BIG IMPACT CHRISTMAS FOOD

Now that everyone has had their turkey, it’s time to wonder what to serve for Christmas. Whether it’s lunch, dinner or, these days after a ‘day’ of writing, the in between ‘linner.’

I can quite easily forgo some of the culinary traditions of Christmas, but there are certain things worth never forgetting.

OYSTERS

One cannot be expected to open a dozen oysters, but I love this photo from the first place I stop in France, a seafood restaurant in Calais.

I can see starting the Christmas feast at an oyster bar and returning home where are the foods below are ready and waiting. But that is as farfetched as opening a few dozen oysters.

TRUFFLES

Gallop out and buy The Joy of Truffles. By Evergreen, an imprint of Taschen. Any book that starts off with “Prologue with truffle, man and pig” is promising. Let alone followed by “The truffle – a delicate diva.” Then a bit about my hero, Homo tuberensis, the truffle hunter, cigarette in hand and “with a good-sized bulge in his coat hiding a tuber magnatum,” that “result of subterranean sexuality.”

Not to ignore the glory of white ones.

Eggs in a ramekin with cream and truffles.

Eggs fried in lashings of butter with a blizzard of white slices.

Pizza covered in fried eggs and then truffles shaved so deeply on top you can barely see the eggs.

Less straining to the budget is one of my favorites.

Ken Hom’s Black Truffle Sandwich

Ken Hom introduced me to this perfection of truffles, and I would be hard-pressed to think of anything edible as pleasurable, especially when washed down with old, barely cold champagne.

Serves 4-6

4-6 ounces fresh black Perigord truffles, brushed to remove sand

1-pound unsalted butter

1 large loaf 2-day old rustic bread

sea salt and freshly ground coarse black pepper

Slice the bread 1/4 inch thick. Butter each slice generously on one side. Slice the truffles 1/16 inch thick and lay them on the butter two layers thick. Sprinkle the truffles generously with the salt and pepper. Put a buttered slice of bread, butter side down, on top of the truffles.

Stack the sandwiches and wrap in plastic wrap that has no smell (or use aluminum foil or big zip-lock bags), and then refrigerate for 12 hours.

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Put the sandwiches in one layer on a baking sheet and cook for 6 minutes on each side.

FOIE GRAS

First the P.C. issue.

Some issues are just too complex for my old brain. Because in the noise of loud protests over geese and their livers, I wonder about beef feed lots. Have you ever seen the Level of Hell on I-5 heading toward L.A? Or the chicken ghettos in Arkansas? PETA must know Americans will never give up KFC or their Outback Steak House. Let alone burgers.

I have never seen geese being fattened, only them fattening themselves.

First when I raised them myself on my farm in Massachusetts before arriving at Chez Panisse. Then having a friend of that restaurant raise the little darlings in Sebastopol for Panisse’s first real cassoulet. I saw that geese were the only animals on the farm that never stopped eating as long as there was food around. Well, perhaps the goats, but who has ever seen a fat goat? So, when I heard about force-feeding geese, I thought it a bit oxymoronic.

But I am sure I am wrong, and am sure also that geese running around freely with their feet in clover instead of nailed to planks are at their happiest. As for sacrificing their livers – well, we all do that.

Which reminds me of a recipe so dear to that wonderful 19-century gastronomic Parisian group, the Club des Grands Estomacs. Hanging out at Marigny’s, they ate a lot of fattened liver poached in champagne. The recipe is very sensible: drink the champagne and roast the liver with truffles and chestnuts.

As found in my cookbook Jeremiah Tower Cooks.

Casserole of Whole Foie Gras

1 whole fattened duck or goose liver

1 large fresh black truffle, very coarsely chopped

1 cup fresh chestnuts, roasted in the shell, peeled twice

1 tbs butter

¼ cup fine Armagnac

½ cup malmsey Madeira

Sea salt

Freshly-ground black pepper

Clean, denerve, and season the liver and let marinate for 6 hours.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

Put the truffle, chestnuts, and butter in a casserole just large enough to hold them and the liver. Season. Warm over low heat for 5 minutes and pour in the Armagnac. Ignite, turn off the heat, and burn off the alcohol.

Push the truffles and chestnuts aside and put the liver in the center and pack the chestnuts and truffles around the liver. Pour the Madeira over the liver and cover tightly or seal the casserole with a towel or a flour and water paste. Bake for 30 minutes and remove the casserole from the oven.

Serve immediately, opening the casserole at the table.

Whole Foie Gras in a Jar

2 pounds whole fattened duck or goose liver, room temperature

3 tablespoons sea salt

1 teaspoon sugar

1 sprig fresh thyme

1 bay leaf, crumbled

6 juniper berries, crushed

1 teaspoon freshly and coarsely ground black pepper

1 large fresh (or frozen) black truffle

2 tablespoons fine Armagnac

2 sprigs fresh tarragon

Rinse the liver under cold water and pat dry. Pull the two lobes apart gently and, cutting and pulling, get rid of any tendons and veins at the center of the inside of the lobes.

Mix the salt, sugar, thyme, bay leaf, juniper, and pepper and rub the marinade onto the lobes of the liver. Cover and refrigerate for 6 hours.

Wipe off all the marinade with a cold, damp cloth. Cut the truffle in 4 pieces and stick them between the two lobes before pushing the lobes together to form a whole liver again.

Sterilize a Mason jar just larger than the liver in boiling water. When the jar is cool, put the liver inside, add the Armagnac and tarragon.

Seal the jar and put it in a pot of water that is heated to 130 degrees (54 C), making sure that the water level is all the way up the jar. Cook at the same temperature for 30 minutes. Remove, let cool, and store in the refrigerator.

Open-Faced Foie Gras Sandwich

Serves 4

1 pound preserved foie gras in a jar

4 slices brioche, 1/4-inch thick, crusts removed

1 large fresh black truffle or best quality truffle purée

2 teaspoons freshly ground coarse black pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Scoop out four large spoons of foie gras and put them on a sheet of wax paper. Flatten the foie gras to the size of the brioche slices.

Bake the brioche to ninety percent toasted.

Put the sliced truffle on the toast and return to the oven for 2 minutes to warm the truffles. Take out and immediately lift the pieces of foie gras onto the hot brioche slices spread with the truffle purée.

Sprinkle with the pepper and serve.

WILD MUSHROOMS

Creamed Mushroom Soup

A puree of white and cepe mushrooms, lightly creamed, and served with a dollop of the cardamom and chipotle chili flavored whipped cream on top. Or delicious as it is without the garnish.

You can use portobello mushrooms instead of the white and porcini. Really delicious.

2 pints chicken stock

2 pounds white ‘button’ mushrooms

½ cup dried cepes/porcini soaked in water 4 hours

6 cloves peeled fresh garlic

1 cup half and half

1 tsp ground cardamom from whole seeds

½ tsp chipotle chili paste

1 cup ` whipping cream

Salt, freshly ground black pepper

Put the mushrooms, the cepe water, and the garlic in the chicken stock, bring to a boil, add a little salt, and simmer for 20 minutes.

Strain, reserving the liquid. Puree the mushrooms with half the liquid, adding more to get the consistency of heavy cream. Add the half and half and heat again, but do not boil. Season.

Meanwhile add the cardamom and chipotle to the whipping cream and whisk until the cream has stiff peaks.

Boletus Sauce

4 ounces best quality dried boletus edulis (cepes, porcini)

1 garlic clove, peeled, chopped

6 tablespoons light French low acid extra virgin olive oil

4 tablespoons freshly grated parmesan cheese

½ teaspoon kosher or sea salt,

1 teaspoon freshly-ground toasted black Tellicherry peppercorns

1 bunch fresh Italian parsley, leaves only, coarsely chopped

Soak the mushrooms in 2 cups of water for 2 hours or until soft. Drain, saving the liquid, and chop roughly into 1/4-inch pieces. Put half the parsley in the mortar with the salt and one tablespoon of the oil. Work until smooth.

Put 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan and heat slightly.

Add the mushroom and cook over low heat until they are beginning to dry. Add a third of the soaking liquid and cook until almost dry again. Add the garlic and keep cooking like this for about ten minutes until all but the last bit of liquid (sandy) is gone.

Put the cepes into the mortar with any juices from the pan, and work for 5 minutes until starting to puree. Add the cheese and continue to work the mushrooms until a coarse puree. Then work in the remaining olive oil for a minute. Add the pepper and taste for seasoning.

Put boiled barely drained or spaghetti still dripping from the hot water into a bowl on top of the mushroom puree with half a cup of the hot pasta water. Add the remaining parsley, toss all together, and serve with more pepper and grated cheese.

You might scatter some finely chopped Virginia ham on top.

AGED CHRISTMAS PUDDING

Photo Courtesy of Raymond Blanc

Hard Sauce

Hard sauce is made by creaming or beating butter and confectioner’s sugar with rum, brandy, or Scotch whiskey. I choose all three. The whiskey helps cut the sweetness of the rum.

The only rule of how much to spoon on your hot pudding is that nothing is too much.

NOG

Every year I pour over old cookbooks, housewives’ companions, and books of household management, as I rethink which version of eggnog I am going to make. And every year I wish Elizabeth David was still here so I could sit around her kitchen table with several bottles of Sancerre and discuss the origins of “nog.”

In Scotland they call eggnog “auld man’s milk” which, in my case now, is quite fitting, even though I have been drinking it ever since I was old enough to get on a chair and steal it out of the punch bowl filled to the brim with this frothy, alcoholic, and creamy custard.

The old books would tempt me to rediscover drinks like Flips, Possets, Syllabubs, Mr. Pickwick’s Caudel, a Spinster’s Blush, a Negus, Smollet’s Bumpos, Rumfustians, Swift’s Bishop, Bonalays and Sanfairyans, Ypocras, and even Shakespeare’s Wassail Bowl.

I will, as usual, ignore all the recipes that call for raw egg versions of this sublime drink, because all those old recipes were before we put chickens in Guantanamo-like camps where they produce diseased eggs. And no hot nogs, like the 1928 recipe (“very popular in California”) by Professor Jerry Thomas, principal bartender at the Metropolitan Hotel in New York. Although the Cognac and Santa Cruz rum in equal proportions to the milk sounds challenging.

I prefer my nog cool – it’s more refreshing and less ruinous to the appetite. William Henry Harrison’s favorite beverage, when a general and not yet President, was an egg dropped into a tumbler with ice, sugar, and cider, and shaken vigorously. In Baltimore at the turn of the century they thought that by adding Madeira (as well as the brandy and rum) the drink would therefore not cause a headache, but both of those are uncooked versions.

Your Nog

Instead, make a quart of custard or crème anglaise that has a pinch of salt in it. While it is still hot, throw in some grated lemon zest and a quarter cup of freshly chopped blanched skinless almonds. Let the custard sit for 30 minutes and then stir over a bowl of ice to cool it. Strain it and store, covered, in the refrigerator until the next day. Then just before serving stir in a balance of rum, Cognac, and whiskey. The rum will add to the sweetness of the custard, and the whiskey will cut it. The Cognac does both.

The nog should taste alcoholic.

Now you have a choice of beating egg whites until firm and then folding them into the egg nog or doing the same with whipped cream. The whites definitely lighten the texture of the drink, without enriching it too much, but there is the problem of raw eggs again. The cream lightens the nog as well but may take the richness right over the top.

I forgo both (rawness and richness). As I do, sometimes, the freshly grated nutmeg on top, replacing it with freshly grated Jamaican pepper or allspice. But whatever you do, let us face the fact that a huge glass bowl filled with nog and surrounded by little, chilled, silver cups, perched somewhere to greet your guests the second moment they walk in, will ensure a Christmas where (freely adapting The Vision of Piers Plowman):

“There is laughing and chattering, and “Pass the cups round/ Bargains and toasts and rounds, and so till Evensong/And guests have gulped down, a gallon and a gill.”