A Night of Pheasant

The cooks

Many pheasants cooking

Yummy!

Last night was the third evening at Altenburg Kitchen and we are definitely getting the hang of it now.  We were so prepared that we thought something must be missing, but no….we are just super organised multi tasking ladies.

The addition of a cocktail ready for the guests at the entrance was a real success and the bright pink liquid of the Cosmopolitans added some festivity to the evening.  A colourful starter of pea and goats cheese bruschettas were demolished within minutes.  And so it was on to the main course of roast pheasant with parmesan polenta which turned out wonderfully.  Thank you so much to our friend Stephen for the pheasant, which came fresh just days before, from the heart of the Hampshire coutry side. 

A little break for the cooks as the guests tucked into the main course was a welcome one, except when the electricity decided to cut out in the whole flat.  Ooops, luckily though, this happens a lot and with all the candles scattered the guests were perfectly content.  Electricity came back on, however the oven did not!

Using an extra oven a crunchy apple and prune crumble came steaming out of it.  One of the dishes came out a little too quickly and slid slap bang onto the floor……apples, prunes, flower, oats and glass splattered all over.  Luckily we had more than enough to go around and no one was left to go hungry.

The crumble!

Candlelight

x

Welcome to Altenburg Kitchen!

Hello one and all and welcome to Altenburg Kitchen’s very own blog!

This may seem like a very straight forward step for most of you tech-heads however after 3 hours and 2 computer crashes into my sacred Sunday afternoon I am starting to regret ever getting involved!

Anyway back to the serious stuff… food, food glorious food! What we love and live for and even more so now that those winter evenings are drawing in.  Altenburg Kitchen is a home-run restaurant set up by Camilla and Lucy from our home in Clapham Junction.  Our general ethos at Altenburg is to serve up hearty and healthy home-cooked food in a very laid back and friendly atmosphere. 

Food wise we try to avoid the supermarkets wherever possible, ingredients are sought locally and we go out of our way to find fresh and exciting  seasonal ingredients. 

Anyway enough of the technicalities, as they sat the proof is in the pudding. We opened our doors to our first diners at the beginning of October, after 6 bottles of celebratory champagne our virgin diners were served up slow roasted shoulder of pork with oriental salad. Pudding was a seasonal plum Tart Tatin oozing sugary plummy sauce… need I say more? (Unfortunately Eddie the photographer got rather stuck into the celebratory champagne hence the lack of photographic evidence of  any food on our first night!)

The plates came and went, the sink seemed to burst at the seams; whoever thought their student days of dishwashing were over? All well worth it though, a trusty glass of rouge awaited us at the other end and we eventually waved goodbye to some rather wobbly guests at 2am.

Happy diners Part I

Happy diners Part II

Soooooooo with no complaints or injuries it was onto our next evening.  Last Wednesday we had 25 through the doors along with our very first food blogger!  Msmarmitelover came to investigate the goings on at Altenburg Kitchen and offer us a few helpful tips and pointers.  Diners and blogger were served up spicy pumpkin soup to warm the cockles, wild mushroom and beef stroganoff all of which was topped off with a healthy slice of blackberry cheesecake…  

Fillet of beef fresh from the Herefordshire fields

Blackberry cheesecake and 2 hungry boys

And so again the sink heaved, the wine bottles emptied and the chatter rolled on. Don’t you worry we will be opening the doors again very soon, please look at our diary section for dates and menus and we look forward to seeing you through those doors very soon!

x