Another year have passed and I got ready for our yearly celebration, this year we had some cancelations and a dinner for 8 is not a difficult task.

For my own sake and the sake of my regular 3 invitees I had to come up with a menu not too difficult to execute and yet still grand and surprising as a dinner to celebrate the New Year should be.

The welcome dish required the prep of fresh potato Blinis, to go with the last Caspian Beluga Caviar in my fridge, which I saved for this occasion. A real treat on Crème fraîche with our welcome champagne: the wonderful Larmandier -Bernier Tradition Extra Brut 1er Cru NV.  The delicate Caviar on home made Blinis requires a true wine that bubbles, a champagne made with the LOVE, blood sweat and tears of Pierre Larmandier who manages to produce a champagne of this quality every year. It has it all: an elegant citrus fruit beauty, a true Brut. The Brut Tradition (80 percent Chardonnay, 20 percent Pinot Noir) is a premier cru from Vertus, at the southern base of the Cote des Blancs It is extremely dry and very pure, a delicate latticeworkbetween the  minerals and citrus zest with a nice hint of yeasts. Or in the words of Jancis Robinson : “Larmandier-Bernier, Tradition Extra Brut Premier Cru NV Champagne: Restrained nose that suggests great delicacy. Real race, spine, and structure. Very grown up champagne” 

      

 

But I still needed a “surprise” to kick off the dinner which will go well with the sumptuous Champagne, an amuse bouche came in the form of a takeoff on an appetizer I had at Restaurant Story London Bridge in June 2013, there we had a sublime Crispy Cod skin, cod Roe and carrot tips, but cod skin is not readily available round my neck of the woods so I opted for Salmon skin “crackers”, dotted with vongole and home made chipotles mayonnaise served with a Shot glass of hot, Yuzo scented clear vongole stock/liquor. The “crackers” were crispy and their harsh salmon flavour was balanced well with the mayo and the light lemony stock, exactly the way I imagined it, it did take everyone by surprise!

 

Our first course was Thai Pumpkin coconut cream and shrimps soup Topped with Mint Pea soup and a panko coated shrimp. A totally delightful combination of colours and contrasting texture on the palate of the crunch and cream, the intended touch on the palate was achieved to my utmost satisfaction.

  

I planned to serve it with Saint Romain T&P Matrot 2007 (as written on the Dinners menu), but!!! with BOTH bottles corckey???, what are the chances this will occur from the same case??? My cellar “offered” 2 bottles of Simon Bize Bourgogne Blanc Les Champlains 2010, with it’s wonderful nose of green apples, with some peaches citrus and acacia and some tropical fruits blossoms was at the end a more suitable wine for this dish with it’s south east Asian touches.

 

Our Mid course was Risotto ai frutti di mare, a traditional style risotto, made only with shrimps, Langoustinesand Vongole without the shells. The risotto was cooked with shrimp heads and fish stock, and some of the vongole stock in butter white wine, garlic and parsley and a hint of chilly,the other half of the vongole stock was strained than refreshed with lemon and Yuzo and used for drinking with the salmon skin crackers. The Mascarpone gave it the final attractive creamy touch, which makes any risotto so alluring… I could not resist “decorating the dish with Langoustine heads. (tacky me)

  

This dish went with the creamy still fresh Chassagne Montrachet- Les Caillerets 1er Cru, Domain Morrey Coffinet 2002 with its pear skin and lime scent and minerals on the palate a touch of butter brioche to complement the dish in a nice manner.

For the main course I must admit I planned Breast of duck in cream morilles sauce (Morilles à la Crème) but the duck skin was completely torn off the breasts and could not be served in style, luckily my dedicated butchers Nir & Avi Ofer (of the Delicious “Delichess butchers” in Tel-Aviv, without a doubt, the best butchers in town…) offered me instead some wonderfully marbled pieces of Wagyu beef (the last bits in the Land of fresh wagyu) which were cut to my specification to make my homage to a dish I had at Zuma London : Seared Wagyu Tataki Black Truffle Ponzu I decided to serve it as a duo one with the Morilles à la Crème the other scented in black truffle oil, and diced black truffles in a Japanese chilly salad oil, decorated with coluored seaweeds. The duo was served with Joel Robuchon style potato puree and a green salad of Salnova lettuce and Figs.

To celebrate the new year and ourselves, our main dish was served with the still fresh and deeply fragrant Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1970 , I doubt if I could pick a better wine to match this wonderful Wagyu dish whose success was mainly due to the excellent product (Thanks Nir)

Now the wine… every time you open a 40+ year old bottle the content is an enigma, will it be drinkable? Will it fulfill the promise of its ability to mature and still reflect the balance of fruit, freshness, secondary and tertiary aromas? Will it go the full monty? To be as grand as intended when served. Well my deciples this one did it was a young 43 years old wine with all the nuances : it had the fruit to keep it fresh some young black fruit not only cooked dried fruits figs, prunes, even dates, those were ample, but well balanced with the soft but still apparent tannins, and with them the full array of sweet spices cloves, cinnamon, coffee, depth of black truffles in a concert of well orchestrated flavours which gave the “concert” a well deserved crescendo. As it is now it will drink well on it’s 50^th birthday, and I will report!

For desert we had my sister’s Dana special Cream Caramel (CC) which has become a ‘”tradition” for these dinners especially served for Osnat a CC expert, who gave it two thumbs up for the extra burnt touch of the caramel. Served with a 1983 ‘Chateau Suduiraut, Sauternes’ which was a bit of a disappointment, lacking all the great sauternes characters, but did not cloud the joy and enjoyment of the whole meal.

A very HAPPY NEW YEAR to all, my sous chef Amos, Head sommelier Yair, Varda as best gaffer, Osnat & Nir, Lala and Prof. Yahoo

and to my followers and incidental visitors alike.

      

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