Now What?: Epoisse

WARNING...WARNING...WARNING...Long dull self indulgent foodie post.

My son gave me this for my birthday

so thought I'd have a dinner party to try out some of the recipes: the more complex and obscure the better (I like to test my dinner guests)

Ordinarily, it would have to be on a Saturday, but suddenly realised I could devote the whole of friday to cooking.

Menu:

FIRST COURSE
Warm salad of sweetbreads with a roquefort and creme fraiche sauce

I LOVE sweetbreads, although most people I know would not touch them with a bargepole. "Yuk!" they say. Bloody hypocrites. You eat meat don't you? So you should eat everything, or at least try them.

Got them from Yasir Halim:

which is the only place I know in London who always have them.

SECOND COURSE

Whole shoulder of Wild Boar slow roasted in a Cassis & Brandy sauce, and served with Barley Risotto

Rang up the butcher earlier in the week. He is an excellent butcher in a poncey part of North London who is well used to catering to the local discerning North London Dinner Party Intelligensia Brigade

Conversation went like this

"Hi Guys, I need a shoulder of wild boar..."

"FARRKIN' 'ELL, not another one. You've got that bleedin' Michel Roux book ain'tcha? Farrk me, I think we've emptied the forests of Perigord single handedly."

"Oh..umm...so can you get me a shoulder for tomorrow?"

"Faarkin' 'ell, you are jokin' right? Next week earliest mate."

"Ah..err..."

"I can do you a nice pork shoulder on the bone this afternoon. 5 kilos eighteen quid."

"Oh, well, er...what is the main difference re the texture, flavour and cooking protocol viz-a-vis wild boar and the domestic pig?

"Abaat thirty faarkin' quid, and it doesn't stink"

"Sold."

THIRD COURSE

Cheeseboard:

Chaource

Comte

and...wait for it...Epoisse

This is a cheese only for the very brave

Or the very innocent.

You will be assaulted by a hurricane of overwhelming, dark, dirty, hellish flavours screaming over your tongue: a blast from the sewer, a gale of halitosis, a salty squall of pigsty. Delicious.

FOURTH COURSE

Chocolate Marquise: A La Gavroche recipe from the eighties, so it has After Eight Mints in it - terribly witty, as Michel himself admits in the blurb.

This took forever. I had to make almond biscuits, three differenct ganaches: Creme de Menthe, Rum, and plain, assemble it, and make it into a loaf/brick type structure: see above. And let me tell you, MINE LOOKED BETTER!! (must get a camera)

I started at 10 in the morning, and was at it, more or less, until 7.00pm when the missus got home from work, with only a short break around 2.00pm to better myself by reading a couple of chapters of Proust in the original french

Just after 8.00 our guests arrive and I give them some bubbly and salted pecans. You just toss them in a frying pan with lots of salt and a teaspoon of oil: delicious.

I fry off the blanched sweetbreads, and melt Roquefort with creme fraiche. Serve with lemon dressed salad with a little raw shallot

Picture of me banging the dinner gong

Next course: I take out the massive 5K lump of pig that has been slowly roasting for four hours, and carve it at the table. FANTASTIC!! Beautifully tender and mucho flavoursome. Falls off the bone. Serve it with the barley risotto, which is finished with ground almonds, parmesan, and fresh thyme. Also served with an incredible sauce made from the juices, with a bit of extra Cassis and stock.

Then I reveal the cheeseboard, which answers my guests earlier questions about the state of our drains.
Amazingly, the Epoisse is finished off!! Result!!

It's about 11.00pm. My guests are slowing down.