Cooking – The Auld Skald's Fudgel

Disclaimer – edited by ChatGPT.

Over the years, I’ve hosted numerous lunch and dinner parties—sunny lunches by the water, picnics in the mountains, end-of-year dinner parties, and even barbecue breakfasts during the “daft days” between Christmas and New Year. Here’s my tried-and-true process for making these events enjoyable and stress-free.

Hors d’œuvres

Always include some crudités with a dip, such as a flavored mayonnaise, pesto, or another type of dip.

Entrée

A green leafy salad with a simple French dressing, often served with the main course.

Main Course

Two dishes, which could be beef, lamb, pork, chicken, or fish. Always include a vegetarian option.

Sides

At least two options, one hot and one cold.

Dessert

A variety of sweets, such as a slice, a cake, ice cream.

Cheese Platter

A selection of cheeses: a hard cheese, a soft cheese, a Brie or Camembert, a blue cheese, and a herbed or sweet cream cheese, accompanied by fruits and a paste.

Menu Planning Considerations

Seasonality, preparation time, cooking method, refrigerator space, and scheduling are key factors in choosing the menu.

Example: End-of-Year “Thank You” Dinner for Eight

Here’s a sample menu and preparation timeline:

Two Days Before

Make or buy the mayonnaise or dip.
Prepare components for individual trifles. (I re-use clean Bonne Maman jam jars for individual serves.)

Day Before

Make the sweet potato salad.
Make the quinoa salad.
Assemble the ice cream cake and freeze it (Bought ice cream and sponge cake will save a lot of time.)

Morning of the Party

Make the salad dressing.
Prepare the salmon with a three-herb ravigote sauce.

Day of the Party

Cut the crudités (carrots, celery, radishes) and refrigerate.
Cook the poulet à grand-mère (Grandma’s chicken) in the crockpot.
Prepare the mushroom and pesto pasta on the stovetop in the afternoon.
Toss the green leafy salad before serving.
Assemble the individual trifles.
Cut and present the cheeseboard.

Tips for a Smooth Event

Spread out the work over a week to make the actual day easier.
Get your food, groceries, and drinks delivered.
Don’t forget the ice.
Allocate specific bowls and platters for each dish.
Check tablecloths, serviettes, cutlery, stemware, and water glasses.
On the day, remember to smile, take little breaks, and enjoy the party.

The last time I hosted one of these dinners, I walked 18,000 steps—a handy side benefit!

I kid you not. Potatoes, pasta, corn, legumes, oats, rice and bread can all be good for you.

How? Leftovers.

Yes, leftovers often taste better the next day. They can also be better for you the next day.

Let’s take potatoes, for example. Whether boiled or baked, potatoes go through a chemical process during cooking that, when cooled overnight in the refrigerator, transforms them into medicine for your gut and blood sugar.

The commonality between potatoes, corn, bread, rice, legumes, and pasta is that they all contain starches. The science? Starch cokes in two forms – amylase and amylopectin. They are polysaccharides made up of glucose units.

Cooking those foods starts a process of gelatinising the starch. This loosens the bonds in crystalline granular form of the starches. The starches become amorphous, disordered, dispersed in water.

Cooling the cooked potatoes, corn, etc, rapidly on the bench and then in the refrigerator initiates the process of retrogradation, where the starches reform in a more structured state. This is the magic. The more structured state transforms that same chemical compound, C₆H₁₀O₅, in a different form, and makes it a resistant starches.

What’s so good about resistant starches? It’s good for your gut, and good for your blood sugar.

How?

Resistant starch is prebiotic. Prebiotics feed the beneficial bacteria in your gut.

Resistant starches have a lower glycaemic index. This helps to stabilise blood sugar levels.

The fascinating thing, to me, is that these starches don’t change their chemical notation. It remains the same from before cooking, through cooking and gelatinisation, through cooling and retrogradation, and through reheating. It’s the way that two or more of these starch molecules are bonded that make the difference.

Granules, gelatinised, then reformed into granules again but in a different structure than they were before cooking.

Food chemistry is kitchen magic.

My favourite recipes for the next day, and those resistant starches?

Fish cakes

Pasta pie

Pasta Pie, The Commonsense Italian Cookery Book Download

Arancini

Pasta salad – take your pick or make up your own.

Fried rice

If you need more information:

CSIRO

John Hopkins Diabetes