Today, themed lunches and dinners are becoming more and more popular. After all, these are not only entertaining, but also interesting educational events. You can host a themed party dedicated to one product, a particular color, literary work, hero or national cuisine of a particular country.
General rules for organizing a thematic dinner
First of all, you should decide on the theme of the upcoming dinner. Then you need to think over the decor of the room, table decoration and musical accompaniment to the smallest detail. For example, if the choice fell on an Italian-style dinner, then you can print mini-flags of Italy on a color printer and decorate canapes or cocktails with them; to sew or buy napkins and a tablecloth with national ornaments; decorate a room in green-white-red colors (the colors of the Italian flag) or hang Venetian masks on the walls.
But the most important thing is the choice of the menu. One may ask the question: what products and dishes is the selected country associated with? Italy is, of course, mozzarella, ciabatta, olive oil, pizza, lasagna, spaghetti.
You shouldn't cook a lot of dishes for a themed dinner. After all, this is not a "holiday of the belly", but first of all, a cultural and educational event. It is enough to cook 3 dishes - appetizer, main and dessert. Then you need to select a recipe for each food category. Here, whenever possible, the tastes of the guests should be taken into account.
Italian style dinner menu
As an appetizer, you can serve mozzarella with tomatoes and basil. Fresh mozzarella cheese is an integral part of many Italian dishes. Its taste is unobtrusive and very sophisticated. For a mozzarella snack you will need:
- 4 heads of mozzarella;
- 4-5 large tomatoes;
- 30 g of basil;
- 100 g of arugula;
- 100 ml of olive oil;
- 30 g of balsamic vinegar;
- 50 g of pine nuts;
- 15-20 g of sea salt;
- ground pepper.
Cut the mozzarella and tomatoes across into slices about 1-1.5 centimeters thick and place on a plate, alternating slices of cheese and tomatoes with basil leaves. Sprinkle everything with balsamic vinegar, pine nuts, arugula leaves, sea salt and pepper.
Pasta with zucchini, tomatoes and bacon is perfect for an Italian dinner. To prepare it, you need to take:
- 300 g linguine;
- 125 g bacon;
- 150 g zucchini;
- 100 g of asparagus;
- 150 g of tomatoes;
- 10 ml lemon juice;
- 1-2 cloves of garlic;
- 40 ml of olive oil;
- thyme;
- parsley;
- salt;
- pepper.
Pour the linguine into boiling salted water and cook until al dente (when the pasta is ready, but has not yet boiled and remains firm enough). In a preheated skillet, fry chopped garlic and thyme in olive oil. Then add bacon strips, zucchini slices and coarsely chopped asparagus. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes, peel and seeds, chop the flesh with a knife.
Add boiled linguines and tomatoes to the pan, drizzle with lemon juice and simmer everything together. At the very end, add chopped parsley and season to taste with salt and pepper.
For dessert, you can make berry tiramisu. It will require:
- 100 ml of espresso coffee;
- 100 ml of Baileys liqueur;
- 16 pieces of savoyardi cookies;
- 250 g strawberries;
- 125 g raspberries;
- 125 g blueberries.
For the cream:
- 2 eggs;
- 50 g of sugar;
- 250 g mascarpone cheese;
- 300 ml 33% cream.
Separate the egg yolks from the whites, beat the yolks with sugar into a dense foam and mix with the mascarpone. Whisk the cream separately and add to the yolk mixture. Whisk the whites into a dense foam and mix gently into the bulk. Then put the prepared cream in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
At this time, mix coffee with liqueur, dip Savoyardi cookies in the resulting mixture, let it soak and squeeze lightly. Put a layer of soaked cookies in a mold, then cream, followed by berries. Repeat the layers one more time and place the berry tiramisu in the refrigerator to freeze a little. Serve dessert by cutting it into portions.
