the steak in rapeseed oil and butter, 2 minutes on each side.

Almond mashed potatoes: Boil the potatoes for 20 minutes. Press or mash the potatoes. Mix in the egg yolks and the melted butter (a little at a time to ensure a good consistency). Depending on the consistency, you can also add a little cream. Whisk the mashed potatoes to the consistency you want. Season to taste with salt and white pepper.

Red wine sauce: Cook the vegetables in butter until soft, about 10 minutes. Pour in the red wine and veal stock. Reduce by half. Strain. Mix 100 grams of butter and 2 tablespoons of wheat flour. Season to taste with salt and pepper. If the sauce is too thick, add a little water. If it is too thin, reduce more.

Vegetables: Fry the mushrooms separately in butter. Cook the broccoli and haricot verts for 2 minutes.

Dessert: Ice cream with rhubarb

Desserts are not our strong point, but after a luxurious meal it is always nice to have a sweet ending. We love ice cream and we love rhubarb, so we simply had to have vanilla ice cream with fried rhubarb, along with a little "spice".

Ingredients:

• Vanilla ice cream (preferably old-fashioned)
• Rhubarb
• butter
• Sugar
• Some raspberries
• Some oat flakes
• Possibly some lemon balm

Do this:

Cut the rhubarb into pieces and fry it with the butter and sugar. Serve the ice cream in bowls and pour over the fried rhubarb. Decorate with raspberries, crumbled oat flakes and possibly some lemon balm. We also played with edible flowers on the plate.