Hey hey everyone, hope you all had a great week.
When I was with my siblings last week, we decreed that 90% of the time we ate better at home than out. We were born in a family of foodies, my grandparents are both great cooks and my mother was a chef/ caterer by trade , so yes we have been spoilt our whole lives. And as the French saying goes, you’re never better served than by yourself.
I definitely feel like my love affair with dinner parties has been hot and cold, like most love affairs you might say. I feel like somewhat dinner parties are a big thing when you’re in your 20s; you get your first flat and want to show off those Ikea plates of yours. Then you make a little more money and you enjoy going out and trying out the new hot place in town. And in your 30s, I feel like the novelty of dinner parties has returned. I love a good evening in someone’s home, where I can have a proper conversation without music blasting in my ear, and spending 80€ on an average meal.
So as promised, here is an easy dinner party menu which is the perfect bridge between enjoying the last of the summer veg and celebrating some autumnal produce we are going to see a lot more of.
As mentioned previously, a well executed dinner party means very little time spent cooking when your guests are there, unless you don’t like them of course. And this menu delivers just that:
Serves 6
Total prep time: 1 hour (if you prepare those pears ahead)
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Sourdough with radish butter and salmon eggs
Oysters with mignonette
Whole baked seabass
Fennel, grapefruit , runner bean and herb salad
Poached pears in chocolate sauce
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I would serve both the sourdough and oysters as an aperitif, standing or sitting down elsewhere than at your dinner table.
Sourdough with radish butter and salmon eggs
Shamelessly taken from one of my favourite chef’s Diana Henry, her cookbooks are beautiful. This tastes good, looks good and is stupid easy to make. Enjoy the last of those radishes whilst you still see them.
Ingredients
150gr radish with greens trimmed
100gr softened unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon salt flakes
Black pepper
4 slices of sourdough bread
100g jar of salmon eggs
Instructions
Put the radishes in a food processor and pulse until chopped into fine bits
Transfer to a cloth to try and draw out as much water as possible by squeezing
Tip the radishes into a bowl with the soft butter, salt and pepper and beat until the mixture becomes smooth. Transfer to a small bowl and keep in the fridge with cling film until you’re ready to serve.
When ready, spread the mixture of slices of toasted sourdough and spoon salmon eggs on top.
Oysters with mignonette
Yes the time of the year has come again, oysters are back. The old adage says only to eat oysters during months with the letter ‘R’ and I still stand by it. Very simply because that is when they are at their best. Oysters naturally spawn in April and will spend the summer fattening up, just like we like them.
Ingredients
A dozen oysters (opened) Safe to eat 2-3 hours after they’ve been opened, on a bed of ice. There is nothing worse than lukewarm oysters so make sure to put on ice ( + looks pretty) or refrigerate them
2 x shallots finely sliced
Red wine vinegar.
2 x Lemons in quarters
Instructions
In a small ball, add vinegar to the shallots, until covered and allow guests to have lemon or spoon mignonette on their oysters.
Whole baked seabass
Do not be afraid of cooking fish at a dinner party, I repeat, do not be afraid to cook fish at a dinner party! It is by far the easiest and most wow factor dish out there. There is literally nothing to do.
Spend that extra buck and buy wild seabass, it tastes better than the farmed stuff. When buying whole fish, look for bright, clear eyes. Cloudy eyes means the fish isn’t fresh.
Ingredients
2 whole sea bass (600 gr) or 1 whole sea bass (1.2-1.5kg) scaled and gutted
1 lemon, thinly sliced
3 sprigs of rosemary
1 Onion, sliced in rounds
Sea salt and black pepper
A good drizzle of olive oil
Ingredients
Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Rinse and pat dry the fish.
Cut around four slits on each side of the fish about 1cm deep (helps the fish cook evenly and quicker.)
Layer all slices of lemon in the cavity and mouth of the fish. Stuff the rosemary springs through the mouth.
Generously drizzle olive oil on the fish, season with sea salt and black pepper.
Place on baking sheet and roast until fish is cooked through roughly 25-30 minutes. I like to give it 5 mins under the grill at the end to make that skin nice and crispy.
Fennel Salad
Ingredients
2 fennel bulbs sliced finely
1 grapefruit (segments + juice)
A handful of runner beans, thinly sliced sideways
Half a red onion, finely sliced
Handful of basil
Handful of coriander
100ml of white vinegar
100ml olive oil
Instructions
Combine all the ingredients for the salad in a large bowl 10 mins before the fish is ready. Once the fish is cooked, place the salad directly onto the fish.
Poached pears with chocolate sauce
Definitely embracing autumn with our last dish, with pears being at their peak from now until December.
750g caster sugar
1 cinnamon stick
2 strips lemon zest (use potato peeler)
1/2 vanilla pod split lengthways
6 pears peeled
200g good quality dark chocolate
100ml double cream
150ml milk
Instructions
In a pan big enough to hold the pears snugly, including the pears. Half fill the pan with water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat, cover and gently poach for about 30 mins until soft. Turn off the heat and set aside. They can be poached up to 2 days ahead and kept in the poaching syrup in the fridge.
To make the chocolate sauce, tip the chocolate, milk and cream into heatrprood bowl, stick in the microwave for 2mins. Stir until the chocolate has melted.
To serve, drain the pears and, slice off the bottom so it can hold up straight. Pour chocolate on a plate, place the pear and drizzle a few drops of chocolate once more. Sprinkle with some nuts if you have some.
If you want to be naughty serve with some vanilla ice cream.
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Hmm, I’m going to honest here, I did not have a dinner party. This is Ash’s week away for work and I have just been too stretched for time…you must be bored of hearing that. I will get organised enough eventually. What I did do however because I promised a dinner party menu and I will deliver one, is I ate every dish on different days.
I had sourdough with radish butter for elevenses one morning, fish for dinner one night, and yesterday’s breakfast was poached pears with warm chocolate sauce. Perfectly timed so that sugar rush hit Woody just as I dropped him off at school.
Now if that’s not dedication...
Hope you enjoy it x
And if you don’t have any friends but want to treat yourself to a dinner party at home, plug into fanfare, Monica and Emma will introduce you to plenty characters to invite to your fictionnal dinner as well as share tips on how to host the perfect dinner party..even down to what to wear.