insideKENT Magazine Issue 56 - November 2016 | Page 50

CHRISTMAS
How to host the perfect Christmas party cont.

What to eat?
Step one: always prepare as much food as you can before people arrive.
Christmas parties, if restricted to a maximum of around eight guests can
be sit-down affairs, with fancy food and fine wine flowing, but, any more
guests than that and you won’t want to be stuck in front of the oven.

cooked side of salmon, potato salad and salsa verde (recipe below) is
a crowd pleaser; goat cheese and cranberry tartlets are divine; and a
Christmas party isn’t a Christmas party without a cheese board groaning
under the weight of a huge Brie.

Bite-sized finger food is always well appreciated by milling partygoers, but
that doesn’t have to mean straight-out-of-the-seventies vol-au-vents are
your go-to solution. Blinis are the new vol-au-vents and can be piled high
with roast beef and horseradish; garlic mushrooms and beetroot; and
prawn and guacamole (the citrus will save it from going brown). Whole

Once your guests have filled their boots, bring out a mound of profiteroles
with both chocolate and caramel-cinnamon dipping sauce; and, for
the late-stayers, round up a midnight feast of baked ham glazed with
mustard and cloves, pickled onions and hot crusty bread.

Recipe - salsa verde (makes 1 jar)
Ingredients:

• 1 small shallot, finely chopped
• 2tbsp red wine vinegar
• 8 anchovies
• 30g flat-leaf parsley
• 30g basil
• 10g mint
• 4tbsp capers, rinsed and roughly chopped
• 120ml extra virgin olive oil (more if you like)

Method:

1. Soak the shallot in a bowl with the vinegar
for 45 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, mash the anchovies in a pestle
and mortar, then gradually add the herbs
and capers to form a coarse paste.
3. Stir in the shallot with half of the soaking
vinegar, then slowly whisk in the oil until you
reach your desired consistency. Add vinegar
and salt to taste.

What to drink?
Christmas time…mistletoe and wine. Of course, you’ll need red, white
and rosé, but the chances are that most guests will bring a bottle anyway,
so what you’ll need to do is get mulling. Thankfully, mulled wine has
moved on since its medieval roots suggested we mishmash an awful lots
of very strong ground spices into dreadful red wine to produce a throatstripping potion.

– you can also place said parcels on your radiators before your guests
arrive to fill the whole house with a quintessentially Christmassy aroma.
I’m a massive fan of cocktails at a Christmas party too. They’re a great
way to kick start the evening being both ‘special’ in that we don’t drink
them all the time, and a very effective social lubricant too. Creating
cocktails one at a time is hugely time consuming though, so choose a
classic like a margarita, or a cosmopolitan and make it in jugs beforehand
that can be poured over ice in a martini glass. Remember the nondrinkers too – a virgin peach bellini is a perfectly pretty 50/50 combination
of peach juice and sparkling lemonade that you can garnish with mint to
make a little more party appropriate.

Today’s mulled wine is a much more sophisticated blend of sugar, spices,
ginger and citrus peel boiled, simmered and then heated through a
lovely bottle of fruity, unoaked red. It’s a great idea to prepare muslin
parcels of toasted cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, cloves and citrus peel
beforehand that can then be thrown into a pan of red whenever needed

Recipe - the Snowball revamped
Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without someone at least referencing,
or at best, actually drinking a ‘Snowball’ – an after-dinner tipple that screams
1980s, and was favoured by grannies all over the country for at least a
decade. Well, they’re ‘retro’ now, of course, and making a comeback. Here’s a
modern twist on an ever-so-slightly naff classic.
Ingredients:

• 40ml Advocaat liqueur
• 20ml Malibu liqueur
• 5ml lemon juice
• 5ml sugar syrup
• 5ml triple sec

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Method:

Simply shake all of the ingredients together and
pour over lots of ice cubes in a lowball glass,
or tumbler.