What’s bad for the goose…

…is good for our Christmas lunch

It’s six fifteen and it’s all over bar the shouting, the arguments over monopoly (my nephew is a slippery little bugger), doctor who, indigestion and falling asleep during It’s a Wonderful Life (I don’t know what it is about that film, but I’ve tried three times to watch it and I’ve failed every time).

I’m not feeling at all inspired creatively at this moment, so I fear that all I’m going to be able to manage is to document the cooking events of the day that have taken this family on a journey from hunger to light inebriation, food ecstasy and utter fulfilment, where we stayed for a brief moment, before plummeting into overindulgence, fatigue and mild sickness (all, as ever, with no regrets).

Roast goose

This may take a while, but I want to get it down for the record (even if only to refer back to next year).

We’ll start by concentrating on the goose. Remove the giblets and any excess fat and set aside. Now prick the skin of the goose all over, rub with olive oil and season really well with salt and pepper (and five spice if you wish). Put it in a large roasting tin on top of a selection of roughly chopped carrots, onions, celery and a garlic bulb cut in half. You’re going to cook it for 30 mins per kg and then let it rest for 30 mins, so time it accordingly.

Take the giblets (not the fat) and put them into a pan with an onion chopped in half, a bay leaf, some peppercorns, a carrot and water. Heat the water and boil for 30 mins then set aside to cool – this is your stock.

For the stuffing, finely chop a large onion and two cloves of garlic, add to four large handfuls of breadcrumbs, a small handful of chopped sage, seasoning, a beaten egg, olive oil and 300g of sausage meat. Mix it all together and put a few balls of it into the goose. put the rest into a shallow wide ovenproof dish (you want the maximum surface area exposed) and rough it up a little so there are plenty of rough edges to get nice and crispy.

Preheat the oven to 220c and when it’s ready put in the goose for 30 minutes, then take it out, turn the heat down to 180c, remove the excess fat in the bottom of the pan, cover the legs in foil and then put it back into the oven for the remaining cooking time.

When your time is up, take the beautifully cooked goose out of the oven, cover it in foil and a few tablecloths and leave it to rest. After about 10 mins, drain all the juices from inside the carcas into the roasting tin and transfer it to a large warm plate, keeping the foil and tablecloths over it to keep the residual heat it. It can now sit for another 20 mins before you carve and serve it.

Now, everything else you do needs to work around this timing. What I have done for years is start with when you want to eat and work backwards with each step above along with the appropriate timing, then slot in all the other things you have to do and when you have to do them. Then you have your plan for the morning – here’s one I made earlier, complete with goose fat…(don’t worry about the upside-down bits)…

Now for everything else. We had the following – naturally I’d recommend them all:

Roast potatoes and parsnips, peas, carrots and leeks, shredded sprouts with bacon, bread sauce, cranberry sauce, sausages wrapped in bacon, red cabbage, stuffing and gravy. So here we go:

The red cabbage is best done the night before – chop a whole red cabbage, an onion and a few cloves of garlic very finely and put them in a large saucepan with a large block of butter and a couple of peeled and chopped apples. Add a few large tablespoons of berry jam, a glass of port and season well. Let it cook on a low heat for a couple of hours stirring from time to time. Now all it needs is reheating when you need it.

Now prepare all your veg – peel and chop the spuds, parsnips and carrots and leave them in cold water until you need them, also finely shred the sprouts and blanche them for just a few minutes and refresh in cold water before setting aside.
Next you can kick off the bread sauce: Chop an onion into four and put it in a saucepan with 6 cloves, 6 peppercorns , a bay leaf and a 500ml of milk. Bring it to just below simmering point for ten minutes and then set it aside for later.
Then, take a load of cocktail sausages, wrap them in streaky bacon rashers cut in half and pop them in a roasting tin.

For the cranberry sauce, take an onion and chop it finely along with a quarter of a chilli (no seeds) and a clove of garlic. Fry in plenty of butter and then add a bag of cranberries and a glass of port. season well, add two tablespoons of sugar and cook it gently on the hob until the berries pop, creating a semi smooth sauce, while maintaining a decent level of texture. Now taste for sweetness and add more sugar if necessary. Season with salt and pepper and set aside in a serving dish – it’s done.

About an hour before you’re going to eat, drain as much fat from under the goose as you can without throwing it around the kitchen and save for later use (putting the goose straight back into the oven and turning it up again to 220c). Take some of the fat, pour it into a roasting tin and place in the oven to heat. Par boil the spuds in boiling salty water for about 8 minutes, then drain off the water (into the saucepan with the parsnips), rough the spuds up in the saucepan with the lid on and then put them into the roasting tin with the hot fat, roll them around, season them well with salt and pepper and straight into the top of the oven. Put the dish with the stuffing in now too.

Now par boil the parsnips for about 5 minutes, drain them (keeping the water again) and set them aside.

By this time, the goose will be ready to take out of the oven, so take it out and replace it with the parsnips in a roasting tin with boiling hot goose fat (not too much by the way) and seasoned as with the spuds. Now’s probably a good time to put in the sausages too…

Right. So the goose is out of the oven wrapped in foil and tea towels, the spuds and parsnips are cooking nicely, the stuffing is in the oven and the cranberry sauce is sitting on the table ready – you’re nearly there…

Bread sauce – drain the infused milk into a fresh saucepan and add 4-5 handfuls of white breadcrumbs, and a very large knob of butter grate in a quarter of a nutmeg and pour in 200ml of double cream. Season and then heat it gently, adding more cream if necessary until you get the consistency you like (I know how personal the desired consistency of bread sauce can be so I’m not going try to tell you how it should be) bearing in mind that it will thicken up when it cools.

Nearly there…

Gravy – remove most of the fat from the bottom of the goose’s roasting tin, take all the vegetables that were roasting under the goose and put them into a saucepan with a couple of tablespoons of flour. deglaze the roasting tin with a large glass of red wine or port making sure you get as much of the juices from it as you can and into the saucepan. Mix in the flour well and put in the hob along with the goose stock. Bring it to the boil and reduce and season if necessary. This will give you the most beautiful gravy.

Finely chop a leek and fry in a saucepan in butter for a few minutes before adding the carrots, then a little of the water from the spuds to steam the carrots. Season with pepper (no salt as it was already in the water). After five minutes add the peas (which you defrosted by putting them straight from the freezer into a bowl of hot water).

Sprouts – finely chop 6 streaky rashers of bacon and two cloves of garlic and fry in lots of butter until the bacon starts to crisp a little. drop in the shredded sprouts and some of the buttery water from the carrots and heat for a few minutes…

Phew – I think that’s it. Serve. Enjoy. Receive praise. Eat too much. Feel sick. Fall asleep on the sofa. (oh and Happy Christmas)

 

(this one has the bread sauce and gravy added…)

Oyster time…

It seems that I’m writing, yet again, about something people either crave or despise. But love them or hate them, you can’t deny that Oysters bring with them a certain magic, and despite the fact that the British food standards agency has recently found that three-quarters of British grown oysters contain the noro-virus (otherwise sensitively known as the winter vomiting bug), they are always an exciting prospect. Don’t worry by the way –  this is not a new phenomenon – they always have contained the virus and apparently most strains are non-infectious (saying that, if you do this and you get sick, don’t come running to me. In fact it was with interest that I noted the BBC food website has no recipes with raw oysters. Lily livered chickens).

I don’t know what it is about these little rocky molluscs, but they seem to give you license to go properly mad – they’re sexy, edgy and just a little bit dangerous – what other food can boast the same? They also demand that you have a drink in your hand when you eat them – champagne, martini or bloody mary – all work beautifully. I’m sure this is why people mistakenly consider oysters to be an aphrodisiac – it’s got nothing to do with the oyster itself, it’s to do with the fact that after a dozen oysters, you’re 10 units down and your beer goggles are well and truly strapped to your head.

Many years ago, when we lived in Antibes, we used to go to the supermarket a few days before Christmas and there would be a huge mountain of boxes filled with oysters with masses of people queuing up to gets theirs in, ready for Christmas eve. It’s an absolute must for the last dinner before Christmas day for many French families – and I think we should be doing the same over here (followed by a beautiful pan fried sea bass – maybe I’ll do that one later on in the week…)

Oysters for Christmas eve

This is so simple. You need a big platter with lots of crushed ice and enough oysters for 4-5 for each person. Open them and serve with the following three sauces, which your guests simply dribble over the top of their oyster before slipping them gently into their mouths…

1. Red wine vinegar, very finely chopped shallot, salt and papper and a little finely chopped parsley (and a little chilli if you like)
2. Lime juice, very finely chopped garlic and fresh red chilli, caster sugar, rice wine vinegar and finely chopped fresh coriander (oh my god this one is good)
3. Lemon juice and a few drops of tabasco, straight onto the little fella

And don’t forget the martini, bloody mary, champagne – it doesn’t work without…

I’m going to do this one today if I can find some oysters in town, so pictures will come later.

Not for lily-livered chickens

I’ve done this before, but it was a long time ago and in the spirit of keeping up this Christmas food thing, I think it’s worth including again -

Sadly though, it seems to be another one of those foods that divides people – mention chicken liver pate in passing conversation and you can bet that someone will pull the same sort of face that you would expect them to reserve for bee stings and treading in particularly squidgy dog turds. I understand that we all have different tastes, I really do, but I will never understand how people can have such a violent reaction to foods that millions of other people are perfectly happy to put in their mouths and enjoy? You’re just a bunch of chickens – give it a try and see. It won’t poison you. You won’t spend a week on the loo. And you may just find that you like it. As long as you open your mind and give it a chance.

For those that don’t need convincing, do give this a go – it’s very quick, it freezes well and it’s another great thing to have on the table at Christmas.

Chicken liver pate

Roughly chop an onion, a few cloves of garlic and a little chopped red chilli and fry in a pan with butter. After a few minutes add about 250g of chicken livers to the pan and continue to fry on a moderate heat. Next add half a glass of white wine and a good splash of brandy, plenty of seasoning and cook for about five minutes allowing the wine to reduce and the livers to cook through.

In a blender, add a handful of chopped parsley and few tablespoons of cream cheese then add the liver mixture and blend to a smooth paste.
Turn in out into a bowl and top with  a large nob of butter which will melt and form a seal over the pate.

Leave it in the fridge – if you can bear to wait then give it a day before cracking it open…

For all you meat lovers…

It seems I’m getting into some sort of rhythm with DATW (it must suggest too much free time, which can’t be a good sign) so I’m going to try to keep the momentum going. I’m still a country mile away from the 500 views in one day that I set out to achieve back in January, but it’s been fun failing to get there.

Anyway – the other day my friend Eve told me that I should put up a few things for Christmas, which I think is a great idea. So I’m going to start with something that I did a few years ago and I think works really well in the lead-up to Christmas, or as an antidote to cold turkey. One thing though – you do need to have a lot of hefty meat eaters in the vicinity – this isn’t something you can get through on your own in a hurry…

Winter terrine with duck and chicken

This takes a little work, but it’s so good and certainly worth it if you’re a full-on carnivore.

Start with the duck, as this takes the longest time: take four duck legs, sprinkle them with salt and pepper and then cook them in a warm oven (150c) for two hours covered in foil – this will essentially confit them, making them beautifully tender. Once done, pull the duck meat from the legs with your fingers – leaving them in little pieces, and put them aside.

While the duck is cooking, you can do the rest. Firstly, make the forcemeat (which helps bind the terrine while keeping the duck and chicken from drying out) by taking a bowl and putting in 500g good quality sausagemeat, a few chicken livers (chopped), two handfuls of white breadcrumbs, half a red chilli and two cloves of garlic, finely chopped, a good glug of olive oil, vermouth and brandy, an egg and a handful each of parsley and thyme along with 4 juniper berries ground down with a generous amount of salt and pepper.

Next fry four chicken thighs (skin removed) in butter and oil until golden brown, and almost cooked, and as with the duck, remove them from the bone, cut into strips and set aside.

Now, take a rectangular loaf tin and line the bottom and sides with slices of good streaky bacon so that they will wrap around the terrine. Into the bottom of the tin put a layer of the forcemeat, then a layer of the duck (with some of the juices from the roasting tin, but not too much of the fat), then another layer of forcemeat, then a layer of the chicken thighs (again with their juices), then a final layer of forcemeat and then finally wrap around the edges of the bacon strips. now press it all down and place foil over the top.

Cook the terrine in a bain marie (roasting tin half filled with water) in a warm oven (160c) for 2 hours. Then take it out and let it cool fully before putting it in the fridge. There are loads of juices in there which will set into a lovely jelly, but you have to let them cool fully – I made the mistake of taking the terrine out too soon and they went everywhere – precious precious juices…

That’s it – take the terrine out of the tin and serve with a really good chutney, bread, salad, cheese, etc.

(by the way, If you wish, you can substitute the chicken and duck for any game you like – rabbit, pheasant, partridge etc)

Chilli fig chutney

I did this is Spain earlier in the year with figs from my mothers garden and it goes perfectly with cheese and cold meats and especially the terrine. Start by cutting about 20 figs into quarters, or eighths (keeping the skins on). Then take two large onions, five cloves of garlic, an inch of fresh ginger and a whole red chilli (or two if you’re in a dangerous mood), chop them and fry them just for a few minutes in olive oil. Put them in a saucepan with the figs along with about 200-300g sugar, 500ml of red wine vinegar, seasoning and a sprinkling of (freshly) ground coriander and cumin seeds. Let it boil away for 5-7 minutes until the figs are just cooked, then remove the figs and continue to reduce the liquid for another 10 minutes or so, until it takes on the thickness of double cream. While you’re doing this, taste the liquid and adjust for sweetness and seasoning. Replace the figs, and then decant the whole lot into sterilised jars. You can use it pretty much straight away, but of course it gets better with age.

An attempt at healthy biscuits

Whilst I think being single is healthy on so many levels, I’m starting to wonder whether there is something about living alone that makes me eat and drink far less healthily than I should. Firstly, I’m out more, which needless to say leads to eating and drinking in quantities that I’d like not to think about. But also, when I’m at home I tend to wander between the living room and the fridge, substituting my desire to constantly spew forth banalities with other ways of keeping my mouth full – the most popular of which I’ve found to be stuffing food into it (to be honest I’m not sure there are many other options but I’m open to suggestions).

And so it was that I came upon the novel idea of making biscuits that would fill said mouth while maintaining some sense of healthiness and still, hopefully, tasting rather good.

Chocolate chip ginger oat biscuits

I’ve never been very good with measuring quantities, so every time I’ve made these, they have been slightly different. I think the key is just to get a good balance between sweetness (syrup & honey), ballast (flour & oats), moisture (oil or butter) and interesting bits (chocolate chips & raisins).

Anyway – start with a mixing bowl, into which you put the following: at least two inches of fresh ginger, grated finely (more if you like it spicy), a handful of raisins, 100g of green and blacks dark chocolate broken into little pieces (before you open the pack, smash it a few times on the kitchen counter – that should do it), three handfuls of organic porridge oats and one of plain flour. Now add four tablespoons of honey, a tablespoon of syrup and a few good glugs of sunflower oil (this is me trying to be healthy by avoiding butter, which to be honest would probably taste much better, but as the whole point of this was to be healthy, bear with me and use oil (or ignore me completely and substitute for butter, then tell me how much better yours are than mine). Thinking about it, you could use a little butter and a little oil. You decide. Mix it all together well (I use a kitchen aid mixer at this point).

Now this is where you come in – what you are looking for is a moist but not too sticky biscuit dough that comes together in your hands in one big ball. It should also taste good, so this is the time to add more honey/sugar/syrup/oats/oil to get the flavour and consistency you prefer.

Once you have it, flour a suface, roll out the dough to 8mm thickness (I think the ones in the photo are a little too thick), and cut into biscuits. Bake in the overn at 180c for about 10 minutes, but keep your eye on them – they are inedible if you overcook them. They should go golden brown but still be a little soft when they are done. They’ll continue to harden once you take them out. And be careful of the burning hot melted chocolate when you put them on the cooling rack. If you like, sprinkle a little caster sugar on top of them while they’re still hot.

Once cooled, they are like a cross between a flap jack and a chocolate cookie. But without the butter. So they’re healthy. Kind of.

Brunch. Like you wouldn’t believe

When Kiliaen told me he was going to take me to brunch with his two recently married (and lovely, as it turns out) friends, I was expecting what any normal person would expect in the circumstances. Classic New York brunch – leather sofas, newspapers, eggs benedict, one or two cheeky bloody marys and back home in time to relax before the onslaught of another night out with Kiliaen – which, if you know him, is a thing to be taken lightly at your peril.

And so it was that the four of us arrive at Lavo at 2.30 in the afternoon, ready for a civilised, grown up and relaxed brunch. But rather than being greeted by a neatly pressed waiter in a white apron, Kiliaen is approached and hugged by two big guys who pull aside the purple velvet rope that’s holding back a line of about 45 twenty-somethings dressed not entirely differently to a group of girls out on the town in Blackpool on a Friday November evening (but being New Yorkers, they were of course beautiful, and not falling over and vomiting in the gutter).

And then we enter. It’s a restaurant. And if the lights were up, I suppose there’s a chance that people might have been sitting there quietly enjoying their coffees and the Wall Street Journal (sorry, still have my allegiances). But the lights aren’t up. There are no papers. There is no coffee. It’s basically a club. With food. Tables. Music. Lights. Whistles. People dancing on tables. Champagne buckets being flung around with dry ice billowing down onto the the beautifully manicured hands of the frighteningly pretty waitresses.

So we go to our table, drink too many bloody marys, eat too many oysters, just about manage to chat to each other, eat more fantastic food, narrowly avoid dancing on the tables, ammo fails to avoid having something rather sharp thrown at him from a distant table, Kiliaen gets the table thrown out and we have the best time I have had in far too long. It’s only after all this that we try to play tennis. Bad idea.

There are other things to say. But not here sadly. And thanks Kiliaen.

Not sure there’s a recipe in here, except to say that the next time you have oysters, make sure you have a bloody mary in your hand (and if at all possible, make sure you’re in Lavo while you’re eating and drinking them).

Daube (beef stew to you)

My god I think I’m getting old. I just started writing “it’s that time of year again…”, which I’m sure is the sort of thing I used to think old people said, along with “it’s a bit nippy” and “why did I come in here again?”, not to mention*, and this really is the worst, mixing up the names of the kids. I remember how irksome it was when my parents did it to me (and I had two sisters, imagine the embarrassment) but now I’m doing it myself. Put me down now please.

But it is though isn’t it? It’s the time of year when you’re allowed to start eating buttery, creamy, oily, salty, rich food that is, for the rest of the year, deemed too unhealthy. And I’ve been wanting to do this one for ages – it’s the perfect meal for a weekend lunch in winter. And it goes so well with the cabbage I did the other day.

Daube

Start by flouring the beef (use stewing or braising steak) and frying it in in small batches in a hot pan with olive oil. Make sure the meat is nicely caramelised before you put it into a large casserole. Then take a couple of handfuls of shallots and fry them gently with 4-5 roughly chopped cloves of garlic, followed by (if you like) a few handfuls of chestnut mushrooms each cut in half. Put these into the casserole and then deglaze the pan with a glass of French red wine – preferably from provence, but it’s not that important. Now pour in the rest of the bottle (not taking a cheeky little glass because you’re oh so naughty, unless of course you’re a mediocre celebrity chef).

Now all you have to is add fresh herbs – I’d go for bay leaves and a few sprigs of thyme and some seasoning – only a tiny bit of salt right now – you don’t want to dry out the beef.

Put the lid on the casserole and put it in a low oven (150c) for 2.5 hours. The picture below is before it went into the oven.

Once the daube is ready, make sure you season it to taste before you serve – it will certainly need salt.

Now, there are loads of things you can serve this with. When we used to eat it in France they would serve it with a bowl of buttery penne with a few sprigs of parsley thrown on top – which was lovely. You can also go with mashed potato (with sweet potato and plenty of butter, milk, cream, grainy mustard and seasoning). Of course, the cabbage is a must if you go with the spud option…Or even red cabbage…

Whatever you do with it – they’re going to love it. And, as ever, you’ll get loads of leftovers to keep you going for the rest of the week…

OK – I realise it’s somewhat reminiscent of dog food in the picture, but please trust me, it takes really good…

 

*I think “not to mention” is probably one too, no?

Embrace the cabbage

Cabbage is often misunderstood. People see it as the Pat Sharpe of the vegetable world – outdated, with no taste and to be avoided at all costs. Now that may be true of the mullet-sporting, back-stabbing (apparently) amateur DJ (who one of my ex-closest chums likened me to the other day – note the ex), but it certainly isn’t the case when it comes to that lovely round green bundle of crunchy sweetness that I have come to love more and more over the last few years.

As with most food, it’s simply a matter of what you do with it that will mean the difference between you offering your friends a pile of vomitous mess and the most beautiful mouthful of goodness they have ever had the pleasure of consuming.

So, here are two ways I’ve used it over the last few weeks – both of which I wholeheartedly recommend you try…

Coleslaw – really decent coleslaw. nothing like the crap from Tesco

This is so easy. all you have to do is finely chop a spring cabbage (see pic above), a fresh red chilli (with the seeds removed) and few spring onions along with a few grated carrots and a handful of raisins. You can also throw in a few cashews if you like. Now you have a choice: You can either go East by adding sesame oil, soy sauce and a little rice vinegar, or you can stay in Europe and go with olive oil, red wine vinegar and plenty of salt and pepper. Either way it’s fantastic with chicken, lamb and pork, and works really well in a wrap with any of the above.

Braised spring cabbage

This is even easier, and it takes no more than a few minutes…

As above, finely chop a spring cabbage and put it into a large saucepan of salted boiling water. Leave it for no more than 2 minutes and then drain it in a sieve and put it back into the saucepan with fresh cold water. drain again and put back into the pan again with freash cold water, so that the cabbage stops cooking completely.

Now leave it until a few minutes before you want to eat, at which point you drain the cabbage and put it to one side, put a big knob of butter in the pan with a couple of finely chopped cloves of garlic and let them soften for a few seconds before putting the cabbage back in and gently cooking in the butter for about 3-4 minutes until it’s warmed through, then season generously. That’s it. Nothing more to see here folks…

If you ever cook a beef stew (see my next post) then you must, must, must have this with it. Consider yourself told.