This week we hosted our first dinner party in our little flat in Bethnal Green. While far from perfect — we ran a BYOC (bring your own chair) dinner, and could only invite three guests due to a lack of cutlery — I loved the experience, and our guests left happy and full.
Deciding on the menu
Perhaps the most fun part of hosting, besides the event itself, was deciding what to cook. A week before, we had already started coming up with ideas, thinking about what our guests would enjoy and what would be simple enough to cook on the day. We, of course, looked to Ottolenghi for inspiration.
Without hesitation, we opted for a herby and spicy marinated chicken as our main dish. We’d made the recipe, although with lamb, a couple of times before, so we were confident that we could recreate it under pressure. Well, not much pressure, as all it takes is a little bit of foresight and preparation, followed by baking on the day. We opted for corn-fed chicken and it turned out delicious. We paired it with homemade mashed potatoes, honey-glazed carrots, and smoked paprika and garlic-roasted courgettes. Unfortunately, no photos exist, but just know that it was incredible.
We also knew that before the main event, we wanted to serve a summer salad. Again, we looked to Ottolenghi, adapting his chargrilled peach and speck salad to what we had available. This salad received mixed reactions, I think because endives can be a bit divisive, but I personally really enjoyed it and would make it again. It was citrusy from the orange, salty from the speck, sweet from the peaches, and bitter from the leaves. No notes from me.
We were so excited about our salad and main that thinking of dessert only occurred to us the day before the party. Since we had already bought peaches, we landed on very easy-to-make puff pastry pockets with sliced peaches and raspberry jam. For how little effort they took, these were a hit and a perfect ending to the meal.
Finally, or firstly for our guests, we wanted to offer them a cocktail before dinner. After the success of a pitcher mojito recipe we tested at my birthday party earlier in the year, we decided to recreate it. This recipe is super simple and allows for batch preparation in advance, meaning no time is spent in the kitchen and away from guests preparing cocktails. The plus side is that it is very easy to skip the gin and turn it into an alcohol-free lemonade for those who don’t drink.
And so, now we had our menu: starting with a mojito and some snacks, followed by a charred peach and speck salad, then a herby chilli chicken with roasted vegetables and mashed potato, and finally peach and raspberry puff pastry pockets. Because the chicken was marinated ahead of time, it took no more than one hour of work to get everything else ready before our guests arrived, and we managed to avoid prep time between dishes in the kitchen and away from our guests.
See the full dinner-party menu and recipes →
Hosting our friends
It helped that our three guests were friends we knew would not judge (at least in front of us, as their Britishness prohibits it). The atmosphere was relaxed and, as much as we wanted to impress them with our hosting skills, there was no stress in doing so. We chatted about the books we were reading this summer, our trips away, and many other wholesome topics. We did veer into politics once, to our dismay, but we managed to all leave the conversation unscathed.
Our living room, while small and chairless (hence the BYOC), turned into a lively scene. Having moved in only a month ago, it made me so happy to see the space so full. The realisation hit me that I’m achieving things that one year ago I could never have dreamed about from my tiny bedroom with merely a bed and a desk. And with someone by my side to do this with too.
And the best part of the night: once they left, we cleaned up while debriefing on the evening and went straight to bed.
All in all, a very successful first dinner party, and hopefully the first of many. I hope, though, that we eventually read this back with a couple more chairs and a big dinner table in our living room.
