THK1 - Oh what a night!

What a night! With hours of planning, thought and prayer (could the food really be that bad!?) the first meeting of The Husband’s Kitchen (THK1) took place on the 4th Feb 2006 at Dian + Geraldine’s (or is it Caleb and Hannah’s?). According to our founding charter, it falls to whoever’s doing the main dish that month to decide or propose the theme, and John’s inspired choice of theme was Portuguese.

We’re as much novice cooks as we are novice food critics so there won’t be much flowery language in my descriptions. Going by how little of the tons of food cooked was left over it was a great success and we look forward with great anticipation to the next meeting. However, back to our Portuguese night…

Matt was charged with preparing the salad, which of course had to go along with the theme of the evening. He was well up for the challenge and made his own version of a tossed Greek salad that was a great counterbalance to the spicy food that made up most of the evening fare.

John’s main was grilled butterfly chicken. To our great delight, he made two whole chickens, one rather fiery and the other a mild herbal flavour. Both were grilled to perfection even though they took a half an hour less than the expected 2hr oven time. From what we understand, his recipes were partly traditional – based on typical spices that would be used in Portuguese cuisine, and partly a result of his creative input. Both were equally popular and complemented each other very well. John also made mushroom sauce and a garlic butter sauce to go with his dish.

I (Selu) was the ‘wildcard’, which means John could use me to help with his main dish selection. Use me he did, asking me to make a spicy chicken liver sauce (his recipe) and aromatic rice with raisins. The chicken livers were blistering hot and could only be eaten straight by the most daring of us. They were a great accompaniment to the toasted garlic bread and to the grilled chicken itself.

Dian made a delightful lime pie to round things off. It was hard work, with no shortcuts taken in obtaining the lime juice and every attention to detail taken. After some technical difficulties with the pastry base things went rather smoothly and the pie turned out well, just sharp enough to tingle with a sweet after kick. Sort of what lemonade ice-cream might taste like. Great job, Dian!

Joanna had baked a cake to celebrate Dian’s birthday which fell a few days before THK1. This wasn’t really part of the menu but deserves mention. It had chocolate junkies among us in bliss with its almost impenetrable sweetness. Dian just about managed to blow out all his candles and to our dismay decided to keep his wish to himself.

The theme for THK2 has yet to be decided, but our monthly rotation means that the courses will be allocated as follows:
Salad - John
Main - Selu
Dessert- Matt
Wildcard – Dian

It appears there was some confusion surrounding the role of the girls at THK...we though that they were supposed to provide entertainment for the evening, I think they took that to mean they should provide entertainment for themselves for the evening. They spent a few happy hours chatting in the living room while we sweated it out in the kitchen only to find that that there was no after dinner entertainment! By consensus of the guys, the girls have been reassigned to providing pre-dinner snacks for THK2. Now we just need to find someone to tell them…

THK1 Menu
Greek salad
Hot spicy Portuguese chicken
Grilled lemon & herb chicken
Chicken livers in peri-peri sauce
Aromatic rice with raisins
Mushroom sauce
Garlic butter sauce
Lime pie