An October Birthday
The Yankton Lake House is a great venue to celebrate special events and in an effort to practice what is preached we had to prove it. Right? Good Friends, family, food, wine, food and maybe a cocktail. Right. Well let's walk through some examples that were performed strictly for scientific purposes.
In October we celebrated a family birthday and as luck would have it we had an open night available at the Lake House so we snapped it up. A friend and great chef agreed to be our private Chef. An exoctic and first for us to have a private hired chef. A luxury worth trying at least once and it was a blast. Chef David of Chef Driven Meals created a four course meal and our group of 10 celebrated for four hours as we took the evening slow. Chef worked with his assistant Tim in the kitchen across from where we had set the table. He was in the conversation and fun the whole time. Chef also used the newly acquired flat top grill that was added to the array of cooking devices available here.
To accommodate the party we moved some furniture around in the family room and set up tables in a square shape for the ten of us to chat and converse easily. Miracles of miracles someone broke out Grandma Sharon's china and silverware. Pretty sure it is the first time some of us got to experience the sacred set of plates and forks that are legendary parts of the past. The view of the Lewis and Clark lake as the sun set was like it usually is, spectacular. Pastel pinks, reds and oranges brushed across a darkening blue and then black violet. Worth the visit.
The Evenings menu
Seared scallops w/ a pomegranate foam and braised pork belly w/ tamarind glaze!
A Blue Cheese, Walnut and Pear topped Salad
Pork tenderloin with creamed spinach in a caramelized glaze
Petite Filet on a Potato puree
Dessert: Port Poached Pears over a brownie ( we contributed that one)
The evening progressed well. We had guests from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Vermillion, and of course from right here in Yankton. The out of town folk stayed overnight here in the vacation rental after dinner.
If you interested in contacting Chef David for a dining experience you can reach him at 415 994 3685, and be sure to check out his instagram feed here.
A November Wellington
This past November we were asked by friends who were renting the Lake House for a few days to join them and host a dinner. This one we did on our own. But we used much the same set up and for some reason it was again 10 people. Crazy but true.
Again we rearranged the furniture and set up the tables to host everyone right next to the open kitchen taking advantage of the ability to cook and serve while being part of the conversation and fun. Our menu was not quite as extensive but it was still a lot of fun and we took it slow to enjoy the time together. We started with a few different flatbread / pizza style appetizers. I think the favorite was a blood orange and feta cheese topped flatbread. The different thing here is that I used a violife dairy free feta that you can get at the local grocer. I also recall a truffle flatbread.
The main course was a beef Wellington with fondant potatoes. Success with beef Wellington is always all about utilizing a sous vide method to cook the tenderloin first then wrap it up in some puff pastry (along with the good stuff, dijon mustard, mushroom duxelles and prosciutto ) and finish it in the oven. Funny enough the port poached pears made an appearance again and this time I did the reduction sauce and snuck in some butter and brown sugar at the end, giving it that glow a good reduction sauce needs.
Well hopefully the experiments done purely for science above will give you hope for a better mankind et al. Perhaps at least they will demonstrate the ability that we have employed at the Lake House for when you may be having an event or two in Yankton. Almost sort of a pop up restaurant in a way. Pop over to this page to book now and schedule your event.
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