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6 days ago
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One of the great joys in life is enjoying good food with friends. It can taste all the better if you have cooked it yourself, but this isn’t something that comes naturally to everyone. What are the best tricks to pull off a meal – whether it’s for two or 20? Here, chefs share the simplest ways to wow at a dinner party.
Don’t try too hard
“Rather than trying to impress people, it is actually the opposite that ultimately does impress,” says Rosie Kellett, who hosts supper clubs in London and is the author of In for Dinner.
“My advice is keep it really simple. Cook something that you know you’re going to nail and feeds the right amount of people. Go for the heavy-hitters that are solid gold in your repertoire.”
Make a base meal that caters for everyone
“Say you’ve got two or three different dietaries [dietary restrictions] within your party,” says Kellett. “Make a base meal that everybody can eat and then have optional additions.”
She gives the example of making a vegan dal with rice that happens to be gluten-free, with sides of sambal and marinated roast chicken, because “if my dad was at the table, he would be like, ‘Where’s the meat?’ That is optional, but the base meal is delicious, plentiful and doesn’t make the people with dietaries feel like they’ve been excluded. It also makes things way simpler for you.”
Be organised
Jimmy Lee, who is chef proprietor of Lychee Oriental in Glasgow, has been throwing dinner parties since he was 14. He stresses the need to be crystal-clear about the ingredients required, to avoid the realisation that you have forgotten something at the last minute.
While prepping for a dinner party, Lee recalls “making glutinous rice balls with a cashew nut filling. I forgot I needed butter for it, so I had to run out in the middle of the night to Tesco.”
Lee is known for his 60-second recipes, but even these need meticulous planning, he says.
Some chefs, like Kellett, make a schedule: “I’m neurotic. I write a play-by-play of what I’m going to cook, when I’m going to cook it. In an ideal world, everything has been cooked before anyone arrives,” she says.
Go for things that are “great at room temperature, or could be bubbling away while people are arriving, and then you have just got one little salad, salsa or dip to pull together, which you could probably hold a conversation while doing”.
Be sure to set the table before guests arrive: “If the host is flapping around and has got their head in the oven and hasn’t set the table, then it can create a chaotic vibe,” says Kellett.
Stock up on basics
“Even though I know what I’m doing in the kitchen, I’m always doing it with very little time,” says Thomasina Miers, Guardian columnist, co-founder of Wahaca and author of several cookbooks including the recently published Mexican Table. “For me, feeding my friends is about hacks and shortcuts while also making sure they are going to eat the most delicious food possible.”
Miers says she “squirrels away stuff that will be useful … If I have a great sourdough that is going stale, I will blitz it and then freeze the crumbs. If I’m at my local farmers’ market, I’ll always buy a smoked cod’s roe, because I know I could then make a starter in 10 minutes. I always have a kilner jar full of French dressing: I make it once a month.”
This all helps “on the day that you come back from work and realise you’ve got 12 people for dinner”, Miers says.
Don’t choose recipes with too many ingredients
Using pantry ingredients can avoid dinners getting too costly, says Kellett. “If you’re cooking for a very large group, then making a massive batch of a curry or stew is a cost-effective way of feeding a lot of people, and it’s still mindblowingly delicious.” She made tinned mackerel pasta for a supper club in Los Angeles “and it went down a treat”.
Another hack is frozen fruit, says Kellett: “It is so cheap in comparison to fresh fruit. If I wanted to use raspberries in the middle of winter, I’d buy frozen and defrost them.”
Go for seasonal ingredients
“Try to cook recipes that focus on what is in season,” says Kellett. “It is generally cheaper. It’s also a no-brainer, because all the ingredients in season right now are going to taste better. If you’re in the UK and you decide to make a panzanella salad in the middle of October, your tomatoes are going to be watery and expensive.”
Practice makes perfect
When Lee appeared on the Great British Menu, “I made the main course at least 50 times before I went on the show.” That is an extreme example, he concedes, but he says it is integral to test a recipe before serving it.
Last week, Lee cooked dinner for some VIPs: “I made haggis spring rolls, using haggis from a craft butcher. I did a taste test a week before and it was wonderful. You wouldn’t want to serve a dish that you haven’t tested.”
The bigger the group, the simpler it should be
For groups of six and over, Kellett advises making one dish: “If it’s lots of people, the effort is in making the bulk of the food.”
When it is a smaller group, you can be more elaborate: “The other night I had a couple of friends over and I roasted a chicken, I made my own mayo, I did a green salad and made chicken-fat potatoes. There was pudding. I went a bit more all-out, because there were fewer people, so it felt less intimidating and less daunting.”
New York-based Jake Cohen loves a dinner party: his latest book is called Dinner Party Animal: Recipes to Make Every Day A Celebration. Despite having done a lot of entertaining as research for the book, even he still feels the need to dial it in sometimes.
“I take the best NYC bagels, I make a homemade tomato sauce and get some mozzarella, and we bake it and it’s delicious. It’s as high-end as the pizza bagel can get but it’s still pretty casual, and everyone loves it.”
Don’t be afraid to ask guests for help
“Quite often, someone will say, ‘What can I do?’ And then they’ll be chopping herbs, making cocktails or spreading toast. I think that’s fun and makes people feel included,” says Miers.
But when it comes to dishing up, it can be best for the chef to present it the way they intended: “I’m quite controlling about food, so if I want everyone to experience the meal I’ve cooked in a certain way, then I probably will serve it for them,” says Kellett.
Stun with simple starters
“I always have chicken livers in my freezer,” says Miers, “because I can make a chicken liver paté in very little time, which is cheap, delicious and people always go absolutely wild for it.”
Miers loves a salad starter with seasonal ingredients such as leaves or roasted pumpkin, toasted nuts and seeds, oil, possibly some blue cheese and a dressing, which is “very luxurious, colourful and fresh, and pretty easy to assemble when your friends are there”.
She also recommends a white bean dip: “Confit garlic the week before, then blitz it through with white beans and lemon zest, and make a charred jalapeño oil to drizzle on top. The combination is delicious.”
Master foolproof mains
Miers recommends Thai pad kra prow, “a beef or venison mince salad with bird’s eye chilli, lime and fish sauce. It is easy and affordable. Serve with rice and maybe some wok-fried pak choi.”
She also suggests wowing a table with a whole fish: “It takes 20 minutes to cook from start to finish. It’s way easier than pan frying eight filets.”
Marinade it in something like a pipián: “Toast pine nuts and pumpkin seeds, blitz them in an upright blender with tarragon and parsley and mint, add a touch of allspice and cinnamon, char some onions and garlic, and the sauce you get out of that is absolutely incredible.”
“I have a recipe which is a confit tomato and chickpea stew,” says Kellett. “You throw all the ingredients into an ovenproof pan with a lid – you don’t chop anything – and then you put it in the oven for three hours. When it comes out, it’s been transformed into the most silky, delicious stew of all time. It’s got so much flavour.” Serve with couscous, rice or a salad with a tahini drizzle, she suggests.
“Cook a normal dish, but think outside the box a bit and add your own flavour or twist,” says Lee. “For example, make a beef and black bean sauce, then add a wee bit of whisky, so you’ve elevated it.”
Choose crowd-pleaser puddings
“Sticky toffee pudding is an absolute backbone of winter cooking,” says Kellett. “I have a version of it, which has prunes rather than dates in the sponge and a lot of ground and candied ginger. If you want to be slightly more adventurous, a pavlova is a really good way to go. The meringue can be made up to a week in advance and kept in an airtight container. And then all you have to do on the day is whip cream and add fruit. Another one is tiramisu. I recommend making it 24 hours in advance and refrigerating to get the right texture. It always wows.”
“Puddings can be very simple,” says Miers. “You could buy some good quality vanilla ice-cream and make your own hot chocolate sauce, which you then pour mescal all over.”
Miers also likes to make quince jam, “because it’s pretty easy to make and it means I can do a cheeseboard instead of pudding. It is a very easy way of adding a special touch.”
“It is all about the pud,” says Cohen, who confesses to having a major sweet tooth. “If you have the time to do it all, do it all. And if you don’t – outsource the pudding.”
Seat guests wisely
“If there is a quieter, more reserved person,” says Kellett, “I’ll make sure they are sitting next to someone who is quite chatty who can carry it a bit. If there are people who I’ve always wanted to meet but haven’t met yet, I’ll put them near each other.”
Sit guests “next to someone they don’t have anything in common with – they might have a more interesting conversation”, she says.
Carefully curate a playlist
“Think of the music as a guest,” says Cohen. “I’ve been told by friends that Brat [by Charli xcx] is not appropriate to play at a dinner party. Sometimes it is and I lean into that.”
If you want a more sedate vibe, Cohen recommends Jessie Ware, Regina Spektor or Sara Bareilles to “make people’s sympathetic nervous systems calm down. You’re trying to get people to let their guard down. Food is a part of that, but the ambience is as well.”
Relax
It is easier said than done, but “If you’re relaxed and having fun, then your friends will be too,” says Miers. “Above all, people just want to have a drink, some nice music and have fun. If you’ve got delicious food, that’s an added bonus.”
Know that almost everything can be rescued
If it all goes horribly wrong, “You can salvage most things,” says Cohen. Even the most seasoned chefs “have moments where it’s like, ‘OK, I really messed this up – do I have a box of pasta in the pantry?’ and throw together a cacio e pepe”. If all else fails, he says: “Order a pizza.”
