Das perfekte Dinner - Teil 2

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!

Our "trattoria"

walnut bread and salami make a perfect rustic aperitivo

in the kitchen….before...

in the plate after ….Gnocchi variation, yummy

Cevapcici & savoury ricotta and spinach cake

The proud cook!

homemade crema carsolina!!!

Happy guests

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!

Das Perfekte Dinner - Teil 1

Does anyone of you know the tv-show "The Perfect Dinner" ("Das Perfekte Dinner" in German)? I am sure many of you do! Well, my friends and I decided to organise amongst us a cooking contest like this one just for fun and yesterday the first dinner took place. It was so much fun! There´s 8 of us participating: Stephan & Christof, Sarah & David, Nils & Dominic, Umbo & I, and the rules are strict. Otherwise what competition would it be? Are you curious? I will update you after every dinner with photos, comments, and videos, and I do hope that after following our fun experience you might try to organise it yourself. 

Here are the rules:

There are four teams of two people;

Each team cooks for the other teams 3 courses;

Every team must receive the menu of the cooking team;

Everything must be home-made;

One joker guest may be invited to help the cooking team;

The other teams give points from 1 to 10 for each course and for decoration;

The joker may give just an overall grade from 1 to 10;

The maximum budget is 5€ per person;

Every spared Euro equals one extra point;

The team with the most points wins!

Winzibis with rival Sarah ;)

The tremendously creative menu we all received
from the Winzibis. Changes not included ;)

So the first ones to cook were Stephan and Christof, which we named the Winzibis. They cooked pumpkin cream soup, pork filet with tagliatelle and mushrooms in sour cream, and Austrian kaiserschmarrn. Everything was delicious and the decoration was lovely but we´ll have to see what the jury hast to say at the end… I personally enjoyed the entire meal, the company, and the entire evening. We all could see how much effort they had put into it, so chapeau guys. Plus the Winzibis´ joker was their friend Eva who has fulfilled her task wonderfully in praising the boys´ recipes and work. The next dinner is scheduled for the 4th of December and my brother and I will have to surprise the other teams with a superb dinner to try to gain more points than the Winzibis. So stay tuned because we already have so many creative ideas in mind; I´ll just give you a hint: Trieste, our hometown, will play a key role. I am so much looking forward to the next dinners, since the first one has been really great!

Sarah and I

Umbo and Nils Playing silly between courses 

Sarah and Umbo enjoying themselves

David and Umbo hidden by the glorious, jungle-like flower decoration.

The guests of the feast: Nils, Umbo, David, Eva, Me, Dominic!

As you know I love making videos so I decided to put together one of the whole experience and I am sure it will be fun to look at once we are finished with the competition. After the 4 dinners we will all meet again (in a restaurant, so no one has to sacrifice his apartment to 9 people again), watch the video, and the winning team will finally be announced. I am so excited! For now just a small recap of our first dinner yesterday. Enjoy!