Une réception en vogue

A fashionable supper party for 12

Appears in
New Menus from Simca's Cuisine
New Menus from Simca's Cuisine

By Simone Beck and Michael James

Published 1979

  • About
This is an elegant menu from start to finish, beginning with a luxurious molded salmon paté, followed by a colorful rabbit and fowl in aspic, and finishing with a Bavarian cream, airy and blushing with apricot. It is a supper party or buffet menu for twelve chic friends, calling for much champagne. Because all of the dishes are cold, they can easily be readied ahead of time, and the cook in the house will be free to join the party.

I have frequently enjoyed combining smoked salmon with fresh, and in the beurre de saumon the idea receives an extravagant interpretation in a molded dish that can be served in several ways: in thin slices, accompanied by toast; spooned into pretty oval shapes; or on canapés, as an hors-d’oeuvre. I recently made this paté for a Christmas Eve supper, and as the fresh French salmon was quite exorbitant, I bought some frozen Pacific Coast salmon for one-fourth the price! It was very, very good, and once it was puréed one would never have known the difference. So you can use some frozen salmon for this dish, or any other delicate fish for that matter–trout, for instance–but of course, the beauty of salmon is also in its color.