Last night, D-Day minus 14, we decided to throw a dinner party to test the menu.
Appetizers: Although the food will be buffet-style, these will be served at every table.
Pita - We got the Pita bread from a local bakery. These are very good, and the bakery often makes orders for restaurant.
Hummus - For pita dipping. The hummus turned out to be very tasty, but the garbanzo beans were a bit hard, so making the spread smooth took a lot of effort. Note: pressure cook for longer. It tasted very very good, but it will be a long process.
Mint Chutney - This cilantro and spear-mint spread turned out perfect, and was a great counter part to the hummus.
Raita - This bland yogurt cream is used to tame spicy flavors. It was good, but a bit unnecessary.
Salad:
Green's - We had some fresh green's with sesame sticks and two different dressings. The homemade Ranch was tasty, but we felt that we rather go for something lighter. The other dressing was a spicy olives' oil. The consensus was to go for just a simple vinaigrette.
Main entrees:
Quinoa - This rice-like grain was cooked with onions and recaito. This improvised recipe turned out to be very good: light, fluffy and with the recao aroma.
Escarole - An italian bean dish with spinach, onions and tomatoes. It was so good, and went perfect with the Quinoa. This was my favorite dish.
Wheat Roast - Glutten, the protein extract from wheat, is used as the foundation for this meat-like vegetarian dish. Mushrooms and a gorgonzola cream made this very tasty. The texture was a bit spongy, but the vegetarians insisted that it was the way it should have been.
This is not the completed menu. Due to the time and equipment constrains that we had in the test run (it was in a small kitchen, compare to the fully equipped one we will have), we didn't prepare everything that we will on D-Day. We will smoke 90 pounds of pork, as well as make 16 cheese flans.
The test-run was very successful. It helped us to calibrate the portions, as well as understand the difficulties of the different dishes. If we have the promised equipment, I'm pretty confident that we will have a very successful catering for this wedding. We plan to start cooking on D-Day minus 2, so it will a three day cooking marathon.
2 comments:
Some suggs: The menu seems a little bland at the beginning. Just humus, not enough. Needs (beige humus and bread) color and a stronger flavor in the same plate. A strong kick to begging is always good. Maybe a pickled something, maybe beets (at arab food stores) or marinated greek olives. All can be made the day before, and I suggest you use the canned garbanzos (cooking your own is just not worth the trouble), or place dried ones in water the day before making the humus. Plate the humus on some mezclum, some pickled beets, olives, feta cheese cubes and half a slice of tomatoe couple of large pita bread baskets on the table, and you would have apetizer and salad. Use some simple good vinegar great olive oil (virgin , cold press) little salt and mint (chopped, ) Pass it around, and that's it.
A soup, can also be made the day before. It's spring time so use the freshest vegs. available, cooked in a canned (carton is best) chicken broth. First sauté onions, garlic(not much) and the veggies in some oil and butter to bring out the flavor, add the broth, put it in a food procesor and add some cream (half and half) when you heat it to be served and some butter for shine. plate and add some chopped whatever, parsley, scallions, or croutons , or grated cheese, for garnish, depends on the veg. you use.
Now for the entré: What you fixed seems great. It has starch and protein, and color (red tomatoes, and the gorgonzola sauce sounds delicious to cover the bland taste of tofu and/or glutten, and/or soy meat dishes.
The flan is great and can be ready a couple of days in advance, your menu sounds great. Are they having a wedding cake? If so, maybe fruits for desert is better, flan and cake could give everyone a suggar fit!!!.
All the food can be fixed a couple of days before and then all you'll have to do is to plate everything and get it to the table. You'll be rested, your feet wont hurt and you both can dance at the wedding.
Good luck, and hope you enjoy the wedding!
The humus-salad-antipasti combo thing should be plated individually. If you are using china, do it in a salad plate if not there are some really cute salad plates (square ones in clear plastic) in big party stores (or in restaurant equipment retailers). They even have nice and inexpensive gravy or salad dressing servers.
Post a Comment