Dinner Party Suggestions

Kimia

Hi all,

I want to try my hand at something really challenging. I love cooking and I have a dinner party coming up so any suggestions for starter and mains that would push the boat out a bit?

Ones to avoid - anything with bread, goats cheese, tomatoes, also no salads. I am leaning towards doing a fish dish for the main. Thanks!

Noctua

This is delicious:

http://www.channel4.com/food/recipes/popular-cuisines/british/spiced-monkfish-with-chicory-and-orange-butter-sauce-recipe_p_1.html

Sparks

Really challanging? Dinner party?

How about crown rack of lamb?

Sparks

Or, alternatively, absolutely any recipe whatsoever from either of Blumenthal's Perfection books, or almost any from the Fat Duck Cookbook...

Kimia

Ho ho this is great stuff, thank you so much. I've made rack of lamb a few times so although a fantastic suggestion, not what I had in mind but thank you! I love the look of the monkfish - that is definitely going on the maybe list. Also I don't have any of those books Sparks - can you throw out a few recipes from them and I could probably improvise?

Any ideas for starters? Keep em coming!

Noctua

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/terrineofhamhockwith_85947

I made the terrine but bought the bread!

Kimia

How did it turn out? A terrine may be interesting..

Noctua

Really well. I make terrines a lot. You need to remember to take it out of the fridge so that it is at room temperature before you serve it. It is quite rich, so you don't want to serve huge portions.

Kimia

It sounds delicious - thanks for the suggestion! I think that might be a runner.

What about other main course ideas - I love the monkfish suggestion but anything else? It sounds like we have similar taste in food. I cook all the time and the easy recipes are great but sometimes I want to do something that takes aaaages to prepare and is an absolute triumph!

Noctua

I know what you mean!

I'm a big fan of Angela Hartnett's food. This looks complicated but is actually fairly straightforward.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/panfriedpollackwithc_88390

Magic Monkey

Something that takes ages and is amazing? Real demi-glace, either on it's own or as a sauce base for your meat course, if you decide to have one.

Anything that benefits from time, e.g. bread dough, brined meat, marinades, stews, etc. do take ages, albeit passively. The next step up from that would be long roasting, i.e. overnight roasted tomatoes, apples baked for 20 hours, etc. Another aspect is multiple components - 5+ components for one dish, each one requiring involved work. So depending on how much work you want to do, you can utilise all these methods.

Here's a monkfish recipe from Thomas Keller that won't take ages but there's some work to it.