Catherine Lewin, founder of New York City-based dinner party shop Big Night, visits the TODAY Food team to share some fun and easy entertaining recipes from her cookbook, “Big Night: Dinners, Parties, and Dinner Parties: A Cookbook,” and share expert tips on how to create a DIY spritz bar. Lewin shows us how to make a customizable spritz sipper with fresh summer tomatoes in salty tonnato sauce, creamy burrata cheese with snap peas and prosciutto, garlicky citrus-marinated olives, and all kinds of amaro.
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DIY Spritz Bar
At this point, we’re all familiar with the Aperol Spritz. But what about a Cappelletti Spritz? A Lilletto Spritz? An Averna Spritz? With so many aperitifs that can be made into a delicious spritze, the possibilities for a spritz bar are endless. Here’s what you’ll need to set up a spritz bar:
- 2-4 different types of amari (which will serve as the base for your spritz)
- Several bottles of high-quality Prosecco (approximately 7 glasses per bottle)
- Plenty of high quality carbonated water
- Lots of ice
- Garnish with Castelvetrano olives and lemon or orange strips.
- An ice bucket to keep the prosecco and seltzer cold (if you don’t have one, store it in the fridge)
This is the most glorious DIY moment to kick off any party.
When tomatoes are delicious, like they are in the height of summer, slicing them thickly and seasoning them with salt, pepper and good olive oil is enough for a dish. But there’s one way to make them even better: drizzle on a little tonnato, which is Italian for “tuna sauce.” But call it by its Italian name, because “tuna sauce” doesn’t do justice to the umami-packed, rich, creamy, bright, tangy combination of tomatoes.
Good quality burrata cheese is one of those ingredients that demands very little from us. It is perfect in itself, so I am not going to give you another burrata cheese recipe. However, I will use this space to let you know that a couple of balls of burrata cheese, with a few simple toppings, make a foolproof starter. Here are some tips for serving burrata cheese in season.
In our house, olives are a welcome, loved, and treasured addition to any appetizer. Olives are the little black dress of snacks. They suit any occasion and go with anything. All you really need to jazz up a bin of olives from the grocery store is a great container, a drizzle of good olive oil, a few sprinkles of black pepper, and some lemon zest. But if you have a little time and foresight, I recommend marinating your olives.
This recipe is flexible, so don’t worry if you run out of ingredients – you could even leave out the cheese altogether, but adding some crusty bread, especially, really bulks up this dish and makes it a heartier appetizer.
Remember this combination: 2, 4, splash. That’s amaro, bubbles, and seltzer. Now you can enjoy the perfect spritz for a lifetime. The ingredients list is pretty short, but all three are really important, as are the ice and the glass.
If you like recipes that are perfect for dinner parties, you should also try these.
Courtesy of Elena Besser
Kayla Huang (TODAY)
