Dinner party help: salad & soup suggestions

All -
My mother's 60th birthday is this weekend and I elected myself chief of the dinner party. So right now we are shooting for a 6-7 course meal for 15 guests. I need some input on the salad, soup, and any suggestions on the fish entree.

Course 1 - Amuse Bouche - bacon & eggs from Thomas Keller's French Laundry book

Course 2 - Salad - Have a couple ideas here, but looking for anything superb you think might fit into the meal

Course 3 - Soup - Butternut Squash or a roasted root veggie - are these going to be too heavy for the overall meal? Planning to use small cup portions.

Note 4 and 5 have not been locked in place yet

Course 4 - Fish - Getting some fresh halibut from Dirk's. Pan searing is not an option due to quantity and using an inconsistent electric stove top. Thinking poach in olive oil, dust with sea salt and a crack of pepper. Any thoughts on what else to serve this with? Perhaps a chive or basil infused olive oil? Usually i make halibut and just pan sear at home, but I feel like i need to dress this up a bit.

Course 5 (floater course) - Cheese or Pasta - This plate is not necessarily here in the right order, but I needed to put it somewhere. Looking at doing a composed cheese plate or a lighter pasta dish like an herb gnocchi.

Course 6 - Meat - Hangar Steak and Gorgonzola polenta

Course 7 - Dessert - Birthday cake and homemade gelato


Looking for any feedback at this point. This will be my first coursed meal like this, although I have been testing for timing this week and have two other accomplished home cooks helping.

I like to cook for my parents on their birthdays too, however I've never put forth a menu quite this ambitious. Best of luck to you.

I think a butternut squash soup sounds good for a third course, since you will be serving a cup, and not a bowl. I know it can have a good bit of cream in it, but I've never thought of squash soups as very heavy.

Cooks illustrated had a recipe for salad with baked, herb-crusted goat cheese a few years ago. The recipe called for crusting goat cheese rounds with crushed melba toasts. They listed a few riffs on a basic recipe--I liked the one with dried cherries. This is a nice recipe for entertaining because you can actually assemble the herb-crusted goat cheese rounds, freeze them, then pop them into the oven for about 10 minutes and assemble the salad. I have the recipe somewhere--if you are interested PM me and I can give you a rough outline. For soups, hmm, when is the party (to contemplate appropriate seasonality)? How about a seafood bisque (shrimp and corn?)

Just a few quick thoughts:

1. Keep the portions small. There are a lot of courses and you really don't want people to get full too early. You want people to really enjoy those last few courses.

2. I don't think your soup ideas will be too heavy if you are serving small portions, as you indicated you plan to do.

3. I love the idea of fish poached in olive oil. The beauty is that you can keep the fish in the oil until you are ready to plate (I find it useful to slightly blot the fish on a towel, and then turn it upside down to serve - so the blotted side is on top). My wife and I made olive oil poached cod the other night and it was divine. I like the idea of an herb oil. What if you made a simple potato gratin and to serve with the fish. I think that thinly sliced pieces of potato, perhaps interlaced with hearty green, would go really well.

4. I'd limit the cheese to one course, maybe two. Most of your dishes lean towards the heavy side and so you want to balance things out with some lighter, refreshing dishes. Think acid: perhaps work citrus in somewhere, with the salad or fish. If you have cheese in the polenta, you probably don't want to have a cheese plate right before that.

5. Minimize the amount you have to cook on the spot. Do as much advance prep as possible. That's why I like the idea of a gratin.

6. I like the idea of something between the fish and meat. Think about something small and refreshing; something that will cleanse the palate.

Have fun!

I like thaiobsessed's baked goats cheese salad idea, particularly since it can be preped in advance. If you add this though I'd ditch the cheese floater course (you've also got cheese in the polenta). I have a good warm lentil, arugula, walnut & goats cheese salad recipe that's another option you could try - its just assembled at the last minute & I think it would be scalable for the number of people at your party. I wouldn't do a pasta course since you're serving polenta with the hangar steak.

The soup sounds fine - if you use a recipe that either avoids or uses minimal cream it won't be heavy, particularly since you're serving a small portion. A lighter alternative since its spring would be something like pea, lettuce & mint or asparagus.

For the fish course, you could also consider poached or baked salmon. I like Delia Smith's recipe for foil-baked whole salmon (its on her website here) - its very no fuss & can be preped well in advance for a large number of people. I think her baking method would probably work for other fish such as halibut as well.

Wow, thanks for all the great feedback so far everyone!

I am starting to wonder about the bacon and eggs amuse bouche. It is essentially a spoon with a poached quail egg that has been reheated in a beurre mont (sp) and then topped with a brunoise and crumbled bacon. To me this sounds delightful, but I am wondering if the bigger group will have issues with quail egg.

In regard to a salad, what about this (stolen from a friend of mine): one large leaf on the plate (more or less decoration) then a nice frisee, goat feta, olive, pickled peppers mix on top with some sort of clean vinaigrette. What do you think?

Again, appreciate all the help, going to be an undertaking!

My dinner party go to salad i s shaved fennel with supremes of orange, deressed with cracked black pepper, drizzle of olive oil, juice from the orange "leftovers" and grated or shaved pecorino.

Nice and light and almost everything can be done in advance. I have had the salads prepared and sitting in the fridge under plastic for up to 2 days before, then just pull em out drizzle with oil, drop on the cheese and crack pepper over them.

Just tell them it is bacon and eggs. You don't have to say quail egg.

The butternut squash soup in a recent Food and Wine was really good, very squashy and not much else. It uses creme fraiche and I thought it was pretty light as there is no stock. It also has a banana, pecan, maple syrup garnish which was pretty interesting.

I highly recommend the "Caesar" Salad from the French Laundry Cookbook. It's fairly time-cosuming because there are a lot of components (parmesan flan, crostini, tuille, parmesan dressing, etc.) but it's absolutely delicious and it's a very stunning dish.

If you don't own the book, I'm guessing you could find the recipe and method somewhere on-line but I'm not entirely certain.

=R=

Here's a post about the French Laundry Ceaser: http://carolcookskeller.blogspot.com/20 ... -with.html

I would imagine that you could do a simplified version where you either skipped the flan or replaced with something (perhaps deviating from the classic Ceaser ingredients).

Darren72 wrote:Here's a post about the French Laundry Ceaser: http://carolcookskeller.blogspot.com/20 ... -with.html

I would imagine that you could do a simplified version where you either skipped the flan or replaced with something (perhaps deviating from the classic Ceaser ingredients).

It's hard to knock someone who's basically cooked their way through the entire book but I disagree with her assessment of the salad. I made it exactly as the recipe was written and it turned out great. Not only did I love it but the people who were at that dinner party still talk about the salad, and that was like 3 years ago.

In any case, you could certainly come up with endless variations, as there are so many components to the dish. And one nice thing about it is that you can work ahead on several of the components, like the dressing and the flan.

=R=

Yeah, by linking to that post, I didn't mean to imply that the dish perhaps wasn't that good. I just thought it was a useful way to show the dish to those who don't have the book. To me, the dish looks great and I'll likely try it (perhaps skipping the flan).

but I am wondering if the bigger group will have issues with quail egg.

Some people don't like poached eggs, period, but if you were to serve one, the smaller quail egg might be better.