So here we are once again; dinner number two of our cooking contest has taken place yesterday and guess where? At my place! This time it was our turn: my brother and I (Duplex Pludex) have been the hosts of this fun evening with good food and good friends.
For our dinner we chose to focus on some typical dishes of the Triestine culinary tradition: gnocchi, cevapcici, and crema carsolina. I also made a lovely walnuts bread, which earned us 2 extra points! So the first course was a variation of pumpkin, spinach, and potato gnocchi with butter, parmesan, and sage. The second course was cevapcici with ajvar sauce and a salted spinach and ricotta cake. Last but not least, the dessert! A lovely puff pastry and cream cake with warm berries. The decoration? We decided to transform our dining room in a small trattoria with wooden table, checked napkins, felt sets, chestnuts, pinecones, and a rustic flower decoration. We also named our restaurant "De Uma" which is the combination of our names: UMberto & MArtina. Do you like it? Do you want to see our menu?
Our joker was our friend Anna, who luckily enough helped me resolve last-minute dramas, since my brother was at work and could not collaborate for the preparation of the whole dinner. And of course she gave us 10 points ;) hehehe! But who knows what the rest of the jury thinks of our cooking… one thing is sure, we managed to spend a lot less than the maximum budget, which allows us to earn a lot of extra points. I personally thought that the gnocchi were really good, especially the potatoes and spinach ones, the pumpkin ones could have been better. The savoury cake was a hit, but of course I had to cook some meat for the boys, and since I am vegetarian I do hope that it was good too. The dessert was delicious, but I could have made it more creamy. Overall I would have given our team a 9 out of 10. But we will wait and see, two more dinners have yet to come and I just can´t wait!
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| Our "trattoria" |
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| walnut bread and salami make a perfect rustic aperitivo |
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| in the kitchen….before... |
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| in the plate after ….Gnocchi variation, yummy |
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| Cevapcici & savoury ricotta and spinach cake |
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| The proud cook! |
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| homemade crema carsolina!!! |
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| Happy guests |
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| Team Duplex Pludex with joker Anna |
And here it is! Ta daaaaaaa! The trailer of our dinner with unique scenes of the cooks at work and the delighted guests. We also had an experts jury: our cats and dog which seemed very interested in the cevapcici and were allowed to taste them and give me their feedback. Which was of course very positive. Hahaha, enjoy!
