First Dinner Party

At last I took the time and courage to organize, prepare and cook a six-dish dinner (seven when counting the bread) party for some of my lucky best friends. I was working on this evening since too long ago, thinking about ideas for dishes, collecting recipes and inviting people. The last three days were dedicated to buying, testing, prepping, cleaning, shopping and cooking all the small parts that made the whole dinner together. I had luck and Barak’s plans were cancelled for this Friday and he helped me throughout the whole day and evening. Thanks Barak, I really appreciate it! Also I had Shir, Anat and Ishay helping me with serving and some cleaning and it made a big difference.

On this post I will describe the big picture of the meal itself, and later on I will elaborate with details of all the stages of preparations I had along the way. Enjoy!

My twelve guests,

The Menu for the dinner. Barak had it designed brilliantly.

 #1 – Bread. I actually made 4 loafs of bread with butter but didn’t take a picture of it as served. Sorry about that. This is a picture of the french bread as it came out from the bread maker.

Dish #2 : Mussels with parsley and garlic butter over fennel, smith appels, red onions and mint salad with mustard dressing.

The salad underneath.

Dish #3: Terrine of tomatoes, basil and mozzarella, bacon cover, dark aspic and olive oil.

Before slicing:

Plated:

 Dish #4: Four Mochi balls: spinach and black sesame, pork and black beans, mixed pork and spinach with black tobico on top and sweet coconut milk and cashew. Served with soy-chilly dipping sauce.

The balls are made of rice flour dough that’s boiled and turns to soft little dumpling. The chilly sauce was spicy and was either loved or disliked by my guests.

Dish #5: Grilled baby squids over carrot cream and basil oil with roasted garlic cloves, crispy za’atar and caramelized baby onion.

This was declared as the winner of the night by many of my guests, even the non-seafood lovers. I also loved how it came out, looked like a painting and the flavors combined really good together 🙂

Dish #6: Peach Carpaccio marinated in wine vinegar and dry vermouth, Braised Breast of Goose.

Dish #7: Almond and pears puff pastry, white chocolate cream, two fresh cherries.

Some pictures of the people, eating, talking, and helping me:

Thanks Sharin for taking pictures of all the people!

And thanks everyone who took part, encouraged and enjoyed this evening with me.