Fabulous Dinner Party Inspiration

The hardest thing to write is a Dinner Party menu. It has to be perfectly balanced, flavours have to marry, it can’t be too rich, top heavy on meat, or too traditional or it just looks like an 80s kitchen disaster. You don’t want your guests to go away hungry, yet you do not want them to go away so full that they toss and turn all night thinking they wished they hadn’t eaten and drunk so much.

Miranda has worked as a private chef for 10 years. This is a tough gig. The guests a private chef cooks for, have invariably spent many a night dining in some seriously good restaurants or have a passion for good food. It is nerve wracking cooking dinner parties as a private chef.

When it came to writing and designing all the menus at The Firehouse Somerset, most of which still feature to this day, the experience of menu planning for the rich and famous was very useful indeed.

Writing a good menu is an art. A balance of using ingredients well so there is no waste, simple things that can be made or prepared the day before so you can enjoy your dinner party and not be chained to the kitchen all evening slaving away over a hot stove.

You want a crowd pleaser using cheap cuts of meat or fish, cooked to the highest standard and plated to look like a million dollars. Less is more, and that is what you will learn on this course.

You will learn to make a few interesting nibbles to wow your guests when they walk through the front door. This will keep them quiet while you finish up in the kitchen. Some little parmesan biscuits, some smoked mackerel pate from Brown and Forrest Smokery down the road in Hambridge on rye crackers. You will learn to make a traditional focaccia so that if you make a simple supper for friends this can be the centre piece with some delicious antipasti.

You will look at a few sample menus to get some inspiration. You will make a deliciously seasoned puree to go with seared scallops. How about making your very own traditional Beef Wellington, pommes dauphinoise and some seriously original and seasonal vegetable dishes? Or a Spanish Chicken with Romescu sauce and a herby Red Carmargue Rice?  If you are more partial to fish then you will make a delicious tomato and chorizo sauce to go with Monk fish steamed in saffron, or what about George Perry Smith’s signature dish of Salmon En Croute? Whatever the season and whatever takes your fancy, we will menu plan together and devise the perfect dinner party for you and then teach you how to cook it. You can try it all for lunch and go home confident enough to recreate everything for your next dinner party.

Start time: 10am

Finish time: 4pm

Course time: 4 – 5 hours

Lunch included

Price: £150

Course limited to 6 people

Group Offers available