Cocktail party!!!!

Fancy bites and fun drinks

Tomorrow is my 26th birthday and I hosted a little cocktail party to celebrate over the weekend!

On New Years Eve, I discovered a very random love for making cocktail apps and I really wanted another excuse to make tons of little bites and a couple of fun drinks and just have a little elevtated-ish party in my apartment. My birthday seemed like the perfect time. I really dove into the menu (and maybe got a bit too invested in this haha). I’ll give you a little low-down on how everything came to be.

First I had to lay the ground work. I made a list of every single cocktail app that sounded remotely interesting to me, scouring the internet and cookbooks until I felt like I had a well-rounded list. Then, I deleted every item that wasn’t super seasonal for February, like mini lobster rolls. I figured I needed an excuse to do this again in the warmer months and I can’t make all of the best apps right now. There has to be a cut-off somewhere! I made sure there was a decent amount of both meat and vegetarian options, and also gluten-free (or items that I can easily modify). I wanted a few dips, a few bites, a lot of dippers (veggies and other), and a really fun and easy dessert that you could eat as much or as little as you wanted.

THE MENU

Hummus

Spinach-artichoke dip

Homemade pita chips

Bonilla a la vista potato chips

Crudité of little gem, watermelon radish, and cucumber

The obligatory charcuterie: comte, brillat-savarin, stockinghall cheddar, and finocchiona

Hasselback yukon gold potatoes with labneh, caviar, and chives

Marinated olives with rosemary, Aleppo, blood orange, and fennel seed

Pigs in a blanket rolled in za’atar, sesame seeds, and poppy seeds

Poached shrimp with sungold cocktail sauce

Tiny chicken meatballs in buffalo harissa sauce

Tahini caesar salad in parmesan cups with pink peppercorns and pita crumbs

Chocolate mousse with tahini whipped cream, olive oil, and flaky salt

When curating the menu, I quickly realized that there were a quite a few dishes that evoked Israeli/Jewish—namely the buffalo harissa meatballs and hummus. I wanted to capitalize on this as much as I could and create a subtle theme throughout the menu. I edited almost all of the dishes to include one or more Israeli/Jewish ingredients. The only one not following suit was the shrimp cocktail because I could have made a harissa cocktail sauce but that felt repetitive with the harissa meatballs so I opted to use my favorite sungold ketchup in lieu.

These dashes of Israeli ingredients here and there really spiced up your basic cocktail apps to create something a little more my style.

• I topped the potatoes with labneh rather than crème fraîche

• The spinach artichoke dip has labneh instead of sour cream and Aleppo pepper instead of red pepper flakes

• I rolled the pigs in za’atar, sesame seeds, and poppy seeds, which are basically Jewish sprinkles

• I made a tahini-based Caesar dressing instead of mayo

• I made pita chips from the leftover pitas that I made a few weeks ago for dinner and froze

• And for dessert, I folded tahini into the whipped cream, which was just to-die-for

I loved that everything could be prepped ahead of time and eaten at room temperature. That’s definitely the goal when making cocktail apps like this for a party that is going on for a couple of hours. You want the food to hold it’s integrity and taste just as good at the beginning as it does at the end. I’m really proud of this spread and how everything turned out!!

I want to give a shoutout and pay credit to the amazing chefs and recipes that inspired all of these bites. And a little deeper of a dive into each dish.

The hummus is my absolute favorite recipe from Adeena Sussman’s cookbook Sababa that I have made countless times. I love that the recipe has you cook enough chickpeas to freeze them in batches and easily make hummus the next time. It’s smooth and creamy and more tahini than chickpea, which I’m a fan of. I topped it with olive oil and a sprinkle of sumac.

The spinach-artichoke dip is a recipe from Allison Roman on NYT cooking. I made this for NYE, as well, and I was obsessed so I knew I had to make it again. It’s so beyond easy and takes no time at all. I subbed sour cream for labneh!

The pita chips are from the pita recipe in Eden Grinshpan’s cookbook Eating Out Loud. I love that it made so many and I could freeze them and give them a second life in chip form.

The hasselback potatoes were inspired by a recipe from Food52. I really wanted to do some kind of Yukon gold potato with crème fraîche, caviar, and chives. Originally, I was going to make mini baked potatoes but then I saw these hasselback ones and I thought that was more unique and visually appealing. I piped labneh on top with a star tip and spooned a bit of black caviar and sprinkled over finely chopped chives.

I forget who inspired the marinated olives, but it was definitely a chef on Instagram. They marinated olives with orange, rosemary, and red pepper flakes I believe, which felt perfectly wintery to me. I used blood orange (because who doesn’t love those when they’re in season??!), Aleppo pepper, lots of rosemary, and fennel seeds.

The pigs in a blanket are not inspired by anyone in particular but I did follow this recipe from Martha Stewart so I knew cook temperatures and times. I assembled these two days in advance and froze them. Then I baked them from frozen at 400F for 25 minutes. They were perfect!!!! Before baking, I brushed them with egg and rolled them in za’atar, sesame seeds, and poppy seeds. The puff pastry is actually gluten-free from Ouri’s market on the UES and not a single person would have even known if I didn’t tell them. It was that good. I served them with honey mustard and sungold ketchup.

The shrimp cocktail is not inspired by anyone in particular, either. However, I used a recipe from Melissa Clark on NYT cooking for the cocktail sauce. I subbed sungold ketchup, which I found at the store Cookbook in LA last year and have been hooked ever since. It’s slightly less strong than your regular red ketchup. I like it better. For the shrimp, I made a court bouillon of sorts and poached it for a couple of minutes, then chilled it in an ice bath.

The tiny chicken meatballs were inspired by the buffalo harissa chicken wings in the Kismet cookbook. I love the idea of this Israeli twist on your regular buffalo sauce and thought it would make a perfect cocktail app as chicken meatballs. The sauce is just Frank’s Red Hot Sauce, caraway seeds, cumin, coriander, Aleppo, honey, butter, and lemon juice and zest.

The tahini Caesar salad in parmesan cup is inspired by a myriad of things. The dressing is a recipe from chef Elena Besser that she posted on Instagram. She topped it with pink peppercorns and I thought that was so cute, so I did too. I also blitzed some of the pita chips into breadcrumbs and sprinkled them on top. I found the parm cups when I was scouring the internet for appetizer ideas and thought that was a perfect way to eat them with your hands. I was a bit nervous to make—these for some reason I felt like it was going to be more difficult than it was. You just grate A LOT of parm and make little piles with about 1/3 cup of parm, then bake it at 350F for about 5 minutes. I let them cool for a few minutes so they firm up slightly and I could pick them up with my spatula. Then I laid them over an inverted muffin tray and let them set up for about 15 minutes. I highly recommend these! They’re one of those things that is low effort, high reward. I think every single person at the party commented on how cute they were and were shocked that I made them myself. But I promise you they’re super easy to execute.

The amazing dessert that was shockingly (but also not) gone in the blink of an eye: the Libertine chocolate mousse with tahini whipped cream. When I ate at Libertine in the West Village many months ago with my friends Tori and Matt, I was absolutely enamored by their chocolate mousse. We ordered a second it was that good. So when Matt started working there, he so graciously sent me the recipe! I will never forget the big vat of chocolate mousse that comes around for dessert at the restaurant Chez Janou in Paris and I have always wanted to do something similar at home for a party. I love that you can take a big helping or just a small spoonful, so there is little wasted. Plus who doesn’t like chocolate mousse?! It’s a crowd pleaser for sure. I wanted to give this dessert an Israeli twist like the rest of the menu and tahini and chocolate are magical together. I ended up following this recipe on the Los Angeles Times and it was delightful. I encouraged everyone to finish it with a drizzle of the Alive Brightland olive oil and a sprinkle of Maldon sea salt. It really was totally perfect.

And last but not least, I need to shoutout my friends for taking charge of making the cocktails and refilling them throughout the night. I had hugo spritzes and blood orange margaritas. Mia and Karly concocted the hugo spritzes, which are St. Germain (my fave!!), champagne, and lemon spindrift. Maddy concocted the margaritas (a very special recipe to her and all of us <3). Since I had blood oranges from the marinated olives, I ended up juicing those along with limes for a vibrant winter twist.

A very bad photo of a very good dessert

If you made it all the way to the end, thank you for reading! I also want to thank my friends for washing all of the dishes—I can’t express how much I was dreading that in the morning. Haha. Here’s to many more parties—cocktail and otherwise—to come!