Starter for Sunday Dinner

[butcherswife]

Hi All,

We are having my Dad and Grandad around for Sunday dinner this weekend, trying to plan my menu but struggling on a starter.

Main course is going to be rib of beef with duck fat potatoes, yorkshires, braised red cabbage, cauliflower cheese and honey roast parsnips and carrots.

Dessert is a cheeseboard

I am an avid cook so not phased by adventurous suggestions but struggling for other ideas other than prawn cocktail and pate

Hit me with your ideas please

Your menu sounds delicious so far, lovely classic food! Some of our family favourite classic/ British starters are:

Smoked salmon or smoked trout or gravadlax, simply served with nice bread and lemon if feeling lazy or perhaps made into a mousse and served with blinis or crispbreads.

Hot smoked mackerel pate

A light seasonal vegetable soup or consommé with nice bread and butter

Flash fried shell on prawns with garlic and lemon

Quails eggs scotch eggs with black pudding

Peppers stuffed with grains, roast veg and feta cheese

Brown crab meat made into a salad or timbale

Caramelized onion tart

Scallops with some black pudding and pea puree?

Warm goats cheese with beetroot and walnut, or on a Cristiano with some balsamic and salad (might be too much cheese with your cheeseboard for afters, although IMO you can't have too much cheese!)

Thanks for the suggestions @maxelly

I have been thinking about something black pudding related. Anything veggie based is not a winner in DP's eyes, although I would love a caramelized onion and goats cheese tart.

I like the idea of the quails egg scotched egg, also the scallops but not sure if everyone likes the texture.

I'm also with you, you can never have too much cheese

No worries, I sympathise, I couldn't serve anything veggie to DHs family either! I just remembered, game is in season now so if you can get to a good butchers, how about something gamey like venison carpaccio, roast quail breast or mini game pies? Those are quite fiddly things but you did say you are an adventurous cook!

Prawn cocktail! Transcends all generations and makes people smile!

Homemade scotch eggs with black pudding is my husbands absolute fave so I'd say that.

Somewhere we go out to eat does this crispy black pudding with a poached egg on a slice of sourdough that's amazing.

@Maxelly. Game is a good shout to be honest, i have only every cooked with venison before.

DP is actually a butcher and a good friend of his holds shoots on his farm so they may have something. Mini game pies sound delicious, I think i may have a dabble with that a bit later in the season and do it as a main course.

@Sicario you do raise a good point about a prawn cocktail. I don't have any of those nice glasses, I would have to serve them in gin balloons

@gilmoregal the black pudding and poached egg on sourdough sounds amazing!

Gin balloons - genius. And you can hang one lone decorative prawn on the rim. Fanny Craddock, eat your heart out.

@Sicario haha maybe i need to search for 'posh' prawn cocktail. All it makes me think of is wet iceberg lettuce with diced cucumber and some small shrimp-y style prawns blathered in marie-rose dressing. Maybe i've never had a good 'n' proper prawn cocktail!!

It depends what your Dad and Grandad would like. I know my Dad and FIL would have been happier with a soup than any other 'posh' starter.
If they are foodies then go down the scallop with black pudding on cauliflower purée route.
I recently made a well received starter for which I had no recipe but basically guacamole ingredients more roughly chopped, topped with smoked salmon, then a splash of sour cream, then prawns on top with Melba toast.my friends loved it. My Dad would have tolerated it, my FIL probably wouldn't have touched it. So you need to think about what they would enjoy.

Canapes and fizz given it's an evening meal?

any of these butcherwife we did the prawn one second recipe down on this and it was lovely with some little toasts.
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/dinner-party-starter

www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fish-recipes/irish-potato-cakes-with-smoked-salmon/
www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fish-recipes/crostini-of-smoked-salmon-butter-amp-poached-leeks/
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2925/onion-and-goats-cheese-tarts
we did this prawn cocktail and loved the idea of doing it in those little jars or kilners worked perfectly.and looked really smart.
www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/seafood-recipes/prawn-cocktail/

Too complicated.
A good soup with nice bread and Normandy butter.

Thanks for the suggestions all!

Currently sat at my desk dreaming of all this deliciousness.

They will literally eat anything, we are quite big meat eaters so they just wouldn't really appreciate anything veggie apart from soup. We often go out for Sunday lunch to quite nice places so I wanted to go a little bit posh

Currently torn between a posh prawn cocktail and mini toasts or a pork and black pudding scotched egg

I wouldn’t do a heavy starter where the main course was a large roast and there was cheese. I might add a few squares of chocolate as a sweet ending.
I also wouldn’t do a starter for just family, usually but if I did I might consider -
Smoked salmon with roasted beetroot and a lemon dressing
Smoked salmon pate
Crab Tian
If soup, it would have to be a consommé
A salad maybe blue cheese and walnut (but you’re having cheese to,p finish and cauliflower cheese).
Stuffed portobellos
Scallops on black pudding with tomatoe coulis
Melon and with Parma ham and ginger

What about a twist on a classic like melon and ham. You could do prosciutto and figs.

If you have black pudding then black pudding sliced and fried with apple.

Takes 5 minutes.