Something old and something new

This is my first jaunt in our Wednesday night meals for 2012, and I thought that I would start with an old favourite for mains and something new for dessert.

To kick off I made red wine lamb racks with mint pesto gnocchi and slow roasted tomatoes. A fairly simple dish, but a dish that has great memories associated with it. (It is all about the story we are told on Masterchef). The lamb and mint pesto gnocchi was a dish that I ate at Rose's 30th birthday dinner. As I was eating the meal I was thinking of the flavours of the meal and thought it should be easy to replicate. Also this dish had foundations even before the delish dish from "The Dish". Way back in my Townsville years living as a bachelor a dear friend took me under her wing and thought I needed some lessons in cooking. MB's first dish she "taught" me was a lamb rack with asparagus and eggplant. Many thanks MB. Don't forget it is all about the stories.

In case you are wondering about the Mint Pesto - Lots of Mint, a handful of toasted pine nuts, 2 cloves of garlic, a good whollup of olive oil, and some parmessan cheese.

The something new of our meal was dessert. Heston Blumenthal's Vanilla and Cinnamon Ice cream from his Heston Blumenthal At Home. Heston says," The starting point for this recipe was a scientific paper on a phenomenon called 'odour adaptation', which is when the brain stops us smelling something even though the odour is still there. This process helps us detect whether an aroma is getting stronger or not and saves us from sensory overload."

"take 2 squeezy bottles that are big enough to produce a good whooomph of air when you squeeze them, and place 2 vanilla pods in one and bash two cinnamon sticks and place them in the other. Eat a spoonful of the ice-cream, then take a sniff of the vanilla bottle. Now eat another spoonful of ice-cream - you'll find it only has a cinnamon flavour. And if you eat the ice-cream after sniffing the cinnamon bottle , it will seem to be pure vanilla." This experiment works with 85% of people.

6 vanilla pods, 360g whole milk, 200g raw caster sugar, 35g skim milk powder, 840g whipping cream, 2 whole esspresso beans, 1 large cinnamon stick bashed. Extra vanilla pods and cinnamon sticks for the squeezy bottles.

1. Milk, vanilla pods scraped, inot saucepan, add sugar and milk powder over medium heat stirring until milk powder has dissolved.

2. Add cream and esspresso beans and cinnamon stick, bring to boil. Remove from heat and remove to container. Allow to cool in fridge for 2 hours it infuse.

3. Strain mixture through fine sieve.

4. Put mixture into ice-cream machine as per instructions of machine.

5. Decant ice-cream into sealable container and place in freezer till needed.

6. Enjoy.

Apparently Rose and I are in the 15% that this experiment does not work with, or there was not enough flavour in the cinnamon stick that I used. Maybe I should have put an extra cinnamon stick. Even though it didnt work with us, the ice-cream was unbelievablely smooth and creamy and it was delicious.

My ratings for the meal:

Lamb and Gnocchi - 5/5 wooden spoons

Cinnamon and Vanilla Ice-cream - 4/5 Wooden Spoons (cause the experiment didn't work with us)