The Tru Dinner

Comments will be added later, but I wanted to at least get these out as it's been months since the dinner actually happened!

We wanted to do a full dinner from Tru using recipes from Rick Tramonto's book, Tru: A Cookbook from the Legendary Chicago Restaurant. The menu for the evening was:

Prosciutto di Parma with Tricolor Melon and Mascarpone

Caramel Taffy Apple Foie Gras with Lavender Salad
and Green Apple Chips

Salad of Baby Vegetables and Greens

Arctic Char Poached in Duck Fat with Spinach Almond Puree

Heirloom Tomato Water

Duet of Venison with Rutabaga Mash

Chocolate Malted Semifreddo with Chocolate-Bergamot Paint

We had my cousin Patrick and his family over and my brother Dan with his family made it for dessert and leftovers. Del had already eaten their foie gras and fish portions by then! The prosciutto dish tasted nice but was messy and hard to eat, everything else was wonderful, especially the fish and the foie. Prep was not too bad, I started a week or so early and had time to throw things together or heat them up in the kitchen between courses. We did wine pairings as suggested in the book. I'll add more comments and sources to specific dishes later, but here are the photos:

The above are prep shots, the one to the right shows the venison bones ready to roast for stock.



the foie!!!!!


Arctic Char poached in duck fat. This was absolutely amazing! We got the fish online from Gortons Seafood, which was really reasonably priced.




The duet of Venison.









The dessert....chocolate malted semi-freddo with chocolate bergamot paint. This recipe made a ton of leftover semi-freddo which was marvelous. It really tasted much better than the photo looks!





more to come..............