One of the things I have absolutely loved doing as part of my journey of food is holding dinner parties for friends, and family. The initial idea came to me after a party that was held for my brother many years ago and I prepared a traditional Italian five course meal. We started with marinated olives, pesto and bread. Olives were a strange choice for me because I only began liking olives a couple of years ago. I made some simple pasta or another for the Primo, and the years have caused me to long forget what it was. The Secondi was a large roasted pork loin that I served with roasted redskin potatoes and some vegetable that I can’t recall. For dessert I made an olive oil cake with cherry compote. The food turned out well, and my passion for food was really coming alive. It was only a few short months after that that I began culinary school.
Once I was in culinary school, I was surrounded by a huge, like minded group of fellow students. Most of our group of friends’ nights not spent at jobs or school were spent cooking dinners together. Sometimes we would each make a dish and we’d eat family style. Other times one student, perhaps with a “sous” would spearhead a whole dinner. There were so many of these, and it was so long ago now, that I truthfully cannot recall all the details. The shared passion between all the students was so enjoyable, and many of us spent most of our free time just talking about food, or exploring the many restaurants of Pasadena. Incidentally, one of my current coworkers and I lived there at the same time, although we didn’t know each other then. More interestingly perhaps is that we both frequented a restaurant called Haven Gastro Pub, which is sadly closed now, but was run by another recently former coworker, who neither of us knew at the time. It really is a small world.
When I moved back to Michigan, and got my first place on my own I held a housewarming party. I had a few friends over, and served braised short ribs for the entrée, with horseradish mashed potatoes. It was good, but it was then that I had the idea to start working on a business plan for a small Bistro. The first step in this process was menu planning. I developed a menu of French cuisine bringing some classics into the modern. Now the plan became to use dinner parties to test the recipes of the menu, and after a few years of doing this, I have just one more dinner party before the entire menu has been tested.
The menu is primarily built around purchasing whole chicken and whole duck, and I decided the first round of testing recipes should be the duck recipes. This meant starting with French Onion soup, as one of the things I did for this was to use half duck stock instead of only beef stock. It adds a wonderful smokiness to the soup. Then I fried homemade sourdough in duck fat, topped it on each individual bowl of soup loaded with caramelized onions and rich broth. Then each bowl got a nice, thick slice of gruyere cheese before being put under my small at home oven broiler. Under a normal restaurant salamander this would happen much faster, but most equipment designed for homes just isn’t quite as hot as industrial kitchen equipment.
For our second course that night, I made a duck confit terrine, which turned out very nice. Duck leg and thigh slow cooked in duck fat until it’s fall apart tender, then shredded, cooled, and held together with homemade duck demi-glace. I’m sure we had a cheese along side the terrine, but the identity of it has long since been lost to time.
Our entrees that evening were pan seared duck breasts served with an orange gastrique, peas with bacon lardons and pearl onions, and a simple potato preparation. This party was many years ago now, and looking back I recognize some inexperience on my part. While the food turned out tasty, there were certainly things I could’ve improved upon. The peas were slightly undercooked, and the duck slightly overcooked. As I’ve grown in professional experience each successive dinner party has gotten better.
The second round of recipe testing seemed leaps and bounds ahead of the first one. After all the duck recipes I decided that preparing the chicken recipes would knock out about half of the menu. The chicken came from the wonderful Carlson Farms in Lawton, Michigan. It was spring when my friends came to my new apartment, all dressed so nice, and bringing bottles of wine to share with the table. We started that night with Poulet Roulade, or a stuffed chicken roll. I took one of the breasts and pounded it flat with my meat tenderizer, then laid it flat across bacon that I had lined up to wrap the entire appetizer. For the filling I lined roasted red pepper, fresh asparagus, an artichoke duxelle that I had prepared, and some grated gruyere cheese. After rolling and trussing the roulade, it was seared in a pan until the bacon was crispy all the way around, and then finished in the oven. I served it with a pan reduction sauce, and glazed radishes. The whole table was really raving about it, and I believe it came to be the highlight of this particular party.
I made a simple salad to cleanse the palate before the three separate entrees that night. The salad was comprised of arugula, tossed in homemade balsamic vinaigrette, shaved fennel, marcona almonds, goat cheese, and in keeping with season, fresh local strawberries.
The entrees consisted of the remaining cuts of the chicken, only one dish of each, to be shared amongst everyone. The airline breast was pan seared, oven finished and served with a pan reduction sauce and gratineed camembert. Here I retested the Pommes Parisienne the simple potato preparation I mentioned earlier. It’s melon balled scoops of potato, blanched then sautéed with butter and herbs. We had some sautéed asparagus as our vegetable side with the Poulet Sauté. Next we had a Blanquette of chicken made from one of the leg and thighs. This is a braised dish done in white wine and chicken stock. So when making the sauce, I reduced the braising liquid and then thickened it with a beurre manie and a liaison made of heavy cream and egg yolk, it’s then finished with just a dash of lemon juice to brighten the flavor. The leg and thighs were fall apart tender and the rich sauce was wonderful. The last entrée we tested and tasted that night was the French classic Coq au Vin. The other leg and thigh braised in red wine and chicken stock then served with its own braising liquid turned to a sauce, again reduced and thickened with beurre manie. Garnishing the lovely leg and thigh combo was plenty of bacon lardons, quartered mushrooms, and pearl onions, and this classic stood out. The meat was also fall apart tender and seasoned perfectly from its time in brine. For simplicity, cost and the overall crazy amount of food for four people to eat, both stews were served with a simple, but tasty pommes puree, and a retesting of the peas with lardons, and pearl onions.
For dessert that evening, everyone had a beautiful quenelle of homemade chocolate amaretto mousse garnished with homemade marcona almond brittle; which was just the right thing after eating so much food.
Since that dinner party there have been three more, two that tested the remaining meat items and one that retested some recipes that I didn’t feel great about the first time I did them, but I don’t want to overload your appetite, so perhaps next week’s post will be a part two to this one explaining the three most recent dinner parties. Each time I’ve done one of these I’ve learned a great deal, and always find new areas to improve, and naturally everyone who comes to one has a wonderful time.
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