A Fun Dinner Party Lets Guests Play with their Food

My stack, shot with my Blackberry

By Sandy Hu

Steve and I first met Holly and Carlos as we waited in an endless checkout line at a warehouse sale of beautiful, imported Provencal pottery.  As we dragged our prized finds in cartons, inching towards the register, we began a conversation that has lasted over many years.

Holly, a calligrapher, and Carlos a judge, aren’t the kind of people we normally run into, our circle of friends being centered around our work — food  professionals, PR people and folks in high-tech startups.  It was instant affection.  We shared a love of things French, travel, kids and cuisine.

Holly and Carlos love Hawaii and their favorite restaurant was Mark Ellman’s now-defunct  Avalon on Maui.  One of Chef Ellman’s signature dishes was Chili-Seared Salmon, Tiki-Style, with layers of ingredients assembled in a PVC tube to create an impressive stack, inspired by Hawaii’s tall wooden tiki carvings and in keeping with the plate presentation style of the time.

While it would be difficult to replicate the plating for guests without a restaurant staff, Holly and Carlos some years ago hit on a fabulously fun idea: have guests build the stack themselves.  We were treated to this delicious and entertaining dinner Saturday night.

Holly bought canned food at the supermarket to obtain 15.25-ounce cans.  She points out that today, many cans have a rounded bottom, which will not open successfully with a can opener, so it’s important to check the bottoms before buying.  Open up the can from both ends, remove the contents and the label, and wash cans to use as the mold.

Holly and Carlos cooked and prepped all the ingredients and arranged them in serving dishes on the kitchen counter, with the stacking order written on a card (in beautifully calligraphy, of course) taped to the cabinet above. We each had a dinner plate and a can to build our own dinner.  All ingredients are served at room temperature.

Here’s how it went:

• Bottom layer:  ¼ cup mashed potatoes
• Followed by ¼-inch-thick salmon fillet slices, brushed with Szechuan chili sauce and seared with oil in a skillet
• Diced Japanese eggplant sautéed in olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper
• Tomato salsa made with cilantro, capers, lime juice and Maui onion
• Mixed baby greens
• Plum vinaigrette *
• More salmon
• Mango salsa made with Maui onion, fresh mint and lime juice
• More mixed baby greens
• More plum vinaigrette
• More salmon

For the last step, drizzle some vinaigrette and hoisin sauce on the plate and sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds.

In case you’d like to try this for your next dinner party, here’s Mark Ellman’s Plum Vinaigrette from The New Cuisine of Hawaii, Recipes from the Twelve Celebrated Chefs of Hawaii Regional Cuisine by Janice Wald Henderson, c 1994.

Plum Vinaigrette
¼ cup plum sauce
1/3 cup peeled, chopped mango
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon peeled, chopped fresh ginger
1 teaspoon minced garlic

Puree all of the ingredients in a blender.  Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.  Makes  4 servings.

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