Christmas day and an almost dinner

Breakfast done, decks swabbed, the planning for dinner was well advanced the goose stuffed, the vegetables prepped, we had a whiskey (well Bob and I did) and got into our glad rags and headed off up town to pay a visit to family friends Ivan and Nora( we never eat the main festive meal before 15:00 on Christmas day). We had a smashing natter or craic as they say in these parts, we drank a few more whiskies and Linda a few waters, then about 13:00 it was about time to head back home to get the Christmas Dinner show on the road, famous last words!!!

Our Menu was to be: 

Christmas Dinner 2013

Starter

Parma ham wrapped, scallops, Dublin Bay prawns, steamed salmon with sauce hollandaise and a beetroot small leaf salad.

Soup

Carrot, tomato and coriander soup

Mains

Stuffed Roast Goose. Most of the fat removed from the rear end (it will normally hang in 2 lobes each side of the  rear opening. Wash and dry inside and out, liberally season with salt and pepper (if I had been in Germany I would have rubbed dried summer savoury into the skin, this is always readily available at this time of the year).

Prick the bird all over paying special attention to the area behind the wings and between the legs and breast.

Stuffed turkey crown (this was a one from sainsbury’s all ready to go into the oven stuffed and bacon latticed)

Yorkshire puddings (I have to say Linda found some Aunt Bessy’s in the freezer and she doesn’t even have an Aunt Bessy)

Roast potatoes done in the rendered goose fat

Roast Parsnips

Spiced Red Cabbage braised in cider (done to the Hairy Bikers recipe, now one of her favourites)

Sprouts with onions and Ham pieces

Mashed potatoes

Giblet gravy

Pudding

Christmas pudding with rum sauce and double cream

Linda had made the soup well in advance, this is an old favourite of ours and is based very closely on one of Mamta’s wonderful recipes.

The starter was a quick and easy one, we had been into Newry on Christmas Eve to do the last of the Christmas shopping and take in the Hobbit. We had picked up some smashing Dublin Bay prawns, plump fresh scallops and a nice piece of fresh salmon filet. These along with some ready cooked beetroots and a pack of ready to eat small salad leaves would be the starter.

But first to the Goose, because the star of the show was to be our down fall (well mine at least). I had made the stuffing before we had left for our visit, this and the stock made the day before was the main prep for our Christmas dinner.

The forced meat stuffing

Ingredients:

300g Soft bread crumbs

1 tsp. each of chopped  rosemary, thyme and sage.

A small bunch of parsley, strip off the leaves and chop finely

1 table spoon of butter (or for the health freaks oil)

1 medium onion (diced)

1 clove of garlic crushed and finely chopped

50g of Black smoked Bavarian speck, dice this into small cubes (you may not be able to find this so use any good quality cured speck)

250g of good quality sausage meat (from your local butcher, or buy some good sausages and strip of the casings, or even better make your own)

Salt, pepper, nutmeg, and any mix in the herbs.

I egg beaten

Stock to soften.

 Fry the speck, onions and garlic in the butter  until translucent. Place your bread crumbs into a large mixing bowl add the herbs mix well add the contents of the frying pan to this and mix this in, add the sausage meat and get your hands into it giving a good mixing  add the egg and mix again, if a little stiff add some of the stock.

I stuffed the neck and body cavity with this stuffing, some use two types of stuffing one for the neck and one for the body; it is entirely up to personal choice. I quartered and de-cored a Boscop apple, pricked a mandarin and add these along with half a lemon to the cavity on top of the stuffing, using wooden skewers I closed the cavities and then trussed the goose so that it kept its shape. Placed some of the goose fat into a large foil tray resting on an even larger heavy duty baking tray, I used a swiss roll tray, this is a safety procedure as I know how labile the foil ones become when the goose is cooking and is full of boiling goose fat that you wish to either remove or baste, it is the floor and your feet that get well basted!! Turn up the oven to full and place this in the oven for the fat to come up to smoking, place the goose in to the smoking oil and baste all over with the fat. Remove from the fat and add a chopped onion, carrot, leek and some chopped celery to the fat and  allowed to soften, then I  placed the goose breast side down onto this and ladle some of the stock over the breast, enough to just cover the vegetables, cover with foil and put back into the oven.  Turn the oven down to 180°C and roast for about 30 mins. After 30 minutes, take out of the oven, turn the goose breast side up (in the process skim off the fat from the surface of the stock).  Place back into the oven and cook for a further 1hr 30min to 2hrs, but keep an eye on the bird, you can remove the foil towards the end of the cooking time, but keep basting with the stock and ladling off the goose fat that comes out of the bird (we got 2 pints of wonderful goose fat for the roasted tatties and parsnips). The stock will ensure a crisp skin, (make sure that your stock has plenty of salt in it).

This is how it should have happened and did in fact happen on boxing day, but alas the oven cut out after exactly 1 hour, this is now the third time that it has happened over the last 5 years twice with a bird in the oven and once with a leg of lamb, it is most annoying but that is life!!! No matter what we tried neither the bottom or the top oven could be coerced into functioning, agggggghhh not again, I was crest fallen, nay devastated, thank goodness we had not started on the veg. The top hobs worked perfectly well so cutting our losses, we decided to have the starters, soup and Christmas pud.

So, the soup had already been made, this meant we could change direction and the starter became the main and we had the soup starter, the main was Dublin bay prawns, Parma wrapped scallops, fried scallop corals, steamed lemon salmon in a thyme hollandaise

You shall require (for 2 persons, Bob doesn’t like seafood, never tried it but doesn’t like it, never mind more for those that do)

6 large Dublin bay prawns

6 very thin slices of Parma ham

4 juicy plump scallops complete with corals (there are those that throw these away, bloody fools)

Remove the corals, and the brown/black skirt (this is a frilly part that surrounds the muscle flesh), season well with pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice. Wrap each scallop in a slice of ham, season the corals with pepper and salt.

A good fresh wild Irish Salmon Filet cut from the tail end , pin bone the filet, remove the skin and cut into 3 equal sized tranches (Bob does eat Salmon, well it isn’t sea food really)

Butter for frying

Juice of ½ a lemon

Lemon and thyme sauce hollandaise

Prepare your salmon filets, salt and pepper both sides and place in a steamer on a piece of buttered foil, sprinkle with lemon juice, add the prawns around the sides. Place this over a pan of boiling water, lid on and steam.

Heat some butter in a frying pan and place the scallops into the pan, when the Parma ham crisps, turn and add the corals.

Now add your salad leaves and chopped beetroots, in a mustard, oil dressing to one side of a plate, place the salmon in the middle and the scallops as outriders each side, put the three Dublin bay prawns one each side and one at the bottom, nap the salmon with the sauce Hollandaise. I would say not a bad main course in anyone’s book.

The Christmas pud was easy, Steamed for 2 hours, Linda made some birds’ eye custard laced with rum for Bob and we had the low calorie option double cream!

We did do it flambé , with some of Bobs old Sailor black rum, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

So that was the Christmas day meal, that wasn’t as it was intended, but never the less not bad at all.

Later that evening Linda cooked the Turkey crown in the top oven and the next morning I tried the  large lower oven and it functioned perfectly, this leads me to believe that it is using everything all at once that it doesn’t like. As it is only put through its paces whenever we come to Ireland, it will only refuse to play when we are there. I think I shall have to spend some time across there when I retire, well there is a some very good fishing within a couple of Kms of Bobs house and the hunting though not on a par with what I have back in Germany is available in the beautiful Mourne Mountains, these actually look down on the Premiere fishing harbour of Kilkeel, so it can’t be bad.

I shall be adding Photographs, but I am onboard a ferry in the middle of the Irish sea and my batteries are running low, not a plug in sight!

A game evening (Kikuklu Christmas dinner 2012)

It was to be our Christmas dinner and the only day that suited all was December 8^th, I had managed to get all of my game together, as we, Linda and I where hosting, we had the main course to do. Being as we are in the middle of the huntsmans most fruitful time of the year it was game 3 ways. I had a nice brace of cock pheasants, a couple of hares and a full roebuck saddle (shot by my shooting mate Alan). 

First thing is to get the game in front of the guns, this was done at the annual shoot over the airfield (this only happens once a year because it is an active airfield and can only take place when no movements are taking place), there had been no shoot in 2011 due to various reasons but we expected a good bag.

 It was decided that the mains would be:

Roast Roebuck with a chocolate game sauce

Whole saddle of roe buck
Back speck (the green back fat from a piece of pork)
Game Spices Seasoning
Red wine (Cotes de Rhône )
Root vegetables diced (Suppengrün)
1 onion diced
50g of speck
Chocolate (85%)

Clean off any still attached skin, gristle  and remove the silver skin, I also removed the fillets for another meal. Half the saddle using only the thicker section. Slice the saddle along the back bone almost to the ribs. Rub all over with game spices and salt and pepper,  wrap in cling film overnight in a cool place. When ready to cook, chop a bunch of Suppengrün along with an onion and some streaky bacon (Durchwachsen Speck) add to the base of a roasting tin, just cover with a 50/50% red wine, game stock mixture. Slice the green back fat into slices and cover the saddle with this, place on top of the  vegetables, cover with foil and place in a pre-heated oven (180°C) and roast for  1 hour (max) keep checking, it should be moist and juicy. Remove from oven and keep warm, strain the cooking liquid into a saucepan, reduce by half, add a good knob of butter and 3 squares of the dark bitter chocolate, it should be rich and glossy. Carve the saddle through but keep on the rib-cage. Place on a serving platter, surround with the filled poached pears, peaches and confite onions.

Braised hare in a red wine sauce

A good sized hare cut into pieces (as this is going to be braised over several hours the age is irrelevant)
Red wine (Cotes de Rhône)
Speck (air cured belly)
Suppengrün (leek, carrot, celeriac and parsley)
Bouquets’ garni (consisting of rosemary, thyme, sage, bay and marjoram)
Onion (small dice)
Garlic (crushed and chopped)
Stock (I made fresh by roasting marrow bones, and boiling together with chicken carcasses and the game parings)
2 slices of Lemon zest
50ml Port
Game spices (my own game spice mix)

Clean and prepare the hare (remove as much shot and broken bones as possible along with the silver skin and any discoloured flesh)place in a red wine marinade along with a tablespoon of game spices overnight. Next day, fry along with the root vegetables, onion, garlic and speck, brown the hare pieces in the pan,

add some stock until the hare is just covered, pour in the Port and bury the bouquet gari and add the lemon skin, turn down the heat and slowly braise the hare pieces until tender and the meat is falling off the bones. Keep warm until ready to serve( I placed in a cast iron casserole and on the lowest heat setting on the hob).

 Pot roast pheasant on Riesling sauerkraut

 

2 dressed pheasants
150g smoked bacon rashers (thick cut)
Forced meat stuffing
Riesling
Sauerkraut
Grapes

Pick the pheasants over to remove any shot, feathers etc. singe all over with a blow torch to get rid of the wispy down. Wash well inside and out, chop the livers, hearts, add to a packet of sage and onion stuffing mix along with an onion softened in a little butter, add a handful of soft bread crumbs.

Remove the skin from a good chunky meat sausage and mix well and season with salt and pepper. Wash and dry the pheasants inside and out, fill the cavity with the stuffing and truss. Cover with the bacon, put a good handful of chopped onions in the base of a heavy based casserole, cover with vegetable stock and place in a low heat oven (do it at the same time as the you are roasting the saddle of roe).

Using sauerkraut from a tin, jar or fresh from the barrel, add some grapes, cloves, juniper berries, pimento berries and pepper and slowly cook in Riesling on top of the stove along with the pheasant cooking liquid. You will have removed the pheasants from the cooking liquid to keep warm, from the liquid.

Place in a serving dish and top with the stuffed roast pheasants, cover and keep warm until read to serve.

Accompaniments:

Riesling poached pears with a chutney filling.

Poach the pear halves in a pan of Riesling flavoured with a winter spiced tea, allow to cool in the liquid overnight, then drain and fill with my own home made green tomato and apple chutney

Peach halves with a spiced peach, plum and ginger filling

I used a good quality jar of Italian peaches halves and a spicy compote that I had made last year.

Confite baby onions

Skin the onions, melt a good knob of butter in a saucepan, and sauté until just coloured, then ladle in stock and poach over a low heat, the stock will be absorbed by the onions and turn into a fantastic glossy coating

Hairy bikers spiced red cabbage

Shred the red cabbage, sauté a large onion until with star aniseed and a cinnamon stick in neutral oil, add the shredded cabbage and allow to soften over a very low heat,add a grated apple, stirring every now and again, when soft add a table spoon of redcurrant jelly.

Sautéed Brussels sprouts with chestnuts, shallots and speck

Par-boil the sprouts, place in iced water until required. Soften, the diced shallots and fry the speck in butter, add the sprouts and sauté, add the chestnuts and heat through, season and give it a good grating of nutmeg.

Servietten Knödeln (bread dumplings)

Half a loaf of white bread (with crusts on) steep in 150ml warm milk, soften a medium onion in oil and add to the bread and allow to stand for 10-15 minutes. Chop up 20 green olives, pluck the green leaves from a bunch of parsley, and stir into the bread mixture, add 1 whole egg mix, pour out onto a large sheet of well-buttered aluminium foil, roll into a large sausage shape twisting the ends to compress. Poach in boiling water for 30 minutes, remove from the water, allow to rest for a while, release from the foil and slice into 10mm thick slices. Fry these golden brown in olive oil (or butter)

Cheesy baked potato, celeriac, and turnip (swede) mash

Dice the potatoes, celeriac and turnip into equal sized pieces, boil until soft in salted water, drain and dry (put back into the hot pan and allow any remaining water to steam off), add a large knob of butter and mash until smooth, do not add any salt at this time as you are now adding the two salty cheeses (50g each of Parmesan and a hard Swiss mountain cheese). Add a good dollop of crème frais and only now taste and adjust the seasoning if required. Put into an oven proof dish and criss-cross with a fork to make a nice pattern. Bake in a hot oven until a gold crust forms.

Wild mushroom ragout.

Clean and halve a selection of mushrooms (in this case I used brown caps, white button, krauter settlings, and frozen cepes, allow to defrost, drain and dry on kitchen paper). Sauté a chopped shallot with diced juniper cured ham in a little olive oil, add the mushrooms and fry until they start to give off their liquid, season (salt & pepper)add 100ml of Rama crème frais (a vegetable cream substitute), keep warm until ready to serve.

But before we got to the mains our dear friend Kalle had prepared a very nice entrée, consisting of a beetroot crisp, with cream goat’s cheese quenelles done 4 ways, curry, chives, paprika and natural.

 

The main course was followed by a very nice palate cleaning dessert of orange, grapefruit and pomegranate, Very refreshing.

Then came Carolyn’s Christmas pud, flamed with brandy and served with brandy butter and crème frais flavoured with Prosecco and brandy.

Quite a fitting end to a Christmas dinner. Well not quite the end, we did continue for a while longer drinking fine brandy and wines.

We did have a very nice evening

Roast Wild Duck Christmas Supper

Christmas Dinner (Supper)

Due to complications beyond my control (Al didn’t arrive until 21:30) the original menu was changed just a little, it was now to be:

Starter:  Lobster cocktail.

No Soup

Main: Slow roasted Wild Duck with a forced meat stuffing, sour black cherry sauce, confit potatoes, steamed Brussels and spiced red cabbage.

Dessert:  Dickies Christmas pudding and Devon brandy clotted cream

Starter: Lobster cocktail

Buy yourself a fresh lobster and cook it,(I bought mine already cooked, as the lady at the Gosch  fish counter said they had just been cooked fresh that morning).

Break off the claws, crack and remove the meat.

Remove the head and set aside (I was to be using this tomorrow for a lobster fish sauce)

Turn the Lobster body belly side up and cut along the inside where the swim legs are with a pair of kitchen scissors (both sides) turn back the resulting flap and remove the meat.

Cut the body meat into bite size pieces, remove the membrane from the claw meat and half each  piece but leave it recognisable as it looks nice and proves your using real lobster, I mean if your spending this amount of time and effort (not to mention the money)on a starter you want it to be noticed. Cover and set aside.

Make yourself a nice pink cocktail sauce “Marie Rose type”

130g pot of crème fraiche

½ teaspoon of tomato puree

Pinch of smoked paprika

Pinch of cayenne pepper

Tomato seasoning salt

Juice of half a lime

Splash of fish sauce

Mix all the above together and test for seasoning, adjust as you wish.

Buy a bag of small leaf mixed salad leaves, wash and pick over (there are always a few that are not so fresh).  Cut 3 cocktail (well it is a lobster cocktail) tomatoes in to ¼’s and de-seed. Peel a mandarin (or any other seasonal soft skinned orange) and break into segments, a small handful of walnut kernals.

Make a salad dressing (I just made a simple French one as the cocktail sauce was to dominate) chop the walnuts add to the leaves and mix.

Just before serving,  add the dressing and mix well, place in a champagne glass, place the tomato and mandarin segments around the outside pile up the lobster meat on top and cover with the cocktail sauce.

Main: Two roast wild ducks stuffed with sage, onion, forced meat mixture.

Game birds can be a bit iffy, because unless you know how to select young ones, they are likely to be tough (for swimming waterfowl the colour of the skin tells you if it is young). Because of this I had decided to slow roast them when planning the menu.

Make your stuffing:

1 packet of sage and onion stuffing (don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!)

50g of Zwiebel mett (buy it ready prepared or in the UK use 2 good quality sausages)

1 dessert spoon of chopped fresh sage

1 shallot

A knob of butter

150g of pork collar

150g of cured belly (bauch speck)

50g of pork fat (cut straight from the back speck diced fine)

First make up the packet of stuffing as per the instructions, now heat the butter in a frying pan and soften the diced shallot and garlic, add this to the mixture. Cut the pork collar into cubes and along with the diced bauch speck  add to the blender and wizz or buzz or blitz, or  whatever one of these things do (at home I would normally use a hand mincer, but being at Linda’s I was forced down the automation route).  Add to the stuffing along with the met, now the fun part, hands are required, get  them in amongst it and give it a good squidging ,there is no other term for this, squeeze it between your fingers so that you get a homogenous mass (you could use your wiz, buzz, blitzer, thingy-me-bob, but that is no fun at all). Taste, you could fry a small paté and adjust the seasoning if required, you shouldn’t need any salt, as the speck and Mett will contain sufficient, but a couple of twists of  pepper or any other additional spices (nutmeg, ground mixed spices or even dried fruit). Now cover and set aside to allow to mature a bit (I made quite a bit as some was to be used in a hot water crust game pie that I was making (see the following episode).

Now the ducks, I find pintails have the finer tasting flesh, but mallard and pochard are not to be sniffed at.

2 wild ducks.

Stuffing from above

2 carrots roughly diced

1 piece of celeriac diced (or a couple of stalks of celery)

White of 1 small leek

1 diced onion

1ltr of good game stock (I had made this from the carcasses etc. from the game for the pies (see it from another episode).

The ducks are best  shot about a week ago and hung in their feathers, pluck (or get some other daft ‘B’ to do it for you) and draw (remove the innards but keep the heart and liver). Wash inside and out, dry, pick all over to remove the last of the downy feathers and stubble (and any obvious shot) salt and pepper inside, stuff with the forced meat, add a sprig of rosemary at the vent end  (Rear)and close it up using tooth picks and kitchen string or thread.

Now rub the outside with game spices, salt and pepper and cover with bacon or pig back fat.

Giblet gravy

Chop the necks, hearts and liver and place in a sauce pan with some game stock, pepper corns, a bay leaf pinned to a small onion with a couple of cloves, a table spoon of dried soup vegetables (Suppengrün), allow to simmer until ready to make, top up with stock if needed.

Place the vegetables in a roasting tray, cover with stock and place the ducks on the top and cover with foil and place in a moderate oven 180 degrees C, let this braise away, spooning  over the stock now and again, if the stock is beginning to get a little low replenish. Remove the foil and increase the temperature to 190 for the last 30 minutes, test by picking the breasts, the juices should run just a little pink.  20 minutes before ready to serve, take the ducks out of the oven and place on a dish, cover and allow to rest.

 Skim off the fat (this is from the pork fat not the duck) and pour the remains of the pan juices etc. through a sieve squeezing the veg to get the last bit of taste out of them  into the giblet gravy stock, now boil up to reduce add a couple of knobs of maître butter to gloss and thicken, adjust seasoning,  pour into a heated sauce boat .  

When ready to serve cut in half and place on either a serving platter or as we did straight onto a warmed dinner plate. 

Sour black cherry sauce.

This time of the year you will have to use either jars or frozen (or pay €16,- per kg for either Chilean or Aussi ones, needless to say mine where frozen, a sprig of rosemary, the  peel of the non-waxed bio mandarin that you used for the lobster cocktail (waste not, want not). 5 large sage leaves, a piece of cinnamon, 5 cardamom pods, 2 cloves, place in a sauce pan and cover with cherry juice.  Place on a very low heat and allow to infuse, add a couple of spoons of cherry jam to add a bit of sweetness  (this can be made well in advance and reheated). Pour this also into a heated sauce boat or suitable serving dish.

Confit Potatoes

6 Large floury potatoes, peel, cut a disc out of the center of each, the thickness is what matters. Heat  of butter in a frying pan and fry until golden brown, turn and repeat,  transfer to roasting dish, add more butter and place a bay leaf between each and put in the oven at 180 degrees (notice the same as the ducks), the whole recipe is from the BBC webbsite

Spiced Red Cabbage.

The recipe for the red cabbage is from the Hairy Bikers and is one of the best I have tasted, this is Linda’s domain, as are the Brussels  (I will not bother you with how to cook these).

Dessert: The Christmas pud

I had made this in November and it was reheated over a boiling water, place a chefs ring in the base of a large pot, Christmas pud into a tupperware  type bowl with a lid on, place on top of the ring, pour boiling water into the pot until it comes halfway up the bowl  steam for 3 hours. Serve with Devon clotted Brandy cream.