10-April-20, Good Friday: Whilst not a practising “mick”, with both of us having grown up in that environment, long held traditions are hard to break… so no red meat today.
Don’t’ know about you but I always find Good Friday one of the least exciting days of the year, except when you can buoy it with good company, good food and good wine. Well for 2020, 2 out of 3 ain’t bad (and really, the Chief Taste Tester and pups are pretty good company, so I suppose that’s really 3 out of 3 😂)
Good Friday in our family growing up was always linked to Dad’s annual fly fishing trip to Lake Eucumbene in Feb/March – so typically involved Snowy Mountain Trout (defrosted) and mum’s excellent scalloped potatoes (I’ll do these at some stage down the track – but never quite as good as mum used to make !). The farm bought trout, whilst excellent, never quite measures up to freshly caught stream/lake trout, so I don’t usually attempt to replicate this fond memory on Good Friday – so Prawns and Pasta instead…
The wine:
With the prawns… 2015 Marsanne from Pfeiffers – not many people will age a white but Marsanne does age well and this was quite simply stunning…
With the Ravioli… 2012 Levantine Hill Pinot Noir – we bought this wine at a wine dinner we went to a few years ago and is super special. This has aged particularly well. My ability to translate taste into words is not terribly sophisticated except to say it was a well rounded, “smooth as” elegant pinot and definitely not past it’s prime – delicious
Prawn Cocktail recipe (for 2):
- 10 fresh prawns, shelled and deveined
- 1 Avo, skinned, and chopped into cubes
- Lettuce leaves and 3-4 cherry tomatoes
- Prawn Cocktail sauce – I make this to taste but start with approx. 3 tbs of really good mayo (nowadays am using Kwepie but whole egg is the alternative), 1 tbs tomato sauce, splash of tobacco, 1 desert spoon of Brandy, 1/2 teaspoon of Keens Curry powder, squeeze of lemon juice – mix all together and then adjust to your taste by adding a little bit more of the ingredients. Finish with about 1tbs of chopped chives or green shallots
- Arrange on a plate – lettuce first, avocado, prawns and drizzle over the sauce and garnish with sliced cherry toms
Ravioli Sauce (for 2)
I based the sauce around a sage burnt butter sauce that I just googled – so any good sage burnt butter recipe will do – but wanted some extra flavour so adjusted it with the roasted butternut pumpkin cubes and swiss brown mushrooms. Note: I didn’t add any garlic but you could if you wanted, I felt it might overpower the other flavours this time…
- Roast small cubes of pumpkin – used about 1/3 of small butternut pumpkin
- Slice 8-10 swiss brown button mushrooms
- Sliced green shallots (chives if you don’t have them)
- 6-8 sage leaves
- Lots of butter 🤩
- Heat a fry pan with about 1tbs olive oil and about 2 tbs of butter and sauté the mushrooms, when nearly done, add the shallots. Take them out of the pan, add another approx. 3 tbs butter, melt and brown off and add in the sage leaves (follow the recipe you’ve googled here) add back in the mushrooms and roasted pumpkin, toss through the cooked ravioli and then serve up – I finished with parmesan, black pepper and drizzled some black truffle oil over the top
- Definitely heart attack material ☺️