Valentine's Dinner - just a bit late!

Tonight we stayed in and I cooked our belated "Valentine's Dinner". I have to say, I admire those cooks on Masterchef who turn out stunning three course meals in 2 hours or less. It took me about 3 and a half hours to put this lot together:

Starter: Goat cheese and walnut salad with raspberry vinegar dressing

Main course: Fillet steak with mushroom, shallot and red wine sauce. Served with sauteed spinach and dauphinnoise potatoes (got to be the best potato dish in the world!)

Pud: Rhubarb, poached in ginger beer topped with polenta and almond crumble. Two pics - one before the (home made) custard, and a splash of poaching liquor got poured all over it!

Recipe for the pud was courtesy of the Great British Menu cookbook. I'd seen it made on the tv show and thought it looked good. It was. There was a ton of crumble topping left over so I grilled some sliced pear on a griddle pan the following evening and served it with the leftover custard! Recipe follows........

For the crumble topping:
50g/2oz blanched almonds
60g/2½oz plain flour
40g/1¾oz polenta (medium ground)
50g/2oz caster sugarpinch salt
2 drops pure vanilla extract
75g/2¾oz chilled unsalted butter, chopped

For the rhubarb:
200ml/7fl oz ginger wine (I could not find this so used good quality ginger beer)
75g/2¾oz light soft brown sugar
strip of pared orange zest
250g/9oz young pink rhubarb, cut into 2.5cm/1in batons

Method:
For the crumble topping, toast the almonds by tossing them in a heavy pan over a medium heat. Chop finely and mix with the flour, polenta, sugar, salt and vanilla extract. Rub in the chilled butter. Spread out the crumble on a baking tray and chill for about 30 minutes. (Chilling will firm up the crumble so that it will be crisper when baked.)
Preheat the oven to 140C/285F/Gas 1.5.
Bake the crumble for 40 minutes.
Remove from the oven, allow to cool and then crumble into pieces with your hands. Set aside.

For the rhubarb, gently heat the ginger wine with the sugar and orange zest in a large, shallow pan until the sugar has dissolved. Add the rhubarb pieces and poach gently for 3-4 minutes or until soft.
Leave the rhubarb to cool in the liquid, then drain the rhubarb thoroughly.

To serve, stand an individual chefs' ring for each crumble on a plate or in a wide, rimmed bowl (the ring should be about 7.5cm/3in in diameter and 3.5cm/11/4in deep). Pack in pieces of rhubarb until the ring is nearly full. Add a generous sprinkling of crumble, before removing the ring.

And yes, I did buy a set of chef's rings yesterday in Tesco. They are my favourite new toy!