| Foolproof dinner party
Do dinner parties send you into a flat spin? Here's a menu from Julia Watson that even Bridget Jones could manage Does the blue soup episode in Bridget Jones's Diary strike a familiar chord? Have you found yourself sliding over a cluttered and greasy kitchen floor, tripping over bowls of mashed potato and using up every pan you possess in an effort to replicate some fanciful creation in a glossy cookbook? Having a few people for dinner can turn the most reasonable individual into a dithering wreck. It doesn't have to be so hard. If you can read, you can cook, surely. Just follow the instructions. Pastry, for instance. What could be so hard about a recipe with only two ingredients and water? Ideally, what one wants is a menu which gives the impression that armies of sous-chefs have been labouring behind the scenes to produce each culinary triumph, when in fact you knocked the whole thing off yourself between munching your Shreddies and leaving for work. Which detail you modestly reveal in the course of fielding the praise. Organisation is the key. Pre-plan, pre-cook. Polish off as much of the meal in advance as possible, then you can mingle gaily with your guests instead of emerging in a sweaty heap from the kitchen with something dire on a plate, hours after they've knocked back all the booze. After all, along with creating a gratifying opportunity to impress the socks off them with your skill and efficiency, the reason you invited them was because you quite like their company. Any halfwit can come up with shepherd's pie. A dinner party is a means of demonstrating more finely-honed food tastes and aspirations, an opportunity to reveal that behind the façade that is Ms or Mr Anticipating-a-Stock-Option during the day, is a heart that beats, at night, to Escoffier's drum. Consider the following natty little menu of profoundly of-the-moment dishes:
The fish, which could, more accurately, be called 'Fish in a Paper Bag' - though not one with 'Prada' stamped on it, please - can be 'packaged' hours ahead. So can the pud, and, if you like an admiring audience while you plate the salad, Baba Ghanoush, a smokey aubergine dip made the previous night, will keep them from expiring with excitement. All dishes to serve 6 Baba Ghanoush with Hot Lavash Parma Ham and Mozzarella Salad Scatter a generous three handfuls of mixed leaves such as rocket, mizuna, and torn strips of chicory over a huge flat plate. Tear up 3 balls of fresh buffalo mozzarella and scatter the pieces among the leaves. Fling a handful of pitted black olives cured in oil about the dish, then drape 6 (if you love your friends, fewer if you only like them) ripped-up slices of Parma ham over all. Make a dressing with 5 tbsp good green extra virgin olive oil whisked with 2 tbsp sherry vinegar (balsamic is so yesterday), salt and freshly ground black pepper. Deceptively casual. (If you are deeply fond of your friends, use ripped up pieces of fresh fig - 1 per person - in place of the more humble olives.) Fish Fillets Steamed in Their Own Scented Juice For each person, buy a 225g/8oz skinned and boned salmon fillet. Preheat the oven to 220C/425F. Cut pieces of greaseproof paper or aluminium foil large enough to easily contain each fillet. Finely slice two bulbs of fennel, the whites of two leeks, and mix together with a minced clove of garlic, then divide among the pieces of paper or foil. Lay a fillet on top, and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Roughly chop half a handful each of flat-leaf parsley, tarragon and dill and scatter over each fillet. Squeeze the juice of two lemons over the fillets, then a generous glug of good oil. Fold and seal the paper or foil completely so no steam escapes. Lay the packages on a baking tray and bake for about 10 minutes. Let each person open their own packages on the plate. Serve with boiled potatoes if you like. Petits Pots de Chocolat Break 200g really good plain chocolate into a blender jug. Bring 300ml single cream to the boil. Slosh into the blender and whizz till all the chocolate has melted. Lid on, naturally. Stop and add a whole egg, then whizz some more. Pour the contents through a fine sieve into 5 little pots or wine glasses and chill for at least 4 hours or overnight to set. Serve with more cream. And here's a shopping list to help you along: Do you have any Bridget-Jones-proof dinner party tips? Share your ideas with us |