Gourmet Caterers Orange County

Appetizers make the most incredible event, it could be a cocktail party, engagement , wedding or any special occasion.  I have included  a great appetizer menu to choose from, we at Gourmet Caterers also customize menus. 

Appetizer selections 

Meat - Mini Beef Brochettes OR Crispy Beef Wontons with Apricot Curry Sauce OR Lamb Meatballs stuffed with Dried Apricots OR Honey Roasted Lamb served on a Potato Crisp with Lemon Mayonnaise and Fresh Fennel Salad

Gourmet Caterers specialize in kosher and kosher style Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, we have separate businesses, and kitchens to achieve this. We do a lot of Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, and are very accustomed to what the Family require on this special day, or weekend. We often do a Friday night dinner for all the family and out of town guests, and then after the synagogue service on the Saturday, we usually do a kiddush lunch, and that evening is the big party. Often on the Sunday morning there is a brunch for the family and out of town guests.

Many of our Bar and Bat Mitzvah parties are theme parties. The kids choose a theme - sports, colors, candy whatever, we work around that theme, and decorate our tables in the theme. The room can be decorated by ourselves or a party planner, we work with a lot of other vendors. Menus are chosen around the theme, maybe a few Nationalities, or if red white and green can be Mexican food, or Italian, with a whole menu around pastas, pizza, etc. We have so many ideas to advise a client of what has worked before. We also have a lot of venues that we have worked with before, like the Marconi Car Museum in Tustin, great place to have a Bar Mitzvah. We have done a Bar Mitzvah on a beach, a BBQ, one in a park, one in a gymnasium, so if you are looking for ideas we can surely help.

Our kosher Catering - Kosher Gourmet Caterers, offers a unique service to our clients, and we always go the extra mile, to make it a successful for all concerned.   We take care of everything.  We customize a menu for all our clients, thus giving them a special menu for a special day, or weekend….

Gourmet Caterers had the pleasure of catering for a South African party. A 75th Birthday celebration. Being South African ourselves its always fun to make a traditional menu. It was a small party, but had a big selection of foods. The appetizers were beef sosaties made up of beef, apricots and red onion and served with a delicious sauce with onions, curry, ginger etc…, also for appetizers we served traditional vegetarian samoosas, with a hint of chillies and curry.

For main course we served at room temperature pickled fish with curry, lots of onions and bay leaves and apricots. Cube steak with a monkeygland sauce, which is a sauce rich in onions, tomatoes, garlic and chutney -delicious. Babotie - which is a traditional dish similar to meatloaf but on the sweeter and curried side. Cape chicken curry-made with a delicious selection of fresh herbs, chilli powder, cardamon, tomatoes etc, served with yellow rice with raisins. The traditional home made boerewors (this is beef sausage) served with mielie pap, this is maize meal that has been cooked with water slowly at a low temp to get thick and is served with a tomato, onion like gravy we call train smash…. We also served pumpkin fritters with cinnamon and sugar. Dessert was koeksisters, this a donut type dessert, fried dough dipped immediately in a cold sugar liquid, this gives it, its sweet flavor, but it is not glossy, or coated in the liquid, it just absorbs some, and then drips off. Fresh fruit was served as well. All the South Africans and everyone else enjoyed the evening.

Gourmet caterers has some all time favorite recipes - Brunch being our favorite meal. On a brunch we can go all out on egg dishes, cheese dishes and speciality stuffed french toast dishes. Our very favorite and sought after being cheese blintzes, and an exciting french toast, here are the recipes……

Cheese blintz Recipe

Batter - 8 eggs and two cups of water - beat up till frothy,add one and a half cups flour and half a teaspoon salt, and 2 teaspoons bking powder, beat till smooth

Filling - 2 pounds cream cheese , half a pound cottage cheese, 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons flour,1 tespoon vanilla, mix all together until smooth

Method - make sure to use teflon coated small frying pans, spray pan with butter spray, make sure pan is hot, add batter and swirl around till coated, tip remaining mixture out of pan. When cooked batter will come away from sides of pan, remove from pan, allow to cool for a minute, fold over top of pancake, put a tablespoon of mixture on top of fold, fold over one time over cheese mixture, then fold sides in, and continue rolling batter with mixture down until all gone, make sure that mixture is all sealed in pancake. I freeze the blintz before frying. You can fry in hot vegetable oil, halfway up blintz, or just a little margarine or butter until browned. Serve with cinnamon and sugar mixture, or cream or applesauce…enjoy

BAKED ORANGE WALNUT FRENCH TOAST

Ingredients - 4 eggs, 1 cup orange juice, 1 cup milk, quarter cup sugar, quarter teaspoon vanilla, 1 loaf french or italian bread cut into 1″ slices, one third cup butter or margarine melted, half a cup chopped walnuts, grated orange peel

Method - whisk together eggs, orange juice, milk, sugar, nutmeg and vanilla, place bread in a single layer in large, flat dish.  Pour mixture over bread, turn once, cover and refrigerate overnight.  Preheat oven to 400, pour melted butter over pan evenely, arrange soaked bread slices in a single layer in pan.  Sprinkle with walnuts, bake until golden, 15 to 20 minutes.  Sprinkle fresh orange zest on top and serve with maple syrup, garnish with orange peel- serves 4 - 8 guests

75 Guests enjoyed Gourmet Caterers appetizer event, which was held at Deloittes offices in Orange County. It was a fast moving event, with only 30 minutes for the meal, but there was some time in between the seminar for the guests to come and enjoy more food.

They had a very upmarket menu of Honey roasted Lamb, served on a pita chip, with Lemon Mayonnaise and fresh fennel salad. Blackened Red Snapper on Red corn Tortilla with peach relish. Ginger chicken-lime skewers with peanut sauce. Bruschetta with roasted peppers and portabe mushrooms with butternut squash boursin spread. Phyllo pastry triangles with spicy mixed vegetables. Mini corn cakes with citrus salsa. Goat cheese truffles with pistachios and sun dried tomatoes. Sweet potato and ginger roste with chive cream, ending the meal with mini fruit tartlets and choc cups with mousse and maraschino cherries. It was a smooth event, for a great company.

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We at Gourmet Caterers are planning and setting up an online store. We always make foods for our Jewish customers on all the holidays, now we plan to expand on that. We plan to make available to all our customers through a website, the availability of purchasing those foods that our clients are always begging us to make more of. Foods such as cheese blintzes, beef perogen, kichel, chopped herring, our to die for roggelach, and many more food items. We also plan to have delicious home made soups and pies for winter, and some whole family meals. We plan to launch this new concept for Gourmet Caterers within the next few months. We have thought about this for a long time, and then we get really busy catering and this gets shoved to the back burner. We have also had requests for delicious cakes and cookies, this too is an option. We plan to start off small with about 10 items, and slowly grow this side of the business. We would love feedback from our clients as to what they would like us to produce, what their family loves that Gourmet Caterers makes. Email us at Ruth@gourmetcaterers.net

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What an eventful week it was. Gourmet Caterers had the honor of catering for Quest Diagnostics of Orange County. On Tuesday in two venues, held outside-the weather co-operated, we served 1500 employees, Meat, chicken and vegetarian rice bowls. The first guests arrived at 6am, this was rather challenging, preparing fresh hot food at that time in the morning, and this continued the whole day until 8pm that night. On Wednesday we did the staff with a five year tenor, 200 staff members who chose a tropical theme, the room done out magnificently with all serene table settings, fountains and flowers and candles. They had beef, chicken and vegetarian wraps, served with Black bean and avocado salad, tropical couscous salad, green salad, also a tropical gazpacho soup, tropical dips and tropical chips, specialty cookies, fresh sliced fruit display and tropical punch. Day three was Thursday for the 10 year tenors, event, also 200 staff members, they had a Mediterranean theme, with the same decor as the day before. They had Saffron chicken with apricots, garlic marinated beef kebabs with cucumber yogurt sauce, grilled vegetables, couscous salad with artichokes, chick peas, black olives etc, baby spinach salad with jicama, bacon and Dijon vinaigrette. They had pita breads, and tropical punch. They had a gorgeous dessert selection with chocolate and plain baklava, mini fruit tartlets, mini cheese cakes, lemon bars and a selection of petite cookies. All in all it was a great week.

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Gourmet Caterers has a unique way of networking. Its in Orange County through Business Club of America . We belong to this exclusive one of a kind in each category business. We have belonged for a year now, and Gourmet Caterers contribution is to supply 9 Breakfasts a year, to 100 - 200 guests. They always have a great speaker, generally a well know sports person, and its held at the Marconi museum in Tustin. We usually supply some sort of sweet dessert at the guests table, a fruit parfait, or a danish pastry, or a fruit tartlet with berries on the side. We also do a great breakfast buffet, with an egg dish - quiche, or egg in phyllo cups, a meat dish - sausages, or bacon, and a side- a potato dish, pancake, cheese blintze soufle, or something like that. Its a great way for all the companies to mingle and enjoy our food. We also do a Thursday night mixer for the sponsoring company usually at a sports museum or at their company, this is an appetizer event and again the guest speaker is usually there, and about 40-80 guests, this is a great way to network, meet all your fellow members and promote and use each other to further your business.

So many decisions to make…Firstly the reason for having the party. A birthday, Anniversary, Bar mitzvah, wedding, or corporate holiday party. Venue is of the utmost importance. Depending on what you are having, whether its a sport museum, or home party, or just a large venue-Gourmet Caterers can assist you with lots of suggestions-we have catered in most venues in Orange County so we can certainly advise you on whats out there. Then you have to decide what time of day you want your party. In Winter an outside venue would need to be a morning to midday party, or you would need to bring in heaters, although this is fine, its not optiomal. In Summer, a nice beach Luaui or outsid e BBQ is great. Entertainment is something else to think about, a disco, band, a comedian or kids entertainment, we can assist you with all of these and more. Decor is very important, and again Gourmet Caterers with all their experience can help you, create that special vibe and look for your party, we have lots of vendors that work with us. We also work with wonderful vendors who can help with Lighting, video, photography, decor and entertainment. Of course to us the most important is the Menu. Choosing the right menu to fit the right setting and right kind of party. We offer a lot of different Nationality catering. Mexican, Indian, Mediterranean, Asian, french and any other cuisine that you want, we love doing nationality stations. Also when planning the menus, do we need an appetizer hour, to either pass appetizers or an appetizer station, with cold or hot foods so guests can help themselves. Depending on the amount of guests that are invited, we have many options of serving the foods. We can have a few stations around the room, examples are a salad station with a selection of 6 salads, a meditteranean station with Schwarma, fellafel pita and fillings, a pasta station with a selection of three pastas and fresh hot pizza, and an asian station with sushi, and a couple of stir frys being done in front of guests. Or you could have all in one or two lines, salad and breadrolls, two main entrees- rare roast beef served with mushroom sauce, a stuffed chicken breast, two vegetables - asparagus and spinach, and two starches - a risotto rice and potatoes in onion sauce. And a dessert buffet, with an assortment of little pastries and dessert french style. Or you could have every course served to the table. We at Gourmet Caterers offer a great variety and can help you every step of the way to select competent vendors, great food and make it so you can enjoy your party like a guest.

Matzo Brittle
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1 cup unsalted butter or margarine
1 cup brown sugar/or white if not available
1 cup finely chopped nuts (can use cashews, pecans, almonds or walnuts)

Bring the above to a boil

Preheat oven to 350
Spray bottom of pan or line with foil and spray
line bottom of cookie sheet with 4 large pieces of matzos
pour mixture of matzos

Bake 8 minutes

Take out of oven and sprinkle on top
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup nut same as above or different but halves and quarters not chopped up

Bake for another 4 minutes

Allow to cool, and break it up —-delicious

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Sweet and Sour Brisket

A brisket dish which I tried this year, was really nice (but again has
sugar, so not sure if its a hit for diabetics…its a very difficult
recipe (ha Ha)

1 big bottle of sauerkraut
3 cups brown sugar
2 medium sized cans peeled whole tomatoes (no juice)

mix above together throw over the raw brisket, put into an oven of
about 300 degrees, cover with foil for about 3 hours - baste every now
and then, last hour or so take foil off and allow to brown - the
brisket should be soft and its delicious…