Awhile ago, Bens parents celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary. Every Wednesday for 35 years they have enjoyed date night together. Sometimes date night involves others, but most of the time its just the two of them.
Their favourite food in the world is seafood, and their favourite restaurant is The Waterfront. BUT their favourite place in the world is our family boat, Pearl.
As a special surprise Ben and I decided to combine all three of their favourite things and put on a anniversary dinner to celebrate with them.
I set a table on the back decking of our boat with a beautiful textured linen white cloth, some fluffy hydrangeas, wicker placemats, napkins, custom printed menus and lots of romantic candlelight.
We put some acoustic tunes over the sound system and prepared a delicious seafood menu.
The menu included the below.
TO START - BENS SEAFOOD CHOWDER
1x Seafood carcus ( We used prawn heads & Alaskan crab leg shells because we were using this in our pasta for mains, but use whatever seafood carcus you have, if your making this and this only, just use some prawns)
2x Onion
1x Leek
5 x White potatoes
1x Cup milk
1x Cup chicken stock
2x Tablespoons thick cream
2x Tablespoons of butter
Water
Salt
Pepper
Start by making a seafood stock, to do this pop your seafood carcus to a pot with 1 diced onion and cover with salted water. Boil for 30/45 minutes.
Over a seperate pot, pour out the liquid through a sift, making sure to catch any chunks. Discard the sift contents (your carcus and onion)
Sweat off 1x chopped leak and 1x chopped onion in the butter until soft.
Add in your fish stock, and the chicken stock and bring to the boil.
Peel your potatoes and add to the pot, boil until soft.
When your potatoes are soft, blitz the pot with a bar mix, while whizzing, gradually add in your milk and cream until smooth.
Add salt and pepper to taste
If you want to, you can add in some crab meat chunks at the end and stir in, we didnt, but have before and its delicious
Serve and enjoy
ENTREE - BENS CRAYFISH MORNAY
2 x tablespoons butter
2x tablespoons all purpose flour
1 or 2 x cups of chicken stock
Salt
Pepper
100grams Gruyere Cheese
2x Whole cooked crayfish
Melt the butter in a small, heavy saucepan over low heat.
Whisk the flour into the melted butter.
Add the salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Cook over low heat, stirring, for a full 2 minutes until the flour taste is cooked out.
Turn up the heat slightly, then slowly add in your chicken stock, stirring constantly.
Bring to a low simmer and continue cooking slowly until smooth and thickened, about 10 minutes.
Grate your Gruyere cheese and melt in slowly - set aside.
Crack your crayfish in-half and clean out all the yucky bits, peel out the fresh meat and chop into chunks.
Add your chunks into the sauce and stir until well covered, and your meat is warmed through.
Add your crayfish meat back into the shells and put under the grill until starting to go golden.
Serve and enjoy!
MAIN - PRAWN AND CRAB SPAGHETTINI
500grams green prawns, tails on
2x Alaskan crab legs
1x onion
5x garlic cloves
1x bunch of parsley
1x tablespoons dried chilli flakes
1/2 cup olive oil (if you think you need more, use more)
1x Punnet of cherry tomatoes
2x tablespoons capers
To start, bring a pot of super salty water to the boil, pasta water should be as salty as the mediterranean - whoever goes against this should be banished from the earth. #dramaticmuch
Peel your prawns fully. Remove the heads and poo shoots but leave the tails on.
Remove all meat from your Alaskan crab legs and set aside.
Dice your onion and garlic cloves and sweat in olive oil until translucent
Pop your spaghetti on the boil - spaghetti should be cooked al dente
Chop up your parsley and add to the pan with your dried chilli flakes and capers.
Add in your crab meat, prawns and cherry tomatoes and stir until cooked.
Once your spaghetti is ready, scoop out 1/2 cup of the salty water and add to the pan, then drain.
Add your spaghetti to the pan and stir the yummy goodness through,
Serve and enjoy!
To top the night off, we enjoyed chocolate puddings with cream and berries, and Graham caught a snapper by candlelight... pretty sure this was the highlight of his night.
Happy 35th Anniversary to Graham and Veronica, one can only hope our marriage is as long and happy as this one.
L xx
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