Happy Stomachs All Around

Of course we never host dinners for people who aren't friends. Inviting you to our home isn't sacred, but to have you sit down at our dining table, and have you criticize our food is. It just feels nicer to cook for people we truly like, and will be happy adapt and tweak recipes to accommodate their quirks. We try our best to put out yummy stuff and items appropriate to dietary preferences. Most times, we succeed. Occasionally, we flop.

This round, we warned our guests to come empty-handed. But a quarter of our guests preempted our grocery shopping plans. They swung around days earlier to plonk a huge slab of ox tongue, ox heart and tendons into our kitchen. WHAT THE. Too generous lah, our friends. Decided to do the tongue and save the heart and tendons for another time.

Set about thawing the tongue and making the brine. The tongue looked...gross. EIOOOOWWWW. The man was unfazed. Had a whale of time curing the tongue. Actually, it just quietly sat in a tub in the fridge till cooking day. It was a big tongue. An...older...cow...which meant the meat would be tough. The ox tongue went into the oven for 7 hours. The man made a sauce to go with it- a random concoction of Madeira wine, capers and pickles, and other stuff. The man simply made them up as he poured stuff out of bottles into the pan.

As usual, our dinners cater to omnivores, vegetarians and pescetarians. Antipasto was all zucchini, peppers and cucumbers that merrily sat in bowls of marinade the night before. All we needed to do was to drain and plate them. Just before the guests arrived, the man whipped up a main of spicy pasta aglio e olio with anchovies. Then as he wrestled with the matter of removing the skin and slicing up the ox tongue, he left me in charge of searing the scallops and prawns. Well. Ookay. They had been cleaned anyway. Cooking them wasn't difficult. So I seared them and finished them with brandy. :P Nobody complained the seafood was overcooked or undercooked. Hurrah.

Decided to make hummus too. Chopped up sticks of raw vegetables. Had earlier stared at a couple of packs of chickpeas in the supermarket, trying to decide between them. Chickpeas are not created equal, and my selection directly influences the final taste of the hummus. Regular black Kalamata olives went into it. Garnished with olive oil and parsley from a jar. The result was rather satisfying. The bowl was cleaned out. Wasn't totally expecting it. No leftovers for week's meals. Heh.