Inspired Bites: Unexpected Ideas for Entertaining from Pinch Food Design
232
Inspired Bites: Unexpected Ideas for Entertaining from Pinch Food Design
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Overview
TJ Girard and Bob Spiegel, co-owners of the catering company Pinch Food Design, are known for their unforgettable party food and one-of-a-kind design sensibility. This book reveals their trade secrets, offering up irresistible recipes for your next cocktail party—paired with DIY projects for presenting food in fun, elegant, and original ways. Forget about the same old tired dips, mini quiches, and pot stickers. Instead think Truffled Quail Eggs on Mini English Muffins, Skate Schnitzel with Spaetzle and Lemon-Caper Butter Sauce, Fennel-Glazed Duck with Grappa Cherries and Polenta, Salted Chocolate-Rosemary Ice Cream Sandwiches, Banana Semifreddo with Cocoa-Rice Crunch, and more. With these addictively delicious recipes and advice on how to present food like a pro, Inspired Bites ensures the next gathering you host will be a memorable one.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781613127100 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | ABRAMS, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2018 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 232 |
| File size: | 16 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
TJ Girard is co-owner of Pinch Food Design, where she combines her lifelong love for food with her training in set design.
Casey Barber is a food writer, the author of Classic Snacks Made from Scratch, and the editor of Good. Food. Stories.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
COCKTAILS AND BAR SNACKS
GETTING THE PARTY STARTED
We're incredibly grateful that handcrafted cocktails and mixology are reaching a wider audience. With the inclusion of vegetables and herbs in so many high-end specialty cocktails these days, bartenders are thinking like chefs, and vice versa. This inclusive thinking, where lines are blurred and expectations are turned upside down, is a crucial part of the Pinch way of looking at food and drink.
However, while it would be fabulous to have our bartenders custom-craft each drink to order, no guest wants to wait more than a minute to get a drink in hand. So we returned to the drawing board again and again, streamlining recipes that were too complicated in order to make "pre-batched" drinks that can be assembled in advance, but still taste like they were shaken and stirred fresh for each partygoer. Our simple, minimal-ingredient cocktails, like the ones you'll find in this chapter, are the result of familiar flavors that we've tinkered with and adjusted along the way. We believe a great party drink is something you can drink all night — it stimulates the senses, but doesn't compete with the food; it has a personality, enhancing the overall flavor experience.
Because we serve hundreds of people every five minutes, the drinks have to be able to come out quickly; for the home bartender and host, the pressure isn't as nerve- racking, but having batches of drinks at the ready means you can kick back and enjoy a cocktail alongside your guests when they arrive instead of sweating away with a cocktail shaker in hand.
We create curious serving presentations, from rolling coolers and ice mortars to hidden surprises within the drinks themselves, letting us personalize the cocktail experience even if we can't be crafting drinks one at a time. These pieces and drinks keep the interactive, good-time Pinch philosophy at the forefront, but at the end of the day, if you just sat down at a bar and ordered one of our drinks served individually, it would still be damn good.
The recipes that follow are cocktails that can be made in advance and served the more traditional way, in pitchers, or the Pinch way. As with all the recipes in this book, feel free to use our suggestions as inspiration to mix and match and create your own flavor combinations.
Each of the recipes can also be scaled down to make one or two cocktails instead of a pitcher's worth of drinks, so there's no reason you can't shake one or two up for yourself at the end of a long day. Likewise, our bar snacks are easily adaptable for larger or smaller numbers of guests, and all snacks and drinks are a snap to make in advance so you're not rushing around when the party starts.
{BASTERS}
A staple of everyone's Thanksgiving Day routine, a run-of- the-mill turkey baster can also be a really amusing (not to mention functional) way to serve cocktails. Everyone knows how to use one, but when placed in a new context, the baster makes people stop and think, and most likely smile in delight, as they squeeze themselves a drink!
One of our favorite ways to serve pre-made cocktails is in beautiful squat glass cylinders sitting on five vintage elevator stools attached to a freestanding wall covered with a grid of glasses hanging from hooks. Once the basters are in place, the Punch Wall, as we refer to it, becomes a self-manned drinks station for hosts who don't want to hire a bartender for the evening (see this page). Even if we offer trays of pre-poured drinks near the Punch Wall, everyone ignores the trays and prefers to "baste" their cocktail! It's a much cooler, more adult way of self-serving than tapping and pumping a keg — and perfectly suited for small-scale gatherings at home.
Though our dream is to find glass basters, like oversize versions of the pipettes used in scientific laboratories, our basting equipment is nothing more than the clear plastic, black-knobbed kind you've seen a million times. We like the eighteen-inch basters that are slightly larger and more industrial than the supermarket models typically found near the aluminum roasting pans. They are commonly used in beer making, and now that home-brewing is so popular, they are pretty easy to locate online.
DIY
OUR DIY BAR CART, IS EASY TO ASSEMBLE AT HOME. WE USE A PREFAB BUTCHER-BLOCK CART WITH S-HOOKS FOR HANGING GLASSES AND DRINK DISPENSERS FOR GUESTS TO SERVE THEMSELVES.
{THIS DIY BAR CART WAS CREATED FROM A KITCHEN BUTCHER BLOCK.}
BACK-UP BOOZE, JUICE, OR PRE-BATCHED COCKTAILS
(LIKE THE JALAPEÑO-CUCUMBER GIMLET ON THIS PAGE)
JUICER BEAKER OF SIMPLE SYRUP POURER GARNISH HANGING GLASSES MAKE IT EASY FOR GUESTS TO SELF-SERVE BAR CART, SIDE TABLE, OR CLUSTER OF STOOLS GLASS VESSEL OR PUNCH BOWL
18-INCH (46-CM) BASTER
Jalapeño-Cucumber Gimlet
If you've never had St-Germain elderflower liqueur, then we are so jealous that you get to taste it for the first time. Its taste is hard to pinpoint: It's floral, it's fruity, it's strong yet delicate. The vegetables are the star of this drink, but the St-Germain lends an intriguing undercurrent. This was our first signature drink — so simple to mix, yet so addicting. Bet you can't have just one!
YIELD: Serves 12
SPECIAL EQUIPMENT: baster
3 cups (720 ml) New Amsterdam gin
1½ cups (360 ml) St-Germain elderflower liqueur
1½ cups (360 ml) fresh lime juice (from about 12 limes)
12 thin cucumber slices, for serving
12 thin jalapeño slices, for serving
In a 2-quart (2-L) punch bowl or other serving vessel, stir together the gin, St-Germain, and lime juice.
Garnish each of twelve ice-filled highball glasses with one cucumber slice and one jalapeño slice. Set the punch bowl, garnished glasses, and a baster on a tray or bar table and allow your guests to serve themselves with the baster.
MAKE-AHEAD/STORAGE
The gin, St-Germain, and lime juice can be stirred together up to 4 hours in advance and stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator until ready to garnish and serve.
Spicy Mango Margarita
The combination of mango and Sriracha in this margarita was inspired by TJ's trips to Mexico, where the lime- and chile-sprinkled fruit sold by street vendors left a memorable impression on her taste buds. Now these quintessential tastes come in cocktail form.
YIELD: Serves 12
SPECIAL EQUIPMENT: baster
1½ cups (360 ml) Milagro silver tequila
¾ cup (180 ml) mango puree or mango nectar
¾ cup (180 ml) Bols triple sec
¾ cup (180 ml) fresh lime juice (from about 6 limes)
¾ cup (180 ml) simple syrup
1½ cups (360 ml) club soda Sriracha, for serving
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
12 lime wedges
In a 2-quart (2-L) punch bowl or other serving vessel, stir together the tequila, mango puree, triple sec, lime juice, and simple syrup. Top with the club soda.
Fill twelve highball or margarita glasses with ice. Set the punch bowl, ice-filled glasses, and a baster on a tray or bar table and allow your guests to serve themselves with the baster. Garnish each drink with 5 to 7 drops of Sriracha, a sprinkling of red pepper flakes, and a lime wedge.
MAKE-AHEAD/STORAGE
The tequila, mango puree, triple sec, lime juice, and simple syrup can be stirred together up to 4 hours in advance and stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Stir in the club soda imediately before serving.
Celery-Cilantro Pop
The key ingredient here is the celery soda. When it's combined with the tang of the cilantro, images of a fragrant garden can't help but make their way into your brain. Though an unexpected pairing of flavors, celery and cilantro make a perfect late-summer quencher.
YIELD: Serves 12
SPECIAL EQUIPMENT: baster
3 cups (720 ml) vodka
1 (12-ounce/360-ml) bottle Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray celery soda
¾ cup (180 ml) fresh lime juice (from about 6 limes)
1 celery stalk, cut into brunoise (cubes no larger than 1/8 inch/3 mm)
1 teaspoon minced fresh cilantro leaves Additional whole celery and cilantro leaves
In a 2-quart (2-L) punch bowl or serving vessel, stir together the vodka, celery soda, and lime juice.
Garnish each of twelve ice-filled highball glasses with the celery brunoise and minced cilantro. Set the punch bowl, garnished glasses, and a baster on a tray or bar table and allow your guests to serve themselves with the baster. Guests can add the whole celery and cilantro leaves as desired.
MAKE-AHEAD/STORAGE
Because of the carbonation in the celery soda, this drink should be made immediately before serving.
{COOLERS}
Maybe no one actually gathers around the office watercooler to gossip anymore, but they sure do congregate at bars for happy-hour camaraderie and conversation. Inspired by a German art exhibition called Drink Away the Art, where gallery guests were encouraged to serve themselves from wall-mounted glass aquariums filled with colorful liquor infusions, we wanted to offer another sort of interactive self-serve drink dispenser for our party guests. Our wheeled watercoolers are modern, streamlined versions that house gallons of refreshing beverages — from kimchi Bloody Marys to vodka-spiked juice — so guests can easily grab a glass and drink up.
DIY
GLASS AND CERAMIC DRINK DISPENSERS WITH POUR SPOUTS ARE READILY AVAILABLE FROM MOST UPSCALE HOME DÉCOR STORES AND CAN BE PLACED ON A WHEELED BAR CART OR FILING CABINET AS IN THE BAR CART DIY ON THIS PAGE. USE THE SHELVES, DRAWERS, AND HANDLES TO STACK OR HANG GLASSWARE FOR YOUR GUESTS TO SERVE THEMSELVES.
AND IF YOU ALREADY OWN A WATERCOOLER AT HOME (AND ARE NOT FEARFUL OF VOIDING YOUR WARRANTY), YOU COULD REPLACE THE PLASTIC CONTAINER OF SPRING WATER WITH A STYLISH OVERSIZE GLASS JUG, ALSO REFERRED TO AS A "WINE BALON," AND FILL IT WITH A COCKTAIL OR WINE OF YOUR CHOICE.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Inspired Bites"
by .
Copyright © 2014 TJ Girard and Bob Spiegel.
Excerpted by permission of Abrams Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION: Get Pinched,
COCKTAILS AND BAR SNACKS: Getting the Party Started,
ONE-BITERS: Cocktail Party Hors d'Oeuvres,
THE CHEF'S TABLE: An Intimate, Interactive Performance in Your Kitchen,
SMALL PLATES: Passed, Shared, and Paired,
POP-UPS: Roving Food Happenings,
INTERACTIONS: Food Furniture,
INTERCOURSES: Surprising Dishes for Sit-Down Dinners,
TOOLBOX: Our Favorite Resources,
INDEX OF SEARCHABLE TERMS,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS,