carrots, friends and dumplings

It's Sunday, I am surrounded by two François, a very old friend who is like a brother to me, and the other I have only just met, but feels like I’ve known him for ages. The table is covered with carrots and other stuff and I am cooking for what’s going to be a dinner party of fourteen people including myself. Only instruction is cook vegetarian and only fish for the main corse. It took me a few minutes to decide what I was going to do and this is what I came up with:

Starter
Carrot & coconut soup, served with herb dumplings

Main corse
Sea bass on garlic cream, served with stuff roast tomatoes

Dessert

Roasted pineapple, served with leffe caramel

But I won`t be boring you with all the recipes, just the first one for now. Carrot and coconut soup.
What you need:

500g carrots
250ml coconut cream
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
500ml fish stock
ginger diced

For the herb dumpling

250g of plain flour
2tbsp baking powder
1 baking potato
1 garlic clove
Chives and parsley

This dish is really simple to make, but it is also very tasty. I think it’s best to start by cooking your potato for your herb dumpling.

Mix together plain flour, baking powder with salt pepper and some water as to make a smooth round ball, add crushed potato, fresh herbs, and crushed garlic. You should end up with a well mixed flour ball; all that’s left to do is to roll out the dumplings in any shape or size you want. I made small balls as it’s to be served with a soup. Drop them in a pan of boiling water (I prefer use a vegetable stock or some other type of stock for taste) for five minutes. When they float on the surface of the water they are ready.

The carrot soup is even easier to make. Pour a spoon of olive oil into a pan, through in the garlic, onions, carrots, ginger,  and sautéed for two minutes pour fish stock and bring to a boil. When the carrots are all cooked, mix the whole till you get a smooth soup. Put back on the fire for a slow boil, add coconut cream and salt and pepper to taste.

When serving put a few herb dumplings into a soup bowl, cover with carrot soup, and top off with some fresh coriander and voila.

I have to say this starter was well received by my friends, and set the tone for the rest of the dinner party. After that it was François playing the guitar and singing, the girls being the seductive creatures that they are, a game of communist hold'em poker that’s going to last till seven am in the morning. All in all it was a great time.

If you guys want any of the other recipes in the menu please email me. You can follow me on twitter to find out when I am posting next or what the FRACK I am up too. I am going to see kung fu panda 2 and see what that inspirers me to come up with so until next time.

Mix it, cook it, eat it, and love it.