I LOVE CHRISTMAS!

We pretty much did 5 party nights in a row, starting on the 23rd with the wonderful relaxed evening hosted by the Lees,  a great traditional we have enjoyed most years for the past 7 years or so. I took a Panettone Bread and Butter pudding, which I repeated on Christmas Day, luckily to a different crowd and Alan was sworn not to  let on! This recipe, like the best of them, has evolved over the years.  I had cut the starting point out of the London Sunday Times a long while ago.  The column was written by Elizabeth David and she said she had adapted the recipe from Anton Mosiman, now brought to you with my  updates.............

I am not a big fan of Panettone but had received one as a gift and was wondering what to do with it and the best, in my humble opinion, bread and butter pudding was born!  Use the recipe link above but substitute the rolls for panettone; once you have poured the custard around the bread leave it to soak for about half an hour (this was Ms David's suggestion and I'm sticking with it) before cooking. I have never done the pressing down part after 30 mins either, this is a very forgiving recipe, don't fuss over it, it is always delicious! Serve with a rum butter sauce:

Combine in a small saucepan, on medium heat:

• Half stick of butter (2ozs)
• quarter cup of brown sugar (any sugar is fine!)
• half cup of heavy or whipping cream

when butter has melted remove from heat and add

• 4 TBSPS dark rum.  

Reheat gently before serving.
This pudding is best served warm, or at least room temperature, not cold. I would not recommend heating in the microwave as you will overcook the custard.  I usually put back into  a warm oven for about 20 mins before serving.

ROAST CHICKEN - AGAIN, SERIOUSLY?
Its Sunday, Alan wants roast chicken, Joseph is out for dinner so turned to Epicurious and found this recipe, Chicken al Mattone.  It was delicious and took less time than my usual stuffed and roast chicken, mostly because it is butterflied. Apparently the recipe is from a restaurant Sfoglia in NYC which I have never been to.  It is not on their site so here is the recipe:

Cut the backbone from a 4 lb chicken, press down on breast to flatten it.  In small bowl mix 2 Tsps lemon juice, 2 Tsps olive oil, 1 Tsp chopped rosemary and 2 crushed garlic cloves.  Rub mixture all over chicken and marinate at least 4 hours or overnight in fridge,
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F, season chicken with kosher salt and fresh pepper.  Heat 1Tsp olive oil in an ovenproof skillet over medium/high heat.  Add chicken, skin side down and cook until golden brown, about 7 minutes - do not turn over. Place something heavy (foil wrapped brick, cast iron skillet) on top of the chicken and roast in oven for 30 minutes.  Remove weight and turn chicken over, continue to roast for about another 15 minutes.  Remove from oven, sprinkle with  another 2 Tsps lemon juice,  chopped Italian parsley and 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper.  Let rest for about 15 minutes before serving.

Really enjoyed it but did miss the gravy!  Best served with a vegetable dish that is moist or saucy, I would suggest.  Full disclosure, I did not bother with the weight, maybe I will next time and see if it makes any difference!  Also, the one pictured here I cooked on the grill for about 40 minutes and it was perfect but I have done the saute/oven method too. I have substituted sage for the rosemary as I have a lot in my garden and I like that version just as much as rosemary.

ROAST PORK

Pork is just not what it used to be!  It has been bred to be lean and now has no flavour, we all know you need some fat for deliciousness.  When my fabulous son-in-law was here for Alan's birthday he made superb Pork Burritos for our beach party.  We started with boned pork shoulder (from Costco, of course!).  He had a chunk left over and prepared it for me to roast at a later date.  The piece was about a foot square, probably about 3 pounds of meat.  He added some orange peel, sage leaves and garlic then rolled it.  I was able to use my new 'food loops' which had been a Christmas gift from Charlotte's glamorous Mum, Anke (thank you Anke, I love them!).  He gave me the following instructions to cook it:

Sear the meat over a medium/high heat.  Transfer to oven at 300 degrees F.  Add some chicken stock to the roasting pan with some booze and aromatics. I used a halved medium sized onion and some more sage leaves.  Roast for about 3-4 hours, basting frequently. His instructions were to cover the pan while roasting which I did not notice at the time.  I did have to top up the stock in the pan but it meant that the meat got really crispy and I have decided it is the way to go.  So with all this learning I did a roast pork shoulder today and it was also fabulous, if I say so myself!  As it had skin (later yummy crackling) I did not brown the meat before roasting and cooked it for a total of 5 hours.  I scored the skin in a diamond pattern and inserted slivers of garlic into the meat.  I peeled and halved 2 medium onions and added those to the pan along with  2 sprigs of sage.  I upped the temperature to 375 for the last hour, mostly because that was when I put in the potatoes.

Gravy:  take the meat out about half an hour before you plan to serve it, transfer to a heated plate, tent with foil and put near the stove to keep warm.  I slice off the skin at this point and return to oven on a new roasting pan to  crisp up. You should have at least a cup of juices in the pan the pork roasted in.  Pour it into a separator if you have one, improvise with a small jug.  Keep about 2 TBSPS oil in the pan and add one TBSP of flour to that.  Stir to combine the fat and flour then cook over a medium heat for about 3 minutes.  Now you need some liquied to add.  The juices in the pan were pretty flavourful so water would probably do.  If you are steaming vegetables you can use that water, I did from my cabbage.  A big dash of red wine is great too, chicken stock also works.  This is one of those recipes you need to get a feel for and it is never the same twice.

I apologize for my attempt at garnish, hey ho we can't all be perfect all the time!

BABY LAMB CHOPS - YUM!
Not much going on today, watching the tennis and looking for something new to try for dinner for just the 2 of us. Decided to rifle through the recipes I cut out of NYTimes, there are always plenty of those.   A good co-incidence happened, I asked Alan what he fancied for dinner, he responded 'lamb chops',   I had just come accross Seared Lamb Chops with Anchovies, Capers and Sage .  I have a very healthy sage plant in my garden and am always happy to find a recipe to use it. I changed this recipe a bit, only because at the end it says 'spoon the sauce over the chops' and I had no sauce.  I had a pan with a lot of capers and sage leaves but no liquid, so I deglazed the pan with some red wine.  It was delicious, but not for those who are dieting! For those who do not like anchovies please do  not be put off, these really just season the dish, it does not have a  strong anchovy flavour.  I liked the lemon squeezed over.  I served with green beans, as you can see, and corn, which filled the gap on the plate.  The corn is so good at this time of year, I serve it with little encouragement!

Here is what you need for 2 servings:

• 6/8 baby lamb chops
• 3 Tbsps olive oil
• 3 anchovy fillets
• 1 Tpsp drained capers (more if desired, recipe called for 3, I thought too much!)
• 15 sage leaves
• pinch red pepper flakes
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• splash of red wine
• lemon wedges for serving

Season chops with salt and pepper, but go easy on the salt, the anchovies are salty.  Heat a skillet large enough to take chops in one layer and heat the oil til it shimmers.  Add the anchovies and capers, stir and cook for a couple of minutes, anchovies will break down. Add the chops and brown for about 3 minutes on first side and 2 minutes after turning over. Time will vary depending on thickness of chops and your preference of done-ness. Transer chops to serving plate.  Add garlic to pan, cook for about a minute, til starting to brown, turn the heat off the pan then add the wine.  Cook for about a minute then spoon over the chops.

Jenny's Smashed Potatoes

We were so excited to welcome our great friends, the O'Connells, back from Argentina.  They chose an interesting week to arrive, an earthquake and a hurricane welcomed them back to Connecticut!
I popped in for a cup of tea with Elizabeth yesterday, while she was prepping for having some friends for dinner.  She was making these potatoes, which I saw the start of the prep but not the finished result.  But, sounded easy enough, I had a few fingerlings in my cupboard so decided to make them for the 3 of us tonight.

So easy I will describe it rather than write an a recipe format.  Start with new potatoes, cutting any large ones so they are all about the same size.  Put on a roasting pan, add olive oil, salt and pepper and then you can choose: maybe some red pepper flakes, or a herb, depending on your mood and what you are serving them with. Roast the potatoes at 350 C for about an hour, depending on size,  til feeling done when prodded with a knife. This can be done in advance.  'Smash' the potatoes with something heavy.  About half an hour before you are ready to serve, heat some butter in a frying pan and fry the potatoes for about 20 minutes, on a medium/high heat,  shaking the pan frequently to cook them evenly on all sides. Fry 'til they are lightly browned and crispy.  Add a little more salt and enjoy/

THE ONE HUNDRED AND SECOND WAY TO ROAST A CHICKEN!

I'm on a bit of a Barefoot Contessa run at the moment, along with Tiffany.
Was just the 3 of us for Sunday dinner so, to Alan's disappointment I did not do my regular roast chicken ( I say 'mine', the recipe it is based on is Delia Smith's). I made Ina's 'Perfect Roast Chicken', how can you resist that title??  Main difference is that this has no stuffing, seemed appropriate for  a summer evening,  you stuff the cavity with lemon and garlic, sounded good to me!
Verdict is 'pretty good'.  You roast this bird at a higher temperature, with no foil  protecting the breast.  The result is a delicious, crispy skin BUT the breast meat was a little dry.  The gravy was very tasty which compensated for the dryness of the breast meat.  Alan and I debated various methods to achieve both - hopefully I will be successful at that and will be publishing a book of my own!
While I was breaking all the traditions tonight, I did not do any roasted vegetables.  I made Roatsed New potatoes in parchment and steamed green beans.  The potatoes were from a recipe in the NYTimes which I cannot find right now but easy enough to include here.  Worked well with the chicken as the oven temp worked for both.

• Fingerling potatoes ( or a mixture with red, white and purple pots)
• virgin olive oil
• garlic cloves, peeled and left whole
• herb of your choice: rosemary, oregano or sage
• chopped parsley to serve

You can figure out quantities, depending on how many you are serving, be generous with the oil.  Mix the potatoes in a bowl with oil, garlic and herb, season well.  Put contents of bowl onto a sheet of parchment  which is on a baking sheet.  Make a parcel by folding the top and tucking in the sides.  Bake at 450 degrees C for about an hour, can adjust depending on whatever else is going on in your oven. Transfer parcel to serving dish, open parchment and sprinkle parsley.
I happened to have some purple and fingerling potatoes, so mixed them.  Visually it was pretty appealing but I have to say that the fingerlings taste so much better than the purple potatoes, shame, wish it weren't so!

BOB DYLAN'S FIGGY PUDDING

Life takes some fun turns every once in a while........  We went to see Bob at Jones Beach last night and started chatting to the guy next to us who had sold us the tickets on Stubhub.  He is a journalist,  Duff McDonald, who writes business stuff mostly for Fortune and occasionally for Vanity Fair.  He is also a big Dylan fan and had written an article on Bobby, which was in the April 2009  Vanity Fair edition, and was based on Dylan's DJ-ing on Sirius radio.  Anyway, this morning I was checking him out and read the article, which is fabulous.  I started reading the highlights to Alan,  including some recipes he had apparently read on the show.  One of them was for Figgy Pudding, which, after reading,  I casually added: 'easy to make, I think I have all the ingredients'.  Our Bob Dylan weekend was about to continue!

You have to scroll down in the article to find the recipe, it was fun to make and pretty good!  I changed a few things so here is how I made it:

4 oz of plain flour, sifted
a pinch of salt
4 oz bread crumbs
4 oz shredded suet - I used butter
1 teaspoon mixed spice - I used half teaspoon Jamaice Allspice
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 oz dark soft brown sugar
8 oz chopped dried figs ( I chopped in mini Cuisinart)
finely grated rind & the juice of one lemon
2 tablespoon milk
2 beaten eggs - I used 3 eggs
4 Tablespoons of golden syrup, plus more to serve

Cream the butter and sugar then add the flour, salt and breadcrumbs. Add the beaten eggs then the lemon rind and juice and the figs.  Beat well, the mixture should have a soft dropping consistency.  (This is when I added an extra egg as my mixture was not dropping!)  Put into a greased two-pint pudding basin, cover securely,  (I used two sheets of foil and 2 elastic bands) and steam for three hours. I also put the syrup in the basin before adding the mixture, then added more syrup to serve.

It was pretty good, served with some Birds custard.   Found that harder to make than proper custard and it was not as good in my view.........  but Alan loved it and that was what it was all about.

I know the ounce measures are tricky for my US friends, one day I will find a conversion site and link it.  I think the recipe is pretty forgiving if you want to have a go!