Friday, November 29, 2002

I rather left everyone hanging there yesterday.  And now here it is, the day after Thanksgiving, and who wants to read about someone else’s Thanksgiving preparations?  I certainly don’t.  So I’ll stick to the highlights… Oeufs en Gelee: and when I say “highlight” what I mean is “miserable failure.”  Our dear, dear dinner guest Em kindly said that the disaster was all Julia’s, and not at all mine, but I’m not so sure.  Anyway, in terms of preparation, to begin where I left off – when the first layer of the aspic was set in each of the molds, I took some tarragon leaves I’d briefly blanched and refreshed in cold, water, dipped them in some semi-set aspic, and lay them in Xes on top of the layers of jelly.  This was sort of a pain in the ass, but it looked all French and whatever when I was done.  Then I placed a poached egg on top of each X, pretty side down (“pretty” being a relative term), and poured unset aspic in to fill the molds to the top.  I stuck them in the fridge to set, feeling all proud.  Several hours later, with most of the other dinner preparations done, feeling the need for some wine coming on, we decided to “try” (read: get over with) the eggs in aspic.  I shook the molds out onto plates.  The things looked like very pretty paperweights, with the cross of green over the snowy white center, but not particularly like something you’d like to put in your mouth.  And so they weren’t.  The aspic, which was probably not solid enough, in addition tasted a bit of hoof.  I will cop to that probably being my fault to some extent.  But I will also question the basic soundness of the dish.  I gotta tell ya – there are like a dozen more aspic recipes in MtAoFC, and I don’t know if I’ll make it.  The upside on this, was that I had set a very low bar for myself, Thanksgiving-wise.  There was no way it was going to get any worse.  And the cats like aspic just fine. Oie Rôtie aux Pruneaux – Roast Goose with Prune and Foie Gras Stuffing. This really was the highlight.  It turned out just about perfect.  Or close enough for government work, anyway.  You know how if you overcook turkey by five minutes you wind up with floury dry meat that you have to drown in gravy to eat?  Well, goose isn’t like that at all.  Which may have something to do with the buckets of fat that come off of it during cooking.  This is a bird that you baste with boiling water, just to get rid of fat.  My kind of poultry.  The only thing at all complicated about this dish was, of course, the prune and foie gras stuffing.  And the only thing complicated about that was that Julia asked my to stuff the foie gras mixture into each individual prune.  Which sounds really horrible, but really it wasn’t.  It went like this: I soaked the prunes in hot water, then simmered them in vermouth and stock.  Meanwhile, I sautéed some minced shallots in butter.  I was supposed to sauté the goose liver at this point, but some bastard hijacked the liver of my goose – argh, grrr. – so I skipped that bit because what choice did I have?  Once the shallots were done I scraped them into a mixing bowl and, in the same skillet, boiled down some port.  That went into the mixing bowl, as well as the duck liver mousse – I didn’t have fifty bucks to throw away on foie gras, sue me – and some seasonings.  I mixed that all up.  This is what was to go into the prunes.  Draining the prunes, I made a slit in each one and slipped about half a teaspoon into the slit.  JC says a full teaspoon, but either her prunes or her teaspoons are different than mine, cuz that wasn’t happening.  The looked like little prune profiteroles.  Then all I did was stuff those into the goose’s bum, skewer it, and stick the bird in the oven.  No butter, no oil, just a little salt in the cavity.  JC did ask me to turn the goose a few times, and I do find that to be a pain, but other than that it was a no-brainer.  I just poured a little boiling water on it from time to time, and dredged out the fat.  (I started off doing that with a bulb baster, but that wasn’t doing it, so I resorted to a ladle.)  The goose wound up crispy and moist and perfect.  The prunes were really a tad sweet for my taste – probably real foie gras would have cut that, I know, I know, I have nineteen dollars in the bank, leave me alone – But with the goose it went swell.  Just before serving, I made a simple gravy out of the cooking juices and the prunes’ cooking liquid.  The goose, I would say, was an unqualified success. Chou Rouge a la Limousine – Braised Red Cabbage with Red Wine and Chestnuts. This one I chose because I was all excited about rendering goose fat and then using it in another dish.  At about 12:30 I opened the Book to this page, all thinking I was ahead of the game.  That was when I realized that this dish was meant to cook for a total of 5 hours.  That’s nearly twice as long as my twelve-pound goose.  Was she nuts?  I got to work.  The cabbage, it turns out, first cooks with some sautéed bacon, carrots and onions for a few minutes, then braises in the oven with some red wine and beef stock for three hours.  Then the chestnuts are added and it cooks for another hour and a half.  Insanity, but who am I to judge.  Once I’d gotten the cabbage in the oven my husband and I began the process of peeling the chestnuts.  Julia says to cut a little slit in each one, then boil them for a couple of minutes.  This we did.  Julia writes “peeling off the inside skin is a chore whatever method you adopt.” No fucking joke.  Our thumbnails are jammed up with chestnut inner skin – wow, that sounds naughty, doesn’t it?  Well it isn’t.  It hurts, actually. Speaking of naughty – on the “Nigella Lawson Ass Watch” – four people have now found my site through a Nigella Lawson Ass google search.  This is a Vanity Fair story waiting to happen. Anyway.   We threw the chestnuts in at the appointed time.  The cabbage had to finish out its braising time on the stove top, because of irreconcilable differences with the goose.  Which was fine.  And it wound up very good.  The only problem was, I’d never cooked red cabbage before, and I didn’t realize how sweet it was.  What with the prunes, there was really too much sweet stuff on the table.  Good though. Petits Oignons a la Crème.  These are just braised pearl onions simmered briefly with a béchamel sauce.  The only thing is, if you can believe it, I don’t think I stirred in enough butter at the end.  A mistake I will rectify while eating leftovers. Harticots Verts a la Provencale.  This is just green beans blanched and stirred in with a mixture of sautéed onions, garlic and tomatoes, and tossed with parsley and basil.  I probably let the Alice Waters faction get to me too much here, and didn’t cook the green beans enough.  But it was good, and as the lightest thing on the table, certainly necessary.  I also made the family’s cornbread dressing, for which there is no recipe, and with which I tried to experiment by stirring in some cream cheese.  The cream cheese had no discernible effect, and my proportion of cornbread to regular bread was off – too light on the cornbread – and there wasn’t enough sage, and I over-moistened it with the chicken stock.  It was fine, but I missed the cornbread dressing of my youth. Finally, and this is the great disappointment, there was no dessert.  I know, I know, I’m a horrible person and should go to hell.  I had planned to make chocolate soufflé.  Which if you think for two seconds you will realize is a horrible idea, because you can’t cook a soufflé ahead of time.  I’m such a dumbass.  And was far too exhausted by the time dinner was done to think about going through with such a dumbass plan.  We ate pecorino cheese and called ourselves sophisticated, but it was no good.  I now have a bottomless longing in my heart for pecan pie. 9:48:24 AM    comment []