The Dacquoise is looking fantastic. The buttercream frosting came out nicely; the meringue did not break when I sliced it... Currently all that remains is to let it set in the fridge (in progress), and then dump the chocolate ganache over top tomorrow.
No sweet preparation in this house, I've been tasked with the starters and catering for the vague notion that at some point post lunch someone might need more food. I've pinched a Gordon Ramsey recipe of scallops and quail eggs to start. The sweetcorn purée and truffle oil mayo all all ready as is a backup prawn cocktail for the less adventurous. I've made up a couple of pâtés, a chicken liver with brandy and a smoked mackerel with horseradish and, of course, a honey roast ham.
Traditional Christmas dinner here, but only the pork roast since there was only the four of us. It ended up perfectly done and then I made my best ever sauce, but since I was improvising over a recipe where I lacked some of the ingredients, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to repeat it.
Finishing up the brine for tomorrow's turkey... For tonight, Karen is making a nice ribeye with a port-shitake reduction, a mixed green salad with roasted beets (we did those yesterday), feta, and toasted walnuts, and... I can't remember what other side we're having. Something. I'll be cracking open a bottle of 2005 La Tour de Mons to go with that.
Am I allowed to opine that turkey is shit and this sounds soo much nicer? I did once win the fight and was allowed to cook goose which just confirmed how dull turkey is.
Honey, oranges, lemons, whisky. Juice the fruit things, more oranges than lemons is probably a good idea, put in a pan, heat, add honey and whisky to taste. :)
Today America's Test Kitchen let me down. I made this recipe: http://www.americastestkitchen.com/recipes/detail.php?docid=26333&Extcode=L2NN1AA00 Looking for some delicious chewy sugar cookies. And they were pretty chewy...as long as they were warm. I just went to pack them up after cooling and snuck on and nearly shattered my teeth. God dammit! They still taste pretty good though.
Traditional Danish Christmas is duck, pork roast and a special pork sausage. So as not to compete with my brother (the chef) and people like my mother, who has been doing this shit for ages, we make turkey American style when we're hosting and it's a nice change. We did have organic free range versions of the above ordered to bring to my brothers when my oldest caught pheunomia. The butcher was ok with us not picking up the ducks, but there was no time to get turkey and we did have 2kgs of nice pork roast, which was also what the kids wanted. And a good pork roast made with decent pork (not the supermarket crap we get here after exporting all our good stuff) is fucking amazing. But I'm most proud of the sauce.
So, Denmark Christmas for me next year. Pork, duck AND sausage? Sold. You'll either have to share your sauce recipe or were coming round your house.
My grandfather long ago decided that turkey was boring, and ever since Christmas dinner in my family has been a giant standing rib roast. Also lobster bisque, since that was his favorite thing ever. As a recent innovation, we've started cooking two smaller rib roasts so that the heathens who like their meat medium or past can have their own little beef ghetto and the rest of us can have a delicious perfectly medium-rare roast. It is glorious.
We do prime rib as well; I make it with a porcini crust (basically ground up dried porcinis) that is just divine.
A porcini crust sounds awesome, but we've always gone the route of the simplest spice rub possible and then pairing it with my mom's gravy, which is the world's best. I don't know exactly how she does it, but I can only assume black magic is involved. She's given me the recipe, and our version is good but just not the same at all.
We did prime rib last year. This year was spaghetti and meatballs. It was good, but I really wish I'd splurged and done prime rib again. Perhaps next year...
Trying to help my parents kill their aging booze collection, when the whole family came over tonight for Christmas eve I added sherry instead of brandy to the eggnog. It was fantastic, much more subtle tasting.
Strawberry-banana muffins officially a success. Had to watch them carefully since I was using a recipe for bread (haha cooking muffins for ONE HOUR?), but they are FABULOUS. The recipe (I substituted vanilla for the lemon extract): http://feralkitchen.com/2012/06/13/strawberry-banana-bread/ (ETA: This was not what I caught fire to today)
Dinner: massive success. Next year: sous vide prime rib. I'm pretty sure 60 bucks worth of equipment will let me convert the homebrew setup for sous vide. At that point, I will put a goose in the oven and FINALLY HAVE CHRISTMAS GOOSE.
Mine was mostly a success, except I reached a point where I was juggling too many balls, so to speak, and the yeast rolls got burned. :( Other than that it was all yummy!
Turkey came out nice (thumbs up on the brining), oyster stuffing came out even better. I ate way too much, though. Ugh.
My cousin and I have learned that taking notes post dinner is crucial. Inevitably there's all sorts of process stuff you'll forget over the year if you don't write it down. E.g., for me it was the realization that my parents' oven cannot raise temp very quickly; that resulted in a thirty minute delay for dinner. Next year, having written that (and like nine other things) down, I'll know bette and plan for it.
Yeah, my mother always kept a special Christmas diary for that very purpose (at one point when all the family was alive, she would also be making more than a 1000 cookies and lots of chocolate-marzipan treats to give away). I try to do the same (and will share the gravy-recipe, when I'm home again)
Meserach made an awesome orange cake that we devoured yesterday. We also had a curry cook off which was a cunning plan to cut down the amount of work any individual had to do. Great idea for using up leftovers.
Karen tried out her Christmas presents, new pizza peel: And the Baking Steel (basically a quarter-inch thick pice of seasoned plate steel): It's like a pizza stone, but better. The idea comes from Modernist Cuisine, and the people that sell this (Stoughton Steel) did a Kickstarter this year to make a product based on the specifications in Modernist Cuisine. It seems to work: That's a damn nice crust for a home oven. Actually, that's a good crust even for a pizza oven. :)
It's great in salads. Just slice the bulb thinly, marinate it in your dressing for a while, and add whatever else. I like arugula and some good olives. Alternately, you can do the same with just the fronds, and gently roast the the bulb and serve it with roast or something. But seriously, it's great just raw, and awesome for soothing an upset stomach.
So I recieved The Art of Fermentation from my in-laws for xmas, and I can't wait to get started making some of these things. Like real ginger beer, kombucha, kefir, saurkraut, etc. The book has absolutely EVERYTHING.
Cut into small cubes, add a sprig of thyme and a little bit of garlic. Then let simmer covered on small to medium heat until soft (30 min), season. Slice some baguette, spread a bit of garlic and olive oil on it, roast and spread the fennel marmelade on top. Or just cut thinly and interleave with some orange filets, sprinkle some olive oil on top.
So, dessert. The wife wants Cremè Brûlée* for new years, which means I need to get a new gas burner, since the old is leaking. But that's not the problem - I'm kinda underwhelmed and since our guests are bringing the first and main course, the dessert and later traditional marzipan tower is all I'll be making, I am looking for something more. Variants or things that goes nicely with Cremè Brûlée - please offer advice. Grave accent, acute accent and circumflex... my iPhone can't even write the damn thing without me changing the keyboard.
Tonight's dinner was spaghetti with broccoli pesto, courtesy of Smitten Kitchen. It was fantastic, head over to her site for the deetz. Based on the pictures, mine ended up being chopped up much more finely than hers, but it was still a divine vegetarian meal.
If you can make a good creme brulee you're in good shape. Made well it's a classic dessert that will always impress. If you're feeling like you need to jazz it up, maybe add something? I've had creme brulee with a layer of chocolate beneath that was really good, or maybe flavor it with other stuff? I'm pretty sure I had a ginger creme brulee once that was divine...
Today I have very little food or prepared stuff in the fridge and I don't feel like leaving the house to shop or whatever. But I'm hungry! So I took the two leeks from my FFTY box, chopped them into half-inch long pieces, and sauteed them in a pan of olive oil, salt, and pepper. As they browned, the stiffness of the vegetable softened and right near the end I sprinkled some brown sugar over them in the pan. Deelish! My point isn't the recipe but that once you get even the smallest bit comfortable in the kitchen, knowing some basics of how some spices taste, how to heat things in a pan/skillet, how easy it is to cut things into various sizes, and so on, the general confidence level goes way, way up. Everyday cooking is to me largely about general skills rather than specific things, I enjoy it.
I'll share - not that I'd mind the visit. So, I didn't plan on making Christmas dinner, so I just had the roast. No stock and no kilo of bones from the butchers to make stock... also not enough time. So I grabbed a bag of bacon from the freezer and fried it with some butter. Chopped an onion and some garlic. Added thyme, allspice (whole), pebbercorn (whole) and laurels. Diced a couple of carrots and a celery. This I fried until golden and then scooped up. Since I hade a large rost for just the four of us, I could spare some so I sliced off an inch or so from the thin end that ends up drier than the rest anyway and fried in my pan on all sides, then I put the stuff from before back and poured over a cup or so of Muscat wine and 4 tablespoons of apple vinegar. I let that boil off until I had almost none left, covered everything in water, added salt and left to slowly simmer while the roast was in the oven. When the roast was done and resting I added the juices from the roast, put everything through a sieve and then added lots of cream, salt and pebber, and added a bit of cornstarch for thickness. Nice.
Did my own hamburgers in a cast iron skillet. Half chuck, half sirloin, ground myself. Made quarter pound patties, well seasoned. Threw in hot skillet. Spread mustard on raw side while first side is cooking. Flipped, put American cheese slice on top. Put on toasted bun when done, added veggies and ketchup. Ate. It took like 15 minutes.
My dad used to like to explain to non-Jewish guests that "kosher" actually referred to a complex series of processes and rituals carefully designed to remove all flavor from the food being served.
I've never set foot in this thread before because I hate to cook, but I just found out there's a recipe called a Dutch Baby and I am slightly tipsy and find this hysterical because I'm an atheist and am therefore supposed to want to eat babies. So maybe I'll make a Dutch baby and eat it.
