Dinner #5: Our Big Fat Greek Dinner
Menu
May 28, 2017
Appetizers
Cucumber Hors d’Oeuvres
Dolmakadia
Fresh Pita Bread with Baba Ganoush, Tzatziki, and Hummus
Course One
Mediterranean Crescent Ring
Course Two
Duet of Summer Couscous
(Beet & Traditional)
Course Three
Leg of Lamb with Cucumber Salad
Course Four
Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake
Beverages
Summer Shandy
Watermelon, Mint, and Wine Cocktail
Virgin Pina Colada
Because I think I will always be a student at heart, (or for the more logical reason that we started doing AJRBs in June), I think of our year as starting in the summer and ending in the spring. So this was, in my eyes, the last event of our first year and wow, it is weird to think back on it now.
Mostly because I am writing all these blog posts as we create this website so we have now hosted 19 events and are planning our 20th (and of course, talking about future events all the time - we have an entire menu planned out and are deciding when to use it). But I remember how much we thought we had already learned then and how much more we had to learn in the next three years of hosting events. Even as I look at the menu for Dinner #5, I am remembering how we wanted to be more ambitious and how we wanted it to have a different feel (more like a summer BBQ), so we went with less formal courses, tried to go with more appetizers, and had our guests come over three hours early so we could enjoy apps, go to the pool, and play pin-the-tail on the donkey.
As I said, we had a lot to learn still haha. We were still honing what AJRB was - what it was better suited for. I remembered how much fun everyone had with the Christmas crackers so we tried to recreate that with goody bags, which were only mildly successful. It has just been a lot of tweaking. But something that we did really enjoy for this dinner was leaning into one cuisine. While we could have tried to put our own take on classic American BBQ food, we decided that might have a little too much nostalgia for us to get right and wanted to try something a little different and went for Greek inspired food. Interestingly enough, with this menu, our appetizers ended up taking almost as much time as everything else put together - mainly the dolmakadia. Which, in some ways, was fine because people were going to come over and spend a lot of time hanging out and eating apps - but some ways was not so fine because we did not exactly understand how much time this would take. The dolmas, whoa - the process of boiling, drying, rolling - all for the very delicious grape leaves? I have a very real and new appreciation for those things. For John, he spent a ton of time making baba ganoush, and honestly, I can't remember all that went into it now but I think he expected it to be similar to the process of making hummus and it was, well, not.
That all being said, the appetizers were worth the time (even though we once again, were not great with portions and had quite a few leftovers), but the real stars were the next three courses. The Mediterranean Crescent Ring that was Course One was heavenly - made with John's handmade puff pastry...yeah no leftover's there. Course Two was a Duet of Summer Couscous (Beet & Traditional) - and it was beautiful to see how to make couscous that purple color!
Then we have the absolute showstopper....the Leg of Lamb with Glass Herbs. It had been sous vide overnight (which, in of itself was quite a process because we had to find a container that would fit a whole leg of lamb so we had to use a styrofoam cooler) and came out completely melt-in-you-mouth and John finished it with these flash-fried herbs that gave it the crunch that it needed to make it sensational. The only problem was the big camera's battery had died by this point (of course), so all we have are iPhone photos of this masterpiece and while they don't do it its total justice, still do a pretty good job.
Sadly, the last course of the night, Course Four, is probably one of the two dishes that I have the most regret ever making at AJRB. It was a Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake. This was before we had nearly the amount of cooking equipment we do now, so the only cake pan we had was a springform pan (which is what you typically use for cheesecakes - it is the kind of pan that the sides can detach so you don't have to flip the cake to get it out). I was scared that it leak out the sides, so I lined it with aluminum foil, which caused it to get absolutely no color while it was baking. While the cake tasted fine, and all our guests were very very kind about it, I was pretty crushed that it was the ugliest thing I've ever made. It was even worse than the unset panna cottas!
But, all in all, it was a great way to kick off the summer with our friends and family - with fun, food, the sun, and the promising of exciting things to come!