Spring Dinner Party

Dinner was amazing.  Seriously.  Bare with me on the not-so-hot photographs, but our kitchen is in a dark little corner of our apartment and the lighting is less than photographer friendly.  That's dessert in the first picture - I went with Rhubarb and Ginger up-side down cake as the supermarket didn't have quite enough Rhubarb for a flan.  The Rhubarb was nice and tart and the ginger in the cake added a bit of omph.  One difficulty I have with baking here is that the baking products are completely different.  I wasn't able to find bicarb soda, so I improvised by adding a bit more baking powder.  I don't think it had quite the same effect, but there were second's asked for, which is surely a good sign. 

Entree: Warm Goat's Cheese Salad with Walnuts and a Dijon Mustand dressing. 

Perfect starter.  Simple, clean tastes and most of it can be prepared in advance - just make sure you don't loose all your cheese as your grilling the tops. 

Main Course: Wild Hare with Beetroot and Chocolate Sauce and Homemade Spaetzle (Gnocchi)

This was seriously good.  Stephanie Alexander didn't let us down (Katie you were right, it didn't take that long).  The meat was so tender and the sauce was amazing - the chocolate added a richness and fullness to the sauce without being dominantly "chocolate-flavour".

A side-story to all this is how we managed to buy wild Hare in the middle of Berlin.  We weren't really sure that it was possible but decided to ask our local butcher if he could get some in.  He wasn't particularly optimisitc but told us (the royal "us" - Matthias did all the calling) to ring on Monday, and then on Tuesday and finally when Matthias rang on Wednesday he was greated with a "yes" your Hare is here.  When Matthias went to pick up the meat he discovered that ordering 'Hare' is not just a simple matter of calling the wholesaler and asking for some Hare.  The Butcher  apparently has a contract with a Hunter who takes all his orders for 'game meat'.  As it turns out there aren't many Hares in the countryside surrounding Berlin at the moment and the Hunter was only able to catch two Hares on Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning.  You'd think this form of 'personalised' hunting would cost a ridiculous amount of money - but the meat cost the same as beef or lamb you'd buy at the butcher.  And it was fresh and delicious and perhaps (at a stretch) a little more local and sustainable.