dinner menu ideas?

[mnfoodie]

We're having a small dinner party with professional colleagues and I have no good ideas what to serve. Please suggest something! I can cook anything, and have all day to do it. I just need some inspiration to get me started. I can always fall back on a fool-proof old favorite, but I want to stretch in some new direction.

None of the guests have any food constraints that I know of.

Thanks!

[hathor]

Take a stroll thru RecipeGullet...there is tons of inspiration there.

[mnfoodie]

Take a stroll thru RecipeGullet...there is tons of inspiration there.

I don't use this site much, because I find the interface just baffling. I found RecipeGullet by doing a search for that text string on the wntire page. I might never have know it existed without you mentioning it.

I'll go look.... I'm hoping for menu suggestions more than actual recipes.

Thanks!

[Carolyn Tillie]

Have you checked with your guests to see if there are any allergies or aversions? When trying to impress, I often start with a pâté de foie gras or caviar with toast points and champagne. A lot of people don't eat either foie gras or caviar...

Then I would move into a 'fish' course - two seared scallops with a grapefruit beurre blanc, perhaps? (Burgundian-style Chard for this course)

Then a meat; truffle-stuffed game hens or venison steaks with a cherry-port wine reduction. Depending on what looks fresh at the market for vegetables, I'm partial to garlic-sauteed spinach as a green. (California Cabernet)

Cheese course with Sauterne for dessert for me - and maybe some elegant petit fours to finish out the meal.

[mnfoodie]

A lot of people don't eat either foie gras or caviar...

The guests are European and one of them fed me caviar at his house, so I don't think that's an issue.

I was thinking the meal need not be a heavy one, and I am partial to fresh vegies these days. I think I've decided to open with a morel vol-au-vent. These something salad-greensy, then some sort of veg dish that includes some chicken or duck, because we believe that most vegetarian cooking can be improved with the addition of a small amount of meat. :-) Perhaps some variation of the enchanted broccoli forest.

Ramps, fiddleheads.... um.... think think think.

Certainly cheese, but probably also a lemon tart, because I like a little sweet, but am not interested in chocolate right now.

[Carolyn Tillie]

If you've got access to fresh morels, the vol-au-vent would be exquisite.

Regarding your lemon tart... Cherries are in season! - consider instead of the lemon tart, a Cherry Clafouti which is something you rarely see in restaurants and can be so elegant. Surprising how few people know what a clafouti is and it is so hideously easy to make...

[Jaymes]

Surprising how few people know what a clafouti is and it is so hideously easy to make...

Do you have a favorite recipe for the topping/pudding?

[mnfoodie]

So...

The guests just left, and it was a lovely meal!

I served: morel mushrooms vol-au-vent (puff pastry by Pepperidge Farms). The recipe I used was basically this: saute shallots in oil, add shrooms until they wilt, add 1/4 cup dry white wine (I used the Verget "Vaillons" Chablis 2001 white burgundy that we drank with the early courses), cook slightly, spoon into puff pastry cups, serve. This was delicate and truly fine, and easy enough that I recommend this to anybody.

Next up was the salad: I made a version of this eGullet recipe. Starting with organic Romaine (check it three times for bugs!), I included snow pea pods, grape tomatoes, baby carrots, fava beans, and ramps. I bought a nice black radish and a jicama and ran out of time and enthusiasm for including them. The "twice-dressed" aspect of the salad was unusual, but the tarragon cream was wonderful.

I followed that with a chicken dish. Of course I adjusted for local conditions, using thick slices of large, garlic-stuffed green olives for the smaller ones the recipe calls for. This was a delicious dish, and was all the better when our guests were late arriving and I turned the heat down and let them cook slowly.

As a side dish I sauted some oyster mushrooms and chopped shallots in a little oil, and added a couple of bunches of red kale, chopped into bite-sized pieces. This sautes down wonderfully. We served a Domaine du Pegau with this.

Dessert was a crashing disappointment. The taste was good, but the execution was terrible. On advice of a eGullet poster, I found a Cherry Clafouti recipe. It was (and I suppose this was stupid of me) a Martha Stewart recipe. The batter was as thin as milk and it set up into a custard-y sort of thing. Like I said, tasty, but not rewarding, and not what I expected.

I had cheeses on hand to do a cheese course, but decided to skip it.