Surprise Menu for a Christmas Gift

I recently got contacted by one lady, Chris, who was looking for a Christmas gift for her God's parents, Pat and Bob. She wanted to offer them a nice moment with a surprise menu. As a Chef, this is the nicest option since it opens to creativity and pleasure for the Chef and - hopefully - the guests!.

I started with open beet ravioles roasted in honey and rosemary with a goat cheese, Parmesan and toasted pine nut stuffing. I served them on a bi-color velouté of Belgium endives and aragula and drizzled a reduction of blood orange and cherry vinegar.

The entree was a variation of one of the many signature dishes from the famous Japanese chef, NOBU, roasted fish in a miso-sake-mirin marinade. Mine was enhanced with finely chopped pickled ginger slices, toasted sesame seeds and yuzu. I served half salmon, half Chilean seabass (a good bet since those were the favorite fishes of Pat). The side dish was a creamy shitaké risotto stuffed in squid belly.

My dessert, poached pear cylinder served with a pear mousse in a cannelloni, was inspired by two recipes found on a French blog, cuisineplurielle.com. From those recipes, I changed a couple of things such as using caramelized pears for the mousse, five spices for the cannelloni, blood orange zests for the poaching liquid and bacon caramelized popcorns instead of the crystalline for plating.

Here are the ingredients and proportions for the cannelloni tuile (25 g soft butter, 25 g sugar, 25 g brown sugar, 25 g flour, 25 g water, 1 tsp powdered spice such as cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ...bake on silpat at 350 F. / 180 C.)

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Considering all the good comments I received, I think the dinner was a success...

Dear Laurent:
The meal was simply fantastic. As a matter of fact it was so good , that 6 of us decided to have dinner together with you as the Master Chef.
Thank you so much for last night. It was well worth it.Bob and Pat

Laurent, this is wonderful, thank you so much. They had the BEST time and really loved it. Thank you so very very much, and hope we can work together again soon.
best, Chris