Main Course.

Finally had the first dinner last night!

First course was a salmon recipe based off of the salmon 104. It has all the components except the watercress puree and I added a beet gelee and a mustard oil (not in pic)

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normal">"Geneva CY"">second course: watercress and fennel Salad with a Champagne Honey Vinaigrette

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Third Course: Simple braised pork belly, apple sauce, pistachio butter, figs

Dessert: Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream and Peach Sorbet with a Coconut Praline

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grant

Looks great, all I would add is think about the tools and help that you have when designing a menu. Don't let hot, cold, shared equipment or plates that lots of time to compose get in your way of a fluid service. Sometimes in a meal its good to have the first item that goes out take only a moment to execute as you cannot predict when the guests will be ready. It would be painful to follow that with something that takes 10 minutes to execute though. So make sure that you think about how much needs to be done to get the food onto the table from when the meal starts and the guests is ready for it. Let us know how it goes.

pgcath

@Henry - It does look wonderful. I guess if I had to drag up a quibble, it might be that you need to be careful with your sauce so that you do not overwhelm some of the subtleties of the figs, prosciutto and parmesan.

Looking forward to the photos and the recipe!

Henry_Harden_65047

Thank you @grant and @pgcath I will defiantly take those into consideration. Photos will be up soon as possible.

Brendan_Lee_56950

Just because I'm nitpicky like this, make sure you change "coarse" to "course".

I think it would be cool to make a crisp out of the parm and the proscuitto for more texture on the plate and toast the walnuts. I've had some really delicious fig balsamic vinegars that would be an awesome coating for walnuts.

I'm curious about the inclusion of pistachios. Are you looking for the color or for more crunch?

Henry_Harden_65047

Haha oops, all better now. I was thinking the same thing about the walnuts, and I will defiantly try the crisp idea. The Pistachios are not going to be very strong but I really like the pairing of the Pistachios and pork and I want some of the color. @BrendanLee

Brendan_Lee_56950

I think walnuts and pork and pistachios and pork both work well. For me, walnuts and pistachios don't feel like they go well together though, kind of feels like two different dishes on the same plate.

Henry_Harden_65047

I totally get what ur saying @BrendanLee. I will do some tweaking tonight. .

Brendan_Lee_56950

What I think would be cool would be to roast figs, puree, pass and infuse with bacon to make your sauce and then garnish the plate with parm and proscuitto crisps and toast the walnuts with a bit of the fig puree to caramelize the outside. That way you have sweet and salty (fig-bacon sauce) salty-sweet-crunchy (fig coated walnuts), and then crunchy-salty with the crisps.

Henry_Harden_65047

Awesome Idea! I will for sure give it a try, im getting the ingredients Sunday so i plan on having pics up by Tuesday. @BrendanLee

Brendan_Lee_56950

Awesome. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out!

Jack_Mayer_85396

Most impressive @Henry_Harden! looking forward to seeing the results! Most importantly, have fun!

Tim_Sutherland_52834

To build on what @Grant has said; think through the flow of service, where are choke points or areas that could delay/disrupt service - what can be done to minimise things going wrong; do as much as possible during prep as you will never have enough time during service; time how long it takes to plate one plate and for all plates; the food runners will shake the plates, ensure your plated dish can handle that; hot food on hot plates, cold food on cold plates; have extra plates if you misplate; have extra food for tasting, dropping, extra people turning up; stay calm during service no matter what happens - break things, yell, cry once all the guests have the food and in a location where the guests can hear or see you; have Plan B through Z for when things go wrong (and they will); take notes for what goes right and wrong during prep and service, so your next time will be better; take notes you will not remember things later.

Remember it is only food and have fun.

Henry_Harden_65047

Thanks @jackmayer and @TimSutherland I spent almost all night last night planning how the dinner was going to work out. I still need hours more work for everything, but I will take everything you said to make dinner service as fluent as possible. I have done things like this last winter and spring but none as big as this.

Tom_Champion_14732

As an amatuer home cook I want to crawl into hole a hole after reading theses helpful suggestions. It's sounds scary and rewarding at the sametime.

Otherwise, Thanks for the discussion it helps me a lot.