A glorious end to a glorious weekend, filled with friends, fun and far too much food.

Friday night started with dinner at friends, and they had made, with drinks, a sweet and sour spiced nut mix that was AMAZING. I will give you the recipe here. I made it on Satuday with roasted pumpkin seeds instead, which was good, but not quite as gorgeous as the pecans.

Saturday we had friends for dinner here, and I turned to Diana Henry for inspiration. An English food writer, her books are my absolute favorite. If ever I don’t know what to make, I turn to Diana Henry. In Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons, she uses a fair amount of Moroccan and Middle Eastern food, mixing the sweet and sour, all delicately spiced which is the sort of food I adore. And more, I adore that it’s all food that can be prepared in advance - comforting tagines and casseroles, no last-minute fiddling.

I made Moroccan chicken with tomatoes and saffron-honey jam, then berries for dessert, with figs stuffed with marzipan and almonds, dipped in chocolate, also courtesy of Diana Henry. It was delicious.

And yesterday we wandered over to Greenwich for a book party for the Countess Christina de Vogue who has written a sumptuous book called Decadent Desserts. Tall, ridiculously elegant, with dramatic make-up and swept back hair, a permanent cigarette in a long, thin cigarette holder, and a throaty French accent, the Countess was mesmerising. She stood and told the story of this book, which contains her own story, of how she came to be lady of Chateaux Vaux-le-Vicomte, 50 km outside of Paris.

She told of her mistakes, of the time their restaurant hosted a party from IBM, and they had requested strawberry meringues. Making them in advance, she asked the chef how to ensure the meringues would stay stiff. ‘Use lots and lots of sugar,’ he advised.

She did, whipping the egg whites and sugar into a frenzy, relieved that they came out just as perfectly as the chef had said.

At the end of the evening the representative from IBM asked to see her. ‘Why is it,’ he asked, ‘the meringues are so salty?’

Whoops.

The party was held in the home of her cousin, extraordinarily gracious and comfortable, stacks of books everywhere, an exquisite collection of Majolica wherever you looked, and fascinating people, many French and Italian. It reminded me of home, of living so close to Europe, of dipping into French naturally as part of the conversation (not that I could possibly do that anymore - my french these days is terrible), and it was all topped off with a table of delicious, and truly decadent desserts.

Sweet & sour nuts

1/2 lb pecans (or other nuts)
packet of sweetened cranberries
1 large orange, rind and juice
1 lemon, rind, and half juice
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup honey
3 or 4 good shakes of white wine vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar
salt & pepper

Mix all ingredients together, except nuts and cranberries which you mix together in a separate bowl.
Combine two bowls, spread mixture flat on cookie sheet, and toast in a 350 oven for around 20 minutes - check.

Moroccan chicken with tomatoes and saffron-honey jam (serves 4)

8 pieces of jointed chicken
seasoning
olive oil
1 large onion, roughly chopped
3 crushed garlic cloves
2 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 3/4 lbs diced tomatoes (I used canned)
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 teaspoon saffron threads
5 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon orange flower water (I order mine online, but you could substitute orange juice)
handful of toasted flaked almonds
small bunch of cilantro, roughly chopped.

Season chicken pieces and quickly brown them in a casserole dish. Remove, and cook onion in same pan until soft and just coloring. Add garlic, cinnamon and ginger, and stir for around a minute. Tip in tomatoes, mix together well, turn heat down and cook for another 5 minutes or so, stirring from time to time.

Boil stock and dissolve saffron in it. Pour over onions and spices and bring to boil. Set chicken pieces on top, together with any juices from chicken, and spoon liquid over them. Turn down to gentle simmer, cover and cook until chicken is tender, around 30 minutes.

Remove chicken pieces, set aside, cover and keep warm. Bring juices to boil and simmer until well reduced - there should be nothing sloppy about it. Add honey, continue to cook until well-reduced and jam-like. Check seasoning, add orange flower water. Put chicken pieces back and warm through in sauce.

Serve scattered with toasted almonds and chopped cilantro, with couscous or flatbread on the side.

Stuffed figs dipped in chocolate

20 figs
whole almonds
marzipan
dark chocolate

Make small knife slits to form a cross in the base of the fig. Fill with pea-sized ball of marzipan and whole almond.
Melt chocolate (supposed to be in a bain-marie but I always do it, very slowly, in the microwave), and dip entire fig in chocolate.
Put on wax paper and leave to set in fridge.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 17th, 2008 at 12:03 pm and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.