profile

Leite's Culinaria

Impressive Dinners That Are Easier Than They Look

Published about 7 hours ago • 2 min read

Hi Reader,

At the best dinner party I ever hosted, I remember almost nothing about the food.
​
I remember laughter that carried well past dessert. I remember the smell of bread warming in the oven. I remember the chocolate cake that somehow disappeared while everyone insisted they "couldn't eat another bite."
​
Nobody has ever mentioned my knife skills.
​
That was the useful discovery. Guests remember the room. They don't remember the recipe.
​
Which means the smartest dinner-party dishes are the confident ones. A beautifully browned roast that mostly minds itself. Short ribs that turn magnificent while you set the table. Scallops that look serious but ask only for a hot pan and good timing.
​
The greatest luxury isn't an elaborate menu.
​
It's a host who has already sat down.

My Rules for Easier Entertaining

  • Pick one dish to carry the meal. Let it be the anchor. Everything else should support it, not compete with it.
  • Cook ahead where you can. Braises and cakes forgive time; some improve with it. Future You will be grateful.
  • Set the table before you start cooking. The last fifteen minutes feel far more civilized when the plates are already down.
  • Keep one extra thing on hand. A second bottle of wine, an extra loaf of bread, and an impromptu cheese plate. That's what turns the night around when a course runs long.
  • Be the host who has already sat down. The dishes I turn to when I want the room to do the impressing are below. Pick one and start there.

WHAT'S INSIDE...

​Pan Seared Scallops​

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.88 from 24 votes

The secret to these pan-seared scallops in butter is to cook them in a hot skillet with ripplingly-hot oil and occasionally baste them with butter. That's it. Simple, quick, and impressive. Twenty minutes from fridge to table.
​☞ ​Try this recipe​

​Steak Au Poivre​

This steak au poivre from Julia Child is a French classic made with steak encrusted with black, green, white peppercorns, and allspice and drizzled with a Cognac pan sauce.
​☞ ​Try this recipe​

​Julia Child's Coq Au Vin​

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.74 from 67 votes

This coq au vin strays a little from the original but I don't think that's to its detriment. This updated version of the simple French chicken stew uses a robust brown chicken stock, mushrooms, onions, bacon, and red wine.
​☞ ​Try this recipe​

​Lobster Fra Diavolo​

This lobster fra diavolo is made with spaghetti tossed in a spicy tomato sauce with lobster, white wine, and chile pepper. Easy, elegant, and so very impressive.
​☞ ​Try this recipe​

​Pork Loin In The Style Of Porchetta​

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.85 from 19 votes

This pork loin in the style of porchetta is an Italian classic that blends pork loin with a pork shoulder, fennel, and rosemary filling, to make an impressive, celebration-worthy entrée.
​☞ ​Try this recipe​

​Maple Bourbon Braised Short Ribs​

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.96 from 21 votes

The title of these maple bourbon braised short ribs says it all. Meaty short ribs are braised in a brew of bourbon, maple syrup, beef broth, tomato paste, and herbs until amazingly tender.
​☞ ​Try this recipe​

​Flourless Chocolate Cloud Cake​

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.9 from 28 votes

This flourless chocolate cloud cake is a wickedly elegant dessert that's deceptively easy to make. Just four ingredients--chocolate, eggs, butter, and sugar--come together for a crunchy-on-the-outside, airy-on-the-inside cake.
​☞ ​Try this recipe​

​Ina Garten's Lemon Cake​

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.72 from 57 votes

This lemon cake is similar to a classic, old-fashioned pound cake but not quite so dense. It's magnificently buttery and exponentially lemony thanks to a tart soak in a lemon and sugar syrup and a drizzle of lemony confectioners' sugar glaze.
​☞ ​Try this recipe​

Leite's Culinaria

David Leite

Why, hello! Leite's Culinaria is the James Beard Award-winning site that helps home cooks and bakers put dinner on the table and laughs in the kitchen. Hungry for more? Join 40,000 food lovers and subscribe.

Read more from Leite's Culinaria

Hi Reader, You brought home the berries.A pint of raspberries. A basket of blackberries. Strawberries that smelled almost too good in the store to leave.Now they're sitting on the counter, and Tuesday is coming.You know how this goes. By Tuesday, you'll be standing in front of the refrigerator eating raspberries straight from the carton, "checking for quality control." Not one has become the French tart you pictured.That's not failure.Berries don't need much. A few months of sun and rain do...

5 days ago • 2 min read

Hi Reader, I have cooked roast chickens enough to know one uncomfortable truth.There is no perfect roast chicken.I know. Practically kitchen blasphemy.For years I chased The One. I'd read another cookbook, tweak the oven temperature, salt earlier, salt later, flip the bird, don't flip the bird, baste religiously, never baste at all. Every famous chef seemed convinced they'd finally cracked the code, and there I was, dutifully buying yet another chicken in the name of research. It's a tough...

7 days ago • 3 min read

Hi Reader, There is one step between good corn and forgettable corn, and it happens before you turn on the stove.Everything else is negotiable. The butter. The Chile. The grill or the pot. The salad or the chowder.But the first choice, the one that decides whether the corn on the plate tastes like August or like a memory of it, is how you handle it in the ten minutes after you bring it home.I did not always know this. For years, I bought corn like a person buying flowers: enthusiastically, in...

10 days ago • 2 min read