The Elaborate Menu
A Little Dinner Theater
An act of altruism. An act of service. An act of love. Cooking for others has been called many things, but it is always an act.
“What is a party if not a private performance?” wrote Ruth Reichl in 1985, in the magazine Metropolitan Home. “When you invite people into your home, you are issuing invitations to a special sort of theater.”
Oceans of ink have been devoted to denouncing “entertaining” as fussy, but performances — good ones, at least — demand a bit of fuss. For hosts like myself, so much of the fun lies in the blocking and choreography, the set design, the script.
I’ve pinned poached shrimp to Styrofoam towers, printed out paper menus, made Dutch babies and latkes to order, stretched prep work across days and even designed custom matchbooks to grab on the way out, all in service of making my home feel like a sexy restaurant for the regulars of my life.
I’ve tried to contort myself into the shape of a nonchalant host, and it always feels like a sham. True effortlessness lies in ordering a few pies and tearing up some romaine to serve alongside. So why not lean into whimsy and work, and stretch yourself for an audience deserving of a show?
The following menu, enough for you and five guests, embraces the elaborate, and the many forms it can take. There are dressings and flourishes to make ahead for two sprightly salads; a dish of braised lentils that works as both side and vegetarian centerpiece; a lacquered, glistening bird fit for showy presentation; and even a project dessert that you can set aflame for your guests.
Call it extra, call it Marthaesque. But no one will call it boring.
Finger Food With a Little Fuss
Throughout this menu, there are little opportunities to take things over the top, and this appetizer is one of them. A slippery supermarket shrimp ring this is not. Poaching your own shrimp in a seasoned bath — as Eric Kim does — imparts the seafood with the subtle yet distinct aromas of chile and celery seed, and ensures none of it ends up rubbery. Sure, you could make a straightforward horseradish-y cocktail sauce, but why not make three dipping sauces? Many might, at first, gravitate toward the garlicky dill butter, but the real spotlight-stealer is the unexpected curried honey mustard.
Tip: Lay the shrimp atop a bed of ice on your biggest platter, or divvy them up across coupe glasses and spoon in some dip. Or if you’re lucky enough to have a tiered tray around (or can find one at a thrift store!), now is absolutely the moment to break it out, seafood tower style.
A Showy Whole Bird
A whole chicken is hardly demanding on the host, but it elicits some of the more passionate oohs and aahs from guests, especially if you present it in all its freshly roasted glory, then saunter off to the kitchen to expertly carve and plate it. For a bird reminiscent of both Cantonese soy sauce chicken and American Chinese orange chicken, Genevieve Ko pairs poultry with whole, peel-on tangerines, yielding a remarkable amount of flavor from just a few ingredients. The citrus slices soften in the chicken’s juices, giving the peels a candied quality that makes them a thrill to eat.
A Dish on Double Duty
Roasted Mushrooms With Braised Black Lentils
A substantial side dish that doubles as a vegetarian main ensures no eaters are left out of the fanfare. This Gabrielle Hamilton recipe is broken up into three delicious parts, providing the cook with a dish to linger over before guests arrive: the base of slowly simmered lentils fragrant with fennel; a middle layer of meaty mixed mushrooms, on which you can splurge, if you like; and a final flourish of buttery croutons flecked with parsley and lemon zest.
A Salad to Make You Blush
Herby Tomato Salad With Tamarind-Maple Dressing
Apart from slicing the tomatoes and assembling, every step of this dynamic, restaurant-caliber salad from Hetty Lui McKinnon can be accomplished ahead of time. A day or two before the party, fry the shallots over low heat, paying close attention to them so they don’t venture a shade past light golden brown, and whisk up the tangy dressing.
A Playful Nod to a Party Classic
Green Salad With Sour Cream and Onion Dressing
At an elaborate dinner party, a “simple salad” has the potential to be anything but. So take a big bowl of crisp lettuces — that’s it! — and douse it in Jesse Szewczyk’s sour cream and onion dressing for a luxurious yet playful pop of green, inspired by a hall-of-fame party food. And because we’re in the business of going big, finish it all off with a handful of crushed potato chips.
Tip: The most cost-effective way to mimic the intimate ambience of your favorite restaurant? Low lighting (a mix of scentless taper candles and tea lights of various heights will do the trick) and some smooth and groovy tunes (Sade? Steely Dan? Whatever you like!) make all the difference. Any handwritten menus, name cards, florals or favors are just meringue on the baked alaska.
Dessert and a Show
End the meal on a dramatic note with a project recipe that doubles as table-side entertainment. Zoë François’s birthday baked alaska, adapted by Dorie Greenspan, allows you to make things as complicated or as easy as you’d like (you’ve already worked so hard!). Make ice cream from scratch or buy your favorite pints. Line the base with store-bought lady fingers, as the recipe instructs, or go as far as to use homemade pound cake as your foundation. Nonnegotiable, though, is that the whole affair go up in flames.
A Boozy, Batchable Beverage
Resist the temptation to play bartender all night. Instead, mix up Rebekah Peppler’s batched 50-50 martinis in advance so that everyone can prepare their own tipple as they snack on shrimp. Make two batches — one for the gin loyalists, one for the vodka apologists — and put them out on ice alongside glassware, preskewered stuffed olives, pickled onions and cornichons, bitters and brine, and twisted citrus peels for a communal cocktail hour.
Tip: Several parts of this menu can be done in advance: You can build the inside of the baked alaska an entire week ahead, and the meringue the morning of. Make both salad dressings and shrimp dips a couple of days in advance; you could even poach the shrimp the day before. And you can also prepare lentils and mushrooms a few hours ahead and gently warm them before serving.
Keep the party going with even more recipes at NYT Cooking.
