new year's feast

i always have ambivalent feelings about new year's eve. it often seems like much ado about nothing. thousands of kroner of fireworks going up in smoke, often on a foggy, rainy night, where no one can see anything of it anyway. expectations are always high, and so is the pressure to have fun. but this year, we were going to spend the holiday with good friends that we've seen far too little of this year, so we decided to go all out on the new year's food.  i made half a dozen nibbles to start grazing on mid-afternoon (another post will be devoted to those) and bought a beautiful beef roast for the dinner.

there were mocktails for the kids - our friends selected a wide variety of fruit and juices (sparkling and non) that they could use to compose their cocktails in special, glowy glasses. the adults took a more traditional route - crisp gin & tonics, followed by a glass of champagne during the queen's speech and then a nice amarone with dinner.

we didn't sit down to a proper starter thanks to the vast array of nibbles i made, but oysters were a must if we were going to go all out. they were small, but fresh and tasting of the very sea itself. that is until i put a spoonful of finely chopped shallots bathed in astringent red wine vinegar and a crumbling of posh "feinschmecker" bacon on top.

even the non-oyster lovers enjoyed the bacon-topped deliciousness. the kids did too.

after all of the heavy christmas food, i decided a big, abundant salad had to be on the menu. pickley antipasto served as dressing.

antipasto salad

1 package of baby spinach leaves

1 carton cherry tomatoes

6-7 slices of serrano ham (cut in half and rolled up to look pretty)

150 grams posh bacon, diced and fried until crispy

100 grams smoked almonds, chopped and toasted together with the bacon at the very end

handful of green beans, cut bite-sized and lightly steamed

a selection of various pickled or preserved in oil antipasti - artichokes, roasted peppers, olives (green and black), pepperoncini, sun-dried tomatoes, capers if you have them. 

pile it all on a big plate, using the spinach leaves as a bed and arranging it prettily. i used a bit of the herbed olive oil from the artichokes as dressing and tossed on the bacon and almonds on top for crunch.

here's one more shot after i remembered to put the black olives (sabin's favorites) on top.

i served the big salad with a lovely beef roast. we have the best butcher in denmark in a nearby little town (where there is little else, other than this charming butcher) and so i trusted them. it came marinated and even tho' i was chatting away and overcooked it a bit, it was still delicious. my advice is buy the very best you can possibly afford and then it will cover for any mistakes you may make in the preparation.

simple roasted root vegetables and an herbed creme fraiche dressing instead of heavy gravy accompanied the roast. all i did was peel and slice beets, parsnips, carrots and a few potatoes and drizzle with olive oil and a bit of herbed salt and bake for 45 minutes or so. i stirred some of the same herbed salt into the creme fraiche.

after we'd all had one serving of the food, we decided to set off a "table bomb" (bordbombe). usually, they have a few streamers of crepe paper and some small plastic trinkets inside. perhaps a few stars. this one was shaped like a champagne bottle and contained pulverized glitter, which ruined the remains of the salad much of the roasted vegetables. at least it was after we'd all had a good helping of it and we'd had loads of appetizers (more about those soon), so nobody went away hungry. in fact, we were so stuffed that we didn't eat our dessert crepes until breakfast the next day.

i guess we're showing our age a little bit because when the meal was over, it was still a couple of hours 'til midnight, so we changed out of our party clothes, put on sweatpants and played cards. then at midnight, we went out in the rain and watched the fireworks. same procedure as every year.

lemon magic

i learned yesterday of the simple magic that is the transformation of lemons and eggs and sugar into the zesty, smooth creaminess of lemon curd. i settled in with a stack of cookbooks to find inspiration for a quiet new year's meal at home. i wanted something seasonal, not too fancy (i'm still exhausted from the christmas cooking), but which would feel rather fancy and special. so, in that kind of mood, i turned to nigel slater's the kitchen diaries. i turned to the end to see what he did at the end of his year. he too must have been a bit exhausted, as there's no new year's menu in the book, but there, on boxing day, i found a recipe for a passion fruit roulade. nigel uses ready-made lemon curd, but although i was feeling a bit lazy, i wasn't too lazy to contemplate making my own lemon curd (mostly because i figured i'd have to go in to copenhagen to find it).

so i searched a bit in the rest of the stack of cookbooks i'd selected and sure enough, in jam it, pickle it, cure it, there was indeed a lemon curd recipe and it looked dead easy. the hardest part was squeezing 10 lemons and that was my exercise for the day, so even that was ok.

lemon curd

6 eggs plus 1 egg yolk

1 cup of sugar

1-1/2 C freshly squeezed lemon juice (10-12 lemons)

150 grams of butter, cut into small pieces

zest of 2 lemons, removed in large pieces with a vegetable peeler.

instructions:

1. prepare a clean jar or jars to store it in. my large jar above (i think it holds a 850ml) held the whole batch, save one small bowl of it which i left out (and may have eaten by the naked, delicious spoonful over the course of the evening).
2. in a large saucepan, with a whisk, beat the whole eggs and egg yolk together thoroughly, then whisk in the sugar and lemon juice. be sure the sugar has completely dissolved before you start to heat it. i actually did this mixing in my kitchen-aid and then transferred it to a pot, but that's because i like the machinery to do the hard work for me.
3. place the pot over medium heat and gently warm the mixture. after 3 minutes, begin to add the butter, stirring constantly. add the zest pieces as well.
4. whisk constantly for 7-8 minutes until the butter melts and the mixture becomes very thick.
5. pour the curd into your prepared jar and let it cool, uncovered. remove the zest and discard. 
6. store in the refrigerator after it's cooled down. it should be fine in the refrigerator in its jar for at least ten days.

i'm going to use mine in nigel's passion fruit roulade, but you can also slather it on a homemade scone and have it with your tea. i haven't made the roulade yet, so no pictures of it. maybe i'll update later when i've made it.

nigel slater's passion fruit roulade

the cake:

6 large eggs

100 grams sugar

2 lemons

2 heaped tablespoons of flour

powdered sugar for dusting

the filling:

350 grams lemon (or orange) curd

280-300ml whipping cream

12 ripe, wrinkled passion fruits

instructions:

1. preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F
2. line a shallow baking tray (36cm x 30cm) or jelly roll pan with baking paper.
3. separate the eggs, putting the yolks in one bowl and the whites in your mixer to beat them 'til soft peaks form. add the sugar to the yolks and whisk until they're pale and creamy.
4. grate the zest from both lemons, then juice them. folk the juice and the zest into the yolk-sugar mixture.
5. add the flour to the yolk mixture. then fold the entire mixture gently into the egg whites. it's important not to over-mix. 
6. pour into the lined baking tin, spreading it out to the edges.
7. bake for ten minutes until the top is very lightly colored and feels softly set. allow it to cool for a few minutes.
8. put another piece of baking paper down on your work surface, sprinkle it with caster sugar and turn the roulade out onto it. carefully peel away the baking paper from the bottom and discard. cover with a clean tea towel and allow it to cool down.
9. once it's cool, spread the lemon curd carefully over the surface.
10. meanwhile, whip the whipping cream until the soft peak stage and then spread it over the curd. cut the passion fruits in half and spread the juice and seeds over the cream. you can reserve a couple of passion fruits to squeeze over before serving.
11. on the long side, roll it carefully into a roulade. transfer it to a serving dish and dust it with powdered sugar. cut into thick slices and serve.

makes ten servings. edited with the "after" photos....

this will be our dessert this evening for our low-key new year's eve dinner. in addition to it, i'm stuffing a beef roast with a nigella-inspired stuffing of bacon, dried cranberries, garlic, shallots and thyme, making ordinary roasted potatoes and a green salad to go with it. we'll drink a nice amarone and bring in the new year in a very relaxed fashion.

see all that lovely whipped cream/lemon curd/passion fruit there on the side? well, it's not there anymore, thanks to me and my spoon. this is gonna be a good cake.

happy new year to all of you and thank you so much for your comments and sharing your enthusiasm for food since we started this little venture back in september. we look forward to much more cooking in 2010.