Update 1/21/15: Link to Crab Cake Recipe.
Wow! What happened to December? I can't believe my last blog post was December 4th! After my cookie blog, I was so excited about baking (I baked everything on the wish list, and then some--about 50 dozen!), that I neglected all of my other holiday preparations. Suddenly, it was two weeks before Christmas and I had nothing else done. No shopping. No decorating. No tree. It was a true moment of panic. But, after some thorough brainstorming and quick organization, my husband and I somehow managed to get everything done in time. Whew!
I had a busy kitchen the last few weeks. Fourteen for Christmas Eve. Ten for New Year's Day. Then there were the more intimate family feasts on Christmas Day and New Year's Eve. The holidays are a time for my husband and I to celebrate our distinct heritages; his Bavarian, mine British, thanks to my Great-Grandmother who immigrated from Leeds, England in 1913. So, the menu over the last few weeks has been a whirlwind tour of Europe, with a few Asian excursions thrown in to keep things interesting.
Christmas Eve, or Heiligabend, is dedicated to my husband's Bavarian roots. He was born there, but immigrated here with his parents and his sister when he was three. In addition to preserving his Bayerisch dialect (a form of German), his family maintained a connection to Bavarian cuisine. Every Christmas Eve when he was young, my husband's parents would make the 2-hour trek to New York to buy authentic Weisswurst from the best German butcher. That tradition still remains to this day. But, instead of going to NYC, we made the 2-hour journey to Honesdale, PA to the Alpine Wurst and Meat House, a fantastic German butcher we discovered on our trip to the Finger Lakes in October. We were so excited to find them since our more local go-tos had either closed or were unsatisfactory. These are definitely the best we've found this side of the Atlantic.
After filling our car with lots of German goodies, including Weisswurst, wieners, Schinkenspeck (dry cured pork), 2 loaves of leberkäse, Kasseler Rippchen (smoked pork chops), and 20 slices of Bienenstich, we headed next door to the Maiolatesi Winery store in search of some glühwein, a warm, mulled wine. Surprisingly, they carried a white variety, which apparently, according to our family overseas, is all the rage at the Christkindlmarkts in Munich this year. Luckily, we also had some time to pick up a few bottles of the more traditional red Holiday Spice at Galen Glen Winery on the way home. Good thing we did--we went through 4 bottles. And, that was before breaking into the case of Weissbier!
Our Christmas Eve Feast began with an array of appetizers including crab cakes (my Aunt's recipe), shrimp, BBQ bacon-wrapped water chestnuts, goat cheese & fig preserve crostini, and guacamole (I'm somewhat famous in some circles for it). Appetizers were followed by the Weisswurst, wieners, sauerkraut, German potato salad (thanks to my sister-in-law, who makes it best), cucumber salad, and farmer's bread (Bauernbrot). For dessert we feasted on cookies, including some adorable Bavarian castles, and the Bienenstich.
After our evening stay in Bavaria, it was on to England to enjoy my family's long-standing tradition of Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding for Christmas Dinner. It was also a convenient time to make the other half of Chef Ben
Ford's Sunday Roast Feast from his cookbook Taming the Feast. Dinner included his Pan-Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Bacon, Crispy Duck Fat Potatoes, Horseradish Cream, and his Sticky Toffee Bread Pudding w/ Dried Fruit and Boozy Sauce, but I stayed with my tried and true recipe for the Yorkshire Pudding (Sorry Chef!). Though I don't use my paternal Great-Grandmother's original recipe (I use one from a former co-worker's British cookbook), I do prepare it the way she did--the batter poured into a flat tin sizzling with beef drippings, which makes it thin and crispy. The standing rib roast was small, only two bones (about 5 pounds), but plenty for my husband, daughter and I. I also used my maternal Grandmother's fool-proof roasting method. It works every time! I'll post those recipes soon too.
There were plenty of leftovers to munch on over the next several days; but, with my daughter home from college, I made one of her favorites--my Grandma's Pork Curry. Besides, we needed a break from German sausages and beef! And, with that we took a quick excursion to India during our brief respite between Christmas and New Year's.
Unfortunately, that rest brought the beginnings of the nasty flu that's been floating around. It started as an innocent little dry cough. By the time I realized it was turning into something more, it was time to start gearing up for the next two feasts. It was back to Europe, this time to Switzerland. New Year's Eve is a usually a quiet time for us. We used to go out for an early dinner and return to the safety of home before the amateurs took to the streets, but I found dining out that night was like a factory production line--fixed menus, high prices, pressure for turnover, and mediocre food that's been in the warmer too long. So, for the past several years, we've decided to make our own family tradition--fondue at home. It's a lot of prep, but it's a fun, family friendly, relaxing meal. This year, I wanted to try something different that would require a little less work. I had been
introduced to raclette a few years ago on one of my visits to Germany. Instead of dipping tidbits into a pot of melted cheese, raclette uses small pans, or coupelles, to melt slices of cheese under an electric coil. A hot stone on top of the coils can be used to cook slices of meat, vegetables, or kabobs. It's fun to get creative with the ingredient combinations. My favorite is shrimp, corn, garlic, yellow pepper and cheese, topped with melted cheese and a dash of Sriracha. What's really great is that the switch to dessert is just a matter of switching to a clean coupelle, and voila! You can have bananas Foster and baked apple slices with cheese in just a few minutes. There are plenty of recipes online. We enjoyed our raclette with some Galen Glen Grüner Veltliner, a perfect match.
By New Year's Day, I knew I was definitely under the weather, but with ten people coming for dinner later in the day, it was no time to crawl into bed. At our house, we take the traditional pork and sauerkraut to the next level, the Bavarian level. After several trips to Germany, I've developed an affinity for Schweinsbraten, roasted pork shoulder, with the skin and fat cap intact that is puffed up into crispy cracklin' crust at the end of roasting. The roast is traditionally served with potato dumplings (kartoffel knödel) and red cabbage (blaukraut). I added green beans and a nice apple-spinach salad with celery, pumpkin and pomegranate seeds and a honey-Dijon dressing for some color (and healthiness--hey, had to counteract that pork fat somehow). To fully transport us to the Bavarian Alps, we first enjoyed some sauerkraut balls and obatzda (a Bavarian cheese delicacy, literally translated to "smeared on"). Dessert included a persimmon tart and cookies.
And, then I succumbed to the flu and collapsed in bed for 36 hours. After a few weeks of intense cooking, it's time to make reservations!