For those of you who may be still wary of hitting the town for dinner and would prefer to entertain at home, I have shared my simple three-course dinner party menu with you all: Kick-starting with delicious baked rosemary and garlic Camembert, swiftly followed by a moreish creamy chicken & bacon leek pie and to wrap up proceedings a light but zesty orange & thyme sorbet.

Now more than ever, I think it’s so important to make up for lost time, so instead of spending all night in the kitchen faffing over a complicated beef wellington, make these dishes well in advance and simply pop them into the oven when your guests arrive. For me, it’s not about what’s on your dinner table but instead who’s sitting around it.

Recipes

Oven baked garlic & rosemary camembert  

Shane Smith Shane Smith

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 Camembert in box or Corleggy ‘Cavanbert’ cheese

2 cloves of garlic

3 springs of Rosemary

Black pepper

Rapeseed oil

1 baguette 

Method

Preheat your oven to 180C.

Remove any plastic packaging from the camembert and place back into the wooden box, leaving the lid off.

Score the top of the cheese and insert the sliced garlic cloves and some rosemary.

Drizzle the top of the cheese with rapeseed oil and sprinkle with cracked black pepper.

Place on a tray and into the oven for 20 minutes.

Take care at this point as the cheese will be very hot.

You can remove the rosemary & garlic at this point if you choose.

Serve with some sliced toasted bread.

Enjoy! 

Creamy chicken, bacon & leek pie

Shane Smith Shane Smith

Serves 4

Ingredients

3 large chicken breasts

150g chopped smoked bacon

1/2 whole leek

300ml chicken stock

250g creme fraiche

1 tablespoon of wholegrain mustard

1 teaspoon chopped thyme

1 tablespoon of flour

black pepper

1 sheet puff pastry

Egg wash 

Method

Place your frying pan over medium heat and put in some oil. Add the chopped chicken and cook until it begins to take colour, add the chopped bacon and continue to cook.

Add the chopped leeks and cook for a further 2 minutes.

To this add the chicken stock, pinch of black pepper, flour, creme fraiche, mustard and thyme, stir through.

Carefully pour the contents of the pan into a deep baking/pie dish.

Taking the sheet of puff pastry, measure it to fit on top of the dish allowing extra as the pastry will shrink during cooking.

Egg-wash the top of the pastry and place in a preheated oven set at 180°C Fan (200°C/ 400°F/ Gas 6) and bake for 35-40 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown and the sauce can be seen bubbling around the edges. 

Serve with a bowl of dressed salad leaves!  

Orange & thyme sorbet 

Serve 6

Ingredients

600ml fresh orange juice

150g caster sugar

Juice of half a lemon

1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme 

Method

Place all the ingredients into a pan and gently bring to the boil until the sugar is dissolved.

Take off the heat and leave to infuse for 20 minutes.

Strain and place into an ice cream machine and churn until frozen and smooth. 

If you don’t have an ice-cream machine, cool the strained sorbet mixture and place in a container and put into the freezer until firm, mash with a fork every hour to eliminate ice crystals. 

To serve, scoop the sorbet into orange shells and top with some fresh thyme and julienne of orange zest. 

Shane Smith has nearly 22 years’ experience working in some of the world’s most celebrated pastry kitchens across the globe. Over these years he has received numerous award from “Best Bakery Manager in Ireland” from Shelf life magazine to “The top 10 best pastry chefs in Ireland” by Food & Wine Magazine. Shane also has a regular cookery slot on RTÉ on The Today Show. Check out more recipes on Instagram or at www.chefshanesmith.ie.