My drink & pre-dinner snack - "A Passion for Bacon" with a sparkling Passionfruit drink, and Bacon Parmesan Shortbread.
Any long term readers of this blog, you already know that every year, a group of my friends get together to make a fabulous dinner. We started back in 2006, and it happened to be on trettondagsafton, or Twelfth night, as January 5 is also called. (In Swedish, it's "13-day-eve".) It's definitely one of my favorite traditions - it marks the end of the holidays, and also the start of a new, fabulous food year. (We cheated a little and held it on January 4 this year, out of convenience.)
We are four couples, and each couple make a starter, a main course and a dessert, all tiny, to make up a large tasting menu with many surprises, as no one knows what the other people are making. I make an extra dish each year, a drink and a small snack, in order to bring it to 13.
We've done a bunch of themes, as well as completely theme-less. This year, we decided to randomly divide flavors between us, to make sure we'd get a good variation. Very fun theme, and we really did get a wide variety of dishes.
Erika & Micke's starter - Beef Salad with Raspberries & Mint (Flavor: Raspberry, Mint)
Dagmar's starter - a Blood Orange Salad with Almond Honey Caramel and Feta Cheese (Flavor: Orange, Honey)
Lena's starter, a Duo of Ceviche. (Flavor: Lemon, Chili)
My starter - Seared Beef Carpaccio (Flavor: Coriander, Sesame, Ginger)
Lena's main dish - Saffron Gnocchi with Bresaola and parmesan (Flavor: Saffron, Parmesan)
My main dish - Licorice-Glazed duck with Figs in Port and Sunchoke Purée (Flavor: Licorice)
Erika & Micke's main dish - Feta-topped salmon with garlic & pink peppercorns (Flavor: Pink pepper, Garlic)
Dagmar's main dish - Moose stew with dark chocolate & Hasselback Potatoes (Flavor: Chocolate)
My dessert, Hazelnut Mousse with salted hazelnuts. (Flavor: Hazelnut)
Erika & Micke's dessert, a Caramel cake with Almonds (Flavor: Caramel, Almond)
Dagmar's dessert, Violet ice cream with candied violets (Flavor: Violet)
Lena's dessert, Coffee Chocolate Mousse with chili-marinated melon cubes (Flavor: Coffee)
Wanna read about our previous dinners?
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011 - Around the world theme
2012 - Movie and TV theme
2013 - Different main ingredients
2 comments:
What a superb meal! It looks beautifully balanced. How did you choose which flavours you were going to use?
Alicia, mostly by accident :-) We brainstormed up a bunch of flavors, and then did random assignment. Every couple had six flavors to play with, and only needed to use three, so it was ok to leave out anything that seemed to daunting. In the end most flavors were used, except for coconut, basil and pepper.
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