What's your best dinner party menus / recipes?

[sweetheart]

Got some friends visiting us soon and I'm doing a 3 course meal so I'm looking 6o pinch some ideas please

This recipe for chocolate fondants always goes down well and they're easy to make ahead and keep in the fridge until you're ready to put then in the oven.

In winter I do
Starter- pear, walnut and Stilton salad or rabbit terrine with a small salad and chutney

Main- beef and red wine gravy suet pudding with roasted parsnips, beetroot, carrots and sprouts

Or

Beef/venison Wellington with green beans and roast veg

Desert - cheeseboard or chocolate Guinness cake

Rarely do a starter. Usually things to pick at while we're chatting (rosemary and garlic popcorn, hm flatbreads and dips - muhanmara is my fav). Mains in winter would be

Slow cooked pork ragu with a kale, squash and black lentil and hazelnut side and some crusty bread.

Beef stew with dumplings and probs just some garlicky greens and roast veg.

Roast chicken with Boulangere potatoes and other lovely sides, roast cauliflower with almonds, kale or other green vegetable

piri piri pork belly with rice and other sides

Feijoda with salsa, collared greens and rice or crusty bread

Chilli (veg or meat) with loads of sides

Curries with trimmings

Pies

Chicken thighs with braised celery and bashed new potatoes.

My really excellent meatballs

Basically anything slow cooked.

Puddings
Crumble, pecan pie, salted honey pie, salted caramel apple pie, brownies, brown butter pecan cookies, double chocolate cookies, salted caramel cookies, chocolate and salted caramel mousse, passion fruit cheesecake

This lemon posset recipe takes 5 minutes to make and is one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten. People are always really impressed with it and the effort is minimal. The biscuits are nice too, but I often just serve them with bought shortbread.

Never fail for me is:

Camembert with crudités (not bread! Too filling!)

Chateaubriand with baby roast potatoes and lots of green veg blanched and then finished in a pan with butter and garlic.

Something simple like ice cream and baked apples with cinnamon sticks

Slow cooked pork ragu with a kale, squash and black lentil and hazelnut side and some crusty bread.

Magic could you possibly share a recipe for this please? It sounds great, is it a lot of effort?

Do you make your own garlic and rosemary popcorn magic and, if so, how? Sounds delicious.

halfstar no it's mega low effort (a requiring for all my dinner parties!)

Badically thinly slice and soften two onions (depending on how much you're making in a big le creuset, then add chopped carrots and celery (if you have) and plenty of garlic.

Meanwhile score and salt the skin of a big piece of pork shoulder. Put the pork shoulder on top of the veg and roast in preheated oven at 200 for about 20/30 mins. Then pour in loads of ted wine and rosemary and tinned tomatoes, splash of balsamic vinegar and turn it down to 140. After maybe two hours the skin will hopefully have dried out and gone nice and cracklingy. This is non essential but I usually take this off and serve as a sort of little extra. So when skin is off baste all over (make sure plenty of liquid, lid on and back in the oven on 120 for as long as you can. Should be amazingly falling apart soft and lovely rich sauce by the end. Sometimes add beans to make those further.. Season, taste etc along the way

I usually siphon off a little bit of the fat at the end.

The side is v easy just black lentils, roast squash and marinated kale with some toasted hazelnuts. Dressed with some nice olive oil, tiny bit of red wine vinegar, parsley and salt and pepper.

If I could be bothered would add some roast cauliflower in there as well.

Magic, you say 'lid on', do you roast this in a pot?