We are now officially in the off season, meaning we no longer have to rush off to rehearsal and we can now take our time and savour the fruits of our labour and enjoy our company. Tonight, our guests are Rob Castle and Joanne. The meal tonight is clearly Thai inspired and consist of three dishes we have never made before. Let’s hope everything tastes as good as it sounds on the page. First, we start with a riff on crab cakes. In this version the crab cakes are bbqued on cedar planks and served with a Thai cucumber relish.
The crab cakes consist of mostly crab and the relish adds a flavor explosion in your mouth, which has rice vinegar, ginger, cucumber, shallots, cilantro and Thai birdseye chilies. Not a bad way to start a meal…
I don’t normally associate lamb with Thai food, but we did find some recipes that included lamb. For our main we served Thai rack of lamb with steamed mushroom with ginger and sticky rice.
I am now so glad that lamb is used in Thai cooking. Not to brag, but the lamb was cooked to a perfect rare, with a lovely char. Planking allows for higher heat without risking blackening the meat too much. The gingered mushrooms were a burst of flavor (thank God I like mushrooms now).
Since we didn’t need to rush off, it allowed us to have a pause between courses to catch up on each others lives and activities. Earlier in the week, a little bird told us it was someone’s birthday, whose name I shouldn’t mention (Joanne). Thai desserts sometimes give us a challenge, but as soon as we found this one, we knew it would be lovely. We had Thai rice pudding brulee, with passion fruit Sorbet.
And of course we had a candle, and singing…. I think the carmelized crust added a nice touch to the flavor and presentation, but to me the star was the sorbet. fresh and sweet, with some passion fruit seeds on the top. Lovely spring flavours.
After our dinner, we gathered around the piano and sang from the Anglican hymnal… A few old favorites and even a few we didn’t know. This was lovely dinner, with lovely people, that helped to ground us, and help us get back on track.
