The Bearded Whelk: A Secret Day Off, and Too Little Time

It was an early wake up call this morning, thanks to my darling Olive. All was soon forgiven when I found her waking me up, and shouting "Happy Valentine's Day, Daddy!"

I got a lovely, card, and listened to her read it to me, which is in the video clip, below. Please keep it in mind that I had just been awoken, so it may not be too brilliant:

Well, this was the moment, that the my nervous system comes to fruition, and luckily late last night I managed to buy a card before running home. I also took the hind sight to take the day off work. With this knowledge, I set to work in order to getting a nice dinner prepared for my two favourite ladies this evening.

I mentioned in an earlier blog, that while my lady wife was suffering a period of self reflection induced by an over indulgent use of wine, I took Olive to Glover's Farm in Kent, and took a look at what they had to offer. The decision was made to buy some beef fillet, and make Beef Wellington. I've tried this before, and it was a success. Being in a bit of a hurry, I decided to do a bit of research, find a recipe that tickled my senses, and get away to find the required ingredients. I found a rather interesting study on what makes the perfect Beef Wellington, so trusting the Gods, I went ahead, copied it down, and then worried about desert. This was soon sorted when I looked through my blogs for some baking ones, and a Chocolate Raspberry Tart presented itself.

What can go wrong?

Not a great deal, only time constraints with an unorganised male. Oh, and erm an incident with the pastry bake of the tart, involving a makeshift paper base for the baking beans because I had no baking paper... this resulted in going out, buying more pastry, and some baking paper.

So here's a little photo run down on events;

The beef will be worth every penny, locally sourced, and I'll do what I can to do it justice.

A decent cut of beef for the three of us

Getting ready to start a heavy session of chopping. There were also some dried Porcini Mushrooms in some boiled water, and I'll use the juice as part of the gravy stock

Shallots, Mushrooms, Thyme. I also the Porcini Mushrooms

After a moment of improvisation, resulting in a fast trip back out to the supermarket, I was ready to pre-bake another base for the tart.

The second attempt at the tart prior to the pre-bake

Getting ready for the ganache on the top of the tart. The recipe said to use good 70% Dark Chocolate I think. I opted to take it a step further, and went full hog with some Willies's 100% Venezuelan Cacao. This stuff isn't cheap, but it does make the difference at times. Also, the guy who makes the stuff is eccentric, and completely nuts, alike Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge in the P.G.Wodehouse tales.