Hi, Teach

A 12-Course Vegetarian Meal

Why did I plan this?

I have always been fascinated by extravagant multi-course meals. Something about tiny little dishes and having a little taste of everything appeals to my indecisiveness--you don't have to choose, since you'll be having 6, or 12, or 16 different dishes!

The sensible way to sate this fascination might be to attend a tasting menu at a restaurant, sit back, and enjoy the food. But where's the fun in that? Part of the beauty of a multi-course meal is the way dishes are formulated to compliment and hint at one another, providing a cohesive meal experience. So planning one becomes like a puzzle, fitting dishes together with a balance of contrast and cohesion. And I love a puzzle!

Recently, I've decided to have every meal I make in December be vegetarian. This makes the multi-course meal even more puzzling. Some courses are defined by the meat that's served--the "fish course," obviously, but also main courses. How can you capture the traditional 12 courses without including meat?

Course-by-Course

Hors d'Oeuvres and Amuse-Bouche

Hors d'Oeuvres are a lovely pre-dinner snack, served before people sit down to the table. As such, the need to be finger foods. For this, I'd make an herby white bean spread, put it on a sturdy cracker, and top with roasted beets. I'd pull some of the same herbs from the main courses to build cohesion.

The amuse-bouche, in contrast, is the first bite people eat at the table. It serves as an invitation to the meal. For this, I would create little tasting spoons, including spiced cream cheese--pulling spices from the upcoming meal, as well as the cream cheese that we'll see in the fish dish--a slice of clementine (foreshadowing the orange sauce from the first main course), and walnut pieces (which hint at dessert.)

These two dishes would pair with my favorite cocktail to serve to guests, which is the corpse reviver no. 2. It has lovely herby and lemony notes that compliment the beets of the hors d'oeuvres. It is quite alcoholic, so a mocktail alternative could be an option.

Soup, Appetizer, and Salad

These three dishes get the meal going. For the soup, I would do a nice, brothy mushroom puree. One of the main courses is mushrooms, so we're seeing that foreshadowed here. However, I would use a different combination of herbs--in particular, omitting the nutmeg of the second main course--to maintain contrast. It's quite common for mushroom soups to involve cream, but I'm trying to avoid anything super heavy at the start of this very large meal.

With the soup, I would serve champagne, keeping things light and bubbly. Ginger beer would be an alternative for those wanting something sweeter or non-alcoholic.

The appetizer would be a fresh-baked roll with spiced honey butter. Here, the warming spices of future dishes are introduced. It's also a nice little break of simplicity between the mushroom soup and beet salad.

For the salad, I would do raw beets with lemon dressing and mint leaves. We're seeing beets again, but raw instead of roasted, and with different pairings. https://www.powerhungry.com/2019/06/05/beet-salad-with-lemon-mint-vegan-paleo-easy/

The salad is where we would get our next beverage pairing, which is lemon seltzer water (spiked or not.)

"Fish"

There's no getting around the fact that the fish course typically calls for, well, fish. I needed to find a vegetarian alternative, and in searching, I learned about carrot lox, which is strips of carrots prepared to imitate smoked salmon.

While I'm not sure it will truly taste like lox, I love making carrots the star of this dish. After marinating, I would pat each carrot strip dry on one side, spread with cream cheese, top with dill, and twist to make little carrot lox spirals.

The lemon seltzer received with the beet salad also pairs with this fish dish. Surprisingly, in researching non-wine pairings, I learned that carbonation is a great choice to go with fish, since it helps counter fattiness. Although carrot lox certainly isn't fatty, I'm serving it here with cream cheese, so I feel the carbonation still fits. Plus, the lemon flavor echoes a very common fish pairing.

First Main Course

Traditionally, the first main course would be a white meat. I needed a vegetarian protein that wasn't too umami-forward. Tofu seemed like a good option--especially if I let it be itself instead of trying to make it act like meat. I would follow this whipped tofu dip recipe (omitting the tomatoes) and then stuff it into crepes, tightly folded: https://lucyandlentils.co.uk/recipe/whipped-garlic-and-herb-tofu-dip-with-roasted-tomatoes

I wanted a nice orange sauce to top the crepes and round out this course, and I wanted it to not be very sweet. I was inspired by this deep-dive into duck a l'orange, and would use this recipe for the sauce (with boxed vegetable stock instead of making my own--listen, I'm making twelve dishes, I have to make some compromises): https://www.seriouseats.com/duck-a-lorange

To continue the duck a l'orange inspiration, I might add some of the herbs from the roast duck recipe into the tofu filling.

This course falls squarely in the middle of the meal, and the drink pairing would be green tea, which I read pairs well with white meat dishes. I think it would be a nice pick-me-up at the halfway point, but it could be replaced with a green tea cocktail if alcohol is necessary.

Second Main Course

I'll talk about the palate cleanser between the two main courses in just a moment, but first I want to talk about the second main course. This would usually be the star of the multi-course meal, and involve red meat. The natural vegetarian option, to me, seemed like a mushroom dish.

Drawing inspiration from mushroom bourguignon and mushroom stroganoff, I would sautee a variety of sliced mushrooms with shallots, thyme, and nutmeg, deglaze with red wine and mushroom broth, and reduce to make a nice sauce. This mushroom mixture would then be poured over oven-roasted, small-diced potatoes and carrots, themselves seasoned with thyme and tarragon.

Here, we're seeing mushrooms again, but they're in nice, big chunks, and seasoned with nutmeg. We're also seeing carrots again, but roasted and playing a supporting role. For the first time, we're getting notes of red wine, which matches the traditional wine pairings of a multi-course meal.

For our pairing, though, we'll do a black cherry shrub, like in the recipe below. I would serve it with seltzer water, with or without gin. https://adventuresincooking.com/how-to-make-cocktail-shrub-black-cherry/

Palate Cleanser and Cheese Course

These two courses each act as interludes. The palate cleanser falls between the first main course and the second main course, and signals a transition to more rich dishes. Mint sorbet is a classic choice, and I think there's a playful temperature difference there with it and the green tea that people would still have from the first main course.

After the second main course, we're approaching the end of the meal. The cheese course allows us to enjoy some simplicity, while maintaining the richness introduced in the mushroom course. I would take three good cheeses, paired with three different crackers, and three different extras. Guests would be finishing up their cherry shrubs, so each trio would have to stand up to that sturdy drink. I'm not totally set on the trios below, but these are my ideas:

Dessert and Mignardise

At the end of the meal, we're slowing down, and looking for something sweet. Individually-sized servings of chocolate walnut mousse allow guests to finish off the meal slowly and decadently. The pairing here would be a traditional port (sweet enough for my girlfriend to enjoy), or Scotch (which I just really like with chocolate.) A non-alcoholic and still perfectly traditional option could be coffee or tea.

Honestly, what's dessert without chocolate? The walnut component of the mousse clearly echos the amuse-bouche from the start of the meal, creating a nice little book end. There are also nutty notes in a few other courses, such as the nutmeg in the mushrooms and the gouda in the cheese course.

Finally, there's the mignardise. Like the hors d'oeuvres provide a prelude to the dinner, this is like a little sequel. I'd keep things sweet and simple with candied oranges and cherries, which have appeared several times in the previous courses. Since this is the very last thing served, it's nice that it has a pleasant flavor for lingering as people leave the party. It could even be taken to go!

Notes on Serving

One piece of the puzzle for a multi-course meal is ensuring that everything can actually get cooked and served. This means having many things pre-made, streamlining any cooking that has to happen during the party, and balancing the use of different heating elements.

Here are preparation notes for each course:

Will I Do This?

I don't know. It seems like a lovely winter party meal, so maybe when I'm on winter break and can spend several days cooking dishes ahead of time (and several days washing dishes afterwards.) I may do it just for my girlfriend and I, or we may invite a couple friends. I think trying to get this done for more than 4-6 people would be very challenging, so I definitely won't be offering it at a large party anytime soon. I am very proud of the plan, though, and am excited to try at least a few elements even if I don't end up hosting a full, 12-course dinner!