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Impromptu Dinner Party

I enjoyed hanging out with my friend Joe over New Year's, so last weekend I suggested that we get together on Saturday and do some wine tasting and maybe some cooking. It turned into an impromptu dinner party. We met at 4 to discuss possible dishes, went to the wine store by 4:30, made it to the grocery store by 5:45, made it to his place by 7, and served dinner by 9. The menu:

I've been on a fish/shellfish cake kick ever since the company party. I think I'm mastering one basic approach. I need better control over the frying temperature to get a nice even browning on the outside, but other than that I've been making them consistently well. Easy and quick to make, and they use ingredients that can be found in most any kitchen (with the possible exception of the panko). A useful addition to the repertoire.

(And while we're on the topic of breading, see this fascinating page in the wonderful Cook's Thesaurus.)

The salad was simple but quite excellent -- very refined. Joe found some fantastic grapefruit and made a very balanced dressing from sherry vinegar and olive oil.

The Puligny-Montrachet was a little disappointing. It was a younger and considerably less expensive brother of the wine that I had at the company Christmas party. Perhaps with a few more years under its belt it might approach the kind of complexity that its older sibling had. At this age, though, it was just a well-balanced Chardonnay. It's still more expensive than domestic Chardonnay. I might have prefered the two bottles of the Kendall-Jackson "Great Estates" I could have gotten for the same price.

We decided we wanted lamb to eat, but couldn't settle on a preparation. When someone mentioned "Shepherd's Pie", we considered the matter settled, as it rendered the preparation of side dishes unnecessary.

Neither of us had ever made a Shepherd's Pie in recent history. (I think I made one once around seven years ago for a girl I was trying to get into bed; she didn't sleep with me, so it couldn't have been that good.) But it didn't matter, because it was easy as, er, pie. You make some mashed potatoes (truffled, parmesaned, or garliced is good). You cook some ground red meat (beef is fine, but lamb is better) and fresh spices. You parboil some nice tender vegetables. You optionally make a small amount of gravy, perhaps a pan sauce from the drippings of the ground meat. Then, in a casserole, you put the meat and vegetables down, pour the gravy on top, and apply a thick layer of mashed potatoes. Throw it in the oven until the potato crust browned on top and everything is heated through.

We wanted to use braised lamb shank instead of ground lamb, as in this recipe, but wisely decided we didn't have time. I'll do that when I make this again, though.

Joe found some great baby vegetables, including some near-dazzling golden beets.

This is another useful addition. It's a great party recipe because of its one-dish-meal nature and because it scales effortlessly.

Once again, few details on the wine. I apologize; I don't have the bottles in front of me, and it's been a few days at this point, so I've forgotten most of the names. It was a pretty wine, a nice expression of Grenache. It may have been a little feminine to pair with this dish, but I wasn't complaining.

January 8, 2003 in menus, old_site | Permalink

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