Nici Wickes: Easy and affordable recipes for platters

I love to keep entertaining super casual and that often means building a platter. It’s the ultimate in minimal effort creating something that looks like a magical feast. Platters are endlessly customizable, meaning you can work with what you’ve got and work to YOUR budget.  

Try these three simple and affordable recipes next time you’re serving up a platter of deliciousness.   

  

Roasted grapes  

1-2 bunches of grapes – any colour  

Drizzle of quality olive oil   

1 tsp thyme or rosemary (optional)   

Sprinkle of sea salt   

1 tsp honey (optional)  

  

Brush grapes with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Whack them on a lined tray and roast them at 180 C for 20-30 minutes. Whilst still hot drizzle over honey if using. Serve with crackers and blue cheese.   

  

Cheat’s Smoked Salmon & Chive Dip   

150g cream cheese  

95g tinned salmon, use the smoked one   

2 tbsps. finely chopped chives + extra   

Decent squeeze of lemon juice   

Salt & pepper to taste  

  

Blend all ingredients in a food processor. Sprinkle with extra chopped chives and serve with cheesesticks for dipping.   

  

Baked brie  

1 whole brie or camembert cheese   

Few sprigs fresh rosemary, thyme and/or oregano  

2 tablespoons white wine or sparkling wine   

Grind of black pepper   

2-3 thick slices good quality bread, cut into batons   

2 tablespoons olive oil  

¼ teaspoon sea salt   

2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley   

Wedges of lemon   

  

Turn oven to 180 C.   

Place the cheese round on a sheet of baking paper big enough to wrap the cheese and then into a large ramekin or other ovenproof dish that holds it snugly. With the tip of a sharp knife make 3-4 cuts across the top of the cheese. Insert herbs into these. Splash over wine and grind pepper. Wrap up tying or twisting the paper to enclose. Bake for 15 minutes or until soft all the way through. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Twelve minutes two ten on News Talks, he'd b if
you just fancy a nice weekend sitting on the couch
after ten o'clock this morning, if those film picks well
enough to pique your interest, I'm going to tell you
about the brand new series from Miriam Margalis, Miriam Marghli's
in New Zealand. You know how she did the thing
in Australia and it's just so so good. She's such
a character. Tomorrow is the first episode of Mariam Marghlei's

(00:36):
in New Zealand. So I'm going to give you all
the details on where you can see that after ten
o'clock this morning. Right now, though, it's time to catch
up with our cook, Nikki Wicks, who is celebrating the
long White Tonguey weekend More Dinner.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Years for many people, I think they took Friday off.
So this weekend just keeps giving and giving and giving,
doesn't it.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
It does. It's very much a you know, a kind
of a barbecue weekend, Like Francisca was saying, it's a
weekend where lots of university students are heading off bit
of a bit of a weekend to socialize, I think
as well. And the weather's looking pretty good all over
the place. So this morning you have your top tips
on absolutely nailing a platter.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
A platter. Look, I love a platter so much. They
did used to be called cheeseboards, but now everyone throws
everything at them. And in fact, for a while there
we had this phase of grazing platters.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Did you mention to well, I saw that it was
a trend because everyone was daunting. Yeah, everyone to put
some of these ridiculous It sort of looks like a
dare I say, like a like a sort of Roman
orgy or something. It's ridiculous, you know what I mean,
Like these absolutely ridiculous kind of speeds of things. They
do look very attractive on Instagram and that kind of thing.
And you know, you know, yeah, yes, exactly and yes.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
And when you just said that that they reminded you
of something Roman, I thought of. Yes, there's never enough
space on the freend, so it all becomes a bit
of a train wreck in the end. So I like
to keep things really simple and don't be daunted by
what seeing online I'm honestly about the fact that I
don't think people should throw everything out them. That's my

(02:13):
first tip, and my second biggest tip really is to
don't just buy all the stuff from the deli section,
because then anyone can do that actually makes some things
for your platter, because that truly elevates them and makes
them feel very personalized, and you'll really have people saying, oh,
distinguishes it does, rather than just cracking open the dips

(02:33):
or cracking open some DEALI meats or something like that.
So look, this week, I have got, first of all,
I think you should have a balance of sweet, salty,
all that sort of thing on your platter. So I've
got roasted grapes on mine, and I'm really going to
encourage people to try this. Grapes are so absolutely fantastic
because they last forever in the fridge. I discovered when
I did a job with some grapes people earlier on

(02:55):
this year. I mean literally six weeks later, I still
had grapes. They were slightly shriveled. So through them in
the oven on say one to eighty degrees, and just
make sure that they're brushed with a little bit of oil.
You can then sprinkle them with a little bit of salt,
and I see salt is gray. And then they just
go in on a line line train, cook them for
about twenty to thirty minutes, jack, and they just become

(03:17):
sort of jammy and caramelized and roasted. They're beautiful. Sprinkle
over a little bit of thyme or rosemar if you
want to do that, and then when they come out
really great to drizzle over a little bit of honey
as well, so that sweet kind of salty thing going on.
And they're so good on a cracker with some blue
cheese or something you won't know yourself. And whenever I

(03:38):
do this, you know, with the rose grapes, people are
always saying, oh my god, these are amazing, and they're
so simple it's embarrassing.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yeah, I don't think I've ever I don't think I've
ever eaten roasted grape. Oh maybe like weirdly, maybe in
like a chicken dish or something, you know, like and
like Morocco. Yeah, vietnameat yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Or even Vietnam does a lot of Actually, there's a
beautiful or is it a tie curry? A red tie
curry often ares big red grapes in it. And that's fantastic.
So there you go, they go, they go, well caught.
My second, My second very You know quick dip is
it's a smoked salmon dip. But you know, in these
austere times, there's no way I'm buying smoked salmon to

(04:18):
put with cream cheese. So what I do is I
buy a tin of smoked salmon. So I don't just
mean a tin of salmon jack. If you look closely,
some of them are naturally smoked. And if you throw
that with some cream cheese, So drain the tin a
little bit if you need to, of salmon, and then
one hundred and fifty grams of cream cheese. Two tablespoons
are finely chopped chives or parsley or whatever. You could use,

(04:41):
a really decent squeeze of lemon juice. Throw it all
in a food processor and you've no idea. It just
is so smoky and fantastic, and nobody will know that
you did not use alraky smoked salmon.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
And it's so fancy, Like I said, when you do
it yourself, this kind of dynamic. Yeah, okay, that's fantastic.
I know You've got one more. You've got one more.
For us a baked breeze. So what I'm going to
do is I'm going to put that one on the
news talks HEB website newstalks heb dot cove dot z,
alongside your cheats smoked salmon and chived up and those
roasted grapes, which sounds superb. Thank you so much, Nicki.

(05:13):
We will catch again next week. Nicki's our cook Bear.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News Talks ed B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio