Dinner #13: The Holidays! OH NO - THE FIRE ALARM!
Menu
December 8, 2018
Appetizers
Filled Brioche with Baked Camembert
Course One
Tarhana Soup
Course Two
Winter Salad Spectacular
Course Three
Vegetarian Wellington with Herby Mash
Course Four
Roast Duck with Grape Sauce and Crispy Chestnuts
Course Five
Christmas Pavlova
Beverages
Homemade Apple Cider (Spike Optional)
Selection of Fine Wines
My favorite annual AJRB - the Holiday one! I love the holidays - I love the decorations, the music (played sparingly, so we don't get too sick of it), the food, the family time...and since I work in education, Winter Closure definitely does not suck.
But again, as much as we love setting the scene for Holiday AJRB, the menu is tough. Because everyone is eating all the same foods, so they don't want to eat more of the same, but they also kind of expect it? It is a very weird balance I feel like we try to tiptoe between something a little different but not too different.
So this year's menu started with one of my now-favorite appetizers - Filled Brioche with Baked Camembert. It was really fun to get to see the bread prove around something (the cheese round) and when it came time to baking, to bake the bread and the cheese so it all comes out warm and (in the cheese's case) melty. Such a good one! I'm pretty sure we did half plain brioche and half cranberry brioche, which was also fun because it had a holiday twist with those vibrant pops of red like little ornaments.
Now our Course One was maybe not as successful - it was Tarhana Soup. It is a tomato-based Turkish soup, and we added meat to it. This is where we wanted to depart from the traditional butternut squash or pumpkin but still do something in that vein, and unfortunately, this did not work. I think we must have over-reduced it, because it came out as more of a paste than a soup? The flavors were awesome, but the texture was not so spot on. However, we recovered with Course Two, the Winter Salad Spectacular.
Where John spent all his prep time for this AJRB though was Course Three - the Vegetarian Wellington with Herby Mash. Now, not only did he make the puff pastry from scratch (yes, seriously) but the stuffing on that Wellington. Holy sh*t. It was so much work. Mostly, I remember the chestnuts because roasting and peeling chestnuts for this thing was insane. It probably took him at least 4 hours. However, all that work was so worth it when it came out of the oven looking absolutely stunning....only to have the bottom fall out of it when John transferred it from the cookie sheet to the cutting board.
It was tragic.
Luckily, we had two, and that only happened with one, so we still got good pics of the second one. Plus, once it's cut, it is hard to tell anyway, right?
Course Four...the Roast Duck with Grape Sauce and Crispy Chestnuts (look, we got to use the chestnuts again!). These little babies were crisping up in the oven as our guests were eating the other meals, and as John and I went to the kitchen to prep this course to be served, we noticed something slightly amiss. I looked at John, and he looked at me. He quickly turned off the oven, but it was far too late.
The fat of the duck had dripped over the edge of the cookie sheet and into the bottom of the ridiculously hot oven, causing smoke.
Now, we had set off the smoke alarm many a time in the apartment. But never while it was full with 16 guests (admittedly we had set it off once at the beginning of an AJRB when only 2 or 3 people were there but luckily we ended up rigging the fan to blow directly at the smoke alarm). However, now all we could do was wait, until....yep, there it was.
Guests leaped up, with napkins, and immediately started fanning it and John and I burst out laughing. The screeching quickly subsiding and the heroic guests got rounds of applause. The duck was served and all was well.
We finished the meal off with Christmas crackers (now a tradition), tea (and/or coffee), and Christmas Pavlova (a stacked meringue dessert with fruit sandwiched in between).
Again, Happy Holidays!