In the Mix 2 Dinner with Dani Valent

Recently I went to Tenina’s cooking class in Sydney and sat opposite a gorgeous lady. Let’s call her Angie. She messaged me last week and asked had I seen the Dani Valent dinner that was on. 7 courses with matching wines and the recipes all came from Dani’s soon to be released cookbook, In the Mix 2. I made sure retro daddy could help out on the home front and I said I’m there.

I’m not usually one to go out on a weeknight and certainly not a tuesday night but it was a great excuse to break my usual jammies, knitting and tv routine. The food was so modern, fresh, adventurous and different. The wines to match were amazing and a real variety….

This dish below was mudcrab with macadamia milk (made in the thermomix of course) and macadamia on the top of it too. It had very subtle flavours and was delicious.

Favourite dish was hands down Tetsuya’s prawn ravioli with a tomato basil vinaigrette and fish roe on top. I was ever so gracefully trying to get all those little pink pearls of goodness onto my cutlery and into my mouth while not showing bad manners. That was my favourite, a winner…whether I can make it at home is another story.

The duck challenged me as it was just too rare for me so that was probably the only one that I didn’t finish but the flavours were lovely.

It came with a delicious sidedish of quinoa salad and I’ve never tasted quinoa like that before. It was fabulous and it was if they had toasted the quinoa first. This recipe came from Australia’s number 1 Thermomix seller who was lovely and friendly and there on the night.

One of the perks of being at the dinner was that Dani had organised for copies of her book to be available for purchase (they just added it to our dinner bill, well how could I say no) and we had it signed by a few of the people there. Review to come this week, it’s actually got a lot more recipes than the last one and I think has a bit more of a broader appeal as there is a bigger range. It’s still fancy food but sometimes it’s nice to have our fancy cookbooks as well as our every day ones. Don’t you think? would you believe this was the cheese plate. I know….and yes that is sliced banana on there. Let’s get technical about what goes into this dish, shall we? Oat biscuits, lemon puree, cheddar custard (so good!), spinach and anchovy paper and five pepper blend and each component made in the thermomix. Oh yes.

Now if you ever get the opportunity to attend a degustation dinner like this one where everything is cooked in thermomix don’t even think twice. Just do it. If you have to work out what special occasion is coming up then just work it out. In fact there is a melbourne dinner here so if you’re nearby get onto it. It is a special night out and the food is just fabulous and so different. It was just so lovely and friendly, a real mix of people, Dani walked around the room chatting to everyone and the service was top notch. Apparently yellow has only been open for a week but if you get the chance to dine there do it. I never ever eat out on that side of town (they don’t call where I live the insular peninsular for nothing) but it was smart service, very attentive, very friendly and not pretentious at all. I don’t do pretentious or anything like that. It was just perfect…

A huge thank you to Angie for letting me know about it otherwise it would have gone by without me even noticing. We just had the best night chatting and covered so many different topics but it was just lovely.  Thank you to everyone involved in organising the night and a big thank you to Dani Valent and the recipe creators because it was a fabulous night. There were some former masterchef contestants and leading chefs like Peter Gilmore as well. And it is a stunning book and we need more Thermomix recipes and cookbooks to challenge us.

p.s thanks to Angie for her patience. Have any of you ever eaten out with a blogger before. It’s painful. I had to get the camera just right then when each dish was brought out I’d have to get an instagram photo then the proper camera. Thank you!

p.p.s I saved the menu from the night and one of my cheeky little ones has borrowed it for some colouring and now I can’t find it. When (or if) I do find it then I’ll share the dishes that were cooked.