Originally Posted by Reznor

Take the goat cheese, let it come to room temperature. Per 16 oz. of goat cheese, add 2 tsp honey, 1 tsp. ground coriander (can do pepper instead of coriander if you don't have it), and salt to your liking. If you have less goat cheese, just divide the ratio I gave you (IE 1 tsp honey 1/2 tsp coriander for 8 oz. of cheese)

Form the goat cheese into little disks, like hockey pucks, weighing about 1 oz. each. After you do this step, refrigerate them until the cheese is firm again. Do standard breading (roll in flour lightly, then in beaten egg (two should do the trick for 1 person), and then in panko) and then you can fry them at 325 F until they are golden brown and crisp. They will be nice warm melty goat cheese balls.

With the baguette, slice crostini style. Use a serrated knife, and cut on a diagonal bias, looking for 2"-3" long pieces, nice and thin, about 1/4". Brush these with a bit of clarified butter (or olive oil), sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper. Bake off at 350 F in the oven, for about 10 minutes, rotating once during cooking. You're looking for golden brown and not burnt.

Take the artichoke hearts, slice them into quarters. (first in half to get a half moon shape, then slice the half moon in half...to get a quarter. Try and keep the stems intact)

I'm guessing you have that cherry salami and the prosciutto pre-sliced. If not, try and slice as thin as you can.

You can do the standard reduction of vinegars, with this, if you make a nice gastrique, it will cut through the heavy flavors nice and provide a subtle sweet-sourness.

Gastrique:

3/4 c. Sugar
1/2 c. Red Wine Vinegar
1/2 c. Red Wine
1 tsp. Salt

Combine in saucepan
Over medium heat, swirl until you see the sugar dissolve. Increase to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. It should reduce by about 1/3rd. It ought to be relatively viscous, you can store this at room temperature.


So you should have:

Goat Cheese Disks (to be fried)
Crostini
Quartered Artichoke Hearts
Sliced Prosciutto and Salami
Red Wine Vinegar Gastrique

Me personally, I'd add a green component to this, some kind of crunchy bitter lettuce like frisee.

You can layer the meats on the crostini, put the artichoke on top of that, and then spread some of that fried goat cheese on top of THAT. Drizzle a little gastrique over the crostinis and you're good to go.

Just remember to properly season stuff

Sorry if this is a bit long.

Originally Posted by Grind

I recall when beta testing LOTRO that the game looked like a bucket full of smashed assholes.

Originally Posted by Telpacpaw

scrambled eggs, chopped bacon and velveeta, layered in fresh pepper over toast.

or chicken mostaciolli...mmmmm....garlic.

Originally Posted by Reznor

Felkroth, I'm pretty sleepy so I don't feel like typing my symposium on foams tonight...but this weekend I will.


As far as your melon/prosciutto/cheese combination, that's a pretty timeless Italian creation. The toasted blue cheese is good. I prefer Point Reyes as far as blues go. There's a Roquefort I love too, but the name escapes me at this moment. A great other option with that, is black mission fig/prosciutto/mascarpone foam.

But as far as refinement goes, with that particular combination...

There's a few other ways to put that together, but they all involve a lot more work, and they aren't easily done at parties.

Sorry! I'm a snob for some things...probably one of my weaknesses.

Originally Posted by Deson

...even I didn't expect so much fail. It really hurts my mind to think this volume of fuckup wasn't actually intentional.