My stepson recently married his beautiful and delightful Brazilian fiancée, and we held the wedding reception at our home. Of the forty guests, only one was gluten-intolerant, but even so, I decided the entire shebang would be a gluten-free event.
Brazilian weddings are normally very big and showy affairs but my stepson and his fiancée wanted theirs to be low-key. On the other hand, acting as an unofficial Australian ambassador, I was keen to create something different for our Brazilian guests, a meal that would showcase both our local produce and our multicultural culinary culture. And of course, it had to be special. It was a wedding after all. So here’s how it went. Hope you think I nailed it.
We welcomed everyone with champagne - even a low-key wedding deserves champagne. While people were chatting and knocking off a flute or two, we served some little Gougere, a miniature, gluten-free version of a regional specialty of Burgundy. Made from choux pastry with gruyere cheese, these little cheesy mouthfuls are crisp on the outside and soft and delicate on the inside. Delicious!
The Gougere were followed by tiny gluten-free savoury tartlets with two different fillings: the first had onion marmalade topped with labneh and a fine slice of fresh cucumber; the second was a red capsicum, almond and chilli puree topped with salty, paprika-spiced, roasted almond slivers.
We also served prosciutto and melon, dressed up to party: balls of sweet, ripe rock melon and prosciutto threaded onto some very jazzy cocktail skewers we’d found on a holiday in Japan - thoroughly wedding-worthy – and everything was off to a great start.
More later…..
Rosie