Joyeaux Noël

[LadyShea]

You uckers are 2 for 2 on the Christmas menu issue! It is very appreciated!

Kiddo has chosen French food for Christmas this year. My quick reading indicates oysters are a must, and Kiddo wants ratatouille, and I will make that Yule log cake (the name escapes me right now)

Any ideas for meats, appies and side dishes?

[lisarea]

French food is the best. Good job, Kiddo!

I vote a pot roast for the meat, with root vegetables. Pot au feu, boeuf a la mode, boeuf bourguignon: All pot roasts, all slow cooked special occasion type dinners.

My pot roast is a boeuf a la mode. And it is really good, if I do say so myself. But you could also get a recipe from some big famous person like Julia Child or Jacques Pepin or someone, I guess.

[LadyShea]

Let's see it, pea!

[LadyShea]

I had seen a recipe for Beef bourguignon but it seemed kinda complicated for beef stew. I have to juggle a lot that day.

[Dingfod]

I'm having traditional: pine nuts with mint and excelsior.

[lisarea]

OK. This is actually pretty easy. You do a little burst of work early in the day, then most of it is just letting it cook slowly.

So you get a big, nicely marbled pot roast cut of beef. 7-bone is my favorite.

In a big Dutch oven or roast pan, brown it a little on the stove.

Then you add:

Worchestershire sauce pretty much covering the roast. A quarter cup maybe about?
A couple tablespoons of Provence herbs.*
Two bay leaves.
About half a head of garlic cloves, peeled.
Salt and fresh cracked black pepper.
2/3 to a full bottle of dry red wine.
Then, if the liquid doesn't cover the roast, add just enough water to cover it.

Put it, covered, in the oven at 250, then turn it down to 200 in about an hour, and cook it for at least five hours. Take it out once or twice and turn it over and make sure it's still covered in liquid. But mostly, just let it cook until the beef starts falling apart when you try to pick it up with a fork.

Once the beef is cooked, remove it from the liquid and set the roast aside somewhere that Lana can't get it. Turn the oven up to about 350.

Then, cut up some waxy potatoes, an onion or two, some carrots, and whatever else root vegetables you want and add all of those to the liquid. You may want to add some more liquids (water, wine, Worchestershire) now to cover more of the vegetables, and I usually throw in another Tbsp. or two of the herbs plus more salt. Mix the vegetables all up in the liquid, return it to the oven and cook until they're done.

Once they're done, remove them into a serving bowl, and if you want, you can resubmerge the roast into the liquid and put it back in the oven for just a few minutes to heat it back up before serving.

It's important to not put it back in the oven without the liquid covering. Once it's fork-tender, it will dry out really quickly when exposed to dry heat.

Then, you basically just pull off chunks of the roast to serve instead of carving and serve it with the vegetables and a drizzle of the pot liquor. You can serve a little horseradish on the side if somebody wants that.

If you end up with a bunch of extra pot liquor: BONUS. Freeze it in a container and make some vegetable soup with it at a later date.

* If you have fresh herbs, that's even better. I never do.

[vremya]

Oh yum, we're coming to Shea's place!

[LadyShea]

I will probably need the oven for other things...can I do anything in the crock pot without fucking it up?

[lisarea]

A crock pot seems like it'd be ideal for that, actually. I don't know if it gets hot enough for the vegetable part, but for the roast, absolutely.

PS to Dingleford: I tried your recipe, and it was TERRIBLE. I still have wood shavings caught in my throat.

[Janet]

Buche de Noel is the term you're looking for. I definitely recommend gougeres for the appetizer, but you would need the oven for it. It's based on one of the simplest recipes you will ever learn, pâte a choux.

Ingredients:

1 stick (1/4 cup) butter
1 cup water
1 cup flour
4 eggs

In a pan on the stove, melt the butter in the water. Add the flour and stir until smooth and there are no lumps of flour left. Remove from heat and beat in the eggs one at a time.

From that you can pipe them onto a cookie sheet and make cream puffs or eclairs depending on filling and shape. Or you can add Swiss cheese, spoon them onto cookie sheets and make gougères.

Or if you really want to make yourself happy, you can drop them into a pan of hot oil by the tablespoon, turn them and when they are golden brown on all sides, drain them and arrange them on a plate with honey, cinnamon and nuts. That's called Sfingi and it's the greatest thing ever. One time when my mom brought out a platter of them, we surrounded her and it was empty before it hit the counter. But that's not French so you'll have to save it for Italian Christmas.

[LadyShea]

Ooh you are like my sister Janet. I had seen cheese gougeres on a website and they look delicious. You make it sound easy too!

How is gougeres pronounced?

[ceptimus]

[LadyShea]

I listened and its ghoozhAIR

[vremya]

I was amazed how easy it is to make pâte a choux. Easy and tasty!

[Janet]

I was watching an episode of Coronation Street a few weeks back and a character said mastering Choux Pastry was on her bucket list. I was appalled. Clearly the writers/character had no clue how easy it is.

[LadyShea]

Okay menu

Oysters (22 lbs fresh off the boat)
Brie en croute with sliced pears and nuts
TenderloinStanding rib roast* with red wine/shallot sauce
Ham with apple glaze
Ratatouille
Potatoes au gratin (with gruyere)
Gougeres
Bouche de Noel
Chocolate Mousse ala Kiddo

*Tenderloin was over 100.00

[Dingfod]

Bean dip and a bag of Fritos at my house.

[LadyShea]

Went to the store, couldn't justify the tenderloin price so got a standing rib roast (which was very successful a few Christmases back) and will serve the Bordeaux wine sauce on the side. Kiddo insisted on deconstructed ratatouille, with the veggies sliced, so got the veggies for that. I didn't know what shallots looked like, was looking up scallions vs/ shallots online, and luckily an employee heard us being stupid and handed them to me. Good chocolate for the desserts was 2 for 1 as was butter. Used my birthday gift card to buy a new food processor, a nice Kitchenaid, so that's good.

All in all a satisfying trip to town

[roastelk]

Traditional French Canadian Tourtiere

makes 8 tourtieres

8 pounds ground pork
8 pounds ground beef
4 cups finely chopped onion
6 cups water
2 1/2 tablespoons salt
2 teaspoons pepper
2 teaspoons allspice
1 3/4 teaspoons ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup liquid chicken seasoning
8 (15 ounce) packages pastry for double-crust pie


Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2.In a large pot, mix the pork, beef, onion, and water. Season with salt, pepper, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, and chicken seasoning. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer 30 minutes.
3.Drain liquid from pot into a bowl. Transfer remaining meat mixture to a separate bowl and chill until ready to use. Place bowl with liquid in the refrigerator and chill 1 hour, or until fat has congealed on the surface.
4.Scrape and discard fat from the chilled liquid. Spoon the meat mixture into pie crusts. Add 1 tablespoon of reserved liquid to each pie. (This prevents them from becoming to dry.) Place top crust on top of each pie and pinch edges to seal. Cut slits in top crust so steam can escape.
5.Bake in preheated oven until golden brown, about 50 minutes. Serve immediately or freeze until ready to use.

---------------
Cretons

A pork-based spread. ...really good

1 lb minced pork, lean
1 cup milk
1 cup bread crumbs (or dried bread, finely chopped)
1 onion, finely chopped
to taste,
Salt
to taste,
Pepper
to taste,
cloves, grounded
to taste,
cinnamon, grounded

Instructions:

Mix all ingredients in a saucepan. Cover and cook for 1 hour on low heat. Stir once or twice during cooking time. Store in containers. Can be frozen.

-----------------

Ragoût de pattes de cochon.......pigs feet stew

1.5 kg pork hocks
1 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Pepper
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 pinch Nutmeg
4 tbsp Butter
4-6 cups Water
1/2 cube of chicken stock, dissolved in water above
1 Cup onions, caramelized
4 tbsp flour, roasted
1/2 Cup Water

Instructions :
1. Season pork hocks with salaison (salt, pepper, ground cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg)
overnight .
2. Caramelized onions in a deep saucepan in 2 Tbsp butter. Remove from saucepan.
3. In same saucepan, melt 2 tbsp butter and sear well pork hocks.
4. Add water and dissolved chicken stock cube, and onions to pork hocks. Bring to a boil, and then simmer for at least two
hours, until meat falls from bones.
5. Remove pork hocks from saucepan and cool overnight in fridge. Remove/skim congealed fat.
6. Roast flour in oven until caramel brown (350F).
7. Remove meat from bone and set aside.
8. Thicken pork hocks liquid with roasted flour until nice thick consistency. Season with
salt, pepper (and allspice) to taste.
9. Add cooked pork meatballs and pork meat and heat thoroughly.
10. Traditionally served with boiled potatoes.

Pork Meatballs
1 lb ground pork, lean
1 Cup Milk
1 Cup bread crumbs
3/4 Cup onion, finely chopped
1/2 Cup celery, finely chopped
to taste Salt
to taste Pepper
to taste Allspice

Instructions :
1. Mix milk and bread crumbs well
2. Add pork, celery and onions. Mix well.
3. Add seasoning to taste and refrigerate overnight.
4. Roll mixture into 1-inch meatballs and fry in a bit of butter until 3/4 cooked.
5. Add to Ragoût de pattes to complete cooking.

notes....

its very important to properly and slowly caramelize the onion and hocks.

the flour can take over an hour to brown, but when it does, it does it very quickly and will burn if notwatched.

[roastelk]

Was going to mention, if you do a search for tourtiere you'll find a 100 different variation's. The above is a pretty basic one I like that my wife's aunt makes. I also forgot to mention you need a good gravy to go on it, Something along the lines rosemary and shallot for flavour. Although you can never go wrong with an onion soup gravy base.

[LadyShea]

It was all a success. My bff and I had a ball making the Buche de Noel. Hubby was all "are you cooking anything without chocolate, sugar, and butter?!" as all three elements of the cake used those in some form, and we were doing it for a long time.