When I signed off for a little break a few weeks ago, I’d intended to be back sooner. At least a week sooner – but getting back in the groove is difficult sometimes. It’s even harder when you start to feel like you’re running out of ideas. I’m starting to feel like I’m running out of ideas, at least ideas that aren’t either gonzo-dumb-fry-everything crazy or that ideas require ingredients shipped from overseas and 4 days of intricate work to produce. There’s a sweet spot for this newsletter that’s sort-of-fussy but not too involved, and not crusted in ground Cheetos. Sometimes hitting that sweet spot without over-repetition is pretty hard.
Not that I’m not above repeating myself, especially when it comes to holiday meals.
This week’s menu isn’t exactly a repeat, but it’s not exactly original either. It’s a holiday menu. Sometimes holiday menus can be inventive, but mostly, usually, probably, we’re all trying to strike a comforting and familiar note. So, feeling unoriginal, and looking for a little bit of comfort and familiarity myself, that’s where I went: a sort of almost but not quite Dickensian fill up the table old fashion classic holiday meal.
Except I didn’t make a desert because I was totally and completely foodblocked when I came to that. But that’s ok, I may do a dessert for paid subscribers (who’s subscriptions help support my work here) later in the week. Also, everyone’s got their “we always have” holiday dessert anyway. Those might even have jello in them.
If you’re looking for holiday gift ideas, check out the Equipment and Resources page over at my other project, The Chicken Thigh Guy.
Parsnip and Chestnut Soup
Here in the states, we don’t eat a lot of chestnuts. We read about them in Dickens novels and hear about them in all the Dickens-derivative Holiday-ified pop-songs and made for TV movies that basically create a impenetrable wall of red, green, silver, and Santa for the subjective 18 months between Halloween and New Years. The holiday retail season is like faster-than-light travel. Time just works differently then.
Anyway, Chestnuts. We don’t eat a lot of them these days because we don’t live in a Dickens novel, and perhaps more importantly, because most of the American Chestnut trees are gone. They were mostly wiped out by a fungus called Chestnut Blight.
Before that happened, Americans did eat a lot of chestnuts. I have no idea if they ate this soup. Probably not. But it’s a rich, slightly sweet, fairly nutty thing that tastes new and old fashioned and comforting and celebratory all at once – so maybe they would have liked it.
Serves 4 as a soup course
6 cups vegetable stock
1 lb shelled, roasted or steamed chestnuts
1 medium leek, white parts only
1 cup parsnip, peeled and diced
¼ cup heavy cream
¼ cup dry white wine
4 tbsp butter
4 tbsp crème fraiche
1 ½ tsp kosher salt
½ tsp ground black pepper
Fresh Thyme Sprigs and Parsnip Chips as garnish
Add the butter to a thick bottomed pot over medium heat.
As soon as the butter stops foaming, add the leeks and parsnips.
Cook, stirring frequently, until the leeks are very soft, but before they begin to brown.
Deglaze with the white wine and continue cooking until the wine is absorbed.
Add the salt, pepper, chestnuts and vegetable stock.
Bring to a simmer, and cook until the chestnuts and parsnips are very soft – about 30 minutes.
Allow to cool until just warm to the touch.
Transfer the contents of the pan to the container of a high-speed blender, and process until very smooth.
Wipe out the pan.
Strain the pureed mixture through a mesh strainer and return to the pan.
Bring to a low simmer.
Stir in the cream, and taste for seasoning.
Add additional salt as necessary.
To serve, ladle into individual bowls and garnish with a dollop of crème fraiche, some parsnips chips, and a few fresh thyme leaves.
Parsnip Chips
Using a mandoline slicer or a very sharp knife, cut rounds (about 1/16th inch thick) from the thick end of a peeled parsnip.
Fry in neutral oil until crisp and slightly browned.
Drain on a paper towel.
Endive Salad with Walnuts, Blue Cheese, and Pomegranate
There’s not much to this salad. Really. It’s pretty simple, and simply pretty. See what I did there? It’s like a line from one of those magazines you see in the grocery line that people would leaf though while waiting to check out – at least when I was a kid. Now we all look at our phones. So, pretend you saw it on Instagram – I mean, I’m going to post it there, so you won’t have to pretend very much.
Long and short, this takes advantage of the lovely crisp not-actually-green Belgian Endive to make a quick, crunchy, and surprisingly (for its simplicity) salad that none-the-less shows off a bit. That makes it a perfect starter for a holiday meal because easyfancy should pretty much be the watchword for holiday cooking. This is, ofcourse, advice that I’ve completely ignored elsewhere in this newsletter. Sorry.
Serves 4 as a salad course.
4 Belgian endives
4 tbsp crumbled or pulled blue cheese
½ cup candied walnuts
¼ cup pomegranate arils
Cut the flat ends off the endives, then remove the individual leaves.
Toss the endive leaves with dressing, arrange on a plate, and top with crumbled cheese, walnuts, and pomegranate arils.
Dressing
2 tbsp good olive oil
2 tsp champagne vinegar
1 tsp microplaned shallot
½ tsp Dijon mustard
½ tsp ground black pepper
½ tsp kosher salt
Add the shallot, black pepper, vinegar, and salt to a non-reactive bowl and allow to rest for 10 minutes.
Add the mustard and whisk to combine.
Whisk in the oil to make an emulsion.
Yorkshire Puddings
The nomenclature of this dish is a little confusing to those of us who think of pudding as a sweet paste like thing that you ate a lot of between the ages of 3 and 15. Yorkshire puddings aren’t that. And while you certainly can have a big bowl of Yorkshire puddings, you’re probably not going at it with a spoon at the end of a meal that includes fishsticks and mac and cheese.
Yorkshire pudding is one of the cornerstones of British cuisine – which, I know, doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement. But they’re a phenomenal accompaniment to … well, almost anything involving almost any kind of gravy. I mean, who doesn’t like gravy delivery vehicles [pauses to imaging a large truck full of gravy pulling up out front, gravy spigots at the ready.] To Americans, these probably look like popovers – though I like them with a more pronounced cup shape than popovers tend to form – all the better for gravy conveyance, and as leftovers, all the better for a dollop of jam at breakfast.
Makes 12 single serving puddings.
~ ½ cup rendered beef fat, lard, or clarified butter
1 cup AP flour
4 large eggs
¾ cup whole milk
1/2 tsp kosher salt
Add the eggs and milk to a large bowl and whisk well.
Add the salt and flour, and whisk to combine into a smooth, thin batter.
Cover the batter, and allow to rest at room temperature for 1-2 hours.
Preheat your oven to 400°F.
Add about 1 tsp of fat to each cup of a cupcake or muffin tin.
Place the tin in the oven, and heat until the fat is fully melted and almost smoking.
Ladle ¼ cup of bater into each cup of the tin.
Return to the oven and bake until the puddings are puffy and browned.
Serve hot or reheat before serving.
Crispy Flavorful Roasted Potatoes
I’ve been experimenting with adding flavor to potatoes. I realize that this sounds like a bit of an odd way to spend my time, but what can I say, I’m a bit of an odd one. What if, instead of coating the potato with flavor stuff, I tried to put the flavor stuff into the potatoes?
It’s a pretty easy task if you’re making mashed potatoes or some sort of shredded potato casserole (you know, the one that pretty much just tastes like celery salt.) but for roasted or fried potatoes? Luckily, a few years ago I read a piece by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt that describes a method for making super crispy roasted potatoes – by par cooking them in water with baking soda. That method essentially “roughs up” the surface of the potato – helping it get extra super fantastically crispy when it roasts.
But it also means that there’s an opportunely to add an additional layer of flavor to the potatoes in that cooking step. So … here we are. In this recipe, you par cook the potatoes pieces in a baking soda spiked liquid to get that rough surface – but the liquid itself is flavored with aromatics and herbs, and that flavor infuses the potatoes before they go into the oven to get extra super fantastically crispy. Flavorful potatoes without burnt on flavoring on the outside.
Serves 4, or one if you really really like potatoes.
2 lbs yellow potatoes
1 medium onion
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs thyme
2 whole cloves
1 tbsp kosher salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp black peppercorns
½ tsp nutmeg
2 tbsp beef fat, lard, shortening, or clarified butter
Peel, trim, and cut the potatoes into 2 inch pieces.
Peel, trim, and slice the onion in half.
Push the cloves into one onion half.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
Add the salt, the clove studded onion, bay leaf, thyme nutmeg, and pepper to the pot and return to a boil.
Cook at a fast simmer for 30 minutes.
Strain the liquid through a fine strainer and return to the pot.
Bring the liquid back to the boil, then add the baking soda and potatoes.
Cook until just barely tender 10 -12 minutes, then drain.
Preheat your oven to 400°F.
Toss the warm potatoes with the fat or shortening and arrange on a baking sheet in one layer.
Roast, stirring or turning occasionally, until browned and crisp.
Carrots Glacé
I’m not going to write a long description of this. These are carrots, coated with a sweet/savory glaze. That’s it. Delicious, sweet and savory carrots.
1 lb assorted small carrots (with tops, ideally)
2 tbsp unsalted butter
4 tbsp demi glace
1 tsp granulated sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
½ tsp ground black pepper
minced carrot top or chives as garnish
Peel and trim the carrots. If using large carrots, half or even quarter them lengthwise to help them cook more quickly and evenly.
Prepare a large pot of heavily salted boiling water.
Blanch the carrots for 5 minutes, then drain and set aside. If working with multi colored carrots, add 1 tbsp vinegar to the water and work in batches, starting with the lightest colored carrots, and finishing with any purple or dark carrots to prevent discoloration.
Add the butter to a large sauté pan over medium heat.
Once the butter has stopped foaming, add the carrots, and cook, tossing frequently to turn, until the carrots are tender, but still firm.
Add the sugar and demi glace and toss to coat.
Season with black pepper, and garnish with finely minced thyme or mint leaves.
Simple Sauteed Watercress
I’m also not going to write a particularly long introduction to this dish – other than to say that we should all eat more watercress. It’s delicious and crunchy and has an almost horseradishy spicyness that’s fun raw or cooked. This preparation is so simple it’s almost not a recipe. Actually it’s not a recipe – it’s three ingredients and three instructions, and it’s so simple that the watercress really shines thought.
8 oz fresh watercress
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tsp crunchy finishing salt
Add the butter to a pan over medium heat.
As soon as the butter has stopped foaming, add the cress and sauté until collapsed and tender. You may have to add it in batches.
Season with salt - retaining a little as a final garnish.
Serve hot.
Spiced Roasted Rack of Lamb with Onion Gravy
I knew I wanted to do a holiday roast for this meal. I didn’t know what holiday roast I wanted to do. I could have done a duck, or a goose (mmmm. Flying roast beef!) but I was sort of board of that before I even got going on it. Which clearly is why I chose something else that was sort of boring. I know that, at least in the states, lamb can be a little contentious. People have strong opinions about it – which are fair. Lamb definitely has a unique and rather strong taste. I love it, and it’s just unusual enough that it feels like a celebration dish.
Of course, it’s not really unusual. I mean you can buy it at Costco. Which means its unusual and unusually accessible. To me that sounds like a good route for a holiday dish. So lamb it is. (you can also make this dish with a pork loin if you’re one of those people that hates lamb) and I settled on a rack for another simple reason.
It’s super-fast fast. When you’re cooking a bunch of dishes for a bunch of people and doing that oven shuffle, cook time matter. Rack of lamb does really well cooked hot and fast (you can even throw this on the grill if you really need to free up that oven space.)
1 approx. 2lb rack of lamb
1 recipe spice paste (below)
1 recipe Onion Gravy (below)
Herbs for garnish
Rub the spice paste evenly over the lamb.
Wrap, or place in a zip top bag, and allow to marinate in the refrigerator overnight.
Preheat your oven to 400°F
Wrap the exposed bones of the lamb rack with foil.
Place the roast on a sheet pan or roasting pan lined with a wire rack.
Roast at 400°F until the thickest part of the rack reaches an internal temperature of 125°F. The time will vary depending on the thickness of the loin portion and your oven.
Slice the rack into chops and arrange over a plate of Onion Gravy.
Garnish with fresh herbs.
Spice Paste
4 cloves garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp kosher salt
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves only
1 tsp black pepper
2 whole allspice
2 whole cloves
1 1-inch piece of cinnamon
1 bay leaf
Add the spices, herbs, and salt to the container of a spice grinder or a mortar and pestle and process until a fine even powder forms.
Peel, trim, and microplane or crush the garlic.
Add the garlic and oil to the spice mixture and process to combine.
Onion Gravy
1 large onion
½ cup demi-glace
¼ cup dry white wine
1 tbsp unsalted butter
½ tsp kosher salt.
Peel, trim, and finely slice the onion from end to end.
Add the butter to a pan over medium heat.
Once the butter has stopped foaming, add the onion.
Season the onion with salt.
Cook, stirring frequently, and occasionally deglazing the pan with water, until the onions are darkly caramelized.
Add the white wine and demi-glace.
Optionally, puree in a high speed blender and strain to make a smooth gravy.
Serve hot.