It's a Blackcurrant Sorbet, particularly fashionable during the reign of George IV (1820–30) but still served at Buckingham Palace today.
I picked my calendar up when we visited one of the palace gift shops during our trip to England last fall. The calendar is colourful and elegant, adapted from a recent royal cookbook — 12 gorgeous photos of mostly sophisticated dishes that are served at State Dinners but are also enjoyed by the family.
The cookbook and calendar both use the same cover — a photogenic rhubarb and white chocolate parfait. In some of my browsing, I read that it seems like an unusual combination but the tart rhubarb and the sweet white chocolate go very nicely together. We're always looking for new ways to use rhubarb so maybe I'll add this to the list.
Another of their pretty desserts is coming up in September and is called Sablé Breton with English Strawberries and Lemon Cream. It sure sounds good and if you make it at your house, it probably isn't compulsory for it to look like this:
It's not a terribly complicated recipe although it calls for 2 250g punnets of strawberries.
A punnet is a small box for the gathering and sale of fruit and vegetables, typically small berries. The word is largely confined to Commonwealth countries and is of uncertain origin, but is thought to be a diminutive of "pun", a British dialect word for pound, from the days in which such containers were used as a unit of measurement or from the name of Reginald Crundall Punnett (1875–1967), a geneticist and grower of strawberries who used to sell them in the London market in a small chip basket.
One of the more eccentric dishes showed up for the month of April. It's called Eggs Drumkilbo and I wasn't surprised to read that it was a favourite of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.
The story goes that one night, back in the 1950s, some guests arrived late at Drumkilbo House, long after dinner had been cleared away and the owner of the house, Lord Elphinstone, asked his cook to feed his guests with whatever she could put together.
In the fridge she found some leftover lobster, there were some eggs which she hard-boiled, prawns and tomatoes. However, with the addition of anchovy sauce, Tabasco, stock, gelatine and mayonnaise — a dish to be proud of was born. So much so, that Lord Elphinstone served it to his neighbour and aunt, the Queen Mother, who immediately got her chef to copy the recipe and include it within their repertoire of dishes.
Eggs Drumkilbo is a magnificent dish, combining Scottish seafood with haute cuisine, or to put it another way, it is like a posh prawn cocktail and egg mayonnaise all wrapped into one!
I can see that Eggs Drumkilbo might be quite tasty.
I had asparagus for dinner today. Ours was steamed until just fork-tender, then plunged into cold water so it would stay nice and green. It was then tossed with halved cherry tomatoes, minced garlic, a chiffonade of fresh basil leaves and a little olive oil. It was beautiful asparagus and I think Her Majesty would have liked it.
Hers, however, looks like this:
Her chef says it's a spectacular starter. It's made to look like a crown and the extra flavours added are crab and mango.
Another cook says:
The asparagus is lightly cooked and then lined into metal rings to create a crown like, circular shape. The middle is filled with crabmeat, mango, chives, lemon and lime before being topped with salad leaves dressed in a lemon vinaigrette. It’s lifted carefully out of the rings and tied together with chives.
I've only scratched the surface of the royal menus but as the months go by and I turn my calendar pages, I'll probably be inspired to return to this subject.
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