The Finale

Nearly there, the main courses and the desert.

Main course, Pork steak with a honey and mustard sauce

Roasted aubergine topped with roasted cherry tomatoes and courgette.

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Potatoe rosti

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Steamed greens and carrots

One of the things I have learnt to do is make a sauce here in the land of sauce, not by painstakingly following complicated French recipes but by trial and error and by not having gravy granules available to buy for a roast!!

So whilst the pork steak was slowly roasting in the oven (I seasoned then topped with a cube of butter, cooked on a low heat then turned up high to finish off) the cherry tomatoes and sliced courgette were also roasting alongside (separate pan of course). I peeled and halved the potatoe’s, brought to a boil and simmered until just soft but not breaking. Meanwhile halved and trimmed an aubergine and pan fried on each side until cooked through, when almost done add half a teaspoon of white wine vinegar to the pan. I don’t know why but this brings out the flavour. One of Jamie’s Italian recipes calls for this and now I always do it.

I had never made a rosti before. I have eaten some delicious ones and eaten a truly awful one once at a wedding, so bad I can still recall the raw inside and burnt top! Ugh!! Once cooled I grated the boiled halves of potatoes, seasoned and formed into cakes in bottom of my wok, amid the melted butter! (I have no frying pan or moulding rings but the bottom of a wok worked as a good circle once all patted down and shaped at the edges!). I turned them over by using a side plate to stop them breaking. It worked!! Once both were golden I popped in the oven to keep warm and ensure they were cooked through. Perfect!

I topped the aubergine with the mixture of roasted cherry tom’s, courgette, crushed garlic and olive oil. Then drizzled with olive oil and baked in the oven to warm through. If you wanted you could add some Mozzarella or Parmesan.

Once the pork was cooked I used the juices from the roasting pan, 100ml of beef stock (half a cube), a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, a teaspoon of honey and whisked over heat adding sifted flour to thicken. Bon appetite!

My Louboutin’s are still getting their weekly outing!!! Or inning I suppose!

Desert, Exotic fruit salad.

I think that with cooked breaky, cake, canapés and all the rest of the meal it is nice to have something a little lighter to finish off with, and fruit is never on the menu at the plethora of mountain restaurants that’s for sure. And for all those people that don’t care you can smother the fruit in cream, chocolate sauce and syrup if you want, for the rest of us it is quite nice and refreshing to have a lovely selection of fresh fruits (whatever you can get your hands on) chopped up with some fresh mint. I used strawberrie’s, pineapple and kiwi, hence why I called it exotic none of these are exactly native to the mountains!! And this explains Mr reluctance on the desert front, he had more b