The 2025 Oscars Dinner Party Recap: Act Two
Continuing the rundown of my ten-course Oscars dinner party, from papal tortellini to an Emilia Pérez-inspired cheese board.
There is a lot of preparation and planning that goes into these dinners, but I get by with a lot of help from my friends. The amount I was able to pay them was much less than they could make at their usual gigs, and I’m very grateful that they wanted to join the team. Sous-chef Aaron Mays was there for both dinners, and service assistants/bartenders/dishies Aeron Thai & Eric Truong each pitched in for a night.
If you missed them, the first two parts can be found here:
After those flambéed head-on prawns and a round of The Substance shooters, it was time to get into the main courses…
All party photos were shot by Lai Eng. Check out her work on her website or Instagram.
Tortellini en Brodo (Conclave)
Pork shoulder, mortadella, prosciutto filling. Broth of chicken, beef, and lamb. Parmigiano-Reggiano.
The second course featuring meat-filled dumplings, which is a tad repetitive but this was the only food explicitly featured in this movie. On the first day of the titular conclave, the nuns prepare a meal of tortellini en brodo, a quintessential Bolognese dish. Making these “Pope hats” from scratch is a true project, as I made everything from scratch: mixing the pasta dough, grinding the meat filling, and simmering the broth, all following the recipes in American Sfoglino by Evan Funke and Katie Parla.
Funke is adamant about rolling out the pasta by hand, but frankly I don’t have time for that. A few days before the dinner parties, I went to Josh and Mia’s place because they have a pasta roller. We had a fun evening of mixing, rolling, slicing, and shaping each tortellino. We got the hang of it pretty quickly but you can definitely tell which pieces were the first ones we made versus the last set. The filling — of seared pork shoulder, mortadella, prosciutto, and parm — was ground up with my trusty stand mixer attachment.
The night before the dinner, I made the broth: an entire chicken, beef shanks, and some lamb hindshanks that were leftover from a previous meal. The cookbook calls for a slow simmer for 24 hours which is frankly ridiculous; I cooked the chicken meat for roughly an hour and a half (separating the meat and fridging that, tossing the bones back into the pot), with a total simmer time of four hours, which made for a clean tasting, flavorful broth.
It was a lof of prep work, but service was super simple (this was the goal for this menu). Just had to bring the broth to a boil, then cook the tortellini until they float. We portioned the soup into individual bowls, with mountains of freshly grated parmigiano passed around the table. I hope Stanley Tucci would approve!
Wine Pairing: Gavi di Gavi, Tenuta Il Bergo 2023 — a classic pairing for a reason. I once had a bottle of this specific Gavi on its own and didn’t like it, but alternating this with sips of the broth, it was quite lovely.
Allergy Sub: Phở en Brodo
The gluten and egg-free guests got a simpler, and arguably better, dish as a substitution: I cooked pho noodles in the same broth, along with some of the simmered meat. Basically a Bolognese-Vietnamese noodle soup, especially if I had garnished it with Thai basil and scallions. Hm… that’s an idea… Maybe add some star anise, cinnamon, and other spices? Then it’s just a mixed meat pho lol
Orange Granita (Nickel Boys)
Florida!!! (Gotta sneak in Taylor Swift references where you can.)
Nickel Boys was the hardest film to find a food pairing, but I took inspiration from one of the earliest images of the film, in which Elwood looks up at an orange tree. The menu needed a palate cleanser, which is where this granita steps in, made, of course, with Florida orange juice.
Granitas are kind like coarse sorbets, and mixed by hand rather than churned. (I wasn’t about to buy an ice cream machine for this dinner party.) The process is simple but requires you to be around the house for several hours, as you periodically mix and break up the ice crystals the form while the juice & syrup mixture freezes.
Originally, this was to be served after all the savory courses, and right before the cheese board, but Byron had a smart idea to interrupt the procession of heavy, fatty dishes with a bit of an intermission. While the sequencing is unorthodox, it worked out pretty well, as diners got a little reset before the the heaviest dish of the evening.
Braised Lamb Shoulder (Dune: Part Two)
Saba'a baharat, garlic, chile. Sumac-pickled onions and toum. With spiced rice & citrus salad.
The original Dune novel was heavily influenced by Middle Eastern geopolitics and culture, and I love nothing more than to serve a big hunk of meat that was braised for several hours. Reem Assil’s cookbook Arabiyya has a recipe for slow-cooked lamb shoulder that I had made before, and I needed something on this menu that really felt like a main course.
Around the corner from my apartment is a halal meat market, and when I asked for lamb shoulder the guy came out of the walk-in with an entire sheep carcass, head still attached and everything, and butchered it on the spot. Needless to say the meat was very fresh. Next time I need to ask for that head and try making capuzzelle.
After an overnight marinade in saba’a baharat (Arabic seven-spice blend), garlic, and chiles, the shoulder and foreshanks were braised for a few hours on the night before the actual dinners.
The lamb was served in a reduction of the braising juices, alongside Arabic-spiced basmati rice and a salad of spring mix tossed in citrus vinaigrette and segmented cara cara oranges, accompanied with sumac-pickled red onions and toum. I didn’t make the toum myself, having been stung by a prior failed attempt where the garlic never emulsified. The store-bought stuff, which had no fillers or preservatives, was way better than what I could do, and while I strive to make everything from scratch, you have to recognize when the professionals will have you beat.
Wine pairings: Benje Tinto, Envínate 2022 (Saturday — not the most obvious idea, but the wine team (myself, Aaron, Byron) really love Canary Islands wines and the volcanic, smoky notes was a big hit with my guests) and Chianti Classico "Berardenga", Fèlsina - 2021 (Sunday — this is the obvious pairing, but inarguable)
Tabla de Quesos (Emilia Pérez)
French, Spanish, and Mexican cheeses with cornichons, chicharrónes, chorizo, sourdough crackers, and Tajín-spiced dried dates & mangoes.
The French place the cheese course right before desserts, a practice I am fond of. In tribute to the multinational nature of Emilia Pérez, I assembled a mix of fromage from France, Spain, and Mexico (shoutout to Murray’s Cheese):
The accompaniments were terrific, but I want to call out the dried medjool dates seasoned with Tajín… they are sooooo good. This collection of cheese, meat, and fruit was far more popular than the film it represented. We knew that we were serving the right amount of wine when someone remarked, “I'm at the perfect level of drunk where I'm like, Oh, cheese!”.
Wine pairings: Priorat "Bellmunt", Mas d'en Gil 2021 (Saturday), and Tinto Tradicional, Fronton de Oro 2022 (Sunday)
End of Act Two. One more part left…
