PrintBy Sally Ketchum
eDiets Contributor
Entertaining is easy when you have a few go-togethers in your repertoire. Tomatoes and basil, chicken and rice, and so on. But it’s even easier when you know a few wine pairings: reds with the pasta, whites with the seafood and a couple of the modern surprising pairings like a powerful white, a dry but fresh Pinot Grigio with roast pork.
But my problem was I have many friends who love beer. Most switched long ago to light beers, but occasionally enjoy a specialty beer, too. No problem — most markets now carry a variety of beers. The problem then becomes: what to serve with beer?
I realized that I served beer to friends mainly on three different occasions: when they drop in, when they come to watch a sports special or when I invite them to dinner… dinner with beer.
Working as imaginatively as I could and keeping diet and pleasure in mind, these are the menus that I came up with. They work. Happily, with a few twists, they also look quite different at times, and therefore I can serve them often without inducing boredom. Twists include adding or subtracting a dish or substituting a side dish and changing the table setting. Shamelessly, I also change the recipe names. Tex-Mex Dip becomes Arizona Salsa. What’s in a name? A lot.
Friends who drop in are offered their favorite light beers along with a specialty beer — perhaps a Mexican beer, Carta Blanca or Corona, to complement tacos. Snacks are planned for such visits, but the snacks often come from the freezer or fridge. One standard I offer is shrimp and water chestnuts with a dip; the former is healthy and easily defrosted.
For crunch, I nestle a sliced water chestnut in a cooked shrimp’s crescent and secure with a toothpick. The dip, low-fat if desired, can be purchased, but I love to serve a homemade dip that, amazingly, is made from two (or three) ingredients. Mix one-half cup red currant jelly (Sometimes you can even find low-fat jelly.) and four tablespoons of Dijon mustard. Voila! A third ingredient I sometimes add is a teaspoon of chopped fresh tarragon or more to taste.
A Beer and Buffet invitation is well met by using chicken in a recipe for pulled pork. Simply poach chicken breasts or chicken breast with thighs if you like them and then let them cool in the broth. When cool, remove the meat from bones and finely hand-shred it. Toss with a good salsa, sprinkle generously with cheddar, and give the recipe a dazzling name. I have called it Chicken Salsa Madrid and Dallas Pulled Chicken. Serve with healthy sides: perhaps blue corn chips, low-fat bean dips and a gargantuan tossed salad with fruity vinaigrette dressing.
Of course, a dinner can be sit-at-the-table — my choice — or a move-and-mingle affair, which can become difficult and more complicated. Since dinner guests here dine at the table, first I serve a light broth in a cup. If I am busy, I use a low-sodium canned broth, but jazz it up with chopped fresh herbs –one teaspoon per serving and a twig of the same herb to garnish the cup’s plate. Since I find a running commentary on the meal never fails, I turn the conversation to herbs to hops and then to beer — my guests’ favorite topic.
The entree is usually seafood of some type. I often serve a thick stew or chowder over a little fettuccine. I have also splurged by serving pink-from-tomatoes seafood bisque, substituting half and half for heavy cream, and finished it with a splash of brandy before serving. Yes, beer and brandy, my secret touch. My guests enjoy these gatherings, and they appreciate the thoughtfulness — having “their” beer served. They think I’m a marvelous cook, even though they know — and they really do — that I not only cut corners, but that I sometimes cheat.
For a change, I like to serve bagel pieces, toasted and offered with low-fat cream cheese; however, my very favorite bread offering is giant-sized herbed, pumpernickel croutons. Toss 1-inch cubes of pumpernickel with extra-virgin olive oil and herbs (thyme, rosemary, and tarragon are my favorites.) and oven toast at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes.
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Sally Ketchum has become a popular food columnist and prize-winning writer of short fiction. She lives on the shore of Lake Michigan looking out at an island where the family has wilderness camping property and where her stove is stones on the beach and her cooler is the lake. She loves to entertain, often with theme dinners.
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