Imagine this – it’s 7 O’clock on a Saturday evening, your home has scrubbed up quite nicely, and, though you wouldn’t shout about it, so have you.
Your guests are due to arrive in about half an hour. There’s a bottle of Corton Charlemagne ’98 in the fridge, a cheeky bottle of claret breathing on the kitchen table, a slab of ozone-fresh turbot, the most kingly fish, glistening on your chopping board and a Lighthouse Family Greatest Hits CD lying next to the music centre.
What could possibly go wrong with the evening ahead?
To be honest, how long have you got?
Apart from the obvious dangers of friends, spouses and alcohol being in the same room at the same time, and just concentrating on the food – with a complete and utter idiot at the helm, this good ship Dinner Party is never far from the rocks.
That’s not to say that you, gentle reader, are a blithering idiot. But what I can say is that, aided by a singular, golden and immutable law of culinary navigation, this ship could be brought safely to port, even if it were skippered jointly by Frank Spencer, Benny from Crossroads and the entire English World Cup Football Team.
So what’s the rule all chefs are taught?
It’s simple; “Don’t make any bloody mistakes”
It stands to reason. Food is naturally great. That’s why it’s food. If it wasn’t great we’d eat something else. So just don’t mess with it. Don’t make the mistake of buying turbot that’s not fresh! Then don’t make the mistake of trying show-offy effects (like making Bearnaise sauce for the first time) while the fish burns or stews to a pulp. And it’s much better to pull out of the oven some tasty, crispy, golden, salted oven chips than to serve up from the fryer some soggy, unseasoned “perfect-for-chips” Maris bleedin' Pipers.
Make sure each process is not mistake-ridden.
It’s easy to remember which bits of flora and fauna, heated, go well together on a plate. It’s easy to buy fresh fish. It’s easy to cook fish. It’s easy to make good chips. Concentrate on not messing these easy bits up. Then add a few skills.
Go carefully and correctly, step by step.
As The Man says – “first we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin”
An idiot can do it, I’ve seen it.
