Appetizer Party Cheat Sheet

Planning an Appetizer Party

Continuum
LIGHT - MEDIUM - HEAVY

Time of Day
LIGHT- In between meal times - MEDIUM - During meal time - HEAVY

Length of Event

LIGHT- One to two hours - MEDIUM - Over three hours - HEAVY

Type of Guests

LIGHT

Seniors, women, children

MEDIUM

Men, highschool students, college students, church events

HEAVY


Bites per Person per Hour

Light Appetizers
4-7

Medium Appetizers
8-10

Heavy Appetizers
11-12

Example of Appetizers

Light Apps 1 bite - Vegetable trays, chips and dip, nuts, snack mixes
Medium Apps 2 bites - Dips with bread, cheese trays with crackers, sushi
Heavy Apps 2-3 bites - Chicken skewers, beef empanadas, mini quiche, Asian chicken wraps


Party Example

Time – 5-7 p.m.

Length – 2 Hours

Guests – Adults, men and women

Medium Appetizers = 8-10 bites per person per hour
8 – 10 bites x 20 guests x 2 hours = 320-400 bites total

4 dozen asian chicken wraps = 144 bites
4 dozen tortilla pinwheels = 96 bites
4 dozen bacon wrapped asparagus = 96 bites
1 dip in bread bowl = 30 bites
26 ounce veggie tray = 24 bites
Total = 390 bites

Cake Week

Mom's secret to sprucing up a box of white cake mix:

1 t vanilla
1/2 t lemon extract
1/4 t almond extract

Sunday Night - Arrogant vs Smart - White Trash Chicken

AKA Beer Can Chicken. Love this one. Of course I still don't have a 100% handle on the new burly grill. I know it's been two years. So sue me. Didn't get a picture, too busy eating.

1 whole chicken, rinse, pat dry
2 T more or less of your favorite spice rub*
1 can room temperature beer (money does NOT count here, I use bud light)
a handful of your favorite wood chunks** on a piece of heavy duty aluminum foil

Preheat gas grill with all burners on high and lid closed for 10-15 minutes***.

Rub spice rub under the skin on chicken breasts and thighs, being careful not to tear skin. Rub rest all over outside of chicken.

Open beer and drink off about ¼ of the can. Puncture extra holes in can top if you have a church key**** handy.

Put the can of beer, for lack of some classy culinary term, up the chicken’s butt, so that the chicken will sit upright on the tripod formed by the beer can and it’s drumsticks.

Open grill and turn off all but one burner (either far left or far right). Put the aluminum foil with wood chunks on the grill over the lit burner. Carefully put the chicken tripod on the other side of the grill, over the burners that are off.

Close lid. If you have a grill thermometer, grill should be between 400-450 degrees. Chicken will take 45-60 minutes. You may need to rotate chicken for even browning. If it starts to get too brown, tent with aluminum foil.

When thigh registers 165 degrees (don’t believe me that this is safe? Check this out http://www.fsis.usda.gov/News_&_Events/NR_040506_01/index.asp turn off all burners. Using either two sets of tongs if you’re arrogant, or pot holders in ziplock bags if you’d rather eat your dinner than watch it fall to the patio in super-slow-mo as your scream NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, remove chicken from grill to a plate (arrogant) or a pot (smart) being sure to keep it upright as the beer will easily spill out of the can and is now boiling hot. You can either let the chicken cool for 10 minutes and then lift it with your ziplocked pot holders while someone else uses another ziplocked pot holder to carefully pull out the beer can (smart) or single handedly grab/tackle/wrestle the chicken yourself, while trying to perform a beercan-ectomy from the chicken’s ass.


* If you don’t have a favorite spice rub, here is Cook’s Illustrated’s Basic Chicken Spice Rub

2 tablespoons ground cumin
2 tablespoons curry powder
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon ground allspice
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

** Wood chunks are much better than wood chips which burnout too quickly. For something like this that cooks under an hour, there’s no need to soak the chunks in water first. I use hickory for this, but mesquite or anything else you like is fine.

*** Why, you may ask, do I need to heat the grill for 10-15 minutes when it gets nuclear in about 2? Because, the actual grill and parts will take longer to absorb the heat which will create a more even cooking environment, especially when you’re opening the lid. This goes double for the oven, by the way.

**** Why is this called a church key? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchkey

Saturday Night - Chicken de Paola

Not sure what the name means, but this dish has oodles of possibilities. Also a good one to freeze.






1 10oz box frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
4 oz cream cheese, room temp or softened
1/4 c sundried tomatoes, chopped
1/4 c fresh basil, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 T pine nuts, toasted
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, pounded to 1/4 inch
1 sheet, frozen puff pastry, defrosted, rolled to 16" square, cut into 1/4s
1 egg beaten with 2 t water

Preheat oven to 475. Combine first 6 ingredients in bowl. Line baking sheet with parchment or nonstick aluminum foil. Top 1 chicken with 1/4 of spinach mixture. Roll up to enclose. Put chicken breast on 1 square of puff pastry, with chicken seam down. Fold up edges of pastry to enclose chicken, gently pinching edges of pastry to seal. Transfer to baking sheet. Brush with beaten egg. Repeat with remaining chicken/pastry/spinach mixture.

Bake 30 minutes.


This would be good with spinach/cream cheese/feta/kalamatas/sundrieds. Or duxelle. Or caramelized onions. Or any veggie ragout. Basically anything you'd cook chicken in or top it with would be good in this pretty package! Went well with the leftover Waterstone Chardonnay which tasted much better tonight than the night before.

Olive Oil Poached Fish

Olive Oil Poached Sablefish with Lemon and Thyme http://www.gildedfork.com/recipes/jul06/olive-oil-poached-sablefish.html

We had it the other night, and I was surprised at how delicate the flavor was. I thought it would be strong and oily (the dish, not necessarily the fish) but it was really mild, in fact not enough flavor for my taste! I tried it with a chard and a sauv and the sauv was much better go figure! But I didn’t like that particular chard very much. (Waterstone, Carneros 2005). The sauv was the one the liquor store guy recommended from Tillman in Napa Valley 2005. Never heard of it and couldn’t find anything on it on the internet. It was good and only $9 here so that would probably be 25¢ in California ha ha. I had a recommendation from another personal chef who makes the dish a lot to try an Albarino from North West Spain, or a reisling. Or a French or Spanish rose. Yikes. I’m still trying to get to know domestics.

Another thing that didn’t wow me about this dish is that sablefish has a line of bones that you can’t really remove before cooking because they’re very brittle. Of course The Husband bitched about this the whole time while eating. I've seen other recipes for oil poached salmon that call for infusing the oil with the flavorings. Maybe that will help. I tasted wild salmon against farmed salmon this week too. The wild was much more ‘salmony’ but the farmed was fine too.

Also had broccolini and broccoli rabe (rapini). Liked the broccolini but the broccoli rabe was too bitter for my taste. If I wanted bitter greens, I’d just have bitter greens and not mini broccoli bitter greens. But that’s just me.

I’ve been watching WAY too much foodnetwork.

The technique on the sablefish is oven for an hour at 250, and VERY easy. The salmon recipes call for infusing the oil, and then poaching on the stove while monitoring temp for about 20 minutes. The tenderness and moistness was GREAT with this cooking method.

Olive Oil Poached Salmon with Orange Fennel Puree and Mediterranean Vinaigrette http://www.salmonoftheamericas.com/chef_tramonto.html

Olive Oil Poached Salmon and Braised Artichokes with Sauvignon Blanc http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/232832

Cookies, Cookies and More Cookies

This week brought a frenzy of baking for client gifts. Chef Annise and I baked gingerbread men and snowflakes, sugar cookies, a variety of chocolate dipped cookies and Pistachio Coconut Meringue Bark. Luckily we've had a huge weather change here in Dallas (about a 70 degree drop!) which kicked the heat on so it was not too humid for the meringues and royal icing for decorating. Of course we had our share of challenges (why is nothing ever easy???). As you can see, my sous chef passed out early!