Perhaps more so than at any other time of the year, the annual entertaining frenzy prompts that eternal question: “what on earth am I going to cook?” I mean, it can be a challenge planning the Christmas meal even when it’s 100% certain it’s going to include turkey and ham, but coming up with ideas for a dinner party? Please Santa, bring me an in-house chef for Christmas, or a side of inspiration.
But entertain we must, and it follows that if you’re going to make the effort to feed a crowd of friends/family /colleagues/neighbours, the menu should offer some wintery comfort alongside great flavours, and, ideally, something that’s a little show-offy. It may be said that no-one likes a know-it all or a show-off. Well, as far as I’m concerned: if the results are good, I’ll swallow that bitter little pill.
So when it comes to show-off-ability, I regard almost any version of crème brulée made at home as a classic bit of show-off. It’s probably all that endless oohing and aghing over the blowtorch that inevitably runs out of gas. So if a good crème brulee makes it to your plate at a dinner party - then bravo.
Me? I don’t usually bother with them at home - as I don’t have a blow torch and my grill likes to turn most brulees into a three layered dessert of sugar shards, borderline scrambled eggy custard, with only good bits at the bottom. Nothing very appealing about that. But yet, there’s its irresistible voluptuousness when made correctly - that rich, creamy custard just waiting to be pillaged by the sharp tap of a spoon on a crunchy disc of caramelised sugar.
The magical contrast between wobbly centre and crisp coating is the kind of culinary gold dust that never fails to impress and delight. And let’s face it, that’s just what you need for a dinner party. It’s a texture thing - an intense, almost primal satisfaction that comes from sinking your teeth into something to find the crispiness yielding to something even tastier within.
All of the above is a roundabout way of talking up this week’s recipes - a main course and dessert that showcase this texture/taste phenomenon in different but equally pleasing ways and without a blowtorch.
In the main course, fillets of monkfish are cosseted in pancetta, oven-baked til crisp and served with leeks shot through with crème fraiche, wine and mushrooms. It looks pretty on the plate and tastes fantastic. The monkfish was basically cooked once the ham on the outside was good and crisp.
And then there’s the dessert – an apple brulée – which was like Triple-XXX rated adult baby food, cooked not in individual ramekins but a single dish. It was so delicious that the photographer, Aidan, and my assistant Gillian dug in for a quick taste, then silently devoted 10 minutes of eating to this seductive, vanilla-scented apple cream and its crystalline topping, based on a recipe from the wonderful Claudia Roden.
