<p>And thoughts on an upscale, cold, summer buffet?</p>
<p>A favorite: Catalope wedges wrapped in prosciutto.</p>
<p>Gazpacho, pesto pasta salad (with sundried tomatoes and artichoke hearts if you like them) and lots of parmesan, stuffed grape leaves, something with crabmeat (quiche, perhaps?) and/or sushi. Yes, yes, going for an around-the-world theme, but that was by accident!</p>
<p>Shrimp and/or shrimp salad</p>
<p>Cheese platter </p>
<p>sushi</p>
<p>bruschetta</p>
<p>fresh mozzarella balls and tomato salad</p>
<p>Today’s NYT has 101 salad recipes.
To add to the international theme, cold sesame noodles, chicken or beef satay, Vietnamese chicken salad, Thai beef salad, crudites and aoili, German potato salad.</p>
<p>Oh, about aoili, I recently went to a southern restaurant that served aoili with sweet potatoes mixed in. It was so good!</p>
<p>Marite, thanks for pointing out the 101 recipes in the NYTs!</p>
<p>Poached salmon with a creamy mustard sauce
Stuffed lobster cold plate (basically lobster salad presented in the lobster shell)</p>
<p>The last one is from a Jasper White recipe that I’ve served; people love it.</p>
<p>A friend of mine served a lovely buffet dinner for an outdoor wedding reception for her D. For the table with cold items, she set out large pans and trays full of ice. Then this was covered with white tablecloths draped artistically over the ice trays. There were different levels with the different trays and pans of ice. Then the serving dishes were set on top of the tablecloths. It looked so nice and was very safe at keeping the cold foods cold. I hadn’t seen this done before, so thought it might be a good idea for you.</p>
<p>I don’t know the recipes, but I’ve had some wonderful Russian cold salads made from root vegetables. I once enjoyed a hearty and satisfying, yet light, Russian buffet of cold pickled fishes and root-vegetable salads. Some were tart, some sweet, some vinegary, some creamy. If that sounds good, some Googling should hook you up.</p>
<p>last night went to dinner at a friends. She served 2 cold salads. One of them was an Orzo salad with pinenuts and feta. The other was quinoa with edename with cucumber,tomato and feta with a lemon olive oil dressing. They both were delicious and light. If you google quinoa salad Tracy Porter you can find the recipe. My friend used candied pecans and cooked the quinoa in chicken broth.</p>
<p>I am doing a student send-off this weekend and am baking focaccia and will be making two kinds of sandwiches - chicken wiht goat cheese and tmatoes and lettuces and then mozzarella, basil and tomato - love some of the side dish suggestions!</p>
<p>grilled asparagus with vinaigrette </p>
<p>I love those Russian salads, haven’t had one since I lived in Germany.</p>
<p>I like smoked trout with a horseradished laced cream sauce.</p>
<p>If we’re going for cold soup, how about a little vichyssoise?</p>
<p>Barefoot Contessa has some beautiful salads in her cookbook.
How about a tart made with goat cheese and pears on puff pastry.</p>
<p>Wow. You guys are good cooks! I make cucumber salad. Easy and yummy. Throw in some dill to spice it up a bit.</p>
<p>I need to go to bed. I looked at the thread title and thought “Jimmy Buffet? Warren Buffett? who is cold??” LOL. I am serious-thats how I read it. I need to lie down now. :(</p>
<p>Russian beet salad (aka “The vinagrette”): beets (I use marinated ones, but boiled will do) cut in small cubes, cubed cooked carrots, cubed boiled potatoes, finely cut pickles, finely cut red onions, dill, cilantro, cooked green peas, olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Yummy if you like beets.</p>
<p>I was able to take a one day trip to see DS on the insistance of DW. Anyway saw his digs and met two of his house chick mates and the hens. One of the them said that she wants to have a SpeakEasy. </p>
<p>I’m thinking to suggest to DS they have an egg plate: home grown eggs, tea eggs, salted duck eggs, thousand year eggs, salmon eggs, whitefish caviar, urchin eggs, and those tiny red fish eggs. And of course Eggplant, baked slices.</p>
<p>For large cold buffets, I often make poached salmon as a main course. I used to poach whole salmon, but the size made poaching hard to control precisely, and the bones were a big issue. Now I buy two boned fillets from the same side of the salmon (i.e., two left-side, or two right-side), poach them separately for about 25 min @, then lay one on top of the other so that the overall shape resembles a (thin) whole salmon. I remove the skin on the top and decorate with dill mayonnaise and sliced-cucumber “scales”, and serve with dill mayonnaise and lemon wedgelets. It looks great, tastes great, and is easy to serve and clean.</p>
<p>For a cold buffet, I too often do poached salmon, using the whole side filet. I find that it’s essential to make a good, flavorful poaching court bouillon with white wine, onion, bay leaf, peppercorns, salt, parsley and perhaps lemon rind. I prefer the method in which the poaching time is relatively short, but you let the salmon cool in the broth and then chill it in the broth before removing it. I like a cucumber dill sauce, but mustard dill is good too.</p>
<p>Some of my favorite main course salads remain those in the old Silver Palate Cookbook: Seafood Salad with Creamy Tarragon-Mustard Dressing and Basque Salad. (Personally, I don’t like most pasta salads. I prefer rice salads. I have a great recipe for one with Rice, Corn, & Black Beans, but it’s not what I would call elegant.)</p>
<p>Grilled asparagus is always great: it’s delicious, it’s easy to cope with in a buffet, and it goes with everything. I just toss it with olive oil, coarse salt, and fresh pepper before grilling.</p>
<p>A quiche made with goat cheese and wild mushrooms is good cold.</p>
<p>Everyone always loves Martha Stewart’s Roquefort grapes (Entertaining), and they can be made ahead.</p>
<p>I also favor a lovely bowl filled with her smoked trout mousse (Entertaining) surrounded by VERY quickly blanched and shocked snow peas and separated endive leaves. (Cucumber slices on the diagonal also works. All the shades of light green together looks very attractive.) I put out a silver butter knife or the like in case someone wants to spread it, but really it’s sort of an upscale crudite dip.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Oh, that’s funny!</p>
<p>I hope you got some sleep, jym!</p>
<p>Really good freshly prepared hummus. </p>
<p>Even Warren likes that. Any of you getting in at $91,000 a share?</p>