15. THE MIDNIGHT SUPPER AND PARTY FARE

The days when a hostess knocked herself out in cleaning and cooking before a gathering of friends are long since gone. Today we give one PARTY a year—perhaps—and consider all the other meetings with friends as completely informal. In either case, the refreshments can achieve a gourmet stand­ard without undue strain.

For end-of-the-evening, whether anticipated or spur of the moment, there are innumerable broiled sandwiches, chafing dish delicacies and

SMORREBROD

The traditional open-faced Danish sandwiches, prepared in advance and chilled until the moment for serving. For these, almost anything goes—provided it is artistically ar­ranged.

No. 1

3 slices pumpernickel

4 bread radishes, raw carrot, cucumber

4 slices of cold boiled ham

4 slices of liverwurst 

butter

Sour cream—½ cup

Butter the pumpernickel; top with ham and center a slice of liverwurst atop the ham. Surround with overlapping slices of radish, cucumber and carrot, and top with a tablespoon of sour cream. Chill before serving.

No. 2

1 slices sweet rye bread, buttered

5 thin slices smoked salmon, fresh cut(not packaged!)

2 T drained capers

½ box whipped cream cheese(small size)

4 T red caviar

4 hard boiled eggs

4 T mayonnaise

1 ripe tomato, peeled and cut in 4 thick slices

Spread buttered sweet rye bread with 2 slices each of smoked salmon, and cover with whipped cream cheese. Place a slice of tomato on each serving; surround with hard boiled egg slices, decorated with red caviar. Top with a tablespoon of mayonnaise, garnished with capers.

No. 3

4 slices buttered white bread thin-sliced

radishes and cucumber

4 slices peeled ripe tomato

8 sardines, drained, boned and split in half

4 T mayonnaise

4 pickled onions

4 parsley

12 anchovy fillets

Top bread with a tomato slice, surrounded by thin cucum­ber slices. Lay 2 opened sardines atop the tomatoes and place a row of overlapping radish slices between them. Place three anchovy fillets at right angles to the sardines. Top with a tablespoon of mayonnaise, decorated with a pickled onion and a tiny sprig of fresh parsley.

No. 4

4 slices of sour rye bread, not buttered

1 pound finely ground sirloin steak

½ pound cooked shelled shrimp

4 eggs

2 tsp salt

½ tsp black pepper

1 tsp Worcestershire

1 tsp prepared mustard

2 T lemon juice

Combine lemon juice, mustard, Worcestershire, pepper, salt and finely ground steak, and mix very very thoroughly with your hands. This should take at least 5 minutes—or someone will get a hot mouthful of seasoning that you have failed to distribute properly!

Spread a quarter pound of the beef mixture on each slice of bread.

Make a slight depression in the center of each Smorrebr0d, and in it carefully place a raw egg. Surround this with cooked shrimps, and sprinkle with a little freshly ground black pep­per.

This is the Danish version of Tartar Steak—but you will make it yourself as you mix the raw egg with raw steak and shrimps on your own plate. Yes, it's good; smear it around and eat it.

Anything at all is useful for Smorrebr0d: leftover meats, thinly sliced, or bits of vegetable salads; ham or bacon, cold fish slices or caviar. All that is necessary is to prepare the sandwiches with an eye to beauty; chill—and serve with plenty of hot coffee at midnight.

Broiled sandwiches are equally simple, to be prepared on a baking sheet for insertion beneath electric grill or gas flame.

SIMPLE SIMONS

4 slices white bread

½ pound soft cheddar cheese

2 T Worcestershire Sauce

1 T Bahamian mustard

Various decorations: shrimps, or bacon slices, ham bits, or sweet pickle slices, etc

Cream together cheese, Worcestershire and mustard; spread carefully to cover every bit of the bread. Decorate each slice with cooked shrimps, bacon bits, or what have you. Broil about 5 minutes, until cheese browns and bubbles.

CHEESE is one of the great standbys for a gourmet chef . . . useful in every possible service course either in com­bination or to stand alone in all its dignity.

All cheeses have their own uses, but pasteurized, proc­essed, "cheese foods," commercial cheese dips, and so on cannot meet the standards of a real gourmet. People who live in cities boasting a good imported cheese shop are (for once) better off than the people in small communities who must depend entirely on what's available in the local super­market—but it is still wise to know what to buy, and how to serve it.

Roquefort, Gorgonzola, Bleu and Stilton are the blue-veined rich crumbly cheeses of France, Italy, Denmark and England. There are differences in taste, of course, but in gen­eral, any one of these may be substituted for any other.

Port du Salut, Bel Paese, Okaare French, Italian and Canadian versions of a basic soft creamy-yellow cheese. Pont VEveque is a slightly sharper member of this family.

Catnemberty Brie and Poona are French and American cheeses, which are supposed to be ripened to an exact con­sistency, of half-melted butter. The high point of any gour­met's existence is a perfectly ripened Camembert! It cannot be achieved with a pasteurized brand. The cheese should be soft to the point that it literally drips and runs onto the plate. Gourmets often eat it, rind and all. Brie and Poona also should be soft, but are never supposed to be as liquid as Camembert.

Edam, Gouda, Provolone, Pineapple, Cheddar and Swiss are the firm Dutch, Italian, English and Swiss cheeses, usu­ally forming the backbone of any cheese board. Although their flavors differ, nearly everyone likes them. Muenster is softer in texture, but equally mild-flavored.

Crdme ChantiUy and Habte are usually classed as dessert cheeses, because they are soft and sufficiently full-flavored to serve by themselves.

Finally, there are the smelly cheeses: Limburger, Lieder-kranz and Sap Sago, respectively German, American and Norwegian. And they definitely smell, although delicious if one develops a palate for them.

In addition, of course, there are many other imported cheeses, such as the caraway-seed Scandinavian types and various local European cheeses such as a fine Neuchatel. You should know, also, that there are two varieties of Swiss cheese —the one with the holes is actually termed Emmenthaler, but far more delicious (and much more difficult to obtainl) is the true Gruyere, which has no holes and possesses a special nut-like flavor. Bloomingdale's Food department, at Lex­ington and 59th Street in New York, stocks real imported Gruyere.

For a midnight cheese tray, then a real gourmet would offer a selection of the imported cheese, flanked with pum­pernickel, rye bread, crisp crackers . . . but there are other things to be done with cheese.

CHEESE FONDUE and WELSH RABBIT

Cheese Fondue is the national Swiss dish. It differs from the Welsh Rabbit we have known, and loved so long, only in using Swiss cheese rather than Cheddar, and white wine in place of beer. A Fondue is prepared over hot water, either in a double boiler or a chafing dish.

1 pound Swiss cheese, grated or finely cubed

½ bottle dry white wine

½ clove garlic, pressed

2 T butter

2 T kirsch liqueur

¼ tsp nutmeg

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp black pepper

Add garlic to wine and bring to a boil over hot water; add cheese and stir until it melts. Add butter, nutmeg, salt and pepper, stirring constantly until very smooth and well blended. Finally, add the Kirsch and serve at once, accom­panied by toast strips or crusty French bread.

The only trick to this dish is to keep the pan of cheese-wine mixture well surrounded by hot water, so it blends smoothly. The cheese must be imported Emmenthaler or Gruyere; processed, pasteurized or domestic Swiss will not produce a proper Fondue.

The traditional service of a Fondue is from a common pot or casserole placed in the center of the table. There are spe­cial fondue forks, which are long 2-tined spears, but ordinary dinner forks will suffice. Each guest places-a toast square or bit of French bread on the fork and dips it into the fondue dish (which is kept over warm water), sops up as much melted cheese as possible and eats with gusto.

THE WELL BELOVED RABBIT

This is basically an English dish. While the British are supposed not to be able to cook, it is a matter of fact that they have still produced a great many definitive gourmet-standard delicacies . . . Yorkshire pudding, Roast Beef, Stil­ton and Cheddar cheese, and Welsh Rabbit, which is a hearty combination of melted Cheddar cheese with stale beer or ale.

The proper way to make a Welsh Rabbit is to open a bottle of beer or ale several hours, even a full day, in ad­vance; to retain a cupful—and bestow the rest upon your thirsty husband or beau. This is one reason men like Welsh Rabbits.

1 pound of the sharpest, rattrap, store cheese available, cut in small cubes

2 T butter

1 cup stale beer or ale

1 tsp dry mustard

1 tsp paprika

Plenty of toast, some buttered and some plain

Melt butter, add finely diced sharp cheese, place over hot water and stir until cheese begins to melt. Add beer or ale gradually, stirring smooth; add mustard and paprika, and stir until cheese is completely melted and smooth. Serve over hot buttered toast, with unbuttered toast fingers to mop up remaining plate sauce.

The perfect Welsh Rabbit must be served and eaten while hot, or it will become "stringy." If you can obtain a soft un-pasteurized Cheddar cheese, the possibility of stringiness will diminish . . . But there is no substitute for the plain sharp American store cheese, when it comes to flavor.

A GOLDEN BUCK is simply the Welsh Rabbit sauce topped by a poached egg for each portion . . . and a YORKSHIRE BUCK adds two strips of crisp cooked bacon to a Golden Buck (In case you had wondered . . .).

For a midnight snack, the chafing dish is indispensable, and much can be done with it. A long way back in this book (we have forgotten the exact page) we pointed out that even the most ravenous guests will control themselves if they can watch the food being cooked.

Aside from the great traditional cheese dishes, there are such midnight gastronomic tit-bits as

MUSHROOMS FLAMBE – or mushrooms in a rich cream sauce on toast

1 pound mushrooms(caps only – save the stems for another day)

¼ cup butter

1 cup dry sherry

¼ cup brandy

½ cup heavy cream, heated off-stage

8 pieces of toast, unbuttered

a dash of salt

Melt butter in a chafing dish, add mushroom caps and saute until lightly browned. Add sherry and simmer violently, until the pan is nearly dry. Meanwhile make the toast slices and keep warm. Add the brandy to the mushrooms, flame with a lighted match, and shake the pan until flames die. Finally, stir in the warm cream, season with salt, and serve on the toast triangles.

PARTY FARE

Everybody loves a party.

Parties are a woman's chore; a great many women work —or they are lazy—or they don't know how. . . .

This is why there are so few real parties nowadays . . . but it doesn't have to be that way, because it's quite possible to give a buffet supper party for 40 people without undue strain.

All that is needed is about three free hours the previous evening—and not all of them will be devoted to cooking!

SWEDISH MEATBALLS(2-Step Cookery)

2 eggs

6 slices white bread

1 cup milk

6 T onions

6 T butter

1 lb chopped beef

½ lb chopped veal

½ lb chopped pork

4 T fresh chopped parsley

1 T salt

1 T Worcestershire Sauce

½ tsp black pepper

¼ tsp dry mustard

1 cup butter(for cooking)

¼ cup flour(for cooking)

1 pint sour cream

Step #1:

Soak bread in milk; saute onion in butter for 3 minutes; beat eggs slightly. Squeeze excess milk from bread, combine all ingredients and work with your hands—mixing and squeezing everything together.

You must mix for no less than a full five minutes by the kitchen timer 1 This is a tiresome job, but essential in order to blend thoroughly, and create the smooth texture required.

Form the mixture into 48 small balls; lay them on a large platter covered with waxed paper, in layers, and finally cover the whole dish with waxed paper. Store overnight in the refrigerator.

Step #2:

Warm the meatballs to room temperature before cooking —which only means "when you get home from the office, take the meatballs out of the icebox!" Let them sit, while you get dressed for the party, receive the guests and serve drinks and canapes.

Twenty minutes before dinner time, dust the meatballs with flour (by sprinkling a ¼ cup of flour through a sieve over the meatballs—or by gently tossing them a few at a time, in a brown paper bag of plain flour).

Cook in ¼ cup melted butter, very gently for about 15 minutes, turning occasionally to brown. Cover with the sour cream and let stand for 5 minutes (covered in the pan, with heat turned off). The cream will curdle—do not despair; it is supposed to!

BAKED BEANS

For a Buffet of 20 people . . . but quarter the recipe for home consumption. This is 2-Step cookery, but extremely simple.

4 large tins baked beans(without tomato sauce)

4 large onions, thin sliced

1 cup molasses

1 cup brown sugar

¼ cup Worcestershire Sauce

1 T baking soda dissolved in 2 T water and added to molasses

½ cup soluble coffee crystals

2 cups Bourbon

½ cup dry mustard

hot water as required

6 tins Vienna sausage, drained

Step #1:

Combine beans, onions, mustard, molasses and soda, brown sugar, Worcestershire in a shallow bowl. Sprinkle the soluble coffee crystals over the top (undissolved); add the Bourbon liquor, and very gently turn and mix until all ingredients are incorporated. Cover and store overnight.

Step #2:

Stir-mix the beans thoroughly; top with the Vienna sau­sages and place the casserole in a hot (400) oven for 30 minutes.

BUFFET SALAD (2-Step Cookery)

Easiest of all party salads is the Vegetable Combination . . . which needs only a few minutes to prepare, before chilling overnight in the refrigerator until serving time. For 20 people, you will need. . . .

4 boxes frozen mixed vegetables

4 cold boiled potatoes, peeled and diced

1 bunch of radishes

1 bunch of scallions

1 green pepper, seeded

4 large stalks of celery, coarsely cut

4 peeled raw carrots, cut in slender sticks

1 large white onion, grated

4 T minced fresh parsley

4 or more tomatoes(depending on size) peeled and quartered

Green and black olives

8 hardboiled eggs: 4 for garnishing, and 4 coarsely cut

1 or 2 heads of iceberg lettuce(depending on size)

2 cups mayonnaise dressing

1 cup milk

½ cup pot cheese(optional)

Step #1:

Boil potatoes in their jackets for 20 minutes or until tender-firm. Blanch frozen vegetable packages, by placing in hot water and cooking about 10 minutes. Vegetables should be very firm and underdone.

Wash and coarsely cut radishes, celery, scallions, and green pepper. Peel and quarter tomatoes; scrape and thin-slice car­rots.

Combine radishes, celery, scallions and pepper with drained vegetables; chill overnight in a covered bowl. Store peeled tomato sections and boiled potatoes (peeled) in separate bowls to chill overnight.

MAYONNAISE DRESSING

Combine mayonnaise with milk, adding slowly and stir­ring until thin and smooth. Add grated onion, minced pars­ley and pot-cheese. The dressing should be extremely thin, so that it will pour and distribute itself easily over all the vegetables. Store overnight in a covered bowl.

Step #2:

(For final serving)

Dice cold potatoes and 4 shelled hard boiled eggs, and add to main vegetable bowl.

Vigorously stir up the dressing, adding more milk if it seems not thin enough (it should be the consistency of Half and Half). Pour dressing over vegetables and mix gently but thoroughly, until everything is coated—but do not mash or break up any of the vegetable bits!

Line a very large salad bowl with the big lettuce leaves, spreading them to curl up about the top; place coarse-cut lettuce in the bottom of the bowl. Pour the mixed vegetables on top—and decorate with tomato wedges, carrot fingers, olives and 4 quartered hard boiled eggs . . . plus fresh pars­ley sprigs or watercress.

BUFFET SHRIMPS

4 lbs cooked shelled shrimps

4 cans condensed mushroom soup

3 cups light cream

1 T salt

½ cup ground dill seed

2 cups slivered almonds toasted in 3 T butter or olive oil

8 cups cooked rice

For a buffet party of 20 people:

Place 2 quarts of water in a deep sauce pot, add ½ cup butter and 2 T slat. When it boils, add 8 cups quick-cooking rice. Stir well, cover tightly, remove from heat, and set aside to mature.

Heat condensed soup, thinned with cream over hot water; add salt and ground dill. When thoroughly heated, add shelled shrimps, and continue to heat until ready to serve

Toast almond slivers in butter or olive oil, shaking the pan until well browned. Add to the shrimps, just before serving.

Serve the shrimp-almond mixture in a buffet deep-dish placed over a warmer, with rice at the side… but this sort of dish is always better if the host or hostess serves it personally, in which case the toasted almonds should be in a separate dish, and sprinkled atop the final serving of rice topped by shrimps in dill sauce…

An alternate hot dish for a buffet, to be teamed with Swedish meatballs or Baked Beans. Quarter the recipe and prepare it in a chafing dish for a midnight poker party.