A Cocktail Party

Recently we have been staying with our friend Caro Havers at her lovely Finca Maridadi in Andalucía, set in lush gardens with views over the Sierra Nieves. The Andalucían countryside is particularly beautiful in early spring of course; one of our favourite places to sample the gardens is in the wonderful Alcazar in Seville. At this time of year the air in these Moorish gardens is drenched with the smell of orange and lemon blossoms and jasmine.

After a visit there, my thoughts for a small cocktail party are filled with exotic flavours and scents. I decide on a ginger/lime/rum cocktail theme, matched with Thai and Moroccan appetisers.

I have been making real ginger beer for years, and recently was introduced to a Dark and Stormy Cocktail, which uses ginger beer with dark rum. Exotic, punchy but very refreshing. First, I give you my recipe for ginger beer, a different product entirely to bought ginger beer

Ginger Beer

4.5 l water
500 g sugar
thinly pared rind and juice of 2 lemons
150 g fresh ginger root, coarsely grated, skin on
2 sachets dried years
1 large plastic bucket
1 clean bath towel
3 X 1.5 l plastic lemonade bottles
150 g further sugar

Method:
Put the lemon rind, juice, grated ginger and sugar into the bucket and pour over the boiling water. Cover with the towel and leave to cool overnight. When cool the following day, add the yeast and stir well. Leave the covered bucket in a warm place and stir it every day or so for 7 days. The fermentation will drive the cap of grated ginger and lemon to the top and the mixture will bubble.
At the end of the 10 days the mixture should taste dry, if there is any taste of sweetness leave to ferment for another 3 days . Strain the mixture through a sieve into a clean bucket and add the next 150g of sugar. Stir well to dissolve. Pour the mixture into the lemonade bottles and screw the tops on tightly. Leave the bottles for 24 hours to ferment in a warm place; this will make the beer sparkling. Do not leave them longer than this or they may explode with the pressure of the fermentation.

Refrigerate the beer and serve well chilled. The beer will keep in the fridge for 7 days. (The cold of the fridge will arrest the fermentation.)

Dark and Stormy Cocktail

Per Tumbler:
50 ml dark rum
Juice half lime
1 tbsp gomme sugar syrup (barman's syrup - normally you can find this in a good off licence - if not boil together 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water, cool and use).
1 slice lime
Sprig Fresh mint
1/4 slice orange
Crushed ice

Method:

Put all the above ingredients into a tumbler, adding crushed ice as desired. Top up with ginger beer and stir gently before serving.

If you do not feel like making the ginger beer then try the fantastic Brazilian cocktail, the Caipirinha.

Caipirinha

Per Cocktail:

1 wide tumbler
1 fresh lime, cut into eighths
1 heaped tbsp golden sugar
50 ml light rum such as Havana Gold (to be absolutely authentic use Cachaça sugar cane spirit from Brazil)
Crushed ice
Soda water

Method:

Put the lime pieces and sugar into the tumbler and crush the lime very firmly to extract the juices and essential oils, pushing with a pestle into the glass. Muddle for about 15-20 seconds. Measure in the spirit, muddle a little further. Add the crushed ice and a dash of soda. Mix gently.

These cocktails simply demand well flavoured nibbles to go with them. This is what I served recently:

Tod Man Pla (Thai Fish Cakes)
Satay Chicken with Peanut Sauce, Thai style
Guacamole
Crostini with Moroccan Red Pepper and Aubergine Topping
Skewered Fruit and Sugar, Salt and Chilli dip

Recipes to follow:

Tod Man Pla

Ingredients:
300 g any firm white fish fillets (I use red snapper)
2 egg whites
2 tbsp bought Thai red curry paste
1 tbsp Thai fish sauce
4 wild Thai lime leaves (or substitute any citrus leaves, even those from pips grown on the kitchen window sill)

Method:

Chop the fish fillets roughly and put into a blender goblet with the fish sauce and egg white. Blend to a smooth paste, stopping the motor and scraping the mixture down as required. This will take about 2 minutes. Scrape out the mixture and transfer to a small bowl. Roll the citrus leaves into a cigar shape and with a very sharp knife, cut cross wise into fine shreds and stir into the fish paste. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours until firm.
Take small balls of the mixture and press into a flat disc shape the size of a 50p piece, and lay them on greaseproof paper.



Heat ½ l of oil in a small pan or wok until very hot, drop in the fish paste disc and fry until a reddish brown. The fish discs will puff up; Remove them when browned to reddish brown and drain on paper towels. They will shrink back to their normal size; they will not be crispy and hence can be made a little in advance, but do serve them at least tepid . Arrange them on a platter, garnish with fresh coriander and cucumber slices.

Serve them with Thai Siracha chilli sauce sprinkled with crushed peanuts.

Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce

I like this Thai style sauce greatly, more yummy than Indonesian versions.

Thai Satay Sauce

Ingredients:

1 coconut milk (from a can or take 1 cup desiccated coconut in blender goblet, pour over 1 ¼ cups boiling water, whizz for 10 seconds and press the liquid through a sieve)
2 tbsp Mussulman curry paste
1 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp tamarind liquid – or lime juice.
1/3 cup roasted peanuts crushed in a pestle and mortar or blender (leave some texture to give a chunky finish to the sauce)
Method:
Pour the coconut milk into a pan and add the curry paste, bring to the boil, add the rest of the ingredients and simmer gently for 10 minutes until lightly thickened (remember it will thicken as it stands and cools). Adjust seasonings; the mixture should be a good balance of salty/sweet/acid/spicy/hot. Leave to cool and serve tepid with the satay sticks.

(Note:
1. Mussulman curry paste can be hard to find. This curry paste uses Indian spices in it – Mussulman meaning Moslem in Thai – so if you cannot find it you can add Indian spices to a red curry paste. In a small pan roast ¼ tsp cumin and coriander seeds, 2 cloves, 2 cardamom pods seeded and ½ cm cinnamon stick, until the seeds pop and roast. Cool and crush them – they will grind to coffee coloured powder - in a pestle and mortar, adding a grating of nutmeg. Mix this into the red curry paste.
2. For the tamarind paste, dissolve 1 tsp tamarind concentrate in 1 tbsp hot water, (or use 1 tbsp dried tamarind from a block soaked in 2 tbsp boiling water, pushed through a sieve.)

Cocktail Satay Sticks

Ingredients:
You can use chicken breast, beef, pork or prawns to make the satay sticks. Count on 4-5 per person for cocktails. I use toothpicks.
1 chicken breast (or similar weight of beef, pork or prawns), cut into thin strips about 5 cm long and 1 cm wide.

Marinade:
2 tsp light soy sauce
1 tsp fish sauce
2 tsp sunflower oil
1 tsp grated ginger root
1 clove garlic, grated
2 tsp sugar
1 stalk lemongrass finely chopped (optional).

Method:
Mix the marinade ingredients with the sliced meat and leave to marinade for up to 24 hours. Thread the meat onto the cocktail sticks and grill under a hot grill for about 1 minute each side. Serve immediately or keep warm covered for 30 minutes.
Arrange on a platter and serve with the peanut sauce as a dip.

Guacamole

A good guacamole is a revelation, satisfying and moreish at the some time.

Ingredients:

1 large ripe avocado
Juice 1 lime
1-2 red chillies finely diced
1 tbsp finely copped fresh coriander
1 spring onion finely chopped
Salt and pepper

Method:

Cut the avocado in half and remove the stone. Scrape out the flesh, making sure to scrape out the dark green flesh clinging to the skin to give the dip colour. Mash roughly in a bowl and beat in the rest of the ingredients, seasoning well with salt and pepper. The mixture should have some texture, but not be rough and lumpy.

(This can be made up to 24 hours in advance)

Serve in a bowl surrounded by crispy breads to dip.

Crostini with Moroccan Red Pepper and Aubergine Topping

These slightly sweet but very savoury bites are very good indeed.

Ingredients:

1 aubergine
1 onion thinly sliced
½ jar skinned roasted red peppers,
4 tbsp olive oil
4 anchovy fillets
1tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp raisins
¼ tsp ground allspice
Salt and pepper, Tabasco
To garnish, fresh mint leaves 2 tbsp roasted pine nuts.

Method:
Heat the oil in a small pan and cook the onion until soft and golden. In the meantime, slices the red pepper into strips and then cross wise to make small cubes. Peel the aubergine to a depth of 1 cm and discard the middle. Cut the aubergine skins into strips and then into dice.

When the onion is cooked, add the anchovy and cook until the fishy smell has disappeared. Add the aubergines, vinegar, sugar and allspice and cook until the aubergine has softened, adding a little water if the mixture sticks. Add the red pepper and cook for 5 minutes more, then add the raisins. Cool and add season with salt, pepper and Tabasco.

(This can be made up to 24 hours in advance)

To Serve:
½ a baguette, sliced into rounds about ½ cm thick.
Olive oil for brushing
1 2o cm rosemary sprig
Brush the slices thinly with a little olive oil, arrange on a tray and press rosemary leaves on to each one. Bake at 180 degrees for 10 minutes until crispy and golden brown; watch carefully in case they burn.

Heap the topping in a little mound on each toast and garnish with julienned mint and pine nuts.


Skewered Fruit with Sugar, Salt and Chilli Dip

A curious idea to mix salt and sugar with fruit, but it works excellently.

Ingredients:
1 fresh extra sweet pineapple
1 mango
1 papaya

This quantity makes a lot so reserve some of the pineapple for another purpose.

Method:

Peel the fruits, remove the seeds from the papaya and mango and core the pineapple. Cut into cubes. Arrange attractively in a mound on a platter.
For the dip, mix 4 tbsp sugar with 1 tsp fine sea salt and 1 tsp chilli powder. Pop into a small dish next to the fruit and dip the fruit, speared on a cocktail stick into the dip.