We had friends over for dinner the other night, and I decided to go with a selection of classic American dishes, with my usual host of improvisations and twists.  I grew up in the Michigan in the US, and despite now enjoying all types of food, I have a strong affinity for American cuisine.

In Australia, American food gets a bad rap as it is usually considered to be too greasy, too big, too sweet, or just fast food.   Obviously there is some truth to the stereotype, but I think the rich history, diversity, sophistication and downright good taste of a lot of American food is lost in the generalisations.  And to be honest, I haven’t really had anything in Australia that lives up to what I consider to be quality American cuisine.

With that in mind, I tried to come up with a selection of dishes that could showcase some of my favourite American foods.  It was a difficult process as there are so many dishes I loved as a kid, and ultimately the selection had to achieve a suitable balance for a dinner party. 

Also, because there were a variety of dishes and I had already gained 4 kg through Christmas over-eating, I thought it would be nice to make miniature dishes.  It would also mean less utensils, less mess (for the guests -- not so much in the kitchen), and if I ever got into catering, I could adapt these as finger foods for parties.

In the end, I came up with the following menu:

To me, buffalo wings are a simple and tasty American favourite.  They are full of flavour and not to mention, deep fried (which always makes things taste better).  I think they make a perfect starter because they are small and have a nice zing to get things going.  Also, chicken is very non-offensive and vegetarians aside, most people will eat it.

This was probably the simplest dish of the night.  The whole wings were cut in half to separate the wing from the drumette.  These were coated in a blend of flour, salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper and deep fried.  I didn’t use an egg Mixture and re-coat as I wanted to create a very light layer of batter.  This meant the focus could be on the dipping sauces. 

With the dipping sauces, the blue Cheese and sour Cream dipping sauce was created by gently melting down a small chunk of butter, melting a small quantity of blue cheese and then stirring in some sour cream until warmed through. 

The hot sauce was a mixture of ketchup, Habanero sauce, cayenne pepper, hot paprika, black pepper, lime juice and butter.  Prior to serving, I flambéed a shot of Johnnie Walker Black Label and poured it over the sauce to add some extra kick.

I thought the dish ended up quite well, although I didn’t think through the flambéing process and burnt my thumb pouring the flaming mixture into the sauce.  I probably should have used a different receptacle or just poured the whisky over the sauce before igniting.  Finally, I might also toss the chicken in the hot sauce before plating next time just to avoid the inconvenience of having to dip into two sauces.

My initial plan was to serve this up right before dessert as the “main” dish.  However, given the number of other dishes that I would also be serving up, I thought it might be better to move it earlier into the piece.  I was looking through my cupboard and found some ramekins for crème brulee, which I thought was the perfect size for individual servings of mac and cheese.

Even though this was served early on, to me it was the most important dish of the night.  I consider mac and cheese to be a US national dish.  It is also the most misunderstood, as people in Australia either think of Kraft cheesy mac (which has a different cheese powder to what you get in the States) or a horrid flavourless abomination of the dish.

If I were making a larger serving of mac and cheese, I would have gone for milder flavours and a lighter sauce.  However, given I was only serving up a small quantity, I could create something with a more complex, concentrated flavour with no danger of making anyone lose their appetite.

I started by par boiling some elbow macaroni in salt water.  After it was around half cooked, I took it out and soaked it in cold water to stop it from cooking.  I then put it in a strainer to let it dry out some.

For the sauce, I melted down some butter and a mixture of grated provolone dolce, Grana Padano and goat cheese.  After these were melted down, I incorporated some ground nutmeg, smoked paprika and turmeric.  To finish, I added some heavy cream (not thickened) and some water until it reached a smooth, but not runny, consistency.  Unfortunately I had run out of milk, so I thought a mixture of heavy cream and water would balance out to a thick version of milk.

I then put the par-cooked pasta into the ramekins, spooned 2.5 tablespoons of sauce into each ramekin and stirred through till they were mixed.  I added a thin layer of grated provolone cheese so that there would be a layer of melted cheese.  I then topped that with Panko breadcrumbs (regular breadcrumbs work too, but I like the flakes).  To ensure the breadcrumbs would brown nicely, I added a few dots of butter to the top of the breadcrumb mixtures.

When these were ready to bake, I put them into a pre-heated oven for around 15 minutes and put them under a hot grill/broiler for a few minutes to brown the breadcrumbs.

These turned out great, and I wouldn’t change a thing.  There is an unresolved American debate about whether or not ketchup should be used.  My personal view is that it can suit some cheese mixtures, but it certainly doesn't suit this particular mixture.

The aim of this course was to give the guests a break in the middle with something nice and light.  I was having trouble thinking of distinctly American salads (and honestly, I think I probably over-thought it).  However, I had this beautiful beetroot, feta and couscous salad a few days earlier at a family gathering, and I was inspired to create a variation.

This salad is probably not so obviously American as some of the other dishes, but I think still qualifies.  As my girlfriend observed, it is something that Martha Stewart would probably serve up.  This is valid to the extent that it justifies the dish as being American, but not to the extent to say that I am anything like Martha Stewart.

Unfortunately I forgot to photograph this salad, so I will just have to do my best to describe it.  If I make it again, I will include a photograph.

Most of the preparation went into the baby beetroots.  I thought that baby beetroots would cook faster than regular beetroots, but it still took around an hour and a half in a hot oven.  My friend suggested that I could wrap the beets in foil next time, and I will certainly give it a try to see if it would speed the process up.

After the beets were done, I pulled the skin off and sliced them finely with a sharp knife and waited for them to cool.  In the meantime, I washed some mixed leaves and left them on a strainer to dry.  I then sliced up some wedges of Packham pears and crushed some walnuts.  I then mixed everything together and crumbled some goat feta over the salad.

For the dressing, I whisked together a blend of olive oil and apple cider vinegar.  I kept the flavour of the dressing on the mild side because I didn’t want it to overpower the other flavours in the salad.  With the inclusion of feta, I thought there was sufficient saltiness so I didn’t added any salt.

I was happy with the balance of flavours and textures with this salad.  However, my girlfriend did point out that due to the size of some of the beetroot slices, knives would have been handy (I didn’t set the table with any knives because I didn’t think any were needed). 

When I think of fried mashed potato, I tend to think of KFC’s “potato mashees”.  I find them to be wonderfully addictive, but unfortunately they are very much in the fast food category of food.  However, I thought that I could tweak these slightly to make them more sophisticated.

That is, instead of having bland “mashed potato” inside the crunchy outer coating, I would make the mashed potato in the textbook French way (fine and silky, saturated with butter and nicely seasoned). 

There’s an American diner I like in Prahran called Misty’s Diner that sells potato mashees with a beautiful gravy.  The gravy is very rich and is actually made from real beef (with bits of shredded beef in it).  I thought of doing it this way, but decided to try something entirely different and use a traditional Texas-style chili as the dipping sauce.

I boiled the potatoes cut in half in order to minimise exposure to water.  I then passed the potatoes through a sieve to achieve a fine texture and emulsified the potatoes with a crapload of butter.  Finally, I added milk and seasoned with salt and black pepper.

In order to deep fry this mixture, I rolled spoonfuls of the potato into cling wrap and rolled them into balls.  I then put them in the freezer so they would solidify.  Ultimately I took these out about 10 minutes before frying.

While I pre-heated the oil for deep frying, I rolled the potato balls in seasoned flour, dipped them in a beaten egg mixture and then covered them in Panko breadcrumbs (again, because they are flaked).  Finally, these were deep fried in hot oil for a few minutes until nicely golden.

There are many variations of Texas Chili/Chili con carne out there.  Supposedly the most traditional methods do not use beans or tomatoes.  Despite the non-traditional use for this Chili, I thought I’d pay respect to the authentic flavours.

To prepare this, I started off by finely slicing some onions, garlic and de-seeded birds eye chilis.  I then fried these in oil over a medium heat until the onions were close to caramelising.  I then upped the heat to high and added ground/minced beef and cooked these till the beef was nicely browned.  I then added some ground cumin and chili powder.

To turn this into sauce, I added beef and vegetable stock and brought it to a boil.  I also added some fine polenta to both add flavour and use as a thickener.  After that, I simmered it for about an hour.  When this stage was completed, I added some lime juice, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce and seasoned with salt, sugar and black pepper until I got to a nice balanced flavour.  I then continued to let it simmer and periodically added small amounts of water when it got too thick. 

At the very end, I added some habanero sauce to get the heat to the desired level.  For a dipping sauce, I always err on the side of a more aggressive flavour, because it will be balanced out by mashed potato.

To turn this into a dipping sauce, I used a stick blender to blend the mixture to a finer consistency.  I then left this in the fridge for a few hours to let the flavours develop, and then re-heated it over the stove prior to serving.

This dish was very well received, and my guests thought that the use of Texas chili as a dipping sauce was a nice touch.  It was a hell of a lot of trouble to go to for the purposes of a dipping sauce, but I thought it was a great way to combine and showcase two separate dishes as one. 

I think as a twist, the potatoes could be coated in a batter or in cornmeal/polenta.

Burgers are one of my favourite foods as well as an American staple, so I thought it should take centre stage.  Under normal circumstances, my burgers are quite generous and patties thick.  However, with the number of courses involved, I had to compromise and create mini burgers.  This is not a bad thing, because it means you can make more than one flavour.

Originally, I planned on making a burger with blue cheese dressing and the other with sautéed garlic mushrooms.  However, in the end I went for something much simpler.  One of them was a cheeseburger with havarti cheese with Mexican spices.  The other had beef, sliced tomato and lettuce.  Both burgers had ketchup only.

I randomly came across a website a few months ago with a recipe for cheesecake-stuffed strawberries.  I took a mental note of the idea for the perfect time to try it out, and alas, the perfect time came up. 

The idea of strawberries stuffed with cheesecake was great, except that it was incomplete, it was summertime and I just got an Ice Cream machine for Christmas.  As such, I decided to make a vanilla custard ice cream using a vanilla pod I bought on a trip to Malaysia from the Tropical Spice Garden in Penang.

I remember making ice cream without an ice cream machine.  It was just a painful exercise of having to walk back to the freezer every half an hour to whisk the mixture to give it air.  Unless my machine breaks down from over use, I will hopefully not have to go through that again.

The ice cream I decided to make was very traditional – a frozen French custard-based mixture.  To start, I brought a mixture of milk and heavy cream until just boiling and then turned off the heat.  I scraped the seeds from a vanilla pod into the hot milk and left the vanilla pods in there to infuse.

Separately, I separated several eggs and placed the yolks into a mixing bowl with caster sugar.  I whisked this until the yolk started to pale in colour.  Normally I would do this with an electric mixer, but unfortunately I recently killed mine through over use.  Although I can make a warranty claim, I think it is probably a sign that I should upgrade to something more powerful.

With the egg mixture ready, I gradually poured part of the hot milk into the egg mixture, constantly stirring.  The reason I don’t want to pour it all in is to avoid making scrambled eggs.  After half of the milk mixture was incorporated, I poured the contents of the mixing bowl into the rest of the milk mixture and turned up the heat.

After constant stirring over low heat, the custard became thick enough to coat the back of my wooden spoon.  Again, to avoid cooking the mixture, it should only go up to about 80 degrees Celsius at most.  I then poured the mixture into a glass bowl through a strainer, covered with cling wrap and left in the fridge to chill.

Once chilled, I started up my new ice cream machine and poured it in to freeze and churn.  Once this was done, I put the bowl of ice cream into the freezer to firm up before serving.

These were very easy to make.  To start, I left half a block of Philadelphia cream cheese to warm up to soften.  Once soft, I stirred in some icing sugar until the mixture was slightly sweet. 

I am fortunate enough to own a flavour injector (basically, an oversized syringe with a scary looking needle), so I loaded it up with the cream cheese filling.  I then cut the tops of some large strawberries and then injected the hollow middles with the filling.  It is possible to do without an injector, but would take a lot more effort to try and force the mixture into the small space.

With the strawberries filled, I put the strawberries on top of some ice cream in a cocktail glass to serve.  I then crushed some digestive biscuits and put the crushed mixture on top of the ice cream and strawberries to complete the “cheesecake”.

This was one of my favourite dishes of the night in the end, and one of my guests seemed to absolutely love it.  Unfortunately I don’t have a photograph of the completed dessert as I was a bit impatient and photographed the dessert without the crumbled topping.  I will be sure to include a full photograph when I make this again.

Also, the cheesecake mixture was very basic.  For my next try, I might try to go with a more complex cheese mixture, or perhaps try stuffing a different fruit (although I have to admit that strawberries are probably best suited for this purpose).

As this is my first post, I would also appreciate any feedback on any positive/negative aspects.  This ended up being a lot longer than I had originally planned, so if you’ve actually read down to this point, thank you for your patience and I hope you enjoyed the read.