Sunday, June 8, 2008

Freshly rolled lasagna sheets, complete with home-made Bechamel and Meat Sauce

Amy gets to work really getting into that dough and kneading it thoroughly. This is just a combination of water, flour and eggs... and a heavy arm workout from Amy!!!


After about twenty minutes of effortless kneading Amy has achieved the correct consistancy to roll out her homemade sheets of lasagna.

How perfect does that look? I was totally impressed by her ease in the kitchen and ability to well - work wonders in no time!

In between all the hard work we sipped on some red Cari picked up on a recent trip up to McLaren and snacked on some soft brie, local pate - cracked pepper, honey seasame and creamed salmon mousse with mini toasts...

Cari also put together a carpaccio of zuchinni that was delicately herbed and served with a dollop of creme fraiche and parsley and Murray River salt. It has a brilliant rose sheen to it and a large grain like rock salt that looks great on the table in a pretty little bowl.


Ok, and it was back to work for Cari and Amy as the blanched the tomatoes in preperation of their homemade tomato sauce the base of the lasagna. For the meat sauce the chefs for the evening choose some Spanish sausage meat that they removed from the intestine casing and added in some mince beef and mushrooms that I ran out to get. In went various spices, some traditional Italian herbs and then there was cinnamon, nutmeg and other more creative aromatic choices that Amy added in that infused a unique, vibrantly warm flavour.

With all the extra bits cut off from the lasagne sheets Amy fashioned out some homemade papardelle or 'pasta rags' as Cari calls them that were re-freidgerated to be used later. Amy put together a wonderfully hearty meat sauce and continued to create a thick, creamy bechamel sauce. It was three hours before the entire lasagne came together and another 24 hours before we got to dig in...

We trotted up to Jackies with two pyrexs loaded with ultra, rich perfectly put together lasagne and I was thrilled and excited at the prospect of sampling the braised Italian style rabbit stew. Jackie put it together using a recipe from Chianti - a local Italian restaurant. Jack's cracked upon a bottle of sprakly Shiraz and so the evening began on a fun note...

A simple salad of tomatoes, torn basil and boccocini drizzled with premium Olive Oil, Jospeh I'm sure - absolutely delightful!!! Where's that wabbit?!? Jack's bugs bunny was wafting through the air - the sensational aromas really got my stomach juices going....

Amy takes up the ultimate Iron Chef challenge from Bob (Jackies husband) and is all ready to win! She takes a crack at chopping an onion in 20 seconds and impresses us all! Go Amy!

The table looks gorgeous with the lasagne, fresh salad and the rabbit stew all laid out waiting for us to sit down and dig in...
The rabbit was truly the piece de resistance - the meat just tender and pink on the inside and with a delictate flavour. The key though to eating rabbit is really going in quickly and relishing it while its still hot. The meat tends to get straggly when cold. A hearty gravy of tomatoes, onion infused with red wine and mild spices enveloped the rabbit and gave it just the right amount of texture and moisture. Ohhhh.... what an evening!!!




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