So yesterday and today I have been cooking and eating for the coronation.  Yesterday for dinner I made dillegrout which was discussed at the zoom from Thursday.  My homemade almond milk failed, but thankfully I had some store-bought.  Basically chicken pieces are simmered with this milk, sweet white wine, a small amount of sugar, spices (clove, mace and ginger) and pine nuts.  There is some vinegar, rose water and more ginger at the end.  It doesn’t look like much, but it was extremely tasty.

You could definitely taste the wine it was cooked in.  In my case I chose a Sweet Riesling.  I think I made the right choice.

Yesterday I made a bunch of food for today, the coronation.  I actually got up at 2 AM to watch it on Britbox (the ITV broadcast).  I mostly drank coffee, but in the wee hours of the morning I had breakfast with The Royal Family Coronation Quiche.  I used lima beans instead of broad beans.  It was just OK.  But it was nice to grab a slice of it and keep watching the proceedings.

For lunch I had The Original Coronation Chicken in a sandwich.  I had also made this the day before.  This recipe was created by writer Constance Spry and the founder of the famous Le Cordon Bleu cookery school Rosemary Hume for the banquet of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.  This is basically a chicken salad with some curry and dried apricots.

Both of these two recipes are fine to make once for watching the coronation but do not need to be made again.

I made a pre-dinner cocktail of a Royal Gin Martini which is supposedly what King Charles III has each evening before dinner.  This is actually good.  I do not like a dry martini (unlike James Bond), and the lemon was nice.

Since I started watching the coronation at 2 AM I missed all of the preparations that occurred before the King and Queen headed to Westminster Abbey.  So I put the BBC broadcast on when I was cleaning and cooking to catch up on what I missed.  The music was really nice.

So for dinner tonight I made blanquette de poularde aux truffles (or chicken with white sauce and truffles) and Collar Beef.  The first recipe was from the Thursday zoom class and is roast chicken with a sauce made of reduced vegetable broth and creme fraiche.  It is supposed to be topped with shaved truffle, but I cheated and used white truffle oil.  It is served with the carrots and leeks that were used to make the broth.  It was OK, nothing amazing.

The Color Beef was mentioned in the class, but I used this recipe which I found online.  It is a rolled up butterflied flank steak with herbs and spices cooked in red wine.  This was really good.  The braising helped soften the meat, and the flavors were really good.  I can see making this again.

Here is my meal with the BBC broadcast still streaming.  .

I had made two desserts yesterday to eat on Coronation Day.  I wanted to make Elderflower Jelly with Raspberries which was featured in the class.  But I couldn’t find elderberry cordial.  We have red elderberries all over our property, but I couldn’t find a recipe that used their flowers.  Per google there are elderflower teabags, elderflower tonic water and elderflower lemonade available, but I couldn’t find any of it.  All I could find was elderflower liqueur so I broke down and bought some.

I found this recipe to use instead.  I skipped the boozy cream, but I did put the raspberries in it.  Last night I didn’t think it was setting up, but it did.

This is a truly amazing dessert.  It felt very royal.

I also made Pistachio Cream with a recipe from the class.  This is basically pistachios that are blanched and then beaten with some rosewater. It is then mixed with some sugar and cream, cooked and put in glasses. Now this recipe was literally painful.  I had to shell all the pistachios, blanched them and then had to peel them.  This was very hard on my fingers and nails, and they still hurt today.

The cream never really set up.  I was hoping it would be similar to pistachio ice cream, but the nuts were too grainy.  It wasn’t worth the effort.

So that is my coronation feasting.  It was fun, and Tom enjoyed it too. These are definitely different foods from what we normally eat which is fun.  I can only imagine what it must have been like to made these dishes for the King over hearth back in the day.