Saturday 22 December 2012

Tiramisu. One for dinner parties.


It's been a LONG time!!

I feel a little bad that my posts are not that festive yet. Everyone is in such a Christmasy mood, all the food blogs that I follow are just so Christmasy from the very beginning of November! But don't shoot me down just yet - I have been very festive this year, all my gifts are bought, nicely wrapped, under the Christmas tree already. A few Christmas dinner parties are already behind me and I've got a few to come! So the truth is - I'm just being naughty in terms of writing everything up.. Oops.

One of these dinner parties was a recent one celebrating Hugo's excellent shooting skills. A few of his friends and I have had the pleasure to taste fresh pheasants, completely organic haha!! I did have my usual fuss about how wrong it is to kill but I guess it's just not for a vegetarian female to understand, is it?..


The party was really nice actually, all the boys were praising the food, getting seconds and Simon was telling me what a loyal reader of the blog he is. Thank you Simon!!!!!


So I left the pheasants for the boys to prepare and I haf a tiny bite just to try. There were about 5 different techniques involved in cooking the birds, and they mixed very well, the pheasants were juicy and beautifully flavoured! 



Yummmmm!


I, on the other hand, did the side dishes, the starters and the desert. Starters were very simple: filo pastry goats cheese parcels with roast peppers, and the recipe is just in its name :] 



If you do decide to make some, they are really good, don't forget to layer the filo pastry by buttering it up in between and outside layer to crisp it up.



While the desert is very exciting. TIRAMISU!! Oooooh the sweet creaminess and the strong and fragrant taste of coffee is just devine. You can make it in advance and it's really easy!



This recipe makes a massive bowl, but I have to say, it gets finished quite quickly! It would probably be enough for about 10 sugar-lovers. 

Ingredients:
   for the cream:
1 kg mascarpone cheese
6 egg whites
about 1 cup of sugar (depending on how sweet you like it)
1 tsp lemon juice
   for the sponge layer:
lady finger biscuits (2 packs)
   for the coffee
2/3a cup of REALLY STRONG coffee
1 tsp of coco powder + some more for decoration
2 tsp sugar
1 generous shot of vodka / liqueur / rum / anything quite strong that would go with the chocolatey-coffe-creamy flavours

Mix the sugar and mascarpone, beat the egg whites until fluffy and thick and fold into the mascarpone mixture vey gently, in order to not break the fluffiness. Drop in the lemon juice and then make the coffee by mixing everything up. DO make the coffee quite strong, because that's the fun about tiramisu - the mix of the bitter and sweet flavours in your mouth. Hugo's friend Alejandro helped me with this one, we were both choking afte tasting it. Just right!!
Now in terms of the layering - you can do it all in a big bowl or you can do individual ones. It always looks really good when the dish you do it in is see-through so that you can see the layering of the beautiful creamy-coffee colours.



Firstly, lay the bottom with lady-finger biscuits, pour over the coffee with a tablespoon to soak so that they become a sponge. Then layer the mascarpone, biscuits.. mascarpone.. biscuits.. (keep on going until you've got enough) and finish with a layer of mascarpone with some coco sprinkled over the top - it's easiest to do it with a sift. Leave in the fridge for a few hours for the tastes to set and mix.



Enjoy!

3 comments:

  1. Since you're talking about being festive, do you have a recipe for eggnog? I'm going to try to make one this week. Right now, I'm looking at this one from a gentleman named Alton Brown. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/eggnog-recipe2/index.html I will substitute frangeleco or amaretto for the whiskey (bourbon).

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  2. Oooo eggnog!! I love it! I can't really advise you on anything as I've never tried making it, although it's definitely my type of drink - creamy and sweet. Mmmmmm! The only thing people get quite scared about is that it has got raw egg in it but I can assure you it's fine and you won't even taste it, you won't get any salmonelas or anything, you just have to wash the egg before cracking it :] I think the recipe should be fine! Try it after you make it and adjust it to your taste - more sugar? More liqueur? Whatever you prefer :] Oooooh I wish I could try some!! Best of luck, have a lovely Christmas!! xxxx

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  3. First, sorry about the confusion, but Pavani had logged onto my computer when I made that post. Second, you've GOT to try the eggnog! It is wonderful! I used amaretto.

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