2011

Parties That Cook Indian Summer Tapas Recipe: Crispy Vegetable Samosas

0 comments By The Kitchen Whisperer Filed in Entertaining, Menus & Recipes Tagged with cooking class, fried food, indian recipe, Indian Summer, Indian Summer cooking class, mint-jalapeno chutney, tapas, vegetable samosas, Vegetarian Tapas July 7th, 2011 @ 1:51 pm

Summer is officially in full swing. Fill your days with trips to the beach, lazy days (or songs), sunny skies, new adventures and, of course, lots of cooking! This July, Parties That Cook is offering an Indian Summer Tapas cooking class. And this week, we’re featuring one of the recipes from the class’ small plates menu.

Crispy Vegetable Samosas with Mint Jalapeno Chutney
This recipe can also be found in our Appetizer Recipe Library!

Ingredients
Filling:
1 medium russet potato
1 Tablespoon ghee or vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon asafetida powder
2 teaspoons mustard seeds
1 cup cooked peas
2 jalapenos, seeded and chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon garam masala
3 Tablespoons cilantro leaves, chopped
24 won ton wrappers

Sheet pan dusted with cornstarch
4-6 cups canola oil for frying

Chutney:
1 shallot, peeled, root end removed
1/2 yellow pepper, seeded
1 bunch cilantro leaves
1/2 bunch mint leaves
1 jalapeno, seeded
1 Tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
2 teaspoons lime juice
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup yogurt
3 Tablespoons water
1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon sugar

Methods/Steps
Make Filling: Peel potato and dice into 1/4-inch cubes. Blanch in boiling water for 1-2 minutes, or until tender but still firm. Drain and set aside. Heat the ghee or oil in a skillet and add the potatoes, asafetida powder, mustard seeds, peas, jalapenos and salt. Stir well over moderate heat for 2 minutes. Cover pan, reduce heat and cook gently for 7 minutes. Remove from heat and add the garam masala and chopped cilantro. Cool in refrigerator for a few minutes.

Assemble Samosas: Put 6 won ton wrappers on a dry surface and brush lightly with water, focusing on edges. (Leave remaining wrappers in package, covered with a damp towel to prevent drying.) Mound about 2 teaspoons of filling in the center of each wrapper. Fold one point over to meet the other to form a triangle. Press edges together to seal. Place on a tray dusted lightly with cornstarch. Repeat process with remaining wrappers.

Fry Samosas: In a large frying pan, add 4 cups canola oil and heat to 360°F. Working in batches, fry samosas until golden brown, about 1 minute per side. Using tongs, transfer samosas to cooling rack over a sheet pan.

Blend Chutney: Blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth. Pour chutney into a small bowl.Serve: Serve samosas on a platter with chutney.

Serves/Makes
Makes 24

Parties That Cook Reflects on a Great Inaugural Portland Event

0 comments By The Kitchen Whisperer Filed in Entertaining, General, News & Events Tagged with competition, parties that cook portland, small plates, team building portland July 6th, 2011 @ 5:29 pm

Parties That Cook is all about making event dreams come true. In our 12 years of business, we have accommodated some pretty off-the-wall requests. (We even created a new event, per request!) So when we got a call from a PwC event planner asking if we could host a corporate team building event in Portland, OR, we were up for the challenge!

To be fair, the rumors of an impending Parties That Cook launch in Portland later this summer are in fact true, so this request felt like a wonderful affirmation, albeit a challenge to pull off! Carolyn, PTC’s Operations Manager and amazing Lead Chef, offered to lead the event with the help of Crissy, our Vice President of Sales and Marketing and a wonderful chef, as well! Luckily, our completely mobile kitchen concept allowed us to transport everything we needed from San Francisco to Portland, including 30 brand new chefs knives. The venue, KitchenCru, is a gorgeous new commercial kitchen space in the heart of downtown Portland and they provided the bulk of the cookware. With this team and a great new venue, we were set up for a successful event!

The PwC group elected to host a Small Plates event with a competitive twist — and it was an intense competition! (All in good fun, of course…) Teams worked together on different small plates recipes and a group of 6 managers and partners from PwC were the judges. During the cooking, judges walked around the stations to observe participants interacting with each other. At the end, the judges conducted a great follow-up session, asking everyone how their experience working together tied into the PwC company values they’d been learning about during their week of recruit activities.

The judges, who had experienced a Parties That Cook event in Seattle in the past, thought this was one of the most creative groups they’d seen! They loved the presentation of the Fried Vegetable Samosas with Indian Green Chutney and that the Little Fish Tacos with Tomato Salad and Chipotle-Lime Crema team garnished their platter with the letters PWC made from cilantro stems.

In the end, however, the winning team was the Ground Sirloin Sliders with Smoky Cheddar Cheese. They worked well together, went above and beyond the call of duty with grilled buns, and created a great presentation.

We are thrilled that our first Portland team building event was such a hit, and surely hope that it’s a sign of good things to come! Now stay tuned for that “official” launch…