Dinner in an Orchard
Short Attention Span Girl
random bits on food, quilting and gardening
As you can see there were lots of peaches hanging on the trees and Farmer Al was nice enough to let us sample a few.
When we arrived Chef Richard Blais was hard at work. In spite of all the hustle in the kitchen tent, he was kind enough to talk about what he was making, sign autographs, pose for pictures and still turn out dinner for 175.
Here he was using liquid nitrogen to make little frozen horseradish pearls to top the oyster appetizer.
My husband loved these oysters. My favorite appetizer was the beet tartare which was diced beets topped with little flakes of candied wasabi. You got this sweet hit from the beets and sugar and then a little spice from the wasabi. There were also little mini grilled pimento cheese sandwiches that were hard to grab quickly enough.
The first course of hamachi sliced over a smoked aioli, pickled radish and crispy fried chicken skin was my favorite. Never, ever would have dreamed of putting fried chicken skin on anything let alone raw fish. Delicious! Smooth fish, crispy salty chicken, sharp radish; perfection.
Still boggled over how this fried petrale stayed so crispy. It was topped with amazing tomatoes and a salty anchovy butter.
The pork belly managed to stop the conversation at our end of the table. It was cooked sous vide for 48 hours and then grilled and served with cauliflower and a peach relish. What was surprising was how many comments I heard about the cauliflower. Usually it’s not the most popular of vegetables but it was really delicious.
Dessert was plum ice cream that was frozen with liquid nitrogen while we watched. It was scooped into yummy sugar cones made by Ici and disappeared too quickly for me to photograph.
Who knew dinner in an orchard could be so elegant?
- — marcella
Happy Birthday! Looks like you celebrated well!
Happy birthday, Marcella! Dinner looks delicious, to say the least.
Gee whiz — how can Fenton’s compete with this?
[...] started with that dinner in the orchard. There was a silent auction and we won a preserving class for four. In August [...]