Julie's Birthday dinner

Tomorrow is my wife's birthday, and I've agreed to cook a nice (5-course) dinner for us, including having Julie decide ahead of time what she wants for each course (I have done surprises before, but this way, she gets more or less exactly what she wants). I've been working since Saturday to get the pieces of it done--from shopping at the farmer's market, to prep and early cooking. So, here's the menu:

Appetizer: Mac and Cheese Croquettes

L. Mawby Blancs de Blancs Michigan Sparkling wine

Soup: Thai Curry Squash Soup

Lucien Albrecht 2006 Gewurztraminer

Intermezzo: Pear-honey sorbet

Meat: Beef Wellington, scalloped potatoes, and roasted Brussels sprouts

Rex Hill 2000 Seven Springs Pinot Noir

Dessert: Tres Leches cake

Since I work all day, and Julie's birthday is on a Tuesday... as in tomorrow... most of this is already made at least in some form. The mac and cheese is made, just needs to be cut into little shapes, breaded and fried. The soup needs to be warmed, have some coconut milk, fish sauce, and lime juice added, garnished with some fried ginger, and served. The sorbet simply needs frozen, scooped, maybe garnished with a slice of pear and drizzle of 18-year-old balsamic vinegar. The cake is baked, but needs the milk added, then the topping on. And, of course, the main mostly requires me to work on it tomorrow. Not bad, though--I should be able to manage that without too much trouble.

The thing about this menu is that most of it is really easy cooking, in spite of the fancy names and so on... Mac 'n cheese from scratch is easy--boil water, cook the pasta, make a roux (butter, flour in equal portions), add dairy, add seasoning, add cheese. Combine, bake for ~ 30 minutes. Sorbet is simple, too. Peel and chop pears, add to mix of sugar and liquid--in this case, a mix of white wine, brandy, water, and honey. Puree, chill, then freeze. The soup is bit more complicated, but not much. I wanted extra "squash" flavor, so I roasted the squash before adding to the soup. But the soup started as a typical base--a couple onions, sweated in butter and oil, added carrots, finely chopped. Then, the Thai take--a mix of Thai Red Curry paste (yes, from a jar), and a spice paste I made from ginger, garlic, galangal, turmeric, lime zest (just the outsize green stuff), and palm sugar. These are added to the butter adn veggies and cooked a bit. Then, in goes the squash, then a few cups of stock, a can of coconut milk, and cook for a while. Puree with a stick blender to desired texture. Finish with more coconut milk, fish sauce, and lime juice; garnish with fried slices of ginger, if you like. Dessert starts with a pretty typical cake--flour, sugar, eggs, baking powder, vanilla... Then add the "tres leches"--or three milks--condensed, evaporated, and cream, let it soak into the cake for a few hours. Then frost/glaze the cake with a powdered sugar frosting. Not so bad, eh?

The tricky part will be the main. Of course, scalloped potatoes are easy--slice the taters, add some onion and garlic to cream, and scald it, pour it over the layered potatoes and cheese. Bake for an hour or so. The Brussels sprouts should be easy--cut in half, coat in olive oil, season, and bake. Add ground nuts if desired. But Beef Wellington is, well, futzy. It's a hunk of tenderloin, coated in a pate of foie gras and mushrooms, wrapped in puff pastry. You have to brown the meat before wrapping, and then finish it to desired doneness in an oven. Not terribly hard, but futzy, and challenging to make it look right and have good texture. Getting those, and hte veggies, all done at the same time--that iwll be the one real challenge, other than doing the copious dishes resulting from such a project.