The catered dinner

a mess of chicken

polenta croutons

salads

chicken cacciatore and smashed potatoes 

Last night we catered a dinner in London. The menu was Ceasar salad with Polenta croutons, chicken cacciatore with smashed potatoes, garlic bread and Tiramasu. I'm happy to say that everything went really well and the food was delicious( natch!). I made the chicken the day before( see picture above). I used 16 chicken thighs and 6 breasts cut in half crosswise. This was for a tripled recipe. I took out 4 thighs and 1 breast and some of the sauce and I froze it for a future meal. I'm from the school of thought, where if I'm cooking, I cook extra to freeze.

I made the dressing and croutons at home too. The dressing was a simple vinagarette with anchovy, garlic, lemon juice, dijob and EVOO. I made the polenta and spread it out on a cookie sheet to cool. I sliced it up and pan sauted it at the location. I forgot my recipe/directions so at first I took a large saucepan and attempted to deep fry the polenta. That didnt work too well, so I just threw it in a pan with a bit of oil and it crisped up nicely. Robin and I plated the salads. This salad was different as I grilled the hearts of romaine before slicing them up. I tossed the salad with the dressing, then we added some strips of sun-dried tomato, pine nuts, the croutons and some reggiano.

The smashed potatoes were redskins that I smashed with evoo and reggiano, salt and pepper. We plated the chicken too and topped with with some chiffonade of basil. We passed the reggiano at the table.