Tonight I had about 30 people coming over to my house for  Christmas cocktail party. Since it was in the middle of the week and I was working, I didn’t have time to put too much thoughts in this. I need something simple, a couple things to nibble on for the guest and that’s it.

First Christmas parties are the best time of the year to bring out the punch bowl, it’s easy to make, you have a big quantity of drinkable elixir for your guest and I don’t have a full bar at home and limiting to wine and punch the alcohol makes it so much easier for me.

I had two different punch:

Le punch Antillais: Dark rum (1/2) orange juice (1/2), cut up fruits (banana, oranges, kiwi, lime) 1/2 cup of lime juice, 2 whole vanilla bean split in half, and a table spoon of coffee bean

The Regent’s punch: Pineapple syrup (made with 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/4 water and 1 cup of cubed pineapple)

Peels of 2 oranges, 2 lemons crushed with 1/2 cup of sugar, add to a bowl, with 2 cup of green tea, the pineapple syrup, 1 cup of brandy, 1/4 cup of jamaican rum, 1/4 of arrak liquor and 1 bottle of champagne.

This punch was so good, we had to refill it 3 times!

Note: this recipe comes from the magazine Saveur, December 2008.

I served a vegetable plater with an aioli and “rouille” (aioli mixed with a bit of tomato paste and cayenne pepper)

This is not a traditional rouille, but this is how I call this sauce translated as Rust because the tomato paste will give it a rusty look.

I had a good selection of cheeses found at Rainbow groceries, served with crostini and crackers.

I had made a mouse of salmon.

1/2 lb of salmon 1/4 clarified butter, 1/4 heavy cream, 1/4 cup of minced parsley, dill and chive.

In a food processor add salmon until finely chopped almost into a paste, then add slowly the clarified butter, then the heavy cream. Add salt and pepper to taste and a juice of 1/2 lemon.

Pull the mousse out of the food processor and mix in the herbs. Layer on toast. You can keep this in the fridge but be careful as the cold will solidify the butter again transforming your mousse in  a salmon butter.

The BF made some steak crostini, with aioli, arugula and roasted peppers.

Bon Appétit!