Party
399 recipes found
Citrus Layer Cake With Orange and Chocolate Frosting
This cake appeared in The Times in 1954 as Halloween Cake, the centerpiece for a children’s party. When you strip away the original instructions for decoration (dyed yellow frosting and a black cat of piped chocolate), you’re left with a luscious citrus cake that works for any occasion, All Hallows’ Eve included.
Cassoulet-Style Lamb Shanks and Beans
This is not a full-blown cassoulet, chock-full of sausages and duck confit, but it is so satisfying nonetheless. It takes a couple of days to put together because you have to cook the lamb and cook the beans, combine them, and bake them twice. The result is a dish of enchanting deep flavor. (Simmering the seasoned lamb results in a delicious broth.)
Classic Banana Split
The key to a great banana split is a combination of textures and temperatures. There’s the velvety cold ice cream, the pleasingly sticky hot fudge and the crunchy wet walnuts (here, made with maple syrup and honey), all nestled in a sliced ripe banana and topped with whipped cream. You can use any ice cream flavors you like: classics like chocolate, vanilla or strawberry, or get creative with your favorite varieties — maybe even a scoop or two of fruity sorbet. Naturally, banana splits are meant to be split between two (or three) people, so find some friends to share the sweetness.
Queso Gravy
This is a slightly looser version of a traditional Tex-Mex chile-cheese dip, appropriate for use on chicken-fried steak (or plain old fried chicken), as a topping for enchiladas or simply as something into which to dip chips or crisp vegetables. It scales up nicely if you'd like to double it for use at a party -- just keep it warm in a low slow cooker, set up on a sideboard. Increase the number of jalapeños to taste.
Beet Salad With Goat Cheese Toasts
A beet salad can be spectacular if you roast your own beets, specifically fresh ones, not vacuum-packed or canned. They take at least an hour to cook so it’s a good idea to make them early, even two days in advance. Then, this tasty salad can be assembled in a few minutes. Choose any color beet, but the golden ones make an impression.
Romesco Egg Salad
There’s mild-mannered egg salad, and then there’s this one, feisty with tang, crunch and smoke by incorporating elements of romesco, the Catalan sauce. Soft-boiled eggs are cut into chunks for pockets of richness, then tossed with oil, vinegar, smoked paprika, sweet peppers, almonds and parsley. Ingredients are left in hefty pieces for contrasting textures and bites, but if you prefer a homogenous salad to mound in a sandwich or onto your plate, just stir vigorously; the yolk and oil will emulsify and bind everything together.
Pumpkin-Butterscotch Custard With Spiced Whipped Cream
Butterscotch pudding gets an autumnal makeover with the addition of pumpkin purée and a fluffy, spiced whipped cream topping. To make this dish supremely festive, it’s baked in one large dish instead of individual custard cups. And because it needs to be prepared almost entirely in advance, it’s a perfect dinner party dessert. Serve it scooped into bowls, with some crisp cookies on the side.
Almond Cake With Saffron and Honey
This is a lovely moist cake that keeps well and may be made several days in advance of serving. Stored well wrapped and at room temperature, its flavor only improves. For best results, grind blanched almonds to make your own almond meal. If you wish, accompany with a little whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
Spinach and Feta Borek
In Turkey, savory pastries like these are made with hand-rolled yufka sheets, but store-bought phyllo dough makes a fine substitute. Often shaped into bite-size parcels, this large version may be cut into wedges. Serve it with a salad of sliced cucumber and radishes, and a bowl of olives, if desired.
Flaky Chicken Hand Pies
Everyone falls for the homey appeal of chicken potpie. This fold-over version made with buttery puff pastry takes the concept up a notch for an elegant lunch or supper. Store bought pastry makes it easy. You can do the cooking in stages, and even freeze the pies (either baked or unbaked) for a future meal. Serve with a green vegetable or leafy salad.
Roasted Broccolini and Lemon With Parmesan
Dumping cheese onto something, roasting it and calling it genius isn't the most original thought, but it’s worth mentioning how wonderful this recipe is. Maybe it’s the caramelized, jammy slices of lemon or maybe it’s the almost burnt, crisp, frilly ends of tender broccolini. Whatever it is, a version of this is worthy of every dinner party. While there is something special about the broccolini here (nothing compares to the tender stalks and those wispy ends), this technique also works with root vegetables like carrots, potatoes and parsnips, as well as other brassicas like cauliflower and brussels sprouts. (This recipe is adapted from "Dining In: Highly Cookable Recipes" by Alison Roman.)
Harvest Tart With Pumpkin and Peppers
A savory, olive oil-crusted tart stuffed full of golden, roasted peppers, jammy onions and some freshly grated pumpkin is a great dinner party treat, although it's perfectly wonderful for a family evening repast as well. Salt the pumpkin ahead of time to draw out excess moisture, though if you are pressed for time you can skip this step. To perk up the caramelized intensity of the filling, it is helpful to fold in something zingy like olive or capers, or perhaps a good splash of lemon juice.
Greek Cabbage Pie with Dill and Feta
A favorite winter pie in the northern regions of Greece, this is a bit time consuming to make, but worth every minute. Serve it as a vegetarian main course at your next dinner party.
Fish Pie
To the uninitiated, fish pie has an uninviting name and reputation. But this is fish that is gently poached, then swathed in a white sauce and topped with buttery mashed potatoes and finished to a heat-bronzed finish in the oven. It is a dish good for children but can be made into unapologetic dinner-party fare by poaching the fish in a little white wine, making the white sauce with light cream rather than milk and infusing all of it with the eggy-lemony kiss of saffron. It’s an hour well worth spending.
South Carolina Pecan Tartlets
The spring of 2013 saw us down in Charleston, S.C., a stunning city, rich with history both sad and ecstatic, in a region that offers a tremendous bounty of fresh ingredients and regional flavors. We had the vague idea of cooking a holiday feast to celebrate the season — one that was grand and nondenominational — that would help banish memories of winter. These little pecan tarts helped a great deal. They're ideal for dinner parties, and reward the use of fresh Southern pecans.