Are you not a mega good cook, but do you really enjoy inviting people over for dinner? to come eat? Then I will give you a few tips and tricks that will make your guests think you are a master chef. Or maybe you want to show off a bit for your date? That works too.
– First of all, it is important to work with good products. You have to be willing to spend some money on that, but then you have something good and it tastes a thousand times better. So buy a really nice olive oil from a delicatessen or an olive oil shop. The same goes for balsamic vinegar and mustard. Seriously, a drop in your salad from the supermarket's house brand is so much less tasty. But also regarding crackers: don't get those Melba things, but go for a slightly more expensive version. Or slice pieces from a baguette, drizzle them a bit with olive oil and put them in the oven for five minutes at 180 degrees. If you get good ingredients at home, you need so little to put a delicious feast on the table.
– Let's continue with the really good ingredients, namely: go to a cheese shop and buy burrata (that's a very creamy young mozzarella). Place it on a plate and tear it a little apart so that the cream drips out a bit. Drizzle the whole thing with olive oil and a bit of coarse sea salt, add a few fresh basil leaves and you're done. This is already a wonderful appetizer or starter that everyone can take a piece of with a fork to then place on a cracker or eat straight away. Just as delicious.
– By the way, if you're in that cheese shop, let the cheesemonger help you pick some out. Cheesemongers love to explain what you should have. Choose about four or five cheeses for a cheese board. Also ask about chutney or some kind of apple syrup that goes well with the cheese you choose. Take a wooden board, place the cheeses on it, add a small bowl with some kind of jam (god, just say you made it yourself), some grapes and walnuts next to it and you have a top cheese board. Serve all this between the main course and dessert. Then you are really showing off.
– This summer I hosted a big dinner in my garden as a housewarming. I served fruits de Mer. Believe me, you will impress with that and it took me no longer than fifteen minutes to prepare. Here's how you do it: Go to a fishmonger who also has a lot of shellfish. Buy (already cooked!) crab claws, prawns, king crab, langoustines (Norwegian lobster). Just get what you like as long as it's cooked, because then you don't have to do anything else. Take a large dish and pour crushed ice on it (you can also buy that at a fish shop) and arrange the seafood on top with some halved lemons.
– For sauce, you can make a nice lemon mayonnaise. Do you know how? Take mayonnaise (make sure it's good), squeeze some lemon juice into it and add a bit of zest from the peel. Add salt and pepper, stir well and voilà.
– At the poultry shop, the chickens often rotate in the oven. Completely ready to eat, that's delicious. Serve sweet potato fries with it, for example. Come on, you have to do something yourself, so I'll give you this a super simple recipe from I love health.
– For the fries, you can also score high points with truffle mayonnaise. Very easy. Mix mayonnaise with a generous spoonful of truffle tapenade (which almost every large supermarket has) and you have a delicious sauce that you can serve just like in a restaurant.
– Now we have arrived at dessert. You can of course buy a cake from a pastry shop, but if you put in a little more effort, you can have something much tastier and also homemade. Much more fun and then it's also more believable that you really spent the whole day in the kitchen slaving away for dinner. Here it comes: Okay, you can buy one thing ready-made, namely a few meringues (a type of foam cake). You can find those at the pastry shop. Crumble them in a large bowl. Puree a container of strawberries (first rinse them clean and remove the crowns, of course) and fold them through the crumbled foam. In another bowl, put 1/8 cup of cream and a generous scoop of sugar and whip it into whipped cream. Now gently mix the mess together. Serve this in small bowls and believe me, after one bite everyone will be on their feet.
– And lastly, you can still this read. In this, Josselin explains how to beautifully set the table.
