Italian meal suggestions

November 20, 2019 9:41 AM

On Sunday, I am going to cook a dinner. It's half business, half pleasure. The guests are renting two rooms in my house for a few days and I've promised to cook a welcoming meal. I know them professionally, and for many reasons, I want them to enjoy the dinner and recommend me to others, not just for cooking. But the dinner has to be delicious.

I'm thinking of an Italian dinner, with parmigiana as the main (secondo). But what do I do for antipasti and dessert? Should there be a primo, and if so, what? I would like to be able to prepare a lot in advance, so I can be the good host, not just a sweaty cook.
I have access to excellent produce, and I can cook everything.

posted by mumimor to Food & Drink (9 answers total)

Best answer: *flexes fingers* Ooh, this could be fun.

So. There are a couple ways you could do this. You could either have this be pan-Italian, with courses that sample all the different regions of Italy, or you could have this be a deep dive into Sicilian or Neopolitan cuisine (parmigiana is mainly from those regions). But let's look at the structure of the meal first:

The "traditional" meal includes not just the primo and the secondo and an antipasti, but all of these courses:

- apertivo (nibbles like olives or nuts, and a drink)
- Antipasti (think "appetizers" - cheese and salami or bruschetta)
- Primo (the first hot dish - pasta, soup, risotto, something like that)
- Secondo (what we would think of as "the main course" in this country)
- Contorno (what we would think of as the "side dishes")
- Insalata (salad)
- Formaggi i fruta (there's an entire cheese-and-fruit course)
- Dolci (dessert)

That's if you're going to go super-traditional. And unless these folks have been fine dining up the ying-yang, I think you can get away with playing fast and loose. Some of these courses are also flexible - the source I have notes that the insalata course is skipped if one of the other dishes is a leafy-green salad type of thing. And a lot of people just have the cheese and fruit do double duty AS dessert.

Another thing to consider, of course, is how complicated your own cooking session wants to be, and how much your guests can eat. Because all those courses have the potential to be a lot of food - unless you go simple on some of them. Going simple would let you get away with choosing only a couple places to drill down on with regionalism if that's how you want to go.

Here's a sample menu I'd suggest, for instance -

- Apertivo/Antipasti - just combine these two, and put out a cheese and salami board with some olives. It's nibbly enough to be the apertivo, but substantial enough to count.
- Primo - a butternut squash soup. That's more Tuscan than Neopolitan, but this is the season for it and I doubt your guests would care, and it couldn't be easier; just cooked down squash, pureed. The recipe i swear by has just squash, a couple cloves of garlic, water, and a little salt all cooked together, then pureed with some chopped sage. Another recipe I've just found throws in some mushrooms and adds a little cooked sausage. Just so long as you don't do the route where you add curry or apples or the ingredients you can often find in other squash soups. Or, a simple pasta dish (nothing with a lot of cheese in it, you're going ot have plenty in the parmiagana).
- Secondo - the parmiagana.
- Contorno - If you've got meat or a crapton of cheese in the parmiagana, go simple here; a saute of one single vegetable.
- Insalata - this is what mesclun mixes were made for. Toss baby greens in a little oil and vinegar, done.
- Unless you're already planning an elaborate dessert course, just make the cheese and fruit be dessert.

You know? Each of the different courses doesn't have to be over-the-top elaborate - in fact, it's best if they're not, because the parmiagana's going to be rich. But this saves you time and energy anyway. If you think of the "antipasti" and "contorno" as more like "appetizers" and "side dishes", then that helps sort out the confusion.

Have fun!
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:22 AM on November 20, 2019 [10 favorites]

One of my favorite appetizers is simply sautéing large portobello mushrooms, sliced, with olive oil and lots of garlic, and adding chopped canned artichokes at the end, and serving with a crusty bread for dipping. Slice everything in advance, and it only takes a few minutes to come together in a frying pan, then straight onto the plates, or a very shallow bowl, to catch the olive oil.

For desserts, some suggestions:

Lemon budino. This recipe calls for Meyer lemons. I've always used regular lemons, and it's very tasty. Can be made ahead and refrigerated. Serve with whipped cream and maybe toasted almonds on top.

Lemon raspberry semifreddo. This is a simplified version of semifreddo, and very easy. You make it a day ahead, as it has to sit in the freezer overnight. It's very impressive when you slice and serve.

Orange polenta cake. There are a ton of recipes out there, this is one of them. It can be made a day ahead, and I think it tastes better if it sits a day anyway. Serve with their recommended toppings, or good quality vanilla ice cream.

I'd go to a speciality shop and get an antipasti platter, or get special almonds, olives, and some good quality feta, cube and soaked in olive oil and lemon juice. We have an olive bar at our grocery store, which may not be at the level you're looking for, but the cubed feta in lemon and olive oil is delicious. Those can be eaten with toothpicks, if you are all standing or sitting around having cocktails before dinner. You can see if you can get a sheep's milk feta, which is not as salty as the regular stuff.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 10:48 AM on November 20, 2019 [4 favorites]

Best answer: antipasto - a few good cheeses, cured meats, and olives will go a long way. i'd also consider doing a bruschetta - maybe mushrooms (with carmelized onion and blue cheese), maybe a bean paste (garlicky/lemony - or with tuscan herbs). maybe both! you can prepare 'em ahead of time (toasting the bread, preparing the topping) and just plop 'em together when it's time. that could also sit in for a primo - roughly.

baking a decent bread can go a long way to impressing guests. check out Samin Nosrat's recipe for focaccia. It could go well with your antipasto, or next to your parm. buy fancy olive oil for this and don't hold back on the salt. bake it for a few minutes longer than you think you'll need - the crisp is divine.

contorni - don't overthink it. roast greens or other veggies with olive oil, salt, and a squeeze of lemon. perfection.

dolci - just pick up some gelato, serve with berries.
posted by entropone at 10:52 AM on November 20, 2019 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Be sure to have some simple veggies roasted in olive oil (carrots, asparagus, eggplant, kohlrabi, whatever you like). Can be prepared in advance, served hot or cold, and good for antipasti or contorni.
posted by Gaz Errant at 11:04 AM on November 20, 2019 [2 favorites]

Some of this will depend on your guests and what kind of impression you want to make on them.

Some thoughts:

1. If I were you I wouldn't bother trying to do a multi-course fancy Italian dinner with a separate primo and secondo, etc., unless you know your guests are Italophile foodies who will be into that sort of thing.

2. Since you would like to prioritize time with your guests over time in the kitchen, and also in consideration of the fact that timing may need to be somewhat fluid, I would recommend against serving a pasta dish. This is because timing is critical to the quality of pasta dishes, and that means you will need to be attending at the stove as well as hustling your guests to the table when it's ready. No one likes overcooked pasta.

3. I'm not sure what you mean by "parmigiana"? Veal? Chicken? Eggplant? Something else? In any event, assuming you mean something more or less scallopino-shaped, (breaded and?) fried, then smothered in tomato sauce and topped with cheese (and baked?)... this is a pretty retro Italian-American sort of thing to serve, and also pretty heavy and rich. Depending on your guests' tastes, you might want to consider something else.


Anyway, proceeding around the idea of parmigiana as a main course, I would consider something like this:

Cocktail Hour:
- Negronis and/or Aperol Spritzs
- Board of assorted Italian cured meats (e.g., prosciutto, sopressata picante, 'nduja, mortadella), cheeses (e.g., parmigiano reggiano, pecorino fresco, burrata, asiago, fontina) and olives together with small thin slices of bread and some crackers. Something like bitter orange marmelade can really add to this kind of thing.

Starter:
- A simple salad of mostly bitter greens, such as a mixture of arugula, endive and radicchio, dressed simply with oil, vinegar and salt, and with shaved parmigiano reggiano on top

Main:
- Whatever kind of parmigiana you're going to make
- a leafy green vegetable (escarole and broccoli rabe come immediately to mind) sauteed in extra virgin olive oil with garlic and sprinkled with homemade crispy breadcrumbs and red pepper flakes
- if you want a second contorno, perhaps something like crispy roasted potato or roasted broccoli (not if you do sauteed broccoli rabe, obviously) or roasted mushrooms

Dessert:
- Affogato
- See if you can get your hands on a really nice grappa and a few amari


Something like the above would be reasonably easy to do at a high level, wouldn't keep you in front of the stove, wouldn't impose critical timing considerations, would allow you to spend plenty of time with your guests, and would impress and allow you to shine. Spend the money on really primo items for the cocktail hour, as that's where you can most easily make a big impression.
posted by slkinsey at 11:25 AM on November 20, 2019 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: Such great ideas!
I'm sorry I was not precise: it will be a parmigiana di melanzane as in Southern Italy, so eggplant, but no breading. It's rich, but not as rich as the American version. The reason I'm going for an Italian style dinner is that I want it to be long with a lot of different tastes, but still not complicated for me to cook or them to eat.
I've asked, and the guests are both omnivores, and couldn't think of anything they don't like or tolerate. I think you are all right, that a board of salumi is a good starter to a vegetarian main, and there is a nationally famous charcuterie here. I love the idea of a butternut squash soup. I had that once in the Italian part of Switzerland, with crushed amaretini as a topping, and it was delicious.
After reading your comments, I think I'll go with a simple green salad as the side.
So unless someone has an even better suggestion, that leaves the dessert. Cheese and fruit is good, and that may be where I end. Or would it be completely wrong to have the Moroccan dessert of sliced oranges with cinnamon? Should I go with both? Or make a sorbet?
posted by mumimor at 2:32 PM on November 20, 2019

I can’t get to my copy right now, but if you have Marcella Hazan’s first cookbook, I’m pretty sure she has a recipe for eggplant parmigiana, and the great thing is that she always makes suggestions for the other courses, too. So it might be worth checking that out.
posted by bluebird at 1:08 AM on November 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Bluebird, that's the recipe I'm going to use! But I don't have the book here. Maybe I can get my daughter to read it out loud for me, or send a photo of the text. Thanks for the tip
posted by mumimor at 6:30 AM on November 21, 2019

Response by poster: So it went really well! Thanks for all of your answers. I've favorited every answer, and greened the ones where I directly used elements and ideas: I baked a bread, like entropone said; I made a pureed squash soup and generally found a lot of inspiration in EmpressCallypigos' long answer, though I couldn't get a butternut squash, so I made it out of a Red Kuri squash instead; and I followed Gaz Errant's suggestion and roasted some bell peppers that I put on the table for the antipasti, but didn't remove, so they could work as sides as well.
The charcuterie had a great local cured ham and a fennel salami, as well as some interesting cheeses.
It turned out to be a succes. I didn't know in advance, but both guests were huge foodies and really appreciated the effort. One started talking about coming back with her family.
posted by mumimor at 2:53 PM on November 24, 2019