Dinner the French Way – Six Courses on a Weeknight at the Carriage House
The French way of six courses on a weeknight dinner at the Carriage House: Finger foods and champagne. Pumpkin soup, baked in the pumpkin, with creme fraiche and mushrooms. Lauren's deer tenderloin with duck foie gras, served in a sharptail grouse broth and grape compote, accompanied by potatoes, sweet potatoes, and celeriac. Celeriac : 1 root for 2/3, cut into 1 inch pieces, boil for 15 minutes, then butter fried in a pan, masher, and you add butter or/and cream until you are happy with the taste. Salt and pepper. You could mix with same quantity of potatoes if the meal is not game. Potatoes : Mash as usual. Add butter and crème fraiche (better than milk), Sour cream good alternative I used. Then for us 5 I added 4 yolks and whisked the whites to "blancs en neige" and add with a spoon, little by little 3/4 of it until the texture was okay, not too liquid. Season with salt and pepper. (Note-some potatoes are more dense than others, hence no proportions.) Salade with herb vinaigrette Cheese course Lemon meringue pie with tart white wine The .22 Hornet at the ready. For the deer sauce/compote: Just shallots and grape in butter. Slow cooking they have to melt. 1 hour to 1.30. Then add the stock ( I made do with grouse but better use the trimmed meats and bones of the beast cooked) let it evaporate and add the final touch to thicken if you wish ( I had foie gras but corn flour ( maïzena ) + butter fine.