Formal Feedback

As some of you might know, I've somehow got myself involved with catering for events run by the Trinity BA society (ie. graduate society). No, this doesn't mean I do any sort of large scale cooking for 200, nor does it mean I wash the 800 dishes every Friday night (phew!), but it does mean I get to write all the menus for our BA formal dinners.

Apologies in advance to our many non-Trinity and non-Cambridge student readers, although I hope it does give somewhat of an insight into the rather, um, special world that is Trinity college!

Sometimes, one type of sherry is just not enough...

I was always under the presumption that college kitchens had a set list of dishes they knew how to do, and as catering representative, you simply pick which ones you want for which day in what order. Oh was I wrong! To my surprise, I've been allowed to make up whatever names I like for dishes within reasonable limits of sanity (starting from previous years' menus as a guideline) and run it by the catering department who give feedback and such until a menu is agreed. Very cool, right?

So tonight was the first BA dinner of the long vacation term, and the very first based on menus that I had written. It's hard not to feel a significant amount of responsibility for the quality of the dishes, especially when the enjoyment of so many tastebuds and stomachs is at stake!

At first, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to document this on the blog, but I think this would be a really interesting forum to get feedback (both positive and negative!) about the dishes, any potential suggestions/improvements, and new dish ideas. I hope nobody in catering minds that I've done this.

I was overall happy with how this first dinner went.. here are my retrospective and inherently biased thoughts:

Beetroot and goats cheese salad with balsamic glaze

I had initially wanted the starter to be a 'stack' with alternate layers of cheese and beetroot, but the word 'stack' got cut from the final menu wording. Anyhow, I thought that extra effort went into the presentation and this was really great to see. I'm also a sucker for any type of balsamic reduction. On the down side, the slice of cheese was disproportionately large - thicker pieces of beetroot and less cheese would have improved the balance.

This was compounded by an error of judgement in my menu planning... I had forgotten that this week was 'cheese week' (post-dessert cheese + port which occurs every second dinner), and the dinner ended up with a slight cheese overload.

Seared tuna steak with wasabi aioli ; Soy, sesame and citrus salad ; Saute potatoes

I was a little apprehensive about this main - firstly I wasn't sure if the kitchen setup was able to do 'seared', given the logistics of serving hot food to large groups. Secondly, I wasn't sure what kind of take the kitchens would do on an asian twist.

I'm happy to say that the tuna was done right, not overcooked at all, and if I were to be finicky, perhaps slightly undercooked on the sides. The salad was a surprise too - definitely not what I had imagined when I wrote those words, but the sauce actually tasted pretty good.

If I were to be superfinicky, then I would say the tuna was a little sinewy, but I've probably just been spoilt by too much sushi grade tuna with beautiful texture. Ootoro. *sigh*

Lavender-infused creme brulee

Desserts (aka 'pudding' as they say in the UK, don't know why!) at Trinity are generally really good. I have to say this time I was slightly disappointed, even if 2 out of 3 ain't bad. Basically the flavour was fine, burnt sugar is always yum, but the texture was incredibly dense and far more solid than I'd expect for a creme brulee. Clearly they did something different from the famed Trinity Burnt Cream, where the texture is much better!

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Now the important bit. For anyone that went to the dinner, what did you guys think? What was good, and what needed improving?

And even if you weren't there or have nothing to do with Cambridge, any suggestions for good formal catering menu ideas? Especially vegetarian main meals - I'm really bad at this!!! I might steal ideas off Yotam Ottolenghi's stuff in the Guardian...