[ Home ] [ St David's Day 2002 ]

*******************

2003

St David's Day Dinner Menu and Ninnau Article

Terrine of Seafood, Crab Beignet and Pan Seared Scallop with Lobster Sauce Asparagus Garnish. Pastry Wrapped Jamison Farm Loin of Lamb, Snowdonia Garlic Roast Garlic Potato & Portmeirion Peas.

 Hearty Welsh Cawl - Slowly Cooked  Beef Brisket and Smoked Ham Hocks with Winter Vegetables Pear Poached in Mulled Red Wine with Citrus Sauce, Lime Sherbet and Welsh Shortbread Cookie 

Terrine Photo by Welsh Culinary Team / Lamb, Cawl & Pear Photos by Ken Thorne

Appetizer

Cawl Cymreig – Welsh Beef and Root Vegetable Stew with Fresh Crispy Bread

Enjoy Steaming Hot From Soup Kettle on Arrival!

First Course

Terrine of Seafood and Crab Beignet (Fritter) with Shellfish Sauce. Accompanied by Pan Seared Scallop Drizzled with Hollandaise. Garnished with Asparagus and Spinach.

(Adapted from Welsh Culinary Team’s Gold Medal Entry - World Culinary Cup Competition 2002) 

Main Course

Towers of Pastry Encrusted Roast Jamison Farm Loin of Lamb Accompanied by Snowdonia Garlic Roasted Potato. Plate Accented with Portmeirion Style Baby Green Peas and Tender Leeks. Served with Minted Demi Glace Sauce.

Dessert

Wine Poached Pear, Drizzled with Red Pear Sauce. Served with a Citrus Flavored Welsh Cake and Lime Sherbet.

Menu by Ken Thorne, February 1, 2003.

Copyright © 2003 Ken Thorne

Ohio’s Cleveland Welsh will be visualizing the mountains of Wales as they celebrate Gwyl Ddewi Sant. One of the dinner’s peaks will be the main course of Tower of Pastry Encrusted Loin of Lamb, Snowdonia Garlic Roasted Potato, Portmeirion Style Baby Peas with Tender Leeks and Minted Demi Glace Sauce.

This year, the event is to be held at Gavi’s, one of Cleveland’s fine dining restaurants. Owners Dave and Mary Gromelski have a very successful operation and enjoy an excellent reputation in the hospitality business. Chef Ron Romanini is eagerly looking forward to preparing his first Welsh dinner. The group will be in good hands, Chef Ron has accumulated a wealth of experience from his various tours at upscale restaurants both in the US and abroad.

While the venue has changed we look forward to repeating last year’s success. An exceptional night is planned with fine dining experiences and Welsh music. Margaret Reid of Fairview Park will return as our harpist with traditional selections. David Williams of Chardon will lead a choral group in singing popular Welsh hymns and folk songs. The musicians promise a jovial evening of inspiring Welsh music.

Meanwhile, Ken Thorne, Ninnau Food Editor will strive to please with a menu of imaginative Welsh food. Ken will give commentaries on each course as he did last year but because of the restaurant layout will not be able to demo. Ken has worked closely with the Chef and does promise that diners will enjoy tasting new recipes featuring the best of Traditional and Modern Welsh Cooking.

For the main course, John & Sukey Jamison of Jamison Farm, Latrobe, Pa will be bringing their mountain free-range lamb again. Finishing dinner last year, Martha Vogt of Cleveland said, "Never tasted lamb so good – I was in awe." Jamison Farm Lamb is used in several top restaurants throughout the US.

The lamb will be baked En Croûte (Wellington Style) in savory puff pastry. Before encasing in pastry, the lamb is seasoned, lightly seared then coated with a mushroom, spinach and onion pâté. Straight from a very hot oven, the tender juicy lamb in its flaky shell will be plated vertically reminiscent of Snowdonia National Park. A garlic roast potato will also be served upright to symbolize Mount Snowdon. The green of the Portmeirion Style Baby Peas may bring to mind the valleys of the region. The dish is completed with a serving of warm Minted Demi Glace Sauce. A new experience for many diners, this smooth full flavor minted brown sauce won’t cool down your meat and vegetables!

The first course is an ambitious dish and a very special treat! It will feature a Seafood Terrine and could be a showstopper in the opinion of Chef Ron. He plans to recreate the Gold Medal winning dish served by The Welsh National Senior Team at the recent World Culinary Cup in Luxembourg.

The Pressed Terrine, adapted to the availability of North American ingredients, will have salmon, shrimp, halibut, sole, scallop and lobster as the main terrine ingredients.

The Terrine slices will be laid on Asparagus Spears along with a Lobster Sauce Coated Crab Beignet (Fritter). The plate is finished with a Pan Seared Scallop Drizzled with Hollandaise Sauce. On this one plate there will be a multitude of textures, flavors, tastes and colors. Any wonder why this dish was awarded a gold medal?

A photo of the actual plated dish from the World Culinary Cup is available on the Editor’s website < www.WelshFoodie.com >. Colored photos of all the courses may be seen on a visit to the website.

As appetizer, Cawl epitomizes the most wholesome of Welsh home cooking or in today’s vernacular - comfort food. Cawl is prepared frequently throughout the winter as a meat and root vegetable stew. Our guests arriving out of the cold will see a steaming hot kettle of Cawl. Entering they can ladle themselves a generous serving, then enjoy bite-size tender beef brisket morsels with chunky potatoes, carrots, leeks, turnips, onions, parsnips and rutabaga. They’ll be able to savor a smooth naturally thickened broth flavored by the essence of the smoked ham hocks, which had slowly simmered along with the brisket. They may also sense the Cawl has rested since the previous day allowing all flavors to infuse!

Interestingly, Cawl is usually prepared with lamb, using the neck and shoulder cuts, in Glamorgan and Ghent. In the rest of Wales, beef brisket and ham hocks are generally preferred. There is often confusion on the translation of Cawl but today it’s generally regarded as a stew. This anomaly may have occurred since it was traditionally prepared as a two-meal dish! The vegetables and broth were eaten with bread and cheese as one meal and the meat as a second meal. The Cawl will be served as a sampling of a one-pot meal at our dinner. A story on Cawl and the recipe were published in the Ninnau November 2002 and on the website below.

For dessert, something light – Poached Pear in Spiced Mulled Wine served with Red Wine Sauce and Lime Sherbet. Garnish with a traditional Welsh Tea Cake such as an Anglesey ‘Berffro Cake or a Citrus Welsh Cake – using candied peel or blanched chopped zest in place of currants. The dessert has red, green and white colors of Wales! Anglesey ‘Berffro Cakes are shortbread type of cookie with an imprinted scallop design. The dough is easy; imprinting the dough is not easy!

Although the Welsh have perhaps the finest assortment of baked or griddle teatime cakes there’s no stand out fruit based dessert. Growing up in Wales I loved stewed plums with custard sauce. My other favorite was my mother’s poached pears. The pear is believed to have originated in Asia Minor and was very popular with the Greeks and Romans, particularly the Romans. The pear tree has been firmly established in the UK for a long time having been brought there either at the time of the Celtic migration across Europe or later by the Romans. Red wine was used to color and for artistic reasons; any color wine may be used. Celtic traditional would deem the use of Mead.

The citrus flavor has been used in Wales over the centuries. The Celts and the Romans would have been familiar with both the orange and the lemon. It was a particularly desirable item for the knights to bring back when returning from the Crusades. The lime was used for its fresh citrus flavor and green color and to recognize the many seafaring Welshmen who plied the sea routes to the West Indies. Did Prince Madog ever taste a lime?

After completing all the work trying to select a dessert, it has now come to my attention that the Junior Welsh National Culinary Dessert entry at Luxembourg was Vanilla Flavored Poached Pear with Oatmeal Shortbread Cookie! Great minds do think alike!

The 2003 Cleveland St. David’s Dinner will be held at 5 PM, Sunday, March 9 at Gavi’s Restaurant, Willoughby, Ohio. Price is $50 per person inclusive of all taxes and gratuities. Seating is limited so early reservations are suggested. Sorry, no walk-ins! Please write your check for $50 per person made payable to Ken Thorne. Send to Gwyl Ddewi Sant, 8814 Norwood Drive, Mentor, Ohio 44060. Please do not send the check to or call the restaurant. Deadline March 2^nd. It would be helpful if you would please send your email address along with your check so we can acknowledge your reservation. Contact Information: phone 440 255-2214 or email – kenthorne1@aol.com. 

Mwynhewch Eich Gwyl Ddewi Sant – Enjoy Your St. David’s Day

********************

2 cups        wine, full-bodied dry red (1/2 bottle, 375 ml)

1 stk           cinnamon, about 3 inches

2                 cloves

1/4 tsp        nutmeg, ground

1/4 tsp        ginger, ground

4                  peppercorns, whole

3 oz             sugar

                    thinly pared rind of 1/4 orange

                    thinly pared rind of 1/4 lemon

                    2 to 3 pears, Anjou or Bosc, ripe but firm, cut in half lengthwise. Peel and core

For more pear flavor in the sauce, the pear peelings may also be added to the wine mixture and simmered along with the other ingredients.

It is important to have enough of the wine mixture to cover the pears. Adjust quantities as is necessary. For economy poach in batches. Any color wine can be used.

Method:

Add all the ingredients except the pears to a saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer for a few minutes while stirring to dissolve the sugar and mix the spices. Add the pears flat side down, simmer for 20 to 30 minutes until the pears are tender while still reasonably firm to handle. Carefully remove pears from pan using a slotted plastic spoon or turner to prevent bruising. Allow the pears to drain then cover with plastic wrap and chill. Best if chilled for 24 hours. Note: any small amounts of bruising can be covered later when sauce is drizzled over the pear.

Bring the wine mixture back to boil and reduce by one half or until syrupy. Drain through a fine sieve, discard solids. Sauce best served chilled.

Plating:

Slice each half pear horizontally in three equal sections, slide the three sections into a fan shape. Add to plate. Drizzle some sauce over the pear and pool a little on the plate. Finish plate with a scoop of lime sherbet and, perhaps a Citrus Flavored Shortbread Cookie. Garnish with a sprig of mint and serve.

Poached pear recipe adapted from "The Cook’s Guide to Spices" by Sallie Morris & Lesley Mackley and "Portmeirion Book of Feasts & Festivals" edited by Vicky Hanson.

Ken Thorne can be contacted at 8814 Norwood Drive, Mentor, OH 44060 or 440 255-2214. Also email – WelshFoodie@aol.com. 

********************