Good Time Cooking

AN INTRODUCTION TO HOSTING

To understand why I have written this book you should probably know a bit about me. First things first – I bloody love to host. Ever since childhood I have been having people to supper, although I must confess my first few menus included cold bowls of mud soup and steak and chips made from plastic blocks. Feeding people has always been my favourite thing to do. The elation of putting a smile on someone’s face with food you have made is incomparable and truly addictive, and is certainly what drove me to train as a chef. Cooking itself has always felt more of a reflex to me than anything else. It’s something my body does to survive. Happy or sad, busy or slow, I often find myself cooking before I even know what I am doing; it is the thing that soothes, grounds and inspires me most.

Since I started working in food, first as a chef over a decade ago, and then as a food stylist and recipe developer for the last eight years, I have hosted my fair share of dinner parties. I didn’t set out to have one of those ‘How DO they do it?’ moments, but that is literally what my guests would ask me each time they came over. My stock answer would always be ‘well I am a chef, I know things’. When the idea for creating a Dinner Party newsletter first came to me in January 2022, I realized I would finally have an opportunity to share those mysterious ‘things’ that made cooking for crowds easy.

With the newsletter, ‘The Dinner Party’ I wanted to create a one-stop-shop for people to cook a menu for a dinner party that was cohesive and achievable, and that made them feel confident. One of the first things chefs are taught is that menus need to flow in order for service to flow. You include easy, ingredient-led dishes to give time and space for the more complicated and protracted plates. You do as much prep as possible, even if that just means chopping something up and putting it back in the fridge. You write mise-en-place lists so you can keep track of your prep and make sure it is done in the right order. This is all stuff that is normal in a restaurant but rarely considered in the home kitchen. I think people get hung up on the idea of things being ‘freshly cooked’ and also simply don’t cook often enough to feel confident planning things out. A good restaurant service, and in turn a good dinner party, is a delicate balance between preparation, intuitive cooking and stress-free reheating. With each recipe and menu in this book, my aim is to kit you out with the tools to nail these three key skills and to walk you through them, with my hand on your shoulder, as your friend in the kitchen. A structured menu enables you to wow and please your guests without losing your whole evening to cooking. You can relax and enjoy yourself, drink and be merry. Consider this book a manual for both cooking and hosting.

THE STORE CUPBOARD SAVIOUR ONE

STARTER

BROCCOLI AND CANNELLINI BEANS WITH BASIL AND LEMON

MAIN

AGLIO, OLIO AND ANCHOVY SPAGHETTI

DESSERT

CHILLI OIL AND PEANUT BUTTER KNICKERBOCKER GLORY

My pantry is my best friend in the kitchen. It has all I need to bring a dish to life or to reinvent an old classic, and is more often than not the backbone of my recipes. This dinner party menu is all about using the store cupboard to its full potential. Fresh ingredients are necessary, of course, but don’t always have to be the key players in a dish, even for entertaining. The fact that these recipes use

mostly dried goods doesn’t make them any less impressive, in fact, I think the ingenuity is something to be celebrated. Plus, they are a whole lot cheaper and relatively quick to make, too.

This is a gorgeous dinner party for leaner months, when you need to put those hoarded ingredients to work.

GETTING AHEAD

Broccoli and Cannellini Beans with Basil and Lemon

Aglio, Olio and Anchovy Spaghetti

Up to 3 days before – –

Up to 2 days before – –

Up to 1 day before

On the day

› Can make cannellini and basil cream

› Roast broccoli

› Make cream

› Assemble

Chilli Oil and Peanut Butter Knickerbocker Glory

› Can make chilli oil

› Can make chilli oil

Up to 6 hours before

Up to 1 hour before

To serve

Broccoli and Cannellini Beans with Basil and Lemon

› Can make cannellini and basil cream

› Can toast pecans

› Roast broccoli

› Top the cannellini and basil cream with broccoli, lemony beans and pecans; serve with warm bread

› Can chop garlic and chilli and keep in fridge in oil

› Make sauce

› Toss with pasta

› Add chopped parsley

› Can make chilli oil

› Make chilli oil

› Whip cream

› Assemble

MISE-EN-PL ACE

Aglio, Olio and Anchovy Spaghetti

› Can chop garlic and chilli

› Can cook garlic, chilli and anchovies

› Bring large pan of water to the boil

› Chop parsley

› Cook pasta; toss with sauce and combine with parsley

Chilli Oil and Peanut Butter Knickerbocker Glory

› Can make chilli oil and cool

› Warm peanut butter

› Whip cream

› Freeze serving bowls

› Top ice cream with chilli oil, peanut butter and whipped cream

SERVES 6

For the broccoli

600g (1lb 5oz) Tenderstem broccoli

2 tbsp olive oil

11/2 tsp dried chilli flakes (optional)

1 tsp flaky sea salt

finely grated zest of 1 lemon

For the basil and cannellini cream

3 x 400-g (14-oz) cans of cannellini beans

41/2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

freshly squeezed juice of 1 lemon

1 garlic clove, peeled

30g (1oz) fresh basil leaves

30g (1oz) toasted pecans

MAKE AHEAD

› You can make the cannellini cream up to 24 hours ahead, but the rest of this dish is best made fresh. It can sit at room temperature, though, for a couple of hours.

SUBSTITUTIONS

› If cannellini are not your bean of choice, then feel free to use butter (lima) beans or chickpeas (garbanzo beans). Lentils would also work well here too, although you might not want to blitz them as the mix would be a muddy brown.

› I always have pecans lying around, but top this with whatever nuts or seeds you have – sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, almonds, hazelnuts and walnuts would all work.

› Regular broccoli can also be roasted, just cut it into small florets, or if you prefer you can use asparagus or thinly sliced courgettes (zucchini).

SCALING

› You will need roughly 1 can of beans for 2 people, just blitz half and plate half, plus 100g (31/2oz) of broccoli per person. I like to do this as a sharing starter, but double those quantities if you want to serve this as a main meal.

Canned pulses are truly heaven sent when you need a quick and delicious, robust and exciting plate of food. For years, my midweek meals have been dominated by them, usually orienting around a version of a bean stew of sorts, affectionately dubbed ‘witches brew’ by my old housemate. With a little bit of magic and a few tricks up my sleeve, it would always become something so much more than the sum of its parts. This dish is more of a salad than a stew, but it engages the same principle – take one ingredient and think laterally with it. Then you have options, you have intrigue and you’ll have something very tasty too.

STARTER

BROCCOLI AND CANNELLINI BEANS WITH BASIL AND LEMON

Preheat the oven to 200°C fan (220°C/425°F/Gas 7).

Trim off the hard ends of the broccoli stems, then lay the broccoli across 2 roasting trays with the olive oil, chilli flakes (if using) and the sea salt. Roast in the preheated oven for 15 minutes – the florets will become scorched and crunchy and the stems will wilt and soften slightly. When they are cooked, mix them with the lemon zest.

Meanwhile, drain 2 cans of cannellini beans, then put them in a pan with 1 tablespoon of the extra virgin olive oil, the lemon juice and a pinch each of salt and black pepper. Set the pan over a medium heat; you don’t want the beans to cook, you are just simply softening and warming them (cold beans aren’t nice to eat in my opinion).

Take the remaining can of beans and drain most of the liquid, reserving a couple of tablespoons. Pop these beans in a blender with 21/2 tablespoons of the extra virgin olive oil, the garlic clove, basil, the reserved bean liquid from the can and another pinch of salt. Blitz it all together to make a smooth, bright green cream.

To plate, smoosh the creamy cannellini bean and basil cream over your serving plates, then top with the warm, lemony beans and the charred broccoli, making sure to drizzle over all that lovely spicy, lemony oil from the roasting trays. Scatter over your toasted pecans, drizzle with the remaining tablespoon of oil and serve with warm bread.

SERVES 6

2–3 tbsp fine salt

800g (13/4lb) good-quality dried spaghetti

160ml (2/3 cup) extra virgin olive oil

12 garlic cloves, thinly sliced 3 tsp dried chilli flakes

120g (41/4oz) jarred or canned anchovies, drained

30g (1oz) fresh parsley, finely chopped Parmesan cheese, finely grated, to serve (optional)

MAKE AHEAD

› You can cook the garlic, chilli and anchovy mix up to 6 hours ahead and leave at room temperature if you prefer. Just reheat before you toss through the spaghetti.

SUBSTITUTIONS

› Linguine or bucatini would be lovely here instead of spaghetti. I do not recommend making this with fresh pasta as it doesn’t contain enough starch to make an emulsified sauce.

SCALING

› This is a large quantity to make at one time, any more and you will need to split into several pans. You will need 2 garlic cloves, 1/2 tsp of chilli flakes, 20g (3/4oz) of anchovies, 25ml (1 tbsp + 2 tsp) of olive oil and 130g (41/2oz) of pasta per person.

This is another dish that I have made myself for literally DECADES, and I am thrilled it is getting a space in this book because it is probably my favourite pasta dish of all time. Aglio e olio e peperoncino is a classic condiment for pasta that only requires a serious amount of garlic, oil and chillies, and not much else. Once my dad had got me hooked on anchovies in my late teens, I started to put them in everything and at uni in particular, anchovy pasta became my ‘thing’. This recipe might feel sparse and maybe not celebratory enough for a dinner party, but it is incredibly good and I think there’s a lot of merit in boldly serving something really simple. You’re saying to your guests ‘trust me, I know what’s good’. AND THIS IS BLOODY GOOD. I highly recommend this with Parmesan on top, although millions of Italians would fight me on that.

MAIN AGLIO, OLIO AND ANCHOVY SPAGHETTI

Bring a large pan of water to a rolling boil and season it with the fine salt – we don’t want our pasta water too salty here because of the anchovies. Drop the spaghetti in and move it all around to make sure it doesn’t stick or clump together and then set a timer for 7 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large frying pan (skillet) over a medium heat. Add the garlic, chilli flakes and drained anchovies and let them warm up and start to cook gently in the oil, sizzling away while the pasta cooks.

When the spaghetti has had its 7 minutes it will still be fairly chewy, but nevertheless use tongs to transfer it across to the anchovy and garlic oil. Once all the spaghetti is in, add 2–3 ladles of pasta water so that the spaghetti is almost covered. Keep moving the spaghetti as it cooks for a final few minutes in the sauce, making a thick and glossy emulsion. Add a splash more pasta cooking water if it is looking too dry.

When the spaghetti is perfectly al dente, remove from the heat and toss almost all the parsley through. Serve immediately with a final flourish of parsley on top and plenty of grated Parmesan for people to help themselves.

MY PANTRY IS MY BEST FRIEND IN THE KITCHEN. IT HAS ALL I NEED TO

BRING A DISH TO LIFE.

SERVES 6

For the fragrant crispy chilli oil

To be poured over:

20g (3/4oz) dried chilli flakes

25g (1oz) Korean gochugaru

chilli flakes or Aleppo pepper

1 tbsp soft brown sugar

1 tsp MSG

1 tbsp soy sauce

40g (11/2oz) toasted white sesame seeds

To be sizzled:

7.5cm (3in) piece of fresh ginger, peeled and very finely chopped (do NOT grate, it won't crisp up)

2 small or 1 large cinnamon stick, snapped in half

2 pieces of fresh orange peel

3 black cardamom pods, bashed but whole

15 black peppercorns, crushed

2 cloves

6 allspice berries

1 star anise

250ml (generous 1 cup)

flavourless oil such as vegetable or sunflower

For 6 Knickerbocker Glories

1.8 litre (60fl oz) tub of vanilla ice cream, for about 3 scoops per person

180ml (3/4 cup) crispy chilli oil (see above) or shop-bought

180g (61/4oz) crunchy peanut butter

300ml (11/4 cups) double (heavy) cream, softly whipped, or squirty cream

MAKE AHEAD

› The chilli oil will keep for up to 2 months in the fridge.

SUBSTITUTIONS

› Use any nut butter you like.

› Mint ice cream would be pretty wild here, as well as banana or pistachio.

› Use any chilli oil, although the crispy ones are the best in my opinion.

SCALING

› For each knickerbocker, you will need 3 tsp of chilli oil, 3 tsp of peanut butter and 3 scoops of ice cream.

Chilli oil and peanut butter are a fairly obvious pairing, but chilli oil and ice cream is not as well known. What I can say is they are SO GOOD TOGETHER, and here with the nutty, salty and creamy peanut butter, you’ve got a wildly delicious dessert that will wow your guests. It also relies almost entirely on ready-made stuff. If, however, you do like the idea of making your own chilli oil, then I’ve shared the recipe for mine. It is fragrant, spicy and doesn’t contain any garlic or onion, which I think makes it better on the ice cream. Other toppings are optional, however, I do recommend the whipped cream as a bare minimum.

DESSERT CHILLI OIL AND PEANUT BUTTER KNICKERBOCKER GLORY

I like to serve this in ice-cream bowls or glasses that have been kept in the freezer for a few hours to chill down – so, if you feel inclined, do that first.

Put all the ‘To be poured over’ ingredients for the crispy chilli oil into a heatproof bowl ready to go.

Put all the ‘To be sizzled’ chilli oil ingredients together in a small, heavy-based saucepan. Pop the pan over a medium heat and bring up to sizzling – this will take about 8–10 minutes. When the oil is sizzling, turn the heat to low, reducing the sizzle to a gentle splutter. Leave to gently simmer for roughly 20 minutes, stirring often, until the ginger pieces have turned golden and crisp. Using tongs and while still over the heat, pick out any big bits of spices like the cinnamon, orange peel, cardamom, cloves, allspice berries and star anise and discard.

Pour the hot oil over the ingredients in the heatproof bowl; they will sizzle and froth a bit but that’s fine. Stir and leave to cool.

To assemble the dessert, warm the peanut butter slightly in a pan or microwave to make it easier to drizzle. Put 1 scoop of ice cream in the bottom of each (chilled) bowl or glass, then top with 1 teaspoon of the chilli oil and 1 teaspoon of the peanut butter. Add a dollop of cream, then repeat the process with 2 more scoops of ice cream for each bowl/glass, finishing with more cream and a drizzle of the chilli oil and peanut butter on top.

LET’S HAVE A GOOD TIME COOKING

From a date-night linguine to a game-changing twist on a Sunday roast, Rosie MacKean presents 20 dinner party menus for guaranteed good times. With over 90 recipes for starters, mains, sides and desserts, alongside expert advice on how to prepare ahead and present your dishes beautifully, this book will make you a better cook and give you more time to enjoy your own parties. Whether you're hosting a cosy night in or the first BBQ of the summer, there is a menu to dazzle for every occasion.

Publication will be launched with a bold and unmissable marketing and publicity campaign, including broadcast, food media coverage, brand partnerships and influencer activity.

Rosie MacKean is a freelance chef, food stylist, home economist and recipe developer. Her substack, The Dinner Party has over 12k subscribers, and is recommended by some of the top publications on the platform. It averages 600 new subscribers every month.

Rosie's credits as a Home Economist include Michael Mcintyre's Big Show, Nadia's Family Food, I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, Gino and Family's Italian Adventure, and many more.

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#GoodTimeCooking

12th September 2024

Hardback | 9780008641399 | UK £26.00 eBook | 9780008641405

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