Easy Dinners To Impress Your Guests | Nigella Bites | Tonic

Trust me, there is a way of inviting people over for dinner without ending up hating them, the kitchen and the world. I mean, the best food is often the simplest food. But most of all, remember that this isn't a culinary obstacle course, it is just dinner. My absolute favourite fallback stress-free supper is lamb shanks and creme brulee. I always start with the creme brulee, which simply involves cream, vanilla, eggs, sugar, a sink full of water and a blowtorch. Now the reason that I've filled that sink full of cold water is that when you make a custard, which after all is what creme brulee is, it can split, there's always that danger. And so I know that if I've got that cold water there, if it looks like it's going to curdle, I just run over with my pan and plunge it into the sink full of cold water and all will be well. Okay, so what I want to do first is whisk and pour in the warm cream, complete with a pod. Lovely. Back in again with the vanilla pod. I mean, the more intensive vanilla-y the better, especially if you're eating this after strong flavours. Back on the heat. Now, low heat if you're of a timorous bent and slightly higher if you like to live dangerously. And stir until it's thickened. Now, I use this lovely wide pan simply because the more surface area that's being heated, the faster it will thicken. The one thing you do have to do is stir constantly, but having said constantly, this only takes a few minutes. There's something very calming about the smell of vanilla. Maybe it's because it's a component in mother's milk. I don't know how this could be so, but I'm told it is. Now, it's thickening really well. I mean, you want this thick. And of course, remember that the custard will thicken as it cools. Just take out the vanilla pod. And now, I just want to go and get the dish which I put in the deep freeze so it's really cool. Just pour in. I know it doesn't fill to the top, but this is very rich and you don't need a huge amount. And you know by now that if I say that, it must be true. And that's all you need to do until it's cold. Then stick it in the fridge. And then it gets properly chilled. And then it's just a question of sprinkling on the sugar and torching it. The term dinner party has such hideous connotations when, in fact, you do want to invite your friends round. But most of the time, I just want lots of food on a table and everyone can dive in as they want. No dinky procession, of course, is. This is something I do perhaps the most often. It's an aromatic lamb shanks stew with couscous. Now the first thing I need to do is brown these lamb shanks in batches. Now, lamb shanks are the knuckle end of legs of lamb. And like all cheap cuts, they need slow, long cooking. But the flavour is so much better than sort of more expensive, fancier cuts. Right, turn over. I think real home food is about this sort of cooking. Restaurants can do a quick flash fry, but this is what I want to eat in people's houses and my own. It is important to brown them on both sides because the fat, when it's pallid, looks particularly unattractive. And anyway, this way you seal it and get a lot of flavour. And also, you render some of the fat down into the pan, which gives, again, a lot of flavour for browning the onions in later. Now, there are two onions here, four cloves of garlic. But I don't want you to get bogged down with weights and measurements because stews are not like that. It really is sort of go with the flow time. And now, I said this is an aromatic lamb stew. Let me show you my aromatics. That's nice and soft. Turmeric first, which is less of an aromatic than a beautiful food dye, that golden yellow. It adds a bit of depth too. A bit of ground ginger, that's full of sweet heat. Cinnamon. Slight Middle Eastern quality. Not too much or we're into sort of apple pie time. Some crushed chillies. I like this quite hot. And some fresh nutmeg. A good stir. You know, really, how much or how little you add of these spices is up to you. So, taste as you go along. All I would say is, add enough so it doesn't taste as if you're being apologetic about the spiciness. And now, some marsala. I mean, there's no logical reason why this goes in, except that I always keep marsala around. And I love the depth of smoky taste. But, you could add red wine, you could add cherry, you could add nothing. Some honey. Lamb is sweet anyway. Just a bit of honey brings out that sweetness. Not too much or it'll be sort of pudding-y. And soy. Now, I know a bit of globe trotting here. I don't mean to be piteously eclectic. It's just that I find soy gives you a sort of intensity of savouriness. So, this onion mixture has cooked to a spicy-sweet sort of tangle of flavours. And what's wonderful is, as soon as your friends have come in through the door, they'll be hit by this aromatic fog. Perfect. Put the lamb shanks back in now. And then, it's just a matter of adding a little bit of salt. I'm going to add a little bit of salt. Put it back in now. And then, it's just a question of covering with water and cooking for an hour and a half. Now, because I don't want to waste any of these lamb juices that have settled on the bottom of this dish, I'm just going to pour the water in here to swill around before sticking in the pot. And then, bring to the boil, lid on, and cook for an hour and a half or so until it's tender, in which time I am a free woman. Right, lamb should be absolutely perfect. I've got this water on for the couscous, which I shall turn off now. The important thing when you need a lot of water is to make sure it's boiling before you need it, otherwise you have endless waiting. So, lid off and have a quick see. See? Mmm. That lamb is lovely and tender now. A quick taste for spice and seasoning. Mmm. But I want a bit more soy. And now, some lentils. Now, I use these red lentils, which soften into the sauce, turning what is now quite a watery gravy into a thick, grainy coating. And any time you can get that in a stew without adding flour is a bonus in my book. About six spoonfuls, I mean, if you were to count. They swell a lot, so you don't need to add that much. Now, I want to cook this now without a lid on, so that as the lentils soften, the liquid evaporates, so I get deepening of flavour and thickening of texture. Now, to go with this, I want something that will kind of soak it up. I've got some couscous there, and with the couscous, some nuts. I've got pine nuts, pistachios, flaked almonds, which I want to toast first. And by toasting, I just mean heat in a dry pan until they get golden and fragrant. You can smell as they're ready, as well as see, which is perfect. And then, when the couscous is done, I can just fork them through, and it'll be sort of nut-studded and a bit of crunch. OK, my couscous. You can read on the packet exactly how to treat couscous. It generally needs to be soaked first and then steamed. And when I soak this couscous with these lovely little semolina grains, like baby, baby, baby pesto, and into the water, I put salt and also cardamom, because I want a sort of musky quality, as well, to add further to the aromatic sense of this meal. And then a bit of butter on top. Not too much, but enough. And this helps you know when the couscous is ready, as well, because by the time the heat has reached up through the couscous to the top, it will be warm enough to start melting the butter. When it's ready, just fork through. Never use a spoon on couscous, because it just makes it claggy. The lamb just needs to be tipped out into a serving dish, a nice big one, welcoming, sprinkled with sort of violently green slivered pistachios, and supper's on the table. I've got to be lavish like myself. I've got tongs for the shanks. More juice, please, madam. Certainly. It would be my pleasure. Now, couscous is one of those funny things that I'm a bit sort of ambivalent about couscous, quite frankly, because I'm not sure I want that much, to be honest. This is really delicious. This is absolutely delicious. And so where geographically does this come from? Well, it doesn't come from anywhere, but it borrows from the Moroccan palate. I'm tempted to have more nigella, if I may. This is the man who said he didn't like couscous. I know. Actually, that's what's so delicious about all of this. You need the sauce with it, because otherwise... No, you bet. Oh, the creme brulee. It's what you always order in Paris. It's so brilliant. OK, so this is the premise. Suppertime and the cooking is easy. Now, I think it's so much easier when you have friends over for dinner if you can cook some of it a bit in advance. If I do everything in the last half an hour, I feel I'm going to crack. And these are sort of chocolate pots, which you don't have to make the night before, although I prefer to. You have to make them at least six hours before. But they are so incredibly easy. OK, 175g of chocolate, minus one button. What I'm going to do now is, this is 150ml of double cream and 100ml of milk, just below boiling point. Going to add a splash of vanilla. And about a quarter teaspoon of allspice. Let the milk and cream mixture steep on top of the chocolate for 30 seconds and the chocolate starts melting under the heat of the milk and cream. Now you just crack an egg down the funnel and it's the egg which will help set this chocolate pot. That's it, we've done the cooking. That's all we need to do. Now, in the fridge and I've got pudding made for tomorrow night. If you're going to go in for dinner parties at all, even informal ones, which are the only ones I would ever want to give or go to, you do need to have a kind of laid-back repertoire of regulars. And this is, I would say, my favourite. The basis is chickpeas and here it's with fish. Lovely, beautiful red mullet, although I often use red bream. Okay, chilli, some garlic, onion. The idea really is that these are chopped finely and then cooked until they're soft and the chickpeas turned in them. And that provides a sort of sauce-like coating and flavouring. And some thyme leaves. I mean, as you can see, fresh thyme and a fresh chilli, but if you want to use dried chilli flakes and some dried thyme, that's fine. I change the flavourings anyway, depending on my mood or what I've got in the house and what I'm eating this with. Just a bit of olive oil in a pan. Just ordinary olive oil, not extra virgin. I do add extra virgin olive oil at the end, but if you're heating, you lose all the edge of flavour, so there's no point using it now. So lovely the way the chilli just dyes everything, that sort of peachy orange. Now, I'm not going to wait for the oil to get hot before I put in this wonderful oniony mush, because I want this to be soft. I don't want it to frizzle and fry. Some salt. Okay, this will just need a few minutes to cook into a sort of soft, mushy mellowness. And then I'm just going to tip the chickpeas in. I mean, those are canned chickpeas. I often use dried ones, which I quite like. They are a teeny bit better if you soak them and then cook them. But I have found now that if you shop around and you can find a brand that's really good enough to use without apology. Now, I think it helps to add some of the liquid from the can in the same way as if you cook them yourself, just keep some cooking water back. It just helps everything sort of amalgamate into a sauce. Chickpeas are my favourite. There's such a thick meatiness about them, which means that you don't really need to bother with potatoes. And I really think that once you've got potatoes out of the equation, any dinner party is much easier. Okay, heat off. Some extra virgin olive oil over the top. Not much, just enough for depth and flavour. And if I can find it, put on a lid. Now, move on to stage two, the fish. Incredibly simple. Again, ordinary oil. I do want the oil hot now because I want the fish to frizzle for the skin to crisp. Get the fish. Look how beautiful, like the flash of a Barbie mermaid's tail. Now, what I want is for the skin to crisp and I'll just turn them round so that they've just cooked through, but they really don't take long, these fillets. I'm just going to turn the heat off when I start on the sauce. I'm not going to say sauce, it's really just deglazing a pan. Okay, first mince in some garlic. And then put in a couple of anchovy fillets. Now, can I give you some advice here? Don't say that there's anchovy in this sauce because so many people have got a sort of prejudice against anchovies and are convinced they don't like eating them, whereas you cook this sauce for them, they don't know and they love it. A teeny bit of the oil they've been stored in and I get anchovies which are in olive oil. Just a minute or so is cooking until they are a lovely kind of velvety, salty emulsion. I'm going to add a bit of sherry. This will bubble up, evaporating a bit and forming a sort of syrupy sauce. Let that bubble up. A few more thyme leaves. And now the final touch here is just off the heat, add a small knob of unsalted soft butter and whisk it in. And what this does is it both thickens the sauce slightly and makes it wonderfully glossy. Right, plate up. Put the chickpeas in first on both plates because nothing ruins conversation more than people asking you to pass something every five minutes. And however important food is at a dinner party, it's never as important as conversation. Now I just pour some of this on top of each. It's not meant to be gravy, it's just meant to be a sort of liquid flavouring. And final sprinkling of thyme leaves. I mean, this is so easy. I mean, how long did it take, a few minutes? I'm going to go and do the starter. To tell the truth, I don't go in for starters very often. I mean, to be frank, it's so simple it doesn't even involve cooking. What it is is raw salmon with ginger, soy and rice vinegar in a dressing. Absolutely delicious. This is how easy it is. Equal quantities of soy sauce and rice vinegar. Nice chunk of ginger. And some sesame oil. I don't always use sesame oil. You can keep it quite astringent because salmon is quite an oily fish. But I just do think it gives it a wonderful mellow roundedness that makes all the difference. Now a bit of snipping. I find it easier to cut the salmon with scissors, just into manageable pieces for people to fork out onto their plate. And look how beautiful that sort of gleaming orange flesh, so beautifully grained with white. I know this looks like smoked salmon, and probably people will think it is unless you tell them otherwise. I think you should. But do not be tempted to try it actually with smoked salmon because it would give entirely the wrong taste. Dressing over. As the rice vinegar hits some of the salmon, it cooks it in the acid. I mean the longer you leave the salmon in the dressing, the more cooked it will get. So if you want it more cooked, just do this and leave it for a while. Right, and now all I want to do is have a few snipped spring onions on top. It's almost fraudulent this because it somehow tastes so complex and wonderful and yet you've done nothing at all. And that's it. How hard was that? I'm spilling as I go.