An engagement anniversary dinner

12 June was eleven years to the day when D and I got engaged.  I've just looked back to see if I blogged it, but it turns out that I started blogging the following year so, a setting of the scene first.

It was a very warm evening.  We had drinks at Gordon's on The Embankment and then walked down The Mall towards Belgravia and our dinner destination: Restaurant Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley hotel.  It's called "Marcus" now; it was re-branded a few years after we went to make it more relaxed and, to be fair, I do recall it being a little on the starchy side when we were there.  Great food though.  About halfway through - definitely after the starters but, I think, before the main course, D did the whole getting down on one knee thing, much to the delight of the women at the table next to us.  I noticed, however, that he waited until a waiter was approaching the table to ensure (as he told me afterwards) that we got stuff.  Reader, as a plan it worked; not only did we get a congratulatory dessert, but I was taken to the kitchen at the end to meet Marcus Wareing himself, who signed a menu now framed on our dining room wall.  We don't really do photographs in this house - we don't even have any wedding photos- but we do have that, and the wedding breakfast menu that my lovely brother and sister in law got signed and framed for us, and the memories they invoke are precious.

Obviously there is no eating out at the moment so we cooked something a little bit special instead.

To start - a large canape more than anything else - roasted new potato halves topped with sour cream and "caviar".  I think I've mentioned these before but it's worth saying again that these are such a nice way to kick off a special occasion.  The potatoes were tossed in a little oil and seasoning and roasted, cut side down, for 45 minutes and allowed to cool slightly.  Meanwhile, I combined sour cream with some finely chopped shallot, lemon juice, dill and a hint of mustard and piled it on top along with the fish roe.  Of course, the potatoes, rather like the more typically used blini, would also be suitable for any sort of similar topping.

For a main course - 61 hour brined duck breast (recipe to follow) mashed potato flavoured with green chilli and coriander chutney  (gorgeous combo, slightly peculiar colour), plum sauce (painted in somewhat clumsy stripes across the plate) and, finally, some lovely pickled plums with ginger and chilli.  I'm just going to come out and say it - we felt pretty smug eating this.

And further smugness ensued when I served dessert - baked cheesecake pots.  Baked cheesecake is a great favourite of D's and, of course, everything looks cute served in a pot.  I just quartered a standard baked cheesecake recipe to make this (which does make it quite a hefty portion but...we're greedy!) and it turned out beyootifully.  I was so pleased.  

Not quite Marcus Wareing standard, then, but not bad.  And we ate it while watching episodes of Taskmaster which is one advantage the home dining room has over that of The Berkeley.  A lot has changed in eleven years but some fundamentals stay the same, even in the midst of a global pandemic: love, friendship, food.