This guide walks you through it: a menu you can make ahead, a timeline for the day before, the morning and the last hour, how much food to make, how to set a casual or a formal table and how to keep hot food hot and cold food cold. And remember that a casual dinner is every bit as good as a formal one.
Casual or formal, both are good
A casual dinner means platters in the middle of the table, one fork and one knife, and everyone helping themselves. A formal dinner means courses served one at a time, a few more pieces of silverware and a little more planning. The food can be exactly the same. Choose the style that lets you relax: a relaxed host matters more than where the fork goes.
Choose a menu you can make ahead
For your first dinners, build the menu around dishes that wait for you: stews, roasts and baked pastas that are even better the next day, sides that keep in the fridge and desserts that need to chill anyway. Then leave only one dish for the last hour, ideally one your Thermomix® TM7™ can cook while you take care of the rest. These three menus from this site work that way.
| Course | Puerto Rican dinner | Italian style dinner | Comfort food dinner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | Guineítos en Escabeche (Pickled Green Bananas), 1 or 2 days ahead | Caprese Skewers, up to 4 hours ahead | Deviled Eggs, with the whites and the filling ready the day before |
| Main | Pernil (Puerto Rican Roast Pork Shoulder), marinated 1 or 2 days ahead and roasted that afternoon | Classic Lasagna, assembled the day before | Pot Roast with Carrots and Potatoes, cooked the day before and reheated |
| Side | Arroz con Gandules (Rice with Pigeon Peas), cooked in the TM7 in the last hour | Caesar Salad, with the dressing and croutons made the day before | Soft Dinner Rolls, shaped the night before and baked that day |
| Dessert | Flan de Queso or Tembleque (Coconut Pudding), the day before | Tiramisu, the day before | Key Lime Pie, the day before, with the whipped cream added on the day |
Cook something you have made before. A dinner for guests is not the best day to try a recipe for the first time.
A simple timeline
Write the menu on a piece of paper and note next to each dish when it gets made. This rhythm works for most dinners:
| When | What to do |
|---|---|
| 2 or 3 days before | Choose the menu, count the guests, write the shopping list and check that you have enough plates, glasses and chairs. Buy everything that keeps. |
| The day before | Make the desserts that need to chill, the sauces and dressings, and the dishes that are better the next day. Marinate the meat, make room in the fridge and set the table if you can. |
| The morning | Buy the last fresh things, like bread, herbs and salad greens. Wash and cut the vegetables, prepare the starter and chill the drinks. |
| The last hour | Bake or reheat the main dish, cook the one last-minute side, warm the bread and put out the starter and the drinks. Empty the sink and the dishwasher so the dirty dishes have somewhere to go. |
| When guests arrive | Offer a drink, set out the starter and let them keep you company while you finish. That is part of the fun. |
Long roasts set the schedule. For a 7 p.m. dinner with pernil, take the pork out of the fridge around noon: it rests 1 hour before roasting and then roasts for close to 5 hours. A lasagna assembled the day before goes into the oven about 1 1/2 hours before dinner.
How much food per person
These amounts are for a dinner with a starter, a main dish, one or two sides and dessert. Make a little more than you think you need: running out worries a host far more than leftovers do.
| Food | Per person |
|---|---|
| Meat, chicken or fish for the main dish | 115 to 170 g (4 to 6 oz), cooked and without the bones. Buy more for cuts with bones, like pernil. |
| Each side: rice, beans, pasta, potatoes, vegetables or salad | 1/2 to 1 cup (120 to 240 ml) |
| Bread or rolls | 1 or 2 pieces |
| Starter before dinner | 4 to 6 small bites, or one small plate |
| Dessert | 1 serving, plus a few extra for second helpings |
| Drinks | 1 to 2 per hour, plus plenty of water |
| Ice | About 450 g (1 lb), more on a hot day |
Example: for 8 guests at a 3 hour dinner, plan on 900 g to 1.4 kg (2 to 3 lb) of cooked meat, 4 to 8 cups of each side and 24 to 48 drinks, plus water.
How to set a casual table
For a casual dinner you only need the pieces people will use. Put the platters in the middle of the table or on the kitchen counter, and give each person a setting like this:
- The plate in the center, in front of the chair.
- The fork on the left of the plate.
- The knife on the right, with the blade facing the plate, and a spoon to the right of the knife only if the menu needs one.
- The glass above the knife.
- The napkin on the plate or folded under the fork.
Plates that don't match, paper napkins and a jar of flowers are perfectly fine. Nobody grades the table.
How to set a formal table
A formal table follows one simple rule: you use the silverware from the outside in, in the order the courses arrive. Set only what the menu needs: no soup, no soup spoon.
| Place | What goes there |
|---|---|
| Center | The dinner plate. If the first course is a salad or a soup, its plate or bowl sits on top of the dinner plate. |
| Left of the plate | The forks: the salad fork on the outside if the salad comes first, and the dinner fork next to the plate. |
| Right of the plate | The dinner knife next to the plate, with the blade facing in, and the soup spoon to its right if there is soup. |
| Above the plate | The dessert spoon and fork, lying sideways: the spoon on top with its handle to the right, the fork below it with its handle to the left. |
| Top left | The small bread plate, with the butter knife lying across it. |
| Top right | The water glass, just above the knife, and any other glass to its right. |
| Napkin | Folded on the plate, or to the left of the forks. |
Most dinners don't need all of this. Two forks, a knife, a spoon and two glasses already look elegant.
Buffet, family style or plated
There are three ways to get the food from your kitchen to your guests. None is more correct than the others, so pick the one that fits your space and your crowd.
| Style | How it works | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Buffet | The food waits on a counter or a side table and everyone serves themselves, plate in hand. | Big groups, small tables and parties where people stand and talk. |
| Family style | The platters go in the middle of the table and get passed around. | 4 to 10 people at one table. It feels warm and generous, and it is the easiest style when you are starting out. |
| Plated | You fill each plate in the kitchen and bring it to the table, first the starter, then the main dish, then dessert. | Formal dinners and small groups. It means more work in the kitchen, so keep the menu short. |
For a buffet, line things up in this order: plates, the main dish, the sides, the bread, and the napkins and silverware at the end, so nobody has to juggle them while serving.
Keep hot food hot and cold food cold
Bacteria grow fastest between 4°C (40°F) and 60°C (140°F), the range food safety experts call the danger zone. These simple rules from the USDA keep your food out of it.
- Keep hot food at 60°C (140°F) or hotter: in the oven at 95°C (200°F), or in a slow cooker or on a warming tray set to warm.
- Keep cold food at 4°C (40°F) or colder: in the fridge until you serve it, or in a bowl set inside a bigger bowl of ice.
- Don't leave food out more than 2 hours, or more than 1 hour when it is hotter than 32°C (90°F), like on a patio in summer.
- Set out small platters and refill them from the kitchen instead of leaving one big platter out all evening.
- Put leftovers in the fridge within those 2 hours, in shallow containers, and reheat them to 74°C (165°F).
An instant-read thermometer takes the guessing out of it. One quick check tells you if the food is hot enough or cold enough.
The part that matters most
Light a candle, play music you love and sit down with your guests instead of running back and forth. If something burns or the rice comes out a little soft, laugh and serve it anyway. People remember how they felt at your table, not which way the knife was facing.
And when guests show up with no warning at all, try one of the Menus for Unexpected Guests.