The No-Cook Dinner Party: Tins, Jamón, Olives, Bread, Cheese and One Great Dessert
The best dinner party we know of requires no stove. In Spain it is Sunday lunch; in Puglia it is what appears when neighbors arrive; in Catalonia it is the vermut hour stretched into the afternoon. The principle is that abundance is not the same as cooking. A table with three opened tins, a board of jamón, warm olives, a bowl of dressed beans, torn bread, two cheeses and a dessert that requires a spoon is a real dinner, and it leaves the host free to sit down, which is the thing most hosts never do.
This is the menu for six, the shopping list from our shelves, the forty-minute setup, the timing, and the one rule that makes it work: everything at room temperature, nothing on a plate.
The menu
To start: olives, chips, a bowl of something crunchy, and a drink in everyone's hand within five minutes of arrival.
The table: three tins, jamón, a bowl of beans dressed with oil, a cheese board, bread, and the small sharp things that make all of it taste better.
Dessert: goat's milk caramel or dulce de leche over vanilla ice cream, a plate of biscotti, a bar of dark chocolate broken into shards.
The shopping list
From us. Three tins from the tinned fish shelf: one shellfish (Galician cockles, mussels or razor clams), one sardine or mackerel, one anchovy or tuna. One pack of jamón ibérico and one of salchichón. A jar of anchovy-stuffed olives and one of Cerignolas. A jar of white beans with truffle, or a pot of beans you made yesterday. Sel gris flatbreads and tarallini. A bag of Torres chips. A jar of cornichons, a pot of Dijon, a bottle of Espinaler sauce, a jar of honey. A good olive oil and flaky salt. For dessert, Fat Toad Farm caramel or San Ignacio dulce de leche, a bag of lemon biscotti, and one serious dark chocolate bar. To drink, something cold and bitter: a bottle of sparkling tea for the table and a zero-proof aperitif for the start, alongside whatever wine you like.
From the grocery. Two loaves of good bread. One hard cheese (an aged Manchego, Comté or Gouda) and one soft (a ripe goat cheese or a triple cream). Two lemons. A bunch of parsley or celery leaves. Vanilla ice cream. Ice.
The forty-minute setup
Forty minutes before. Take the jamón, salchichón and both cheeses out of the refrigerator and unwrap them. This is the single most important step; cold jamón is waxy and cold cheese is mute, which our jamón guide explains. Take the ice cream out of the freezer at the same time to soften slightly, then put it back twenty minutes later.
Thirty minutes before. Warm the olives: drain them, warm a few tablespoons of olive oil with a strip of lemon peel and a bruised garlic clove in a small pan over low heat for three minutes, pour it over the olives and leave them. This is the only heat in the evening and it is optional. Dress the beans: drain, toss with olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, chopped parsley, salt and pepper. Tear the bread into rough hunks into a basket, or slice it thick; do not toast it unless you want to.
Fifteen minutes before. Set the table. Small plates for everyone, a fork and a knife, a short glass. Down the center: the jamón draped loosely on a board, the salchichón fanned beside it, the two cheeses on a second board with a knife each and the honey pot, the olives in a bowl with a saucer for pits, the beans in a bowl, the bread basket, the cornichons and mustard, the Espinaler bottle, the salt, the oil. Keep the tins closed in a row on saucers with a fork and a lemon wedge each. Chill the drinks. Light the candles.
At the door. A drink in hand, the chips and a bowl of tarallini on the counter, the stuffed olives beside them. This buys you the ten minutes when people arrive at different times.
At the table. Open the tins in front of everyone. This is the ceremony of the evening and it should not happen in the kitchen. Shake a few drops of Espinaler over the shellfish. Squeeze lemon over the sardines. Put the anchovies where the bread is. Sit down.
How to eat it
There is no order. Bread rubbed with tomato and topped with jamón, a fork of cockles with a chip, a cornichon between bites of salchichón, a spoon of beans, a slice of cheese with honey. Our guide to the vermut hour covers the etiquette; the short version is that everyone eats from the same tins and nobody waits to be served. Refill the bread basket once. When the tins are empty, that is dinner.
Dessert
Warm the caramel jar in a bowl of hot water for five minutes so it pours. Scoop ice cream into small bowls, pour the caramel over, add a pinch of flaky salt. Put the biscotti and the broken chocolate on a plate in the middle. Make coffee or a pot of tea. Our caramel guide has other ideas, but this one has never failed.
Scaling and substitutions
For eight, add one tin and one more pack of jamón. For twelve, double the tins and add a third cheese; the rest stretches. Vegetarians eat well from the beans, the cheeses, the olives, the bread and dessert; add a jar of matbucha for them. If jamón is not the budget, the serrano and salchichón alone are plenty. If the Espinaler bottle is missing, lemon and a little hot sauce do the job. Our dinner-party pantry guide is the list that lets this happen without a shopping trip, which is the ultimate version of the idea.
Everything on the shop side of the list is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and ships nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com. The bread, cheese and ice cream are a ten-minute errand. The sitting down is up to you.
