Cooking Tips
My first “dinner party” was a disaster a la Bridget Jones. I had invited a few good friends over, and planned an overambitious menu. I had no sense of timing or the recipes. I was making a risotto for the very first time with roasted garlic. I burned the garlic, and one of the guests had to coach me through the risotto, which seemed to take hours. I forget what there was besides the risotto, but I’d planned some sort of ice cream concoction at the end that I didn’t have time to put together. We ended up just eating plain ice cream from the carton.
Some of the lessons I learned right away: Do not cook a recipe for guests that I haven’t made already. One time-consuming recipe a night (if that). Always have a dessert back up in case time runs out.
But one risotto lesson has taken me many more years to learn. I’d buy a bag of arborio rice, make risotto, be reminded of how time consuming it is (even when I use the dump-and-stir method recommended by Cook’s Illustrated, of dumping in the first 3 cups of liquid, letting it boil down, then adding the rest in 1/2 c. increments) and how it doesn’t always make a meal itself, and often doesn’t leave leftovers, or at least tasty ones. So the bag of arborio would sit in my pantry until I was sufficiently removed from the experience to try risotto again. That bag would usually provide 2 to 3 risottos. I was always frustrated that no matter how long I cooked the rice, it still had a chalky texture. Then I bought a new bag, and noticed that the risotto wasn’t chalky. I realized the months-old, pantry-sitting arborio was probably to blame. So my new lesson on risotto is to buy arborio rice from the bulk section, in just the amount I need. I do the same thing with lentils. Just because something is dried doesn’t mean that it can’t be too dry. So now I only buy fresh dried lentils and arborio. It definitely makes a difference.
August 10th, 2005 at 3:03 am
Boy can I empathise. I always end up cooking something I’ve never done before, because here’s my chance to do something that I wouldn’t have bothered with for just the two of us. I’ve had some near disasters and at least one recipe that wasn’t great but was ok, but everyone was very nice about it and we had a fun evening together so it wasn’t all awful. I’m sure your guests had a good time too.
Re desert, jamie oliver recommends, if you have ice cream to hand, crushing some biscuits - ginger snaps, amaretti etc, and sprinkling over the ice cream. Immediately makes it more special. All you need is biscuits in the store cupboard.
August 10th, 2005 at 3:11 pm
Em, since you were one of the guests, and in fact the one who had to talk me through the risotto, I do hope you had a good time. The good thing about most dinner parties is that it’s good friends, so even if the food is uneven, there’s usually very good company.
I also find that fresh berries or maple syrup make good toppings for ice cream, and that a little extra chocolate sauce never hurts.