Christmas Party

The proper way to open cava as demonstrated by Zack.

Office Christmas Party 2007

Once again the holiday party for Bonne Femme's office was held at a tony Lincoln Park location. As with any party I like to bring some food:

Rôti de porc à la porchetta.

I love this roast. A boneless pork loin is wrapped with a pork belly. In between the layers a cream of olive oil, salt, rosemary, juniper berry, garlic and pepper is applied, then smoked over hickory.

Fazzoletti della nonna coi funghi secchi e spinaci.

Italian crepes. I think it literally translates to "grandma's headscarf with wild mushrooms and spinach." I got the idea from Marcella Hazan.

I got these Criminis (baby bellas) River Valley Ranch in Burlington Wisconsin. Stop by if you are in the neighborhood.

I made the mushrooms into a Duxelles, pureed sauteed spinach, and made a white sauce with Parmesan cheese. Making crepes was fun.


Rillettes du canard.

After receiving Brian's letter, The Jersey Report: Confit du Canard, I got a duck. I like to think I aways read the label but in this case I didn't and when I got home I realized that my pintail had been "flavored" with a brine solution. So I skipped salting it. Rillettes is potted meat, but to get the meat I have to make a confit first.

I threw away the orange sauce, saved the neck and the carcass for stock, and rendered the skin and fat.

I got about 12 ounces of fat from the duck. I needed more so I made some lard.

For the confit I probably added 16 ounces of lard to the duck fat to make sure everything was covered. I put in the meat the gizzards and the wings. They cooked in a 200F oven for about 6 hours.

For the rillettes, I took the confit meat and a little duck fat and ran it through the Cuisinart.

Gravlax.



I feel no holiday is complete with out some home cured fish. This one with dill, white pepper and caraway.



Other Additions:



Kiff made a magical mango chutney to go with the pork. Audrey roasted chestnuts for a superb chestnut cheesecake. Corine's spinach salad added color and balance to the holiday fare. JJ made Christmas cookies, and Bonne Femme made her signature bacon and onion tart, polenta and the ever popular Ice box cake. Thanks everybody for a great party.



Merry Christmas



Cheers.

Mid-Summer Madness

Once again the mid summer has come and gone without the culminating blow out shindig that I always plan to do. I guess unless you live in the land of the midnight sun, The summer solstice doesn't mean much, the longest day of the year quietly passes into night.

However since our good friends from New Jersey were in town we took the opportunity to spin again some of the house favorites.

With a few things from the potager, I recreated the Chicken Liver Sausage, which we enjoyed for an appetizer.

We followed that with another edition of the mini-porchetta, this time instead of using pork shoulder, I wrapped a boneless loin with the pork belly.

To accompany the rôti de porc, La Bonne Femme, ripped a receipe from Gourmet, May 2007, for Aligot with Horseradish cream.

(ah-LEE-go) uh-huh.

For dessert mint ice cream on cornmeal sugar cookies (Gourmet, July 2007).

And we ended the evening as we began it: En pleine air avec trop de vin de citron et menthe.

Cheers.

Frozen Dinner

Rôti de porc à la porchetta.

Daccord mes saucisses, if you live outside the Chicagoland area, then you may not be aware that we are in the midst of an epic cicada emergence. After living underground for seventeen years, the cicadas (Magicicada) burrow out of the earth for a six week mating dance. The noise is deafening. Every morning about nine they start tuning their tymbals, and by noon they are at full chorus. There are millions of these bugs in our neighborhood and they have contests to see who can be the loudest. It is no fun to be outside. By six PM (1800 for my continental friends, or 12 o'clock in Ethiopia) they wind down and are silent during the night. I put a few pictures of them of the flickr page.

Since it is no fun to be outside, and since we are going out of town next week, I figure it is a good time to go through the freezer and rotate the stock. The place where I buy my pork is a funny place: I ask for some boneless pork shoulder, the man behind the counter says how much? I say oh about five pounds. He puts a piece on the scale and says: Seven pounds okay? Uh sure. And when it come to pork bellies, don't even ask, just pick the one that looks good. Invariably I end up with bits and pieces in the freezer.

I had these pieces of belly and shoulder in the freezer. I put them in the fridge to thaw. It took a couple of days. I had seen a recipe in Aidells's Complete Book of Pork , where a piece of belly is wrapped around a piece of loin to create a "mini" Porchetta, I was ready to give it a try.

Wait, you don't know what porchetta is?

Let's jump into the way back machine, six years to when me and the Bonne Femme, got hitched.

Yeah and it's been all fireworks and kisses since then. Anyway porchetta is Italian barbecue, A hog is de-boned, rolled and stuffed with various things.

Weiland's catered the affair and they presented the perfect porchetta. It was stuffed with garlic and rosemary. We had gotten the idea the year before in Italy. At the outdoor markets there was always at least one van with a someone cutting slices and serving them on a roll. The only condiment was a pumice of coarse salt, pepper and olive oil. The magic of the cut is that you get crispy skin and melting rind enveloping roasted meat..oh man, I might have to fix myself a sandwich right now....

Since my copy of Aidells' book is back at the library, I decided to make up a recipe. I started with some fresh herbs, parsley, rosemary and thyme (don't start singing), I chopped them up with some garlic, pepper and salt and applied it to the interior of the soon to be roast.

I placed the piece of shoulder in the middle, rubbed it with some herbs, then tied it.

I bushed the skin with olive oil and put it on the smoker for about two and a half hours. The smoker ran at about 300F. I removed the roast when the internal temperature was 168F, and let it rest before slicing.

Here it is with a insalata caprese, salad and Spinaci alla romana (NYT recipe). The crackling was crispy. I had brushed it with olive oil again about an hour into the cooking time. The belly was rich, and the pork shoulder was a little chewy, next time I'll try it with a piece of loin instead. I think this is the ultimate barbecue food, something fresh and different from the freezer. Here's the quanties I used:

Rôti de porc à la porchetta

2 -1/2 lbs Pork belly skin on

1 -1/4 lbs boneless Pork shoulder (trimmed)*

18 g sea salt

12 g black pepper

12g garlic peeled and minced

Handful of fresh rosemary (trimmed and chopped to weigh 12g)

Handful of fresh parsley (trimmed and chopped to weigh 8g)

Few fingers of fresh thyme (trimmed and chopped to weigh 2g)

*I used shoulder because that's what I had in the freezer. It it came out a little chewy. At the store I would get some pork loin. The loin should be of a size that it will match the belly in length, and that the belly will wrap around the loin completely.

The next day make sandwiches for a picnic. Enjoy the summer.

Cheers.