November 14, 2023 Bill Birthday with Chef Dane Bellamy
Martin managed to completely surprise Bill with a private Chef at the house! It wasn’t easy to find one, but he’s gotten a lot of new clients since he started using https://www.takeachef.com/en-es for the initial contact. His website is DINNERS WITH DANE.
Yep, it was quite a production! This is going to be a big page, lots of scrolling required.
Here’s some of the mise en place.
Piping the gougerèrs and other prep work.
Finishing the Salad Niçoise.
The Gougères have been baked and stuffed, its time to top them with the Chef’s basil sugar crystals.
That darned Martin didn’t get movies of the chef describing these two courses. The white spots you see are reflections of the overhead field lights in the Great Room.
The Gougères start the meal at about 7:00 PM, pretty much on time! They were amazingly light and airy. Much to Martin’s surprise, the smoked cheddar mousse didn’t overwhelm the dish and the basil sugar crystals were delightful.
The Salad Niçoise, with a simple olive oil and lemon dressing, was a dramatically lightened version of the classic. Perfectly executed!
Here’s the chef describing the Beef Wellington. This was truly amazing, with a lot of Prosciutto de Parma, mushroom duxelles and the out-of-this-world demi-glacé. As you can see, the chef got it to the perfect medium rare, without using a temp probe like we’d have to do.
Here’s the chef describing the triple chocolate mousse desert. This was a really neat finish to the meal, with the strawberries and mint brightening up the mousse.