Hi, Marty Richardson here. We are continuing our discussion of creating a dinner menu.

Variety Is Important

The next point I would like to make is that you want to avoid using the same ingredients in multiple courses. There are just too many good things to cook out there to do that. Sometimes it happens, and remember, these are not hard and steadfast rules. But variety is the spice of life.

Create New Flavor Compositions

Second, you want to watch your flavor compositions from course to course, so that they don’t repeat. Let’s say you are serving an Italian menu and you begin with minestrone soup. The soup has a lot of vegetables in it, beans, pasta and it is tomato based. In your main course, you are serving chicken parmesan or lasagna or spaghetti and meatballs. You have got a tomato based soup and then you’ve got a tomato based entrée, so you want to try avoid that. It can also happen if you have Fettuccini Alfredo, which is a cream based sauce, and then for dessert you serve a cannoli with whipped cream or a custard for your dessert. You want to vary your flavored composition from course to course.

Monotoned Presentations

The third thing is that you need to be aware of, is serving multiple ingredients in the same course that are the same color. Maybe you are serving staemed broccoli, and a spinach pasta with a pesto sauce. It would be just green on green on green all over the plate! Unless you are trying to create a monotone dish for some purpose, you want to present dishes with color contrasts on your plates. It’s much more visually stimulating.

Opposites Attract

Which brings me to the next point, opposites attract. Sometimes, whether it is flavor, color, temperature or texture, opposites can work well together. Think of a sweet and sour sauce. There are spicy and bland combinations like a salsa and guacamole. Or in terms of temperature, a popular dessert is hot apple pie ala mode, which is warm apple pie with ice cream. These combinations lend themselves to very interesting taste sensations. The opposites, or contrasts come together to produce a more interesting dish.

Engage The Senses

So that is what I wanted to go over today. All of these tips have something to do with engaging the senses. The more you do that during your meal, the more interesting it is for your guests. You can even engage their auditory senses. For instance, have you ever been to a restaurant where they serve a fajita platter and it comes out all sizzling and everyone is looking around trying to figure out what is going on? Sometimes I order fajitas, just for the show. I am surprised that there are not more restaurants that serve dishes like that. Can you imagine capturing everyone’s attention like that, at your dinner table, when you bring out the main course?

It Makes Good Sense(s)

So obviously, you are trying to make sure everyone has a good taste in their mouth and smells the wonderful aromas of the foods that you are cooking, and feels the different textures of your foods you are serving. The more that you engage the senses of your guests, the better your party is going to be, the more fun everyone is going to have. This will be a dinner party to remember.