Red Meat & Poultry

As part of our summer school with our Japanese counterparts, we had the conference dinner at St. John's College. The 3 course dinner involved a salad with Gressingham duck as the starter, trout fillet with vegetables and potatoes as the main, traditional english water pudding as the dessert, and coffee/tea with chocolate truffles to end the meal.

What enthralled me the most was the starter: three slices of roasted Gressingham duck accompanied by a scallop and some type of seafood (similar to uni???) laid over a bed of boiled/steamed arugula leaves and edamame-type beans. The scallop was seared to absolute perfection--slightly browned on the top and bottom with the inside just barely cooked, giving a texture of set creaminess. The duck was moist, and the strong taste of arugula dampened by the boiling/steaming. All the flavors melded well together. I would never have imagined combining duck with seafood; but somehow, they matched. My naive hypothesis was that all these individual components had a "smelliness" which allowed them to fit well together and resulted in an earthy and hearty flavour.

The dessert was a bit of a puzzle. None of the native English people recognized the name "Traditional English Water Pudding." At first glance, it looked like a pannacotta. However, it was much less creamy. There were two layers. The top, which encompassed 90% of the pudding, was like a watery jello. The bottom was the texture of almond paste with a lemony flavour; the taste and texture were familiar, but I could not put my finger on exactly what it was (lemon curd???). Accompanying the pudding was a small bowl of mixed berry compote. The pudding itself was very light and watery, and the sweet sour berry compote complemented the lemony flavour at the base of the pudding. It was a definitely a nice gentle end to the substantial meal.