Casual Dinner Parties, Part 2
If I didn't have time to do a full dinner party when our friend Jean came over on Saturday (see below), I certainly didn't have time to do one the very next night when our friend Chris came over. I went to the Fancy Food Show from ten until five (along with Hillel, Lauren, Alex, and the two Debbies from tastingmenu.com and my friend Tim who runs Zocalo Coffeehouse). More on that later.
Still, I managed to get food on the table. I started with the same salami/olive platter we had had the previous night. When I bought supplies, I bought enough for both nights to keep things simple for me.
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| Chicken Pot Pie and California Salad |
I also didn't serve a separate opener. Instead, I made chicken pot pie and "California Weed Salad" as Chris calls it. You know, warm goat cheese on a bed of greens which have been tossed with dried cranberries and candied nuts? Standard fare in California Cuisine restaurants. But I didn't actually candy the pecans; I toasted them. And I didn't have dried cranberries.
Oh, and I warmed the goat cheese by frying it. Warming in the oven is so banal.
The chicken pot pie used chicken from the roast we had had the previous night, as well as various veggies, all in a bechamel sauce. I'm sad to say it, but the puff pastry was store-bought, not homemade. I had hoped to make some the night before, but never got around to it. I decided to make palmiers with the scraps of puff pastry I had after cutting out circles for the crusts. Always my favorite way to use up puff pastry.
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| Dessert |
Chris had asked if he could bring anything, so I asked him to bring fixings for dessert, which we would make here. We poached pears in syrup until they were soft, and then pulled them out and kept them warm. Poached pears are simple but good. I scooped out all the spices from the syrup, and reduced it until it was a light caramel. At that point I added cream to make a sauce, leaving us with a spicy pear-flavored caramel.
To serve, my original idea was to just do the three pear pieces on the caramel sauce with piped creme fraiche. It was Chris's idea to add the asymmetrical elements. He's very artistic, and our combined efforts produced one of my favorite dessert platings to date.
That's it for now on casual dinner parties. In a couple days I'll post a review of bacar, where we had our first Dine About Town dinner.
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