Antipasta – Spanish Chicken with Chorizo, Cubed Potatoes and Roasted Mediterranean Vegetables – Tart Tatin served with a Brandy cream

My style of cooking for our dinner parties is fairly basic, but tasty (I hope) and easy to. The hardest part is to think up different menus, so I don’t repeat anything, and also when you are hosting, it is nice to prepare and cook as much as you can in advance, or dishes that do not need to be cooked when your guests are ensconced, so you spend most of the time with your guests rather than being in the kitchen. You can read about my style of cooking here

Dinner Party Menu Idea for 4 People

For my latest 3 course dinner party  I decided to do a Mediterranean theme which was great for summer

STARTER:  Antipasta

Ingredients (Make up a plate or board of your own choice, with quantities depending on how many you are catering for).  My choices included:-
A variety of Italian/Spanish meats, which can be bought all ready packaged in any supermarket
Cheeses (again I bought a packet of 3 different cheeses especially for antipasta)
Olives
Stuffed Peppers
Sundried Tomatoes in Olive Oil
Mozzarella balls
Ciabatta and a special bread with jalapeno peppers, chillies and 3 cheeses (but again the choice is yours)
Dipping Olive Oil

Method

Arrange all of the above (except the breads which I served in a bread basket) on a suitable plate or wooden board how you wish to display it.  I did put the olives in a little dish in the centre of the wooden board

Put in the centre of a table and let your guests tuck in.

Have some dipping olive oil on the table so that your guests can put some on their plate for dipping the bread or sprinkling over the meats

MAIN COURSE:  Spanish Chicken (Serves 4/5 depending on the size of your chicken) Served with Roasted Mediterranean Vegetables, but you could serve it with any sort of vegetables or rocket salad)

Ingredients
2kg Potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes
4 lemons
1 Whole Chicken (approx. size 2kg)
300g Chorizo Sausage (sliced)
Fresh flat leaved parsley (stalks removed and the leaves chopped)
2 Garlic Cloves peeled and finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Olive Oil

Roasted Mediterranean Vegetables (again use vegetables of your choice) but I used
Butternut squash peeled, deseeded and cut into good sized chunks
Corgettes, sliced
Peppers (different colours) deseeded and cut into narrow slices
Onions chopped
Garlic chopped
Tomatoes (different colours if you can get them, halved if quite large) or cherry tomatoes
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper

Method

Preheat oven to 220

Place the potatoes with 2 of the lemons in a saucepan of water and boil for 5 minutes.  Drain and then prick the lemons all over with a knife (these will be put in the cavity of the chicken and their juices will burst with flavour and  make the chicken taste amazing)

Remove the parsley from the stalks and use these to go inside the chicken with the lemons

You will need a good size roasting/baking tray and take a piece of greaseproof or baking paper and wet it under the tap so it becomes flexible and then lay this in your tray

Place the potatoes in first and then lay the chicken on top then place in the sliced chorizo and some of the chopped parsley (not all of it as you will need the rest for the gremolata garnish).  Drizzle over a good glug of olive oil and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Cook for about 1 hour 30 minutes

For the gremolata, just grate or chop the zest of the remaining 2 lemons and mix with the remaining chopped parsley, chopped garlic, a little bit of lemon juice, salt and pepper

Once the chicken is cooked take it out of the oven and leave to rest, but put give the potatoes a shake and pop them back in the oven to crisp up

Carve the chicken and divide between the plates with the potatoes and chorizo and then spoon around  the vegetables.  Pour any juices left in the tray over the chicken and then sprinkle on the gremolata

For the Vegetables

Place all the ingredients in a large roasting dish, season with salt and pepper and drizzle over a few good glugs of olive oil and mix well to make sure all are coated

Cook in the oven with the chicken for about 1 hour stirring ocassionally

DESSERT:  Apple Tart Tatin served with Brandy Cream

Ingredients
50g butter
50g golden caster sugar
1/2 tsb ground cinnamon
6 medium eating apples of your choice (Russets are good) peeled, quartered and cored
Packet of fresh ready rolled puff pastry

For the brandy cream
200 ml carton crème fraiche
2 tbsp icing sugar
1 tbsp brandy or calvados

Preheat oven to 220 (fan 200).

Melt the butter gently  in a  20 cm tart tatin tin or if you don’t have one (like me, as I just used a deep china flan dish which was fine) I used a saucepan for this bit.  Stir in the sugar and heat on a low heat until it starts to caramelise.  Stir in the cinnamon and then pile in the apples and cook over a medium heat for about 10 minutes stirring frequently to coat the apples in the sauce.

Remove from the heat and if you have been using a saucepan then tip the apples and every bit of the sauce into the dish you are going to use

Unroll the pastry and prick it all over with a fork.  Lay the pastry over the apples leaving a rim of about 2 cm so that you can tuck this in snuggly around the apples down the inside of the dish

Bake for about 20 – 30 minutes or until the pastry has risen, firm and golden.

When the tart is cooked leave it to settle for about 5 minutes and then run a blade of a knife around the edge and invert a plate over the top and then turn it over making sure all the juices are poured over.  Slice and serve with the brandy cream

For the brandy cream

Just mix the crème fraiche with the icing sugar and brandy or calvados

Cut slices and serve with the brandy cream

Dinner Party Ideas and suggestions of what I think goes together best

See my other dinner party menus suggestions here