This really, really, really matters.
We’ve got four friends coming round for Sunday lunch. Not a problem, because I’m doing the main courses and they are all under control. Possibly.
In truth, there may still a reasonable chance that those courses will be coming close to being under control by the time that said lunch is running an hour late. I’m doing an Indian banquet and I’m just having this slight worry that I may have slightly overstretched myself with only about 75 hours to go.
The thing is that Mrs M. is doing the puddings.
I appreciate that it will be difficult, if not nigh impossible, to top the many and memorable taste sensations that I might still be able to cobble together before Sunday, given ‘time enough and space’. But Mrs M. is going for it, afters and competitive-wise. It’s what we Jocks do.
Puddings after Indian meals are tricky but Mrs M. is convinced that Pseu’s ‘Oranges in Caramel’ would work. I’ve only gone and lost the recipe and have not had the nerve to admit it to her yet. I will, needless to say, be adopting the classic male defence of ‘I’m sure that I must have printed it out and given it to you’, but she knows me too well and I know that I did not.
If you are out there tonight, Pseu, please help?
Boadicea's Chariot 
Sounds like a good evening, will you be serving dessert wines with the pud?
If Pseu doesn’t surface, may I suggest pears poached in Marsala wine, served chilled with crême fraiche or Greek ypghurt.
OZ
Oz, good evening.
I yield to none in my appreciation of your expertise in the field of ovine or other vulpine prey. You are,however, with the utmost respect and, in my opinion, total mince when we move to discussion of what is an acceptable pudding after a superb Indian meal such as what I will be offering to our guests (eventually) this coming Sabbath.
Mind, the pears poached in Marsala etc. sounds superb and I know that Mrs M. would love it in other circumstances.
omg, good evening,
It will definitely be a very good afternoon and will probably end up being an exceptionally good evening and a regretted Monday morning when I drag myself into work with far too little sleep.
Dessert wine has been a Beaune of Contention in the Mackie household in the past. I’ve been a Gravesly serious fan of said dessert wines for years but Mrs M. is yet to be convinced.
Well, if you spurn the Beaune I threw in regarding a cool and refreshing dessert to follow a curry, may I suggest instead a Moscatel de Setubal for a dessert wine to uplift your philistine suet pud? 🙂
OZ
If you’re having an “Indian” meal, JM, why not have “Indian” dessert/pudding/afters/seconds?
Now I don’t have to teach my grandmother to suck eggs, do I?
Very sweet … gulab jamun perhaps?
Or something lighter and more fragrant?
Indian desserts are a whole new world of culinary excitement.
There are a host of websites with recipes just waiting for your Google; here’s one at random –
http://www.top-indian-recipes.com/indian-desserts-sweets.htm
😆
Jay Emm,
75 hours is cutting it a bit fine chum. Are you sure you can be ready in time?
I saw an epic recipe for cauliflower bhaji the other day on some Raymondo Blanc nonsense, I am itching to give it a try.
Will you be serving chilled Lassi to accompany your meal?
Another excellent dessert is thinly sliced pineapple with just a hint of lemon juice, sprinkled with sugar and chopped mint. Slap a scoop of Kulfi on the side and you are well in.
How about some of these?
Oranges in caramel
8 juicy oranges
225g caster sugar
30 ml-45 ml Grand Marnier
Water as needed.
Pare the rind, very thinly and cut into tiny strips.
Cover rind with water in a pan and bring to the boil for 5 mins. Drain and rinse under cold water.
Place the sugar and 300 ml of water in another pan and bring to the boil slowly. Boil until the syrup is caramel coloured. (I found a high heat is needed.)
Keep an eye on the sugar syrup while you prepare the oranges.
Remove all skin and pith. Slice the oranges into rounds, reserving any juice and discarding pips.
Put in a bowl.
Once sugar is turning caramel coloured you need to watch carefully so that it doesn’t burn.
Remove from the heat and carefully add three tablespoons of water, then return to a low heat to ensure all caramel is dissolved. Then add the reserved orange juice and the liqueur.
Leave syrup mixture to cool for 10 minutes, then pour over the oranges and top with the orange strips. Chill and turn over a few hours.
Onlyy just found this pleas……hope not too late 🙂
Chuck ’em a schnitzel sandwich, mate, that should fix the problem 🙂
Nice one, Pseu. You are like the cavalry. I was going to suggest my old fave pavlova but I’ll shut up now. 🙂
Pseu, good morning and many thanks. Bacon duly saved.
Thanks to everybody else as well for their many helpful suggestions.
OZ #2 and #5. You miss the point. Mrs M is an excellent soulmate in many ways, but she has this blind spot about dessert wines. She thinks they are ‘too sweet’.
On the plus side, Marsala and pears have been added to the shopping list in her handwriting so I think your dish must be in.
Bearsy #6, a great website which I will be browsing away on today.
Ferret #8. She’s added a pineapple to the list so you seem to be in too.
Toc #9, you are definitely not in. I personally think that Deep fried Mars Bars might well work after curry, but we can’t them for both our usual Sunday breakfast and then lunch, can we?
Lastly, thanks to Donald for his constructive suggestions and to Low Wattage for his tireless pursuit of Pseu through several blogs on my behalf.
Off to purchase Mrs M’s ingredients and then to carry on with my own preparations. Slight hitch in that one of our guests has just advised Mrs M that she does not like coriander. Not a lot out there to help me, although I see that she is not alone:-
http://ihatecilantro.com/
I very much fear, however, that our guest is in for a ‘spam, egg, sausage and spam’ culinary experience tomorrow as in ‘There is not very much coriander in the Prawn Bhuna’.
Mr. Mackie – I must ‘fess up. It is true I don’t have much of a sweet fang and would much prefer an extra helping of goat (or possibly goat cheese) in lieu of dessert, so I hesitate to offer suggestions on sticky puds and suchlike. The pear recipe is in Delia’s Summer Collection of Mrs. M has a copy about her person.
OZ
🙂
Busy week. Missed the original plea, but pleased all is well. Full report expected after the event. Ta muchly
Thanks again, Pseu.
Report will follow. As an appetizer, you should know that my guru, Ferret, has dropped me right in it with his “thinly-sliced pineapple and kulfi crud”. Mrs M read, appreciated. and dispatched me this morning to track down said ‘kulfi’ in Embra.
I have to report that we do not yet seem to do it wholesale up here on the right side of the Wall and that I refuse to pay one good pound for a tiny tub of the stuff, retail-wise.
I tried to point out to Mrs M that puddings are on her side of the Great Divide tomorrow but she assures me that it was my close personal friend, Ferret, who came up with the kulfi suggestion and that it is, therefore, up to me to make it all happen.
So. it is Ho! for the continuous stirring of the evaporated, condensed and full milk, making sure that it does not burn, which it surely will.
This is going to end in tears. Thanks a bundle, Ferret.