Baby It's Wet Outside
Well, it's Christmas. A bit of snow would be nice!
Since my Street Food cookery course on Southern Fried Chicken in November yielded soooo many chicken carcasses thanks class! I had no need to buy a chicken to use for this year's Christmas gravy stock, so I fell back on a simplified recipe for my traditional, pre-Christmas, Tom Kha Kai.
I already used those class bones to make the Christmas gravy stock weeks ago. So taking the three weekdays before Christmas off work this year gave me plenty of time to prepare everything else.
The day before Christmas Eve I collected the cheese order, got all the baking done and prepared the goose stuffing too.
Now that my local(ish) wine 'n' Cheese shop has closed down we have to travel all the way to Halifax to find a decent cheese selection. Thanks Calder Cheesehouse!
This year, on request, I made sure my massively over-ambitious cheese order included a couple of smoked cheeses, which Kurt finds edible.
Once again I discover that you can have too much cheese and will resort to making two tartiflettes and two blue cheese soups to get rid of it. But that's in the future, so I don't know that yet.
This year's Christmas cheese board:
- Kirkham's Smoked Lancashire
- Oakwood Smoked Cheddar
- Keen's Extra Mature Cheddar
- A Blanche Goat's Cheese log
- A Blue Brain
- Délice aux Truffes
- Ossau Iraty
- Gorgonzola Dolce. Lots of Gorgonzola.
I even managed to fit in a viewing of The Polar Express on IMAX the only way to view this creepy, freakish, dystopian Christmas film.
Bradford Cathedral has finally re-started its annual Christmas Eve carol concert post-covid, though they were oddly insistent on checking that I'd booked.
Apparently you have to book your church attendances these days. I'm sure Jesus would congratulate them. If they'd let him in.
So in the end there was absolutely no Christmas Eve panic - it hardly seemed like Christmas at all!
This year's bird was particularly moist and delicious, and also produced copious quantities of juice, which is rarely the case. Perhaps the two are related?
We had so much juice in fact, that it almost made my pre-prepared gravy stock superfluous. But then, you can never have too much gravy. Except that one year when it went mouldy.
I used one of last year's Christmas presents thanks Flora! to prick the goose's skin all over, which helps it to crisp up.
We decided to forgo risking Fallow restaurant's suggestion of sticking your hand right inside the bird to separate the skin completely, which they are confident will make (a turkey's) skin super-crispy. Another year perhaps.
As is often the case we forgot that the bread sauce would take the best part of 2 hours to cook, but everything else went swimmingly.
For drinks we enjoyed a fine Winston Churchill edition Pol Roger and finished off with Beithir Fire the Strongest Beer in the World which I'd been saving for a special occasion. But decided to open now instead 🤣
It's unbelievably strong, and completely undrinkable in any quantity. Fortunately, since it has no fizz nor any other qualities that might actually make it a beer, it seems to keep for months and counting! opened in the fridge with no loss of quality.
Like a really strong whisky would 🙄
Figs Crème Brûlée Style
sweet
The reason they're Crème Brûlée Style is that the filling is actually a panna cotta, set with gelatine, not a custard.
You'll need about 1 x 2g gelatine leaves per 100ml of liquid, and you'll probably have about 200ml with the fig flesh and all.
Although I served these as a starter they're really too sweet and should probably be a light dessert. However, sweet-toothed George approved 🙄
You'll need about 1 x 2g gelatine leaves per 100ml of liquid, and you'll probably have about 200ml with the fig flesh and all.
Although I served these as a starter they're really too sweet and should probably be a light dessert. However, sweet-toothed George approved 🙄
Serves 3
Ingredients
- 6 ripe fresh figs
- 1 vanilla pod
- 1 drizzle of honey
- 100 ml unsweetened almond milk or cream
- 1 gelatin leaf (about 2 g) or two!
- Brown sugar (cassonade) for caramelizing
Soak the gelatin leaf in cold water until soft.
Wash the figs and cut off the top to make a lid.
Gently scoop out the inner flesh without breaking the skins.
Put the fig pulp in a skillet, add the seeds scraped from the vanilla pod and a little honey.
Cook over medium heat until the fruit softens and begins to take on color.
Pour in the almond milk, stir and heat briefly to combine flavors.
Pass the mixture through a fine sieve to remove tiny seeds and return it to the pan.
Warm again and stir in the drained gelatin until it dissolves.
Sprinkle brown sugar over each filled fig and caramelize with a blowtorch to form a crisp shell.
Serve immediately, with the little fig tops placed to the side.
Wash the figs and cut off the top to make a lid.
Gently scoop out the inner flesh without breaking the skins.
Put the fig pulp in a skillet, add the seeds scraped from the vanilla pod and a little honey.
Cook over medium heat until the fruit softens and begins to take on color.
Pour in the almond milk, stir and heat briefly to combine flavors.
Pass the mixture through a fine sieve to remove tiny seeds and return it to the pan.
Warm again and stir in the drained gelatin until it dissolves.
Dissolve a couple of tablespoons of sugar in a teaspoonful or two of boiling water.
Now you can use a dribble of this syrup to fix the emptied fig bodies onto a plate and stop them rolling around.
Push the figs into it quickly before it cools and sets.
Chill for about two hours so the filling sets firmly.Sprinkle brown sugar over each filled fig and caramelize with a blowtorch to form a crisp shell.
Serve immediately, with the little fig tops placed to the side.
A very nice dessert.
Simple Tom Kha Kai
chicken thai soup
This is really quite a simple Thai soup since basically all you do is bring everything to the boil in coconut milk.
The order is the only thing that matters since the shallots take a bit more cooking, the tomatoes fall apart pretty quickly and you do need to make sure the chicken is cooked.
For best results avoid eating the slices of galangal root, the lemon grass stalks or the whole lime leaves.
Which might be made more difficult if you include, as I did, deceptively similar slices of celery and kohlrabi, since those are what I had in the fridge. You could of course omit them, though the kohlrabi is surprisingly nice.
The order is the only thing that matters since the shallots take a bit more cooking, the tomatoes fall apart pretty quickly and you do need to make sure the chicken is cooked.
For best results avoid eating the slices of galangal root, the lemon grass stalks or the whole lime leaves.
Which might be made more difficult if you include, as I did, deceptively similar slices of celery and kohlrabi, since those are what I had in the fridge. You could of course omit them, though the kohlrabi is surprisingly nice.
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 2-3 skinless chicken breasts, sliced or chunked
- 2 tins coconut milk, or 1 tin and 2 cartons of coconut cream
- ½ tin chicken stock
- 2-4 tsps red curry paste
- 6 Asian shallots or red onion, peeled
- 1-2 sticks celery
- 1 tblsp palm sugar
- 6 inches of galangal, sliced
- 2-3 lemon grass stalks, trimmed
- couple tablespoons fish sauce
- 1 kohlrabi or mooli
- zest and juice of 2 limes
- handful lime leaves, shredded with some whole
- 200g cherry tomatoes, whole
- 250g mushrooms, halved or quartered
- half a dozen birds eye chillies left whole
- bunch coriander leaves, chopped
Lightly crush the peeled shallots with the flat of your knife, or segment the red onion, leaving the layers attached at the root.
Slice the celery into chunks.
Clean and halve or quarter the mushrooms.
Trim and lightly crush the lemon grass stalks.
Slice or chunk the chicken breasts.
Thinly shred most of the lime leaves, leave a few coarse ones whole if you like.
Peel the kohlrabi or mooli and cut into segments or slices.
Mix the watery coconut milk with about an equal quantity of chicken stock and bring to a simmer over low heat with celery, shallots or red onion, kohlrabi, galangal, fish sauce, lemon grass, whole lime leaves, red curry paste.
When gently simmering add the reserved and any additional coconut cream, the sugar, the chicken, the mushrooms and return to a simmer.
Finally add the whole tomatoes and the chillies to taste and simmer until they soften, but before they split and turn to mush. Stir through the lime juice, adjust the taste, scatter with shredded lime leaves and chopped coriander and serve.
Slice the celery into chunks.
Clean and halve or quarter the mushrooms.
Trim and lightly crush the lemon grass stalks.
Slice or chunk the chicken breasts.
Thinly shred most of the lime leaves, leave a few coarse ones whole if you like.
Peel the kohlrabi or mooli and cut into segments or slices.
Though crispy when raw it will soften in the milk.
If you prefer to retain the bite, add it later or substitute with water chestnuts.
Scoop off the creamy part of the coconut milk and set aside.Mix the watery coconut milk with about an equal quantity of chicken stock and bring to a simmer over low heat with celery, shallots or red onion, kohlrabi, galangal, fish sauce, lemon grass, whole lime leaves, red curry paste.
When gently simmering add the reserved and any additional coconut cream, the sugar, the chicken, the mushrooms and return to a simmer.
Finally add the whole tomatoes and the chillies to taste and simmer until they soften, but before they split and turn to mush. Stir through the lime juice, adjust the taste, scatter with shredded lime leaves and chopped coriander and serve.
Excellent!
This way you can strain out the fig seeds along with any lumpy undissolved gelatin in one go.
You'll have to calculate the total final volume of cream and fig pulp to evaluate how much gelatine you will need.