Valentines day special

Hello everybody! Today I made 3 recipes (a 3 course meal) . I’m not going to explain how to do it, because If I do, it will be about 5 paragraphs long ! I made some tempura butternut squash to start, followed by a slice of pollock on a bed of carrot and grapefruit purée and peas. To finish, I made a kind of deconstructed lemon tart (see photo).

So, the starter was some nice little bites, I made them by mixing some grated butternut, flour, egg, milk, chilli powder, yeast and seasonings in a big bowl, waiting for an hour and deep frying them in spoonfuls. I then made a salsa. It wasn’t how I would usually make a salsa – peeling tomatoes, adding oil and vinegar, using lemon instead of lime etc – but it was actually really, really nice! The two worked together like bread and butter, I am definitely doing this at school for my friends!

Next was the main course… I made a coriander oil by soaking coriander, in oil! Then I soaked some cooked peas in them. Meanwhile, I boiled some carrots with some water, butter and grapefruit for a couple hours, blitzed it, strained it and added more butter. I then plated up. I put a dollop of puree on a plate, some peeled grapefruit segments next to it, some fish which I fried on top and some peas all around. I decorated with pea shoots, and served. It was an odd combination really, I’m not sure that it worked for me. The grapefruit in the purée was quite bitter, and it completely overpowered the fish – which is already very delicate. It would work better if there was just grapefruit on the plate, not in the purée, it gives it an appealing freshness. The peas were okay, I find them quite oily (they had been soaked in the stuff!) , but it wasn’t very pleasant. However, don’t get me wrong, it was very interesting and all around tasty!

Last but definitively not least, the pud. This took the longest, so I definitely won’t go into much detail. I took a lemon and thyme sponge (that was really thin), on that, I piped some lemon mousse, which I had set with eggs, gelatine and chantilly cream. I placed a tuile on the side, and a quenelle of just set mascarpone ice cream. I little bit of thyme and some lemon zest to garnish, plus some homemade lemon vodka, and you’ve got one of the nicest desserts you’ve never had! It was zingy, it was thymey (thyme and lemon are a match made in heaven), it was just gorgeous! You get crunch, you get soft, you get creamy, I could go on for hours. Anyway, that’s my Valentines day 3 course meal! Now if you don’t mind me, I feel rather sick now… I’m out!