Welcome home dinner for the big man

To celebrate Charles' return home this week I promised a welcome home dinner of epicurean proportions.  I selected a few likely candidates and let Charles choose what I would actually make.  He went for eye fillets in pomegranate jus (thank's for the idea Lamberts) with polenta chips (a favourite of ours from Rubicon) followed by a dessert of licorice parfait with lime syrup.  The licorice parfait I got from one of my favourite sites, the Chef's Pencil.  This website caters to my epicurious side but does not stoop to step-by-step instructions which, while flattering (and empowering if you succeed) can also be kind of tricky.  Case in point, the licorice parfait recipe which simply instructs you to use the ingredients to make a sabayon...until it's pale and fluffy.

Which is how I found myself researching what the hell a sabayon is and how to make one.  More on that in the actual recipe.  I've decided to pop all three recipes into different posts just to help people find them later if they come looking for them.  Despite my apprehension the only disaster came at the start of making the parfaits when the food processor vibrated itself off the bench while I was blending my licorice cream, splattering it everywhere and sending me back to the shop for emergency supplies to start all over again.  Not my finest moment.

But despite that minor hiccup, the welcome home dinner was an unqualified, raging success.  To me the biggest test was not my man and his reaction but the reaction from my fickle kids.  Abandoning every sense of propriety and all manners ever taught, they both took turns licking their bowls when they thought I wasn't looking.