Winning at party potlucks with creative dishes

And then you uncover your dish. You can tell by the delight in some of the guests — and the green-eyed jealousy in others — that you’ve done it. You’ve won the potluck.

It’s a good feeling.

All it takes to win a potluck is a little bit of time and a little bit of effort. If you use the right ingredients, you’re halfway there.

Most potluckers throw something together quickly at the last moment or they make it on the cheap. If a cookie is made with margarine instead of butter, you can be sure it is never going to win.

To truly impress at a potluck, especially if you know that other guests also realize it is a competition, you have to make something that looks as good as it tastes. And that is why, for my first blue-ribbon potluck dish, I turned to the best-looking potluck dish I have ever seen.

It was invented by my wife. We were going to a garden party, which is to say a party for gardeners, and everyone was encouraged to bring a dish with a garden theme. My wife brought a Garden in a Pan.

The bottom layer was refried beans, to represent the dirt. Placed on top of it were colorful rows of chopped vegetables, sour cream, cheese, salsa and guacamole to represent rows of plants.

When scooped up with a tortilla chip, it all made for a delicious, fresh, Tex-Mex dip. It’s kind of like a seven-layer dip, but horizontal.

I stayed with the idea of a healthful dip with my next dish, tzatziki. A bright-tasting Greek sauce made from yogurt and cucumbers, tzatziki is best known as the topping to gyros. But it goes well with any grilled meat, with shrimp or with baked potatoes.

And for the purposes of a potluck, it also goes well with crudités. Simply serve it as a dip along with carrot sticks, celery sticks, sliced red pepper and cherry tomatoes, and the other guests will appreciate how much you are looking out for their health and happiness.

If you’re truly trying to win at potluck — or if you know someone else is also trying to win — you may have to spend some money. And that means: shrimp.

Shrimp cocktail won’t cut it. Everybody knows shrimp cocktail. Everybody loves shrimp cocktail. But shrimp cocktail is too ordinary.

If you’re going to win with shrimp, you’ll have to go big — like the big flavors you find in Spiced Shrimp.

The flavors are actually simple: garlic, salt, cayenne pepper, paprika, olive oil and lemon juice. But when you put them all together and make sort of a paste to cover the shrimp, that’s when you get something notable.

The original recipe from the New York Times called for the shrimp to be grilled. And you could certainly cook them that way, if you really wanted to show off. But simply sautéeing them in a pan is easily good enough to secure a victory.

Bold flavors are the key to another sure-fire winner, too. When spiced nuts are done right, they tend to be addictive. The combination of salt and sugar and nuttiness makes them too good to pass up.

If you bring Rum-Glazed Pecans to a potluck, they are almost certain to be the first thing finished. With a satisfied smile (but only if you keep it to yourself), you will notice the other guests going back to the bowl again and again and again.

Why? Well, you begin with pecans, which you toast to a fragrant crispness. Then you glaze them with a combination of melted butter, brown sugar, vanilla and dark rum. When they are still sticky, you toss them in a combination of granulated sugar, salt, cinnamon, cloves and allspice.

These are flavors that are made for one another. Make sure you grab some for yourself before they are all gone.

For one last dish to impress, I made a South Carolina standard, Country Captain Chicken. This is chicken slow-cooked in a tomato-curry sauce. It is a warming, homey dish, the kind of dish the other guests will think about for days.

It is also easy to make. It does take a lot of ingredients, but most of the cooking is done in a slow cooker. You just set it and forget it.

When the other guests ask you for the recipe, be sure to hand it to them with all the modesty you can muster. Winners never gloat.