I had a bit of a culinary challenge. One guest loves sausages, with anything, the other guest is on a low sodium diet and is shellfish intolerant.
I was probably not going to be able to satisfy both, but I gave it a valiant try.
I wanted to serve a dish which was sausage based but something a little more exotic than bangers and mash.
In hopes that I would span both appetites, I went with my Spanish Sausage with Onions and Mushrooms for the main course. I have made this dish any number of times and I like it as it does have a significant sausage presence, in this case mild Italian, but also has raisins and pine nuts. It’s all finished off in a Madeira wine reduction. It also comes together very quickly, so it is an ideal dish when cooking in an open concept condo.
The main dish set the tone for our pre-dinner bites. These included Creamy Butter Bean and Tomato Tapas, really delicious, Mussels Escabeche (do read my recipe notes if you click on the link below) and aged Manchego cheese with Honey Glazed Apricots and fresh cherries.
Dessert was all stone fruit; peaches, plums, nectarines and fresh cherries, all slowly simmered with honey and cinnamon, served warm with soft ice cream.
We started the evening with an apéretif, which was a Spanish vermouth, semi-dry, served over ice and topped up with sparkling soda. A little like Campari, and like Campari, it tends to grow on you during the first few sips. This was a challenge well met and a pleasant surprise, as I jokingly suggested a Spanish apéretif, when asked for dinner contributions. I did not know that this apéretif actually existed.
Here is the full menu, all Spanish and all easy.
Apéretif
Small Bites
Manchego Cheese with Glazed Apricots and Cherries
Spanish Creamy Tomato and Butter Bean Tapas
Main
Spanish Sausage, Mushroom, Onion with Glazed Raisins and Pine Nuts
Dessert
Stone Fruit Compote with Soft Vanilla Ice Cream
A good, all around, casual meal with Spanish overtones.
PS: I could not resist a large bunch of garden flowers at our local grocer. They so reminded me of my garden and the multitude of planters that I used to have. Besides, I had three new tiny containers that I had not tried before. I thought the colors were fabulous and even though I knew that the flowers would not last for more than a day, I couldn’t resist. What the heck, they looked great for the evening.
