Yule Do It Again (or Things go Better with Pork *)

* with apologies to my Jewish (and vegetarian) readers, this blog may contain genuflections at the Shrine of Swine.

 So, even with global warming and climate change, the earth keeps spinning and we still have our shortest day and longest night. Which means there is an excuse to get the Christmas decorations out mid-year and have another Yule Dinner! (click here for the reasons why this makes more sense in the Southern Hemisphere)

  As in previous years, we had The Roast – this year it was a “rolled turkey breast with cranberry stuffing”, not surprisingly, from a Delicious magazine ‘Christmas in July’ special. The stuffing began with cooked onion and fried pancetta, so I was pretty sure it was going to be yum (and it definitely smelt that way!). As well as this being a very festive recipe (the stuffing also included pistachio nuts and the aforementioned Cranberries), it had a separate recipe for gravy.

 Domestic Goddess Confession time: I am terrible at gravy. As I may (or may not) have mentioned before, it took me a long time to be comfortable with The Roast. For something that was such a stalwart of my childhood diet, and that I saw my mother/grandmother/ aunt/other sundry female relative/friend make over and over, I struggled getting it right. It took me many years and many different techniques before I finally found a bulletproof roast potato technique (I even bought frozen roast potatoes in my early days – the shame!!). I now have a few good Roast recipes under my belt, but gravy still seems to elude me. Maybe it was the ease at which my mum mixed up the Gravox and pan juices (which I then dutifully stirred while Dad carved). Mine always ended up lumpy/watery/ flavourless, so I have been a big fan of the pre-prepared pouches of gravy that you can buy in the supermarket. But as this recipe has separate instructions for gravy that did not rely on “pan juices” (and could be made earlier) I thought I would  give it a try. I’m happy to report it was a success; the technique was not unsimilar to making a roux for a white sauce, so maybe I’ve Learned Something for the next time I’m brave enough to try Gravy.

 Roast was suggested to be served with a “potato and porcini gratin” which sounded a bit fancy (and similar to last year’s tartiflette) so I went with the good ol’ duck fat potatoes, as well as some roasted sweet corn and Brussel sprouts.

 What?!? Brussel Sprouts!! No one likes Brussel sprouts!! – I hear you say. And up until a year ago I would have agreed with you, not being able to count on one hand the number of people I knew that admitted they liked them. My dad despised them with as much passion as you could despise a vegetable. He used to tell kids that if you left a Brussel spout on the window sill for a month that it would turn gross and mouldy which was Proof of the noxious poisons within. As such, my childhood was a Brussel sprout-free zone.

 But one grows older and realises that one’s parents are not the be all and end all of culinary experiences. And so I felt brave enough to try when hubby brought them home from the supermarket one day.

 And what do you know, I like them!! I think with most things it is the preparation that makes or breaks it. Brussel spouts are very susceptible to over cooking which will turn them into smelly slimy sludge. A quick dip in boiling water finished off with a knob of butter (or olive oil) is all they need. Or if you’re going to get a bit fancy and try and covert non-BS eaters, you par boil then, the fry up some bacon (or pancetta as I did this time) and fry them in the bacon fat for a bit before popping them in the oven to crisp up – delicious.

 Which brings me to another piece of Worldly Cooking Wisdom; things go better with Pork. There have been many dishes, especially lately which have been improved by the addition of bacon, chorizo, prosciutto or pancetta. It is magic in bolognaise sauces, lasagnes and pasta dishes, great in anything with eggs (like frittatas), even works in some salads, and always smells amazing while cooking. So this is by no means a hard and fast rule, but I do find it works more often than not.

 Pudding was actually a “pouding” – Pouding Chomeur, which I found in a 'Dessert Around the World' Delicious Mag special. It started life as French bread and butter pudding from Canada during the Great Depression (the name literally means “unemployed pudding”). But the main thing that enticed me (apart from cooking another French dish for our Frenchman) was that it contained pecans and maple syrup, which is one of my favorite combinations (I have made a maple-pecan ice cream which is divine). And I knew that dessert-fussy Hubby liked it too.

 So after an fair few hours of preparing and organising I did my traditional table setting; which, as I commented to hubby while deciding between variations on place settings, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth over doing”.

 

Full lighting

Festive candlelight

 No gingerbread boxes this year, but every place setting did have a little “gift” of a gingerbread tree and stars with a red Lindor ball (all tied up with red ribbon and a sprig of rosemary; totes festive). Throw in a few candles and some ivy with oranges/lemons and dried fruit/nuts and we were set for guests.

  I had decided to do baked camembert again as one of my guests was pregnant last year and wasn't really supposed to eat it (although we all agreed that baking it would probably kills the germs). I used an Australian camembert this year (to have one less trip to a different shopping centre) but prepared it in a similar way to last year (garlic and herbs and red wine O my!)  Interestingly, it turned out a lot thicker with an almost fondue-like consistency, compared to last years’ “deliciously oozy cheesy mess”. (apparently it is due to the fat content of the respective cheeses – thanks Mr Frenchman!) It was still super yum.  We also had foie gras, which was brought along by Mr Frenchman and Wife,  as they are much more knowledgeable about these things than I. It is a Christmas day tradition in his family so I thought we could borrow that tradition for ourselves. Plus, Wife of Other Couple has just come back from France and was probably missing French cuisine.

 So again, a fun time was had by all, including all the kids who managed to get to sleep by 10pm. We realized that there was another Ex Pat in our midst – from New Zealand, which means I now get to start researching how to create a Hangi (step one: dig a hole). We did end up with some left overs, which have been turned into a few extra meals and a rather awesome morning tea of baked camembert on toast. Plus a half bottle of champagne (blame those selfish people who switched to red wine with dinner), which is always tricky ingredient to use up . I did remember seeing a Nerdy Nummies Champagne Cupcakes recipe, but that only used half a cup. I have a great recipe (from French Women Don’t get Fat) for Chicken au Champagne (chicken cooked in champagne) but I didn't think it would last the few days it would take until I could cook dinner again. So I settled for the most sensible option…

 I drank it.

 So let’s raise a glass to the sun returning again and to old traditions with new friends.

Down Mexico Way

 So after my last blog, lamenting that I had been unable to organise a Mexican Feast; I was able to rectify this at the weekend! A dinner catch up with friends was a good excuse to look through my To Cook list, and right at the top was ‘Easy Does it – Tapas’ in the November Delicious magazine; four great simple recipes for your Spanish feast. The two that caught my eye were ‘Sherry-glazed chickpeas and chorizo' and a ‘Patatas Bravas’; the latter I had tried when I went to my first real proper Spanish Tapas restaurant recently; and the former reminded me of a dish from The Black Toro. So, straightaway, I had two dishes and the beginnings of a Spanish Spread.

 To round out the selection, I thought I would take a second try at tacos (click here to reminisce on my first ‘mis-adventure’). I had a “proper” Taco recipe from the Lonely Planet “Street Food” book; which had the filling as mince meat cooked with a bit of salt and pepper. Authentic, I'm sure. Just not very Dinner-Party-esque. Then there was a Lime and Prawn taco which showed promise (except for them wanting prawns with the tail still on – how is that a good thing when munching through a hand held taco?!?!); but it did require canned black beans. I'm sure I could have sourced them, but didn’t have that much free time for scouring my local gourmet food stores and delis. Then I remembered a shredded pork taco recipe that I had stored for a while, because every time I looked at the first set of instructions (that included “cook for 1 and a half hours”), I put it back. Now I am well aware of the benefits of long preparations (my 4 hour slow cooked lamb is testament to that), but for tacos, it seemed like too much work. But then, what is a dinner party if not an excuse to faff about in the kitchen and boil a piece of pork for 90 minutes?!?!  Plus it meant I could finally open the can of Chipotle* chillies in Adobe that I bought a while back for alllllll the Mexican cooking that I would use it with (but hadn’t gotten  around to using yet).

 She kept looking at me every time I went into my spices section,  “ Why haven’t you used me yet? You're just afraid of my Guatamalaness” (with apologies to Hank Azaria)

 And with that , main course was sorted. Throw in some salsa and nacho chips (with carrot and celery) for nibbles and all we needed was a dessert.

 Now, as much as I love Mexican, I have always found the desserts a bit tricky. The Black Toro are quite liberal in their interpretation (last time I had a 'deconstructed peanut butter cheesecake', which I’m sure the conquistadors munched on as they travelled to The New World); though I am looking forward to trying their Crème Catalan. “Jamie’s America” has a chocolate mole tart, which has an amazing spice mix (including cinnamon and chilli) sprinkled over the top, but I’d already made that before. Having the Lonely Planet book out reminded me of the Pastel de Belem (Portuguese Custard Tart) I had earmarked. I know that Portugal is not really a neighbour of Mexico, but I figured as there were a lot of Portuguese speakers in South America, I could probably get away with it.

  I started making the tarts the night before the dinner:  Son 2 has been sick that week and I wasn’t quite sure what sort of mess and time-consuming-task the following day would bring  (Kids always add an extra degree of randomness and uncertainty to your plans!). First step was making a custard from scratch, which I was familiar with from making ice cream. However, this custard had a tablespoon of flour in it, which sped up the thickening process no end! In fact I did end up with a slightly lumpy custard as I didn’t get to stir it as regularly as I should have (reading a bedtime story between stirs is probably not something I’ll repeat next time). The tart cases were made from puff pastry, which the receipe suggested to buy a block and roll out to 0.1 inch thick. I figured my sheets of frozen puff pastry already in the freezer were about 2.5mm so I would go with that! It was all going along swimmingly apart from the actual baking; which seemed to take much longer than specified (15 mins at 150°C). I’m sure they were "cooked" by 15 minutes, but the pastry was not golden (as the instructions specified), nor was the custard browned like the picture illustrated. So another 15 mins (done in 5 minute increments, checking them each time and increasing the temp) got it looking much more like in the book.

  Dinner party morning starting with the boiling of the pork, followed by the cooling of the pork, followed by the shredding of the pork! There was the roasting of the garlic and tomatoes for the chipotle sauce, followed by the all-important Opening of the Chipotle Can. The receipe suggested adding the (3) chillies one at a time and tasting as you go “until you achieve the heat level you require”.  I added two, and nearly singed several layers on skin off my tongue! So I stopped there. And then fished out the pieces of chilli skin that had not blended in! Argh!! So they were as spicy as everyone had suggested! It is tricky as the actual chillies can vary in size, and I’m guessing the amount of sauce that gets added in is also a factor. I could only hope that once it was added to the pork that it would lower the spice rating a bit (and be grateful that my mum wasn't one of the dinner guests!).  Preparations also included par-boiled the potatoes for the bravas, as well as making the sauce to go on top.

 By this time it was beer o’clock and so we opened a few Coronas to assist with the cooking process (with lime for me, lemon for Hubby), and went on to the fourth stage of pork preparation – the frying of the cooled shredded pork! (for so much faffing, this had better taste amazing!). While that was thickening (after the addition of the tomato sauce and some raisins (Raisins? Yes raisins. Not what I would usually associate with pork, but I kept an open mind for the first-time cook through), I fried up the potato for the bravas, as well as cooking up the chorizo. And with the sour cream, aioli and (homemade) salsa and guacamole already of the festively decorated table, we were ready to roll.

 Except our dinner party had slightly decreased. Guest 1 had an impending work assisgnement and was staying home to work on that. Guest 2 had arrived (with her beautiful 3 month old daughter), had a sip of champagne, and then spent the next 45 minutes tring to settle said child who had gottten a bit upset at missing a sleep and being handed around to everyone! (what was I saying about Kids and Plans?!?) So they went home home, leaving Hubby and I with a rather large feast between the two of us. To which I immediately thought of what we could use as leftovers for another dinner (hooray! Another night off cooking!!). But only after savouring THIS dinner.

Tacos, with our special Chilean wine (which we will save for another time)

 I'm happy to report that adding the pork and rasisins did dial the chipotle sauce down a few Scoville units, and made it very super tasty; so all the faffing was worth it. It would be a great recipe to work on through the day, or even cook the pork the night before.

 The Patatas Bravas were great as well; a nice mix between wedges and roast potatoes that will be a great starter or side dish. I'm not sure what to do with the yummy tomato sauce; we seemed to have a lot of that left over ....

All that was left of the chickpeas and chorizo!

 And the chorizo dish was just amazing. It took about 10 minutes to cook and was easily the yummiest dish of the night (it went straight into Hubby’s top 10). Which just goes to show that more time and effort doesn’t always mean better (especially when kids are involved!).

 And after polishing off a few extra serves of that, there wasn't much room for the Pastel de Belem, which we brought out as part of a family lunch the next day. The custard was delicious, but there seemed to be a bit too much pastry. This may have been because I didn’t have it thin enough, or I left too much of a “lip” and the top of the tin. Might just have to make them again to work it out....

 So with the weather finally warming up over here, I look forward to a long summer of tapas inspired meals (and lots of Coronas with lime). But for now, I’m off to find all of those Chipotle recipes to use up the rest of the can! I’m pretty sure I have a grilled corn with chipotle mayonnaise, but lets see what other latino gems I can unearth.

 Salud!


* I am never sure if its Chip-pot-lay or Chip-pottle (as in bottle). I will have to check with my friend who speaks Spanish.  Although she still might be laughing from when I ordered the Jamon (hard J)  croquets rather than the “hamon”.

Yule Have a Great Time!

 Growing up in Australia, Christmas was always a slightly confusing time for a young child. Sure, the presents and school holidays were great, but why were we singing about sleigh bells and Frosty the Snowman while it was baking hot and bushfires outside? And a strange man delivering presents to your house in the middle of the night was weird enough without wondering why he was wearing a fur-lined red suit on a Total Fire Ban day. And then sitting down on December 25 to a roast with all the trimmings followed by plum pudding and custard when all I wanted was any icy pole and to jump in the pool again.
 So it was a revelation when I worked out that the early Christians had tagged the celebration of Christmas onto the long-standing Pagan celebrations of the Winter Solstice. Suddenly it made sense; we, in the land Down Under, were having Christmas at the wrong time of the year! So it also makes sense that celebrating the Shortest Day, or as a Southern hemispheric pagan would call it; Yule, has become a good excuse for getting together with friends for a feast.

 Looking back, I held my first Yule dinner about 10 years ago and have tried to celebrate it in some way every since. Some years it has been the large dinner party with all the bells and whistles, sometimes it is just a nice meal with the family. But when I have time, I do prefer the former, which I did on this past Saturday night.
 Having done a few of these dinners over the years, I have a few constants: there is always a roast of some sort. Mulled wine or cider, or mead is also on the menu, and we finish with some sort of pudding. Lots of red and green and candles for table decorations as well as oranges and lemons and gifts for the guests. But there are always a few new recipes that I end up trying out.

 The first new addition this year was baked camembert, which Hubby spotted while watching the TV series Cheese Slices. A wheel of camembert (preferably from Normandy) is doused with red wine, herbs and garlic and baked in the oven in the wooden box it comes in, and then dipped into like a pseudo-fondue. To me it initially seemed like a waste of good camembert, but it looked so mouth-wateringly good (and so suited to a cold night) that I had to try it.

Ready to Go - garlic slivers inserted, topped with thyme and rosemary and a good red wine

 And boy was I glad I did. The result was a deliciously oozy cheesy mess that was happily dipped into with bread and pear slices; divine.

 This was served with mugs of Mulled Cider. For some reason I have always been a fan of "mulling" - its sounds so cool and ye Olde English. I stumbled across a packet of "mulling spices" in a country shop one year which was my first foray into mulling and I have tried different versions each year. I think as long as you have oranges and lemons and cinnamon & cloves, the rest is variable. Just be sure not to let is sit for too long as it can become a bit sour with the spices: I learnt this from a pub in Salamanca (Tasmania) where they had a crock-pot of mulled wine on the bar; the first mug was delicious but a later glass which was near the end of the pot wasn't nearly as good.
 This year's mulled cider recipe had cardamon pods, as well as whiskey and cointreau added so it packed a punch and definitely helped warm us up!

 Main course was Roast Turkey, being that I had made roast pork the last time we had our guests over and one of them is not a fan of roast lamb. And instead of my triple-roasted potatoes, I made Tartiflette, which is a French Style cheese and potato bake (it's so helpful having a friend who's French so I can make these dishes!). Slices of par-boiled potato were mixed with a sauce consisting of fried bacon and eschalot with sour cream and chopped parsley. The whole thing was put in a casserole dish and a wheel of camembert (or reblochon, if you were making it in France) was chopped up and place on top before being baked in the oven. Not for the faint of heart or those with high cholesterol! But as you can imagine it was delicious. And to offset that, blanched carrots and broccoli to make it slightly healthier!

 Dessert took a bit of deliberation this year. Previously I have favoured sticky date pudding with caramel sauce; I make individual puddings in a muffin tin, slice them in half and serve with a scoop of ice cream in the middle. Then I was leaning towards chocolate, with a Heston Blumenthal Liquid Centre chocolate pudding, but it got passed over due to the fiddly factor. I toyed with the idea of a chocolate hazelnut cake as that seemed seasonal, but it didn't have the ooey-gooey pudding factor. So I settled on Walnut and Honey pudding, which I had made for a Mother's day dinner so I knew for a fact that my dessert-avoiding Hubby liked it!

 So that was the menu, but another big part of Yule celebrations for me is the Table. I am a big fan of a Well-Set table; a chance to get out the Good Crockery and the butter dishes and matching serviettes, so this is always a chance to go all out. And to give the Christmas decorations a mid-year airing!

This was my Yule table from 2011...

... candles, oranges and lemons, some ivy from my garden and plates of gingerbread and shortbread biscuits. Plus 'noodle boxes' filled with cranberry and pistachio sable biscuits as a bonbonierre gift for my guests to take home. Most of these found a place at this years' table, but had a new 'gift' idea for my guests.

 I had spotted Gingerbread Boxes in the Coles Christmas magazine, and they seemed so simple but effective that I had to give them a try.
 You start with making the normal gingerbread recipe, but cutting it out into squares.

It's hip to be square

 If I make these again, I will be a lot more precise in measuring and cutting the pieces as it did make for a few interesting shaped boxes!

 Next the sides are joined together with piped melted white chocolate. I had to work quickly as it was so cold in my kitchen that the chocolate was re-solidifying in the piping bag!

 Once they had set, the seams were covered with royal icing and cachoos to make it look pretty. I had made a few stars with the last bit of the gingerbread dough so they were stuck in the 'lids".

"Edible ball bearings - genius!"

 Pop in a few caramel Lindor balls and voila! A delicious and edible table decoration.

Too pretty to eat (well almost)

 And to top off The Table, a mini Christmas tree plus a string of lights (rather than candles; the lights literally fell out of the Christmas cupboard!), holly gravy boat (which I found in a  $2 Shop one year - brilliant!) and a few sprigs of ivy.

  And the finishing touch was a plate of "Winter Spiced Madeleine's" brought by one of my guests (Madame Clochette herself), which meant that yes, we all had a great time on the longest night of the year.

(Not so) Perfect 10

Special Occasions.

What I love about them is that they can be impromptu and everyday – “Hey! A new TV show is starting!” “I’m getting a bonus at work!” “Two random friends have dropped in just around dinner time! Break out the wine!”

 Or they can be the traditional calendar events – birthdays, family events, wedding anniversaries…

 All an occasion needs to be “special” is special people and a sense of occasion. You can have 2 or 20 guests; it could be a 5 course extravaganza taking days to prepare or a heap of take-away from your favourite local.

 But as much as I love an impromptu gathering (which is why I always have a sparkling wine and some sort of bikkies and dip on hand), the long standing events do give you a chance to plan and prepare and research and organize (… these are a few of my favourite things).

 Like our wedding anniversary

 This year it was 10 years – a nice round-number milestone, so a good excuse to celebrate. We had organized a weekend away, but still had dinner on the actual day to plan. It seemed a bit rich to get a baby sitter to go out to dinner when we were probably going out for breakfast, lunch AND dinner the next few days. So it seemed like a great opportunity to cook something glamourous at home. Of course in this busy modern life that we (especially me) live in, it wasn’t a matter of picking a few cute recipes and off I went. It had to be something that I could organise in between a ‘normal’ day – that is, school pick up/drop off, swimming lessons, feeding and bathing of children etc etc

 Working the two days prior also meant that it needed to not involve a lot of preparation, or require running around and sourcing exotic ingredients. Flicking through my recipe books with the Royal wedding on in the background, I settled on “Pot Roasted Free range Chicken with lemon and sage roasted kipfler potatoes” from the Tarra Warra Estate Winery in Yarra Glen (Vineyard Cookbook). It had basic ingredients and a few preparation steps but nothing too dramatic.

 Dessert with my hubby is always a bit tricky as he is not a ‘dessert” person (yes, they are not an urban myth). He would rather take the French route and have an after dinner course of several cheeses. Also with only 2, a lot of the usual pies/cakes/tarts were out as there would be too much left over that I would then have to eat (on a dit at present!). I decided on Gelato Baci from the “Lygon St – Stories and Recipes from Melbournes’ Melting Pot” recipe book, as he does love ice cream.  For such an exotic name, it ended up being a nutella ice cream. I personally had never tried nutella before. My only experience of it was the small single-serve packets that were sold at my primary school canteen, complete with the weird blade-esque spoon that would cut your tongue if you licked it the wrong way. But I diligently bought it, and now having tasted it, I have no idea how they can call it in any way “healthy”! At least peanut butter doesn’t try to hide its true form.

 Anniversary Day and Son 2 helped me buy all of the ingredients. The chicken recipe called for “chicken kievs”, which made me think of those uber-garlic crumbed dishes from the 80’s. But it turns out a Kiev is a cut of chicken (like a Maryland), with the breast with a wing bone attached (I had to order them un-garlic-ed from my chicken shop!). That all sorted, I marinated the chicken, churned the ice cream and par boiled the potatoes during nap time. Come dinner time, I had the boys in bed and was ready to start cooking, ably assisted by a glass of chilled Veuve.

All systems are go - chicken browning, stock boiling, potatoes frying, spinach waiting

 I was a bit worried about the chicken being boring flavour wise, as there was only lemon and oregano to marinate it. But whether simple is best or  it was the frying /poaching cooking method, it was delicious, with lots of licking of fingers from Hubby. I can also report that thrice cooked potatoes (par-boiled, fried then roasted), especially those cooked in duck fat are three times as good.

 Or maybe it’s just that all my previous attempts at roast potatoes have been so woeful, these were amazing by comparison!

 Dessert was not such a triumph.

 Having made quite a few batches of ice cream over the past few months, I was confident that this would be a simple but superb dessert. The first hint that it might not be so, was when the egg custard didn’t thicken up, even after 40 mins on the stove. The second was that it didn’t really thicken up and freeze after 30 mins of churning. This had both happened previously on different batches but the ice cream had always turned out brilliant. But when, after 7 hours in the freezer, it was still liquid, I knew I had a Fail. It still tasted delicious (as evidenced by me going back for seconds), it just lost points on the presentation! So whether there weren’t enough eggs in the custard (I halved the recipe and so put in 2 instead of 5) or something else, who knows, but I don’t think that recipe will get a second outing! I may use the nutella/chocolate/roast hazelnut combination again, just with a base that I know will freeze.

Luckily the amazing-ness of my main course made up for it, and by the time we got to eating it (which was after the rest of the bottle of Veuve), it all seemed pretty funny.

 And it made for another important component of any special occasion – special memories.