Hors d’Oeuvres: A Chef’s Study.

Recently, some friends of mine hosted a cocktail party in order to fundraise for The Genesis Center where I teach Culinary Arts. Subsequently, I catered hors d’oeuvres for the evening. This posting is dedicated to that event and to Barbara and Harvey Lee for hosting it. Bon Appetite!

Any kind of catering event, small to large, cocktail parties to weddings, requires careful and tedious planning. Everything must be accounted for and every contingency must be anticipated. After gathering basic information on the event, scouting out the site and its resources, a menu can be drawn up. This is where the fun begins. At the event, with the help of three of my graduates, we served five different hors d’oeuvres. Here is our menu:

This menu was designed to reflect late spring to early summer. Note the transition from eggs, ham (prosciutto) and herb salad to tomatoes, sweet potatoes, shrimp and grilled chicken. Here are the preparation notes to three of the menu items:

The first was a simple, yet elegant contribution to the menu. To make the deviled quail eggs first boil and peel them, then trim the tops and bottoms flat. Next, hollow out their yolks with a small tool (try using a straw if nothing suitable is available), and place them upon a mini socle made of sea salt and pepper. Then mix a basic deviled egg filling using the scooped out egg yolks, a few extra cooked hen egg yolks and a generous amount of goat cheese. To finish, pipe in the filling using a pastry bag and tip, and then top each egg with bright red lumpfish caviar (an obvious upgrade from paprika) and snipped chives.

For the mango-stuffed shrimp, simply skewer some large peeled shrimp (tail on), lay them down on a thin slice of prosciutto along with fresh slices of mango, roll them up and then saute them. As they cook, the skewers will keep the shrimp straight and the prosciutto will shrink and tighten around the shrimp. To serve, remove the skewers and dip the shrimp into a tall shot glass filled with horseradish aoli. To make the aoli, just blend egg yolks with lemon juice, salt & pepper, horseradish, chili, garlic, and Worcestershire sauce to taste. Blend in olive oil until it is proportionately 2/3 of the mix.

 

The final menu item, the chicken lollipops, is the easiest to make. To create a lollipop, take a raw chicken wing drum and use a knife to trim the meat from the smaller side of the wing back to the larger side. Use a dry paper towel to pull the meat to the larger side so that the bone is completely exposed like a handle. Marinate the chicken overnight in olive oil, teriyaki sauce, hoisin sauce (available in the Asian foods section of your local supermarket or any Asian market), lots of garlic, fresh thyme and some brown sugar. Grill and serve. To make a sauce, reserve half of the marinade, add sesame seeds, bring it to a simmer on the stove and then thicken it with a cornstarch slurry.

Preparation notes are not as precise as recipes. So if you are trying any of these recipes and can’t figure out a quantity, just post a comment and I will post right back.