Ask Lemmy

It's not the dish that impresses, but the preparation.

One year, my family and I were at my middle brother's house for a summer time visit. He had a party and grilled chicken. My brother never really learned how to cook and it showed. People barely touched it and there was a ton of it left over.

Fast forward another year and he wants to do the same thing. I offer to cook so he can attend to other more important party affairs. The only thing I did differently was I started with fresh good quality chicken and not mass frozen bagged stuff from Tyson. I also brought my instant read thermometer. Otherwise it was just salt and pepper on the chicken, although I used a ton more than he did.

Same number of people, same amount of chicken... There were NO left overs. I also made my cubed potatoes, those were gone too.

It was all technique. I used virtually the same ingredients he had the year prior.

That primarily depends on the guest. There is no one size fits all dish.

What i can do to impress is that I ask the guest to name three ingredients, and I cook something using those.

With me its more like what do I do if I don't want to embarras myself. The answer is grill. My wife has a thing about greek salad though and after seeing her I might throw that in. Super easy just buy things and put them together in a bowl and wallah. but looks super great and much harder than it is.

Spaghetti. Boiling water is the most advanced cooking thing I care to learn.

Either steak or salmon but depends on the guest like others have mentioned. I usually also enjoy putting my own spin on the recipe, like adding a spice or making it more citrusy etc

Heck, if I invited people over and told them I was going to cook them a meal, their heads might explode. The "what" would be entirely incidental.

But it would probably be a Sunday dinner. Beef, pork or lamb.

And I'd probably have to borrow someone else's house for it or set up a tent in the back yard because there's barely room to swing a cat in here.

Chop Suey

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