2019 Holiday Party

As usual, we hosted an insane amount of cooking in our annual holiday party, this year themed around The Avengers (no, not Steed and Peele).

The Menu - Avengers Assemble!


The first dish we thought of was Hulk Smash Potatoes! Boiled, smashed roasted and garnished with pesto.


Next we figured Iron Man needs Shawarma, in a shell of some kind (Shawarma and Zhoug recipes from Ottolenghi's Jerusalem, shell from Nicole Routhier's Cooking Under Wraps, probably our most essential party recipe book). Served with the zhoug, tzatziki, pickles and pickled turnips.


Next up, Captain America, with a shield-shaped cheese ball (dried cranberries and blueberries, with a white american cheese star), and US cheeses from Stamper Cheese: Donatello, Pleasant Ridge Reserve, Mustard Seed Gouda, Smoked Blue.


Rounding out the original Avengers, what better for Thor, the god of thunder, with Swedish Meatballs (Alton Brown recipe). This disappeared faster than we expected (note to self: more meatballs, less sauce).


Falcon "Redwings" used Alton Brown's steam-then-bake method, with a spicy rub put on after steaming (then frozen until the party before baking up crisp). Blue cheese dressing and a cherry BBQ sauce made with leftover pie filling from the cookies (later).


Ant Man "on a log" deviled eggs: Filling has cream cheese, garlic chives, celery seed, lemon juice; garnished with thin slices of celery and peanuts.


Black Widow's Russian origins are featured in home-smoked salmon with blini, creme fraiche, capers, minced shallot, chopped egg, tobiko and salmon caviar


Hawkeye's transformation as Ronin in the last film is turned into yakitori negima (chicken and scallions), the homemade tare came out really nice. Momofuku pickled shiitakes on the side.


Moving on to the not-really-Avengers: Doctor Strange gets Nepalese momo with a tomato chutney flavored with mustard oil. Fillings are pumpkin on the left (more underneath) and pork on the right.


Groot from the Guardians of the Galaxy gets featured as a salad. I adapted a radicchio and sweet potato salad I found online by adding Thanos Snap peas and tree branch-like Indian crunchies, and kicking up the dressing with more garlic and some dijon mustard.


For Black Panther, I wanted a part of Africa I hadn't cooked before, so we made injera, collard greens and tibbs from Ethiopia (adapting the tibs to a tougher cut [sirloin tip roast] so it can sit for hours).


Last, Spiderman, the dish I'll never make again. "Webbing" shrimp in spiralized potatoes is way too much work. Someone suggested [Peter] Parker House Rolls.


And now for cookies:

As always, the only reply to this is WOW.

Missing images?

Aargh, I'll fix the images later. I hadn't shared the album, and all the links are borked, I will need to re-post them.

Odd. The images were all there when I first looked at the post.

lougord99 wrote:Odd. The images were all there when I first looked at the post.

I never did see them, though I could tell you could.

Cathy2 wrote:

lougord99 wrote:Odd. The images were all there when I first looked at the post.

I never did see them, though I could tell you could.

For me, they were there. Then they weren't there. Now, they are there again.

Joel, it looks like it was a spectacular party!

=R=