Making a party perfect platter

As the weather gets warmer and the festive season approaches, getting together with friends and family around food becomes a regular occurrence.

A typical gathering usually starts with a plate or board of snacks for people to pick at until the main event. There are some amazing pictures on social media to inspire and sometimes intimidate.

But in their book Charcuterie Miranda Ballard and Louise Pickford set out to demystify the process of putting together a platter, especially one featuring cured meats. Ballard and her husband own the Modern Meat Shop in London while Pickford is a food writer.

With so many different meats available these days from cured meats, smoked sausages, and salami to pates and rillettes, they give plenty of tips and themes to build a platter on.

Remember, serving charcuterie boards is all about fun, enjoying the process and relaxing with friends and family. Entertaining just got a whole load easier.

• Next week we take a look at the cheese options for platters.

THE BOOK

Charcuterie by Miranda Ballard & Louise Pickford, published by Ryland Peters & Small. Distributed by bookreps.co.nz. RRP $44.99

A platter guide

One of the hardest things to judge when putting together a platter is how much to put on it, what to serve it on and how to balance it out. The following guide answers those questions.

Be it Christmas, a summer picnic, a birthday or wedding, your starting point will be numbers and quantities required.

What to serve your food on

You will need boards or platters on which to arrange your chosen foods. This can be a well-loved kitchen chopping board, a new purchase, an old antique find or even a purpose-cut board from your local hardware store. It could be wooden, ceramic, slate, marble or perhaps metal. It can be round, square or rectangular; large or small. For two to four guests, use a small board; six to eight people, a medium board; 12 or more, use a large board; and then for weddings or other large social gatherings, combine as many boards as you need.

Planning and shopping

These are essential to sourcing quality ingredients. Choose the theme and then either use our suggestions as a template or just refer to it as a guide to inspire. Remember, shopping seasonally is important as is sourcing products locally when possible.

Slicing meats

Many hams and salamis are now available pre-sliced, although many delis or supermarkets stock whole meats that can be sliced to order. Of course you can buy your own meat slicer if you are a regular charcuterie eater - there is a wide range of different models available, ranging from really cheap manual options to top-end electric slicer models.

Design

Get inspired: use this book and other visual sources to fire the imagination. Some boards have an obvious theme such as Christmas, so perhaps a wreath or Christmas tree shape, while others are just more generic.

Balance

You are looking to combine textures, colours and flavours as equally as you can. For a main-course platter, the following quantities provide a guide. If you are serving your board as a starter or as a pre-dinner appetiser, then reduce this by about a third.

Charcuterie: 50-75 g per person

Cheeses: 25-50 g per person

Fruit/vege: a few slices per person

Nuts: a small handful per person

Dried fruits: 2-4 pieces per person

Sauces/dips: 2 Tbsp per person

Bread/crackers: 100-150g per person

Arranging the board

Gather all the ingredients in front of you. Pick the larger pieces, such as the cheeses, bread and bowls containing sauces, dips, spreads, pickles or olives, and place them well apart on the board.

Fold or overlap slices of salami and ham, giving the ham a tweak upwards to add height to the board. Arrange each type of meat in groups with fans of salami in one spot and curls of ham in another. Try to avoid placing all the meats together.

Add a few fresh herbs at this stage, placing them in the smaller gaps between the meats.

Larger gaps are good for placing fruits, either whole or sliced, and the same goes for vegetables or salad leaves.

Place crackers in baskets, on smaller boards or on the board itself.

Finally, finish off by adding a flourish of fresh herbs or edible flowers. If you like, drizzle some honey over cheeses or soft salamis.

Salumi chips (baked salumi )

So simple and yet so moreish. I’ve tried this with lots of different varieties of salumi (literally means "salted meat" and generally a word used to describe Italian cured meats) and, it’s also a great addition to a main dish. This is a slightly leaner way to enjoy charcuterie, too, as you’ll see some of the fat drain out of it. I have to say that my personal favourite for this is saucisson sec (dry-cured flavoured pork sausage), but feel free to try it with any slices of charcuterie, such as recipe-cured (salami, or chorizo, where the meat is minced/ground and mixed with flavourings) or straight-cured (prosciutto, for example, where whole joints of meat are cured).

Serves 12

12 slices salumi of your choice

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Lay the slices of salumi in a single layer on a baking sheet.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until crisp. Keep checking that they’re not burning. Remove from the oven and let cool.

Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. These chips will last for up to a week in the refrigerator and are the perfect thing to nibble on.

Sweet patatas bravas

Every time I go to a tapas restaurant with friends, we’ll be going through the menu and then someone will say, "Ooooh, patatas bravas, yes?", which is met with a chorus of "patatas bravas, patatas bravas" - so I think that people enjoy saying it as much as they like eating it. I use sweet potatoes here, but you can use any type of potatoes you like.

Serves 4

For the sauce

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion

1 garlic clove

1 teaspoon tomato puree/paste

2 teaspoons paprika

a pinch of dried chilli/hot pepper flakes

1 teaspoon soft/packed brown sugar

a big pinch of freshly chopped parsley, plus extra to garnish

a pinch of freshly chopped or dried basil

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

400g can of tomatoes, chopped

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the potatoes

3 large sweet potatoes, cut roughly into cubes (I’m a big fan of keeping the peel on, but it’s up to you)

2 tablespoons olive oil

Method

First, make the sauce. Ideally, make this the day before you want to serve it or follow the instructions to cool below.

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan/skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and fry it until soft and browning, then add the garlic and fry briefly. Add the tomato puree/paste, paprika, chilli/hot pepper flakes, sugar, parsley and basil, season with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the vinegar and canned tomatoes, then reduce the heat and simmer for 5 to 6 minutes, until it thickens a little. Remove from the heat.

If you’re making this the day before, let the mixture cool to room temperature, then place it in the refrigerator overnight (it will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days, or it can be frozen for another time). If you’re making this sauce on the day you want to serve it, I strongly recommend cooling then reheating it before you pour it over the roasted potato pieces, because this really brings out the flavours. So just fill a sink with cold water and lower the bottom of the pan into the water (or transfer the mixture to a bowl to lower into the water, to be even quicker) and keep stirring until the sauce is cool and thicker still. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Put the potatoes in a pan, cover with cold water, bring to the boil and boil for 5 minutes to soften them. Drain well, then transfer them to a baking sheet and spread them out in a single layer. Drizzle the olive oil over the top and mix them around so they’re well covered.

Roast in the preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes and give them a shake halfway through. If you have peeled the potatoes they won’t take as long to roast, so just reduce the cooking time a little.

While the potatoes are roasting, reheat the sauce by gently heating it in a saucepan on the hob/stovetop over low heat.

Remove the roasted potatoes from the oven and pop them into individual dishes to serve (or transfer to one large serving dish). Pour the reheated sauce over the potatoes. Serve immediately, garnished with extra parsley.

Asparagus and prosciutto gratin

This is a delightful side dish to serve when asparagus is in season. It doesn’t take much effort to put together and is always a crowd-pleaser at dinner parties.