Get ready for game day with Martha Stewart's best appetizer recipes! She shares her go-to crowd-pleasers, including a flavorful cheese ball, perfectly crispy chicken wings, and a vibrant crudités platter with delicious peppery dip. These recipes are easy to make and packed with flavor, so whether you're hosting a big party or enjoying a cozy game day with a few friends, these recipes will level up your celebration.
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00:00This is a puff pastry encased brie. It is a delicious hors d'oeuvre, just wonderful to
00:07serve with cocktails. It's also pretty nice to serve as a cheese course as dessert. It's
00:13really something. So mix one cup of dark brown sugar with one cup of fresh pecans.
00:21Mix this together with a large pinch of salt. The salt really does bring out the flavor of
00:30the pecans. So that's all mixed up. This is going to go on top of the brie inside the pastry. And
00:37now the pastry, this is one half of my basic puff pastry recipe. Roll it to about 20 by 20 inches.
00:4720 by 20 will be just right for about an 8 inch brie. Use enough bench flour on your puff pastry
00:59so that the pastry does not stick to your counter, but not so much that it will get tough. This is
01:07beautiful. It's doing very nicely. If perchance it gets a little bit soft, just put it on a baking
01:13sheet and get it right back into the refrigerator. So your puff pastry measures just about 20 inches.
01:19Put your brie right in the center and top with all of this, the brown sugar, salt, and pecans.
01:26And this melts down into the entire creation and tastes so utterly fantastic. So now what you want
01:36to do is bring the sides up. See how they come right to the center of the brie? This is important
01:44because you want to cover that brie. And it seems like a lot of pastry, but actually you're going to
01:49eat the brie with the pastry. And these corners are sort of opened out like this. All gathered
01:55it will look like a fabric covered cheese. Although you don't know what's inside because that's the
02:03surprise. And now gather up the corners and let them fall like fabric. I think it's so pretty.
02:16There. Gather it like this, almost twist it, and tie it with your baker's twine
02:26right here. And I like to tie in a bow because then I can sometimes untie it.
02:34And get this right back onto your baking sheet.
02:44Get this chilled and you can trim a little bit more of this off if you like, but you can do this
02:53right before you put it in the oven too. It has to go back and chill for at least a half an hour
03:00at least a half an hour and preheat your oven at the same time 400 degrees.
03:05And so now one egg yolk and two tablespoons of heavy cream make our glaze. This glaze will help
03:14the puff pastry get a beautiful golden brown color. And I love the package. It looks so pretty
03:22with the baker's twine holding the thing together. This looks like a pretty pretty brie
03:30present and it tastes like a present. So work on this very quickly while it's still very cold
03:37and then pop it straight into a 400 degree oven. Try not to have a big puddle of egg wash on the
03:46baking sheet. You don't want to have any cooked egg there. So that goes right into the oven 400
03:52degrees for about 20 minutes. Reduce the heat and cook until the pastry is a golden brown and
03:59and looks thoroughly cooked. So here is what I was talking about. This is a presentation
04:08and this is the brie. It does look like a glorious package. And when you cut into it
04:16right through the puff pastry
04:23it is so beautiful. There you have a slice. Now you can put it on a little toast like this.
04:33You can eat it with a dried fig, an apricot, a grape, some almonds. But oh my gosh this is what
04:42it's all about. The ooziness. You have to eat it fast.
04:50Really spectacular. Growing up chicken wings were my favorite part of the chicken. Well they still
04:56are and ours are absolutely super delicious because we've marinated them in honey, added a
05:01little lime for an extra kick of flavor, a little bit of salt and pepper and garlic and they're done.
05:07Well let me show you how to make them. They're so easy. In a large glass bowl like this add the
05:13zest of two limes and we've just taken the peel right off the limes down to the white pith. So
05:19this is your lime. A third of a cup of freshly squeezed lime juice. That's about three limes
05:24depending on how dry the limes are. Four cloves of garlic that are smashed and you can just roll
05:31a clove of garlic like that in one of these great garlic peelers. Have you seen this? I haven't used
05:38it for a while on the show but you just do that and look your garlic clove is absolutely peeled.
05:43It's like magic. So this goes in here and you can smash the garlic if you like a little bit.
05:50Get that into your marinade. A quarter of a cup of honey and I love our measuring spoons. Oh secret
05:58two. Another good thing. Take a little bit of vegetable spray. Just spray the bowl of the spoon
06:06and the honey will slide right out. Not a lot of sticking in the spoon. It's a good hint.
06:14And tabasco sauce. Just a little bit. Remember if you're making this for kids they don't like
06:19a lot of hot stuff. So about a quarter of a teaspoon and two tablespoons of soy sauce.
06:25Kids love soy sauce. So stir that up and add your chicken wings. Now the chicken wings four
06:34pounds washed and patted dry and we have those prepared right here in the refrigerator and keep
06:40them cold. It's real important to keep chicken wings any any meat really cold in your refrigerator
06:47before you're using them. But these have been washed and look how nice and plump they are.
06:54They're really great. And stir them around in your marinade and these should marinate for anywhere
07:00from oh three hours to eight hours. Try to get the marinade all over. Keep sort of swirling
07:07them around or turning them a couple times just so that the flavor gets everywhere.
07:14Cover the bowl and refrigerate.
07:19And we have one that's already marinated.
07:29Here they are.
07:33And I've lined two baking sheets with parchment paper.
07:37And I've lined two baking sheets with aluminum foil. You can not bother to line but boy you're
07:50gonna have a mess because the honey marinade sticks to the bottom of the pan and with foil
07:55you'll avoid massive cleanup. It's really great and make sure that you keep the foil up a little
07:59ways around the edge so that you don't have any leakage underneath. And here we have our
08:06wings. These can go in an oven 450 degrees and they take about oh 20 minutes on one side. You're
08:14going to brush them with the marinade and turn them and brush them again and cook them for
08:20another 25 minutes and brush them a couple times during the cooking process. So you see I have
08:26spread them out and I'm going to sprinkle now with salt. Just a little bit of coarse salt. Kosher
08:34salt's great. Sea salt. The flavor is wonderful. And right into the 450 degree oven.
08:54And we have one tray that's still to come out here. Let's see how it looks. Oh it looks
08:59utterly delicious. Look at the color. Really great don't you think? So these are going to
09:07be added right to our platter. Mouth-watering. After tasting Jonathan King's old farmhouse
09:16chutney that Stonewall Kitchen sells up in York, Maine, it reminded me about an old-fashioned
09:22cheese ball that I had long, long time ago. One of my friends made the most delicious cheese ball
09:28I've never made one in my whole life but Jonathan said he had a recipe that was given to him by the
09:34chef at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. In a bowl you'll want to put two packages of cream cheese.
09:41Two eight ounce packages at room temperature. It's kind of important to have it at room temperature
09:47so that it is soft. One half cup of old farmhouse chutney and that recipe is so superb if you
09:54haven't used it you must try it because it is delicious. And we're going to add a half a cup of
10:00shredded Monterey Jack cheese. Of course you can substitute white cheddar for this if you like.
10:06And a half a cup of shredded Colby cheese. Any orange cheddar would do. Scallions. A quarter
10:14of a cup of finely chopped scallion. The green part really pretty. A little bit of garlic. One
10:20medium clove of garlic that's been very finely minced or crushed. And some salt and pepper.
10:29I would like to add a big pinch of pepper and a pinch of coarse salt. And so just stir this up
10:37until it's well combined and the chutney actually gives it a pretty color. The chutney has cranberries
10:42in it which add a little pink tinge to the cream cheese. You can serve this with your favorite
10:50cracker, with melba toast, with slices of fresh pear or fresh apple. So here now we're going to
10:57form this into a ball. This is the messy part. Holds together pretty well. And have a flat dish. I have
11:08a lot of freshly chopped pecans. One cup of freshly chopped nuts. You could use walnuts
11:14if you don't have pecans but the pecans are just the nicest flavor for this cheese ball.
11:20There. And roll this in the nuts. Making sure to coat the entire outside. Try to keep pressing it
11:31into the nuts to use up as many as possible. Now chill this and then when you're serving it
11:38you can just put it out on a board. And I have some sliced apples and some delicious crackers
11:45right here. Now doesn't that look delicious and rather cute? Sliced apples, crackers.
11:53I think I'll sample a little bit right on a very fine sliver of granny smith apple.
12:04Mmm. Okay it's just as good as my friends. There's a really good reason that you always
12:10find crudités, which are raw vegetables, and cheese at a cocktail party. They're just the
12:15right thing to nibble on with your drinks. The challenge doesn't always lie in the recipes
12:20themselves but in finding innovative and really pretty ways to present and standing vegetables
12:26in glasses like this adds a lot of contemporary and visual impact to a table. This tip is really
12:34delicious. You mix into one cup of sour cream, two tablespoons of buttermilk. Buttermilk is so
12:42good and it just thins this out making it a little bit easier to dip your vegetables into.
12:48Stir that together and one whole shallot that's been finely minced.
12:54A little bit of salt, just sprinkling. A half a teaspoon of fresh thyme leaves
13:03and about a third of a teaspoon of green peppercorns, red peppercorns. These are so
13:11colorful and they taste so different from one another. And black peppercorns. Stir that in
13:18Stir that in. And some chives, about two teaspoons of fresh chives. Chop them very, very finely.
13:30Let's make sure there are no big pieces.
13:38And that's your dip. And it can just sit in a bowl until you've finished all the raw vegetables.
13:46Now this can be in any kind of bowl really. So I'm going to actually put the dip in one of the small
13:53tumblers. The beauty about crudités is that each and every ingredient tastes delicious. Carrots,
14:03which are peeled and beautiful and bite-sized. These are very thin, long carrots. They'll look
14:08very nice just standing upright in one of our tumblers like that. The asparagus are beautiful
14:16and these are thin, kind of medium to small asparagus. And these have been blanched just
14:23because blanched asparagus tastes a lot better than raw asparagus. Raw scallions, very pretty,
14:31very crispy. Choose the smallest and finest and sweetest green onions that you can find.
14:38Those two can be just placed in a glass like that. Now we have celery. And I suggest just
14:45cutting each clean stalk into kind of maybe quarters. They should be kept cold until right
14:52before serving. So far all of these ingredients are pretty ordinary. This is a jicama, a very
15:01wonderful root. And this should be peeled and cut into matchsticks measuring three to five inches
15:07in length. We have one that's already peeled. You can slice this into nice slices, about a quarter
15:15of an inch thick. Jicama is native to Mexico, Central and South America. Just cut this into
15:21nice even what we call matchsticks. They're actually a little bigger than matchsticks.
15:29Zucchinis are delicious, but I find just slices of raw zucchini kind of unappealing. So what we've
15:37done is take the zucchini and sliced it on a mandolin about a sixteenth of an inch thick.
15:44First cut off the stem end and the other end and then just slice it into long thin
15:55slices like that. And then you can roll up these slices
16:04like that. And it looks like a totally different vegetable. And these you can prepare ahead of time.
16:12Just make sure that you keep them chilled. You can roll a jicama like this too. It works nicely.
16:18Cucumbers. You can choose Kirby cucumbers if you like or any nice long Japanese pickling cucumber
16:26and cut it into oh maybe eighths or twelfths and stand those upright too in one of your glasses.
16:35String beans, yellow string beans, purple string beans or green string beans can be blanched
16:42over 30 seconds or so just to take the hardness away from them. Always trim the stem ends and
16:49leave the nice little curly end because it looks so pretty as a crudite. And these too
16:57once they're chilled are very very tasty and these should be in a shorter glass.
17:03We have cherry tomatoes. Oh I just love these. They come in so many odd shapes.
17:07These are yellow pears. You can mix those with red cherries. You might find orange pear tomatoes or
17:17whatever you can find. Just pile them into one of the goblets. And one more thing our
17:24beautiful white crispy endive. Just cut off the bottoms and release the leaves.
17:31They can come apart very nicely. Stand those up in a glass. What a crudite platter like this
17:37should be is easy access, freshness, great color and a lot of crispness.