Easy pre-prepared dinner party for 4
The Saturday before lockdown we were due to have our friends Clare and Alan over for dinner. The four of us pondered all week whether we should go ahead or not with COVID-19 raging through the world at such a rapid rate. On the Monday we had no idea when lockdown was going to happen or whether it would even be possible come the Saturday. Should we? Would it be irresponsible?
When it became obvious that we were going to head into lockdown and the realities of not seeing friends and loved ones started to hit home, we all wanted a last meal. The feeling I think we all had was that this would probably be our last get together with anybody outside of our respective houses for some time, little were we to know then that this would be the case for 4 months. That day radio, TV and people kept referring to the Dame Vera Lynn song we’ll meet again and honestly in a weird way it did feel like that.
We entertain a lot and I love it, I get to cook all day, catch up with friends, have a lot of laughs, good food and wine. It makes me really happy.
We all decided that it would be we a very low key dinner nothing too elaborate and definitely not the full on late drunken nights it can sometimes slip into… but a sensible socially distanced dinner.
Although the sun was shining it was cold so I wanted a long slow cooked warming dish but not a stew type dish. I couldn’t quite settle on what to have but then making a cup of tea I saw a tub of mascarpone in the fridge and in the cupboard I had a jar of calabrese chilli sauce, perfect for an Italian inspired evening and slow cooked beef ragu is so so so delicious, hearty, comforting and warming.
The food madness had already started and so I did wonder if I would be able to get the beef and parpadelle but the Seal supermarket had some really beautiful parpadelle and the butchers had some gorgeous beef cheeks which are perfect in a slow cooked ragu sauce so I was happy.
Calabrese spiced breaded mussels
Beef cheeks with parpadelle
I am usually happy to potter in and out of the kitchen all night but thought that it made more sense today to have dishes that could be fully prepped and pretty much ready to go. The meal I decided to go with was:
Calabrese spiced breaded mussels
Beef cheek with parpadelle
Tiramisu panna cotta and amaretti biscuits
Everything could largely be cooked in advance just leaving the mussels to be grilled and the pasta to be cooked which meant I could spend the few hours with our guests.
I started with the tiramisu panna cotta as it needs to set and the longer it has to set the better. I then moved on to the ragu so it had 4 hours to soften as much as I wanted it to. Then I made the spiced butter and finally the biscuits.
Just before our guests arrived I put the butter, and Parmesan breadcrumbs on the mussels in a grill pan ready to be grilled later.
When our guests arrived it was a simply case of grilling the mussels, cooking the pasta and grating the Parmesan.
Tiramisu panna cotta and amaretti biscuits