Last week, I hosted a special Moroccan-style dinner party for my friends, Robbie Antonio and his lovely wife, Daniella, who are visiting New York from the Philippines. While they were in the area, I thought it would be nice to invite more friends to join us for a delicious autumn meal. All 15 of my guests arrived right on time. Our evening began with cocktails in my kitchen, and then a sit-down dinner in my Brown Room. Every course was thoroughly enjoyed - the Bisteeya, the Couscous Royale and the homemade fruit sorbets and cookies for dessert.
Enjoy these photos.
Final preparations for my dinner party were underway by late afternoon. I always decorate my home with lots of pretty houseplants whenever I entertain. In my foyer, houseplants and pumpkins share this table with my giant falcon.
This gorgeous lush green fern sits on the coffee table of my green room with gourds grown here at the farm.
More plants and autumn fruits adorn this side of my servery.
And this painted asparagus fern, Asparagus aethiopicus, looks perfect in the large sewer tile urn. Made mostly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, sewer tile art pieces like this one were valued for their color, their rarity, and their form. I have two in this room. I just love these industrial-looking vessels.
I wanted to use as many plants as possible – they are beautiful in groupings and add such nice color to any room. If you decorate with houseplants, use glass plates underneath instead of plant pot saucers for an extra special touch.
We placed money plants down the length of the dining table. Chinese money plants, Pilea peperomioides, are so handsome, and they always attract lots of attention.
The table settings are almost finished. This long table seats exactly 16 guests.
This stunning Christmas Cactus originally belonged to my mother, Big Martha. My late sister, Laura Plimpton found two small stem segments, called cladodes, in the back of a drawer several years after our mother died. We took a chance and planted them, and they thrived. This is the plant now. Laura would have loved it.
On the other side of the Christmas Cactus, we prepared the bar. I decided to make cider-bourbon cocktails, using cider made from my apples picked this season. https://www.marthastewart.com/863805/cider-bourbon-cocktail
I sugared all the glasses for the cocktails. I top the rim with a little lemon juice and then dip the glass in some brown sugar – it works perfectly for these drinks.
Here are the tagines, ready to be filled in my kitchen. The bases are wide and shallow – perfect for each full serving of couscous and all the mouthwatering meats and vegetables.
Here’s Andres juicing oranges for the cocktails.
Dessert glasses are placed on a tray ready to fill with sorbet. When hosting a party – get as much done beforehand as possible, so there is no rush during the party itself.
All the meats were cooked and ready to serve with the Couscous Royale.
Here’s a nice snapshot of Chef Pierre and Chef Alain.
Moments after the last photo was taken, they are busy preparing the hors d’oeuvres – fava bean hummus on handmade crackers and fresh radishes picked from my garden.
As guests enjoyed their cocktails, hors d’oeuvres were passed around on silver platters.
It was a very cold evening, so I started a fire in the Brown Room.
Here is the finished table with the menus and place cards added to each setting – everything looks great.
And here are the three Bisteeyas fresh from the oven and ready to be cut. The tops are sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar and cinnamon – it was everyone’s favorite dish.
The Bisteeya is served as the appetizer – it is a traditional Moroccan dish.
Each piece is thick and filled with the layers of chicken, egg and almond mixtures.
The sauces include Harissa – a North African hot chili pepper paste made with roasted peppers, spices, and herbs. We also served lemon with Biquinho red peppers I grew in my garden. These “little beak” peppers are small, pointed fruits that have a unique, slightly tart flavor with a tiny bit of heat – so delicious.
Back in the kitchen, Chef Pierre plates the Couscous Royale.
Each tagine is brought into the dining room with the steam from the food coming through the tops.
The Couscous Royale is plated with vegetables, and a piece each of lamb, chicken and then sausage, and placed into the base section of the tagines.
Dessert – delicious colors of the pomegranate sorbet and quince sorbet.
They look so gorgeous in these glasses topped with mint grown here at the farm.
Each serving plated with quince paste I made last week from the quince grown here, and my brown butter shortbread cookies. Everyone devoured dessert and even asked for more cookies to take home. It was a very delicious meal and a very enjoyable evening with friends.
I love entertaining at home, especially when I can incorporate my own garden-grown vegetables and fruits into the menu.
Yesterday, I hosted a Moroccan-style dinner for 16. Chef Pierre Schaedelin, from PS Tailored Events, and I, planned the delicious dishes. The first course was Bisteeya, a traditional Moroccan dish, followed by Couscous Royale, made with chicken, lamb, sausage and a variety of fresh vegetables from my garden. Our dessert was homemade pomegranate and quince sorbet served with quince paste and brown butter shortbread cookies - the quince was picked from my trees just last week. Preparing for any party takes a lot of effort, a lot of time, and a lot of advanced planning - it was a busy day of cooking, cleaning, and table setting, but all worth the effort for a wonderful gathering of friends.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
I always personalize my dinner table with handwritten place cards and menus for each guest. The card stock is printed with the symbol of my farm – this great sycamore tree of Cantitoe Corners.
Eggs are gathered from my wonderful hens and saved for the bisteeya.
Inside the Flower Room kitchen, just a few steps from my Winter House, Chef Pierre Schaedelin, from PS Tailored Events, is busy preparing our delicious meal. Follow him on Instagram @pstailoredevents.
Chef Pierre is cooking on my new Kitchen Aid Commercial Style Range – these appliances heat so evenly and work so efficiently. https://www.kitchenaid.com/
I wanted to have pomegranate sorbet, so we got these great big pomegranates from my friends at POM Wonderful. https://www.pomwonderful.com/
The first course is bisteeya, a traditional Moroccan dish most like an elaborate meat pie combining sweet and savory flavors, and using a phyllo dough encasement. Ours is made with chicken that is simmered in broth with onions, garlic, lemon juice, herbs, cumin, and saffron until it is falling off the bone. After it is cooked, Chef Pierre removes the chicken pieces and places them on a cookie sheet. Next, the bones are removed completely and the chicken is moved into a large bowl and mixed with herbs.
My large Brown Room is a great space for entertaining. The long table is set for 16-guests. Here, Sanu places several small salt and pepper bowls down the length of the table.
All the necessary silver utensils are pulled from the drawer and added to the table settings.
Enma folds white napkins for each setting. For this meal, we selected crisp white linens embroidered with my initials.
Here are the tagines, ready to be filled in my kitchen. A tagine cooking base is wide and shallow, and the tall lid fits snuggly inside. I love serving couscous royal in these handsome dishes.
These fruit glasses are also placed on the counter – all ready for the dessert service. They will look lovely with the deep red pomegranate sorbet.
And, here is some of the lamb that is being prepared for the couscous dish. The other meats include chicken and Merguez saucisson, a red, spicy sausage from North Africa.
There are also ground lamb burgers seasoned with salt, pepper, olive oil, and spices. All the meats are placed into the refrigerator until it is time to sear them and finish them off in the Winter House oven.
The juice from the pomegranates is placed into the sorbet machine. This machine churns the liquid at freezing temperatures making more than a quart of sorbet in about a half-hour.
Chef Pierre goes into the dining room to check that all the necessary plates and utensils are on the table. This is an important step, so no one is scrambling for more forks and spoons during the meal.
We used about 30-eggs for our bisteeya.
The eggs are scrambled in butter with lemon juice, salt, and pepper until fairly stiff. Then the eggs are cooked and placed in cheesecloth over a bowl to remove the excess liquid.
All the vegetables harvested from my garden the day before are cut and ready for cooking.
Look at the vibrant colors of all the fresh vegetables. They will be served with the Couscous Royale. Here are the vegetables as they simmer in the broth.
The couscous and raisins are also poured into a separate pot. Couscous is made from tiny steamed balls of semolina flour.
Sous chef Alain Allegretti prepares the brown butter shortbread cookie dough. The recipe is from my December 2011 issue of “Living.” https://www.marthastewart.com/865711/brown-butter-shortbread
The dough is chilled and then cut and placed onto a cookie sheet for baking.
To construct the bisteeya, Chef Pierre and Chef Alain start by carefully buttering the pans.
Then they drape layers of phyllo dough over the pans – two sheets at a time. They add another two more buttered sheets of phyllo to completely cover the bottom. Phyllo is paper-thin sheets of dough used for baking pastries in Middle Eastern, Balkan, and Moroccan cuisine. The edges are left draped over the sides.
Next, a layer of the scrambled egg mixture is placed into the pan.
Followed by lots of chicken and fresh chopped herbs.
Bisteeya also calls for almonds tossed with confectioner’s sugar and a bit of ground cinnamon. These almonds were sauteed in olive oil until slightly browned and then tossed with the sugar mixture.
More of the chicken mixture is added, followed by more eggs until the dish is full.
Here, this pan is completely full with the layers chicken, eggs and almonds. Here is my bisteeya recipe from season-4 of my show, “Martha Bakes”. http://www.marthastewart.com/1103743/bisteeya
Brushing each sheet of phyllo with butter is important so that it bakes golden, crisp, and flaky. Both Chef Pierre and Chef Alain pull the edges of the phyllo to cover the mixture and then add more phyllo to cover the top completely.
The edges are tucked into the sides of the pan sealing the bisteeya.
A final brush with clarified butter is added to the top so it shines.
Here are all three bisteeyas ready to go into the oven. In my next blog – the finished bisteeya, Couscous Royale and our mouthwatering dessert.
I love hosting gatherings at my Bedford, New York farm. And whenever I plan a party I always think about what I have growing in the garden. Yesterday, I asked my head gardener, Ryan McCallister, to harvest a selection of vegetables for a special dinner. The garden continues to thrive with an abundance of root vegetables, such as carrots, parsnips and one of my favorites, radishes.
Enjoy these photos.
This week has been cold and rainy, but the root crops are doing wonderfully in my vegetable garden. This turnip bed looks so lush.
Besides the turnip, other root vegetables include radishes, beets, parsnips, potatoes, carrots, onions, yucca, rutabaga, and jicama. The turnip is commonly grown in temperate climates worldwide for its white, fleshy taproot. There are many turnips to pick.
It’s a good idea to harvest turnips before heavy freezes or the root may crack and rot in the soil.
Ryan gently removes the surrounding earth first to see if the vegetables are big enough. If not, he pushes the soil back into place.
Ryan also harvests several leeks. The edible part of the plant is a bundle of leaf sheaths that is sometimes called a stem or stalk.
Leeks can be picked any time after the stalks are about an inch across.
The leek is a part of the allium species of the Lilaceae family. This is the same family of plants that includes onions, garlic, and chives.
Once harvested, Ryan removes the tough, darker green leaves and trims them down to where they turn a paler green.
He also trims the root end with his pruners.
Next, the radishes. It is so much fun harvesting root vegetables – it’s a surprise to pull every one of them up through the soil.
These radishes are so bright and red. The radish is an edible root vegetable of the Brassicaceae family that was domesticated in Europe in pre-Roman times. Radishes are mostly eaten raw as a crunchy salad vegetable.
Here are the carrots. While carrots are a common vegetable throughout the world, the first cultivated carrot in recorded history is thought to have come from the area around Afghanistan around 900 AD.
Be gentle when picking carrots. It helps to loosen the soil first with a garden fork before pulling them up.
Before leaving the vegetable garden, Ryan harvests a big bunch of parsley by cutting the stems off at the bottom of the plant.
After the vegetables are picked from the garden, they are brought into my Flower Room, where they are washed and stored in the refrigerator.
The carrots are a good size – these will be so delicious. Enma washes each one, scrubbing them lightly with a brush specifically made for vegetables.
Then she cuts off the green tops a quarter to a half-inch from the top of the carrot. All the cuttings go to the chickens for snacking.
Here are just some of the brightly colored carrots that were picked.
Leeks are sturdy, versatile, and flavorful vegetables. A traditional ingredient in French cuisine, the leek adds not only onion flavor to food but also a hint of garlic. Leeks are low in calories and full of nutrients – great for soups, stews, grain dishes, and even omelets.
The parsley is washed in cold water. Enma discards any old or wilted leaves.
After the vegetables are washed, they are placed on towels to dry before storing in plastic bags in the refrigerator.
And look at these turnips – so white and perfect. Turnips are a great source of minerals, antioxidants and dietary fiber. It is also a low-calorie vegetable — only 28 calories a serving.
And don’t throw away the turnip tops. Turnip greens, as well as radish greens, are also very nutritious and flavorful.
Sanu washes our bounty of bright red radishes. Radishes are chock full of vitamins A, C, E, B6, and potassium.
These will be perfect for my dinner – my guests will love these fresh vegetables, all organically grown right here at my farm.
Nearby, Creme Brulee, Bete Noire and my dear Chow Chows, Emperor Han and Empress Qin are resting comfortably through all the party preparations. I will share more from my party in my next blog – stay tuned.
Martha Pins
Martha Tweets
