Our recent visitors from Canada for a private dinner apparently enjoyed themselves quite a bit and recommended us to a group of their friends from Chicago, who dined with us this last weekend, also for a private evening.

Much of this comes out of some favorites, and one dish, new to the dinners, comes out of our Italian poultry class. We began with the recent favorably received grilled calamari salad with sweet chili sauce from our Chilean inspirations dinner. Then we moved on to one of our favorite Peruvian soups, sopa incaica, though made with chicken stock at the guests’ request (no red meats), and cilantro instead of huacatay simply because the latter was unavailable.

From there, it was on to peppered mussels with risotto cakes. The risotto a simple one made with chicken stock and white wine, then finished with fresh buffalo mozarella and lots of tarragon. Pressed that into a pan and chilled it, then cut out rounds and fried them up into risotto cakes. The mussels, the simplest preparation you’ll ever make and amazingly good – a couple of pounds of mussels into a pot, a quarter cup of ground black pepper, cover with a lid, turn the heat on high. Nothing more. Stir them up and serve.

On to the main course, right out of one of our classes – chicken in a piquant sauce – browned chicken breasts that are then cooked slowly in an amazingly savory sauce of white wine, onion, vinegar, anchovy, gherkins, capers, garlic and parsley. Served with polenta that was packed with creamy goat’s milk cheese. Delicious!

And, finally, one of our new favorite simple fruit desserts – peaches in syrup with caramelized goats’ milk cheeses – this time a St. Maure and a Camembert.