Saturday night guest's menu

Yesterday night we had friends at home for dinner. Well, at least that was the intention although traffic jams and a small car incident (nothing serious but enough to disturb the plans) made it impossible, unfortunately. However, I had the menu ready, with all the mise en place done and everything ready for a la minute preparations, plating and eating.

This is the menu I prepared –not showing everything as there was some appetizers I did not capture on photos. Feel free to ask in the substack chat any question you want about this menu.

Warning: my limited capacities taking photos of food combined with the fact that I was busy cooking made the following pictures not as good as I would like. Apologies. ;-).

Starters:

Hummus, smoked sardine, and Dijon mustard with white truffle.

Melon, anchovy (“boquerón”), and 4-year aged Parmigiano Reggiano

Artichoke flower (grilled), foie sauce, grilled foie gras

First course:

Sous vide scallops, shiro miso hollandaise, radish sprout salad

Main course:

Stuffed pig’s trotters with braised pork cheek, potato Parmentier and demi glacé

Desserts:

Our guests were the ones in charge of desserts, so there are no pictures of it.

Wine:

The wine I've selected for this menu is a red wine from Montsant (Catalonia), the GR 65-5.

There are trails with history, mountains with history and wines with history. And this is the case of GR 65-5. The majestic mountains of Montsant, the Catalan variant of the Camino de Santiago and the old vineyards of Samsó (as the Cariñena is called in Catalonia) come together within this bottle. The Cariñena is an intense grape, very juicy and with excellent results in the region. The wine ferments in stainless steel tanks seeking to preserve as much as possible the primary aromas of fresh fruit and a slight passage through the barrel to provide it with a certain complexity. Opening one of these bottles will transport you directly to the Montsant trail: fruit aromas (cherries, plums), balsamic notes of licorice and that penetrating freshness of the humid winds of the sea and the influence of the Ebro River.