A beautiful, bountiful Christmas!

Noël 2009, c'est fini!
I will keep a vivid memory of the cheerful carols we sang on Christmas Eve, and of the very gourmet/gourmand Christmas that we spent with our loved ones.
Just for the sake of sharing the joy, here is a sample of what was on our menu for this year's Christmas potluck dinner at home:

***Appetizers***
I'll give you just one that is typical to my hometown:
-Lyons hot sausage with truffles and pistachios, also called "cervelas truffé et pistaché" .
(see picture above)
I was so happy when I received some from my parents in France that I had to serve this special dish for my Canadian Christmas. I served the sausages sliced, and halved topped with a cloud of homemade chutney (date & apricot winter chutney).

Different types of Lyons sausages

Traditionally the hot sausage or 'cervelas' is served with steamed potatoes, or on a bed of lentils (so typical to the cuisine lyonaise). It can also be served in a brioche, it is then called saucisson brioché. Any option is equally tasty!

***The pièce de résistance***
- A 7-kg smoked turkey (a big mama turkey!) with a side of roasted vegetables (chestnuts, butternut squash, small potatoes, rosemary, paprika, onions and garlic), and cranberry sauce.

I'd like to report the fact that, on Christmas Day, I turned a vegetarian into a carnivore with that turkey. Incr-edible!

***Desserts***
-Chocolate Log
-Schwowebredle
-Gingerbread Cake
All 3 from Simone Morgenthaler's Alsatian cookbook-

-Crème Jaune à la Vanille ( a sort of custard cream)
-Chocolate Truffles ( stuffed with roasted almonds!)
-Christmas Shortbread Cookies

It was my first Christmas as a married woman, and I had a beautiful, bountiful Christmas sharing with my in-laws, here in Canada. I felt like a child offering my homemade Christmas presents: orange marmalade, chutney, Christmas cookies and truffles, all wrapped up in hand-made gift bags. But I also felt the intense joy of receiving in front of so many generous earthly presents! I enjoyed every moment before, during and after the party. Perhaps like me, you too enjoyed that special moment when, once the guests have left, all snug in your slippers, you start to clean the place a bit, shove the colourful wrapping papers in the recycling bin, pack and store the leftovers in the fridge, and eventually pause in awe in front of all these wonderful memories and gifts that you collected over the day (See post on my other blog Christine Rochet-Jacob) !
One of the greatest gifts that we received came from my mother-in-law who is a great supporter of my culinary experiments. Ohlala! Quelle folie! She offered my husband and I a master Vita-Mix juicer-blender! Look at the beast...

I have read the instructions, and gone through the DVD with the Getting Started recipes. I feel ready to try my first Vita-Mix juices in a couple of days, i.e on New Year's Day. Fresh juice will sure help us cleanse the body from all the toxins accumulated over the holiday season, and start the new decade with a lot of vitamins and a lot of bravado! Yes. Let's get ready for a healthy detoxifying diet come January!
Now before we part, allow me to leave you for this year 2009 on a double-bill happy note!
For your viewing pleasure, I recommend you watch...

A Chef in Love (Les mille et une recettes du cuisinier amoureux)

Dir: Nana Dzhordzadze/Cast: Pierre Richard, Nino Kirtadze, Timur Kamkhadze, Micheline Presle, Jean-Yves Gautier/ Language: French and Russian with English Subtitles/ 1996/ 100 mins

This film tastes like a fairy tale about a bigger-than-life French tenor/gigolo/Chef. The title character of A Chef In Love is indeed a Frenchman with equal passions for his restaurant and his lover.
As cinematic banquets go, I enjoyed A Chef in Love ( I love Pierre Richard, and Micheline Presle, whom we hardly see, unfortunately...) but I must confess it left me somehow unsatisfied as parts of the plot was left unresolved. It tickled my appetite but...- je suis restée sur ma faim!
I therefore went for an extra serving of ''Babette's Feast''(Ahhhh!Ohhh!Wow!), and invite you to do the same!

Babette's Feast

Savour the last moments of 2009!

Merry Christmas! ** Joyeux Noël!

Running short of cookies in the jar?
Here is an easy and quick way to fix it with Nigella's good tips!

Wishing you a very merry Christmas!

"This Xmas, let us give each other a hand!" - Season's greetings by Cédric Roulliat

Now, don't forget to also check out my other blog, Christine Rochet-Jacob. You will find another gift under the Christmas tree...

Schwowebredle, Alsatian Christmas cookies

Here are my little almond and orange candied peel Christmas cookies. If you too decide to bake a batch, you won't regret it - believe me!
Taken from Simone Morgenthaler's Recettes de Noël, Traditions d'Alsace. The recipe is in French. If you can't decipher it in French, ask me for a translation. It will be my pleasure to fix it for you.

Petits Gâteaux Souabes
-Schwowebredle-

Pour 900 g environ Pâte
. 200 g de sucre semoule
. 200 g de beurre
. 2 oeufs
. 275 g de farine
. 275 g d'amandes en poudre
. 75 g d'écorces d'orange confite finement hachée
. 2 c. à café de cannelle
. 1 pincée de sel
. 2,5 cl de kirsch (ou de Grand-Marnier, ma suggestion!)

Dorure
. 1 jaune d'oeuf
. 1 c. à soupe de crème fraîche

Travaillez le beurre en pommade avec le sucre jusqu'à consistance très crémeuse. Ajoutez les deux oeufs entiers, mélangez bien puis incorporez la farine, les amandes, les écorces d'orange confites, la cannelle, le sel fin et la liqueur pour parfumer. Travaillez ce mélange à la main, énergiquement, afin d'obtenir une pâte bien consistante. Enveloppez-la dans du papier film et mettez au frais pendant une nuit.

Le lendemain, étalez au fur et à mesure des portions de pâte sur une épaisseur de 3 à 4 mm. Il ne faut pas que la pâte se réchauffe sinon elle se déatche très difficilement. (Mon conseil: Replacez la pâte au réfrigirateur entre plusieurs fournées)
Découpez à l'emporte-piéce (cutters) des motifs variés, selon votre envie...Disposez-les sur une plaque beurrée. Badigeonnez-les avec la dorure.
Faites cuire à four moyen à 180*C (350*F) pendant 10 à 15 mn.
Détachez-les à l'aide d'une spatule et laissez-les refroidir sur une grille.

Et pour citer Simone avant de se quitter: "Les Schwowebredle se laissent croquer à toute heure du jour et...de la nuit. En Alsace, on aime les déguster avant la messe de minuit avec un verre de vin chaud."

...................Voilà!..................

These bredle are fun to prepare alone, or with your loved ones. The younger ones will particularly enjoy cutting the varied shapes off the dough. Magic! You can bake the bredle now and seal them in a tin box and store them in a dry, cool closet or in the fridge.

Happy baking holiday to all!

A ladle of mulled wine and a handful of festive spirit: that's Coco & Co. !

No Christmas tree this year. I opted for alternative Xmas decorations at home.

Last week, my husband and I hosted 5 friends for our second Coco & Co. special Christmas gift party. The party started at 3 P.M Saturday afternoon and ended at 4 A.M on Sunday morning...Cooking and baking took us about 4 hours, and the rest was just dedicated to sharing a good time together, around the dining table, then in front of a film: Thank you for Smoking, and eventually, talking and exchanging views until dawn.
We had agreed on making enough winter chutney to fill up 12 jars, and on baking 4 gingerbread cakes: one for each invited couple to take back home, plus one for our dinner party!
While we were getting ready to start with the chutney, my husband started playing some Brazilian bossa nova by Sergio Mendes, some French groovy music by Jean-Pierre Massiera: Psychoses, discoïd (1976-1981)...

... followed by Alexander Robotnick's Krypta 1982, The Flying Lizards, Bananarama, and Spandau Ballet, to name but a few...As for Daniel, he had concocted a special CD full of Xmas songs to cheer us up!
The Chutney was based on my winter chutney recipe, we just replaced the prunes with dates for that special batch of the day. Well, more precisely, the nuts and fruit ingredients were : dates, apricots, currants, pine nuts, walnuts and the magic touch: a ladle of ...mulled wine that Daniel prepared on the stove all afternoon long. Hum, delicious spicy mulled wine, we loved you! I just had one cup of it, when the others could refill at leisure. Such is life! I was kind of 'driving' the cooking session, so I had to stay sober.

Our Coco&Co. Date & Apricot Winter Chutney : delicious with a slice of slightly fried foie gras...

Now as for our gingerbread cake recipe, I was really happy to share my love for this traditional, Alsatian spicy Christmas loaf with my friends.
Alsace is indeed very proud of their pain d'épices and you can even find a museum dedicated to this cake in the tiny village of Gertwiller.

Illustration by Hansi, the pseudonym of the Alsatian artist Jean Jacques Waltz .

The traditional recipe for pain d'épices calls for making a pâte-mère (mother dough) by mixing honey and flour (often a combination of all-purpose and rye flours) and letting it sit for a long time, sometimes even several months. The lack of water and preserving qualities of the sugar in the honey creates an environment where germs cannot proliferate. After this aging, other ingredients are added to produce different sorts of cakes.

Traditionally pain d'épices did not contain milk or butter, making it a very low fat treat. However the spice cake recipe you find here below contains butter and eggs and does not use the pâte-mère technique, making it a practical and popular alternative for home cooks of today. It is taken from the reference cookbook: Décors et Recettes de Noël by Simone Morgenthaler.

Pain aux épices- Spice cake// Lebküeche (in Alsatian)

Preheat oven to 350° F. Butter and flour 2 loaf pans of 22cm

Dough:
.350 g all-purpose flour
.200 g rye flour
.2 pinches of salt
.10 g of baking powder
.15 g ground cinnamon
.5 g groudn ginger
. 4 g ground anise
. 2 g ground cloves
.2 g ground cardamom
.2 g grated nutmeg
.500 g of pine tree honey
.200 g of golden yellow sugar or muscovado sugar
.200 g butter + 20 g for the pans
. 4 eggs
Optional: 1/2 cup chopped candied orange rinds, roughly chopped

Sift the flours with the sugar, baking powder, spices and salt into a large mixing bowl. Form a well in the middle.
In a medium pan, melt the butter and honey together on very low heat.
Beat the eggs with a fork in a separate bowl. Then add the sugar and the eggs to the mixture, pour in the middle of the well,and start stirring very gently with a wooden spoon.
Mix until well blended. The dough will be stiff and sticky.
Mix in the candied orange peel if you are using it.
Spread dough into the prepared pans (you may need to push on it a bit to get it to fill into the corners).
Optional: Pour les gourmands! Top each pan with orange marmalade and press gently.
Bake for 30 min at 350F, then lower the heat to 300F for another 20 min.
Cool cake thoroughly and cover in plastic wrap to store.

Note: Most people agree that honey spice cake tastes better after it has aged a bit and some will even wait several days before eating it. Wrapped in plastic wrap you can save it at room temperature or in the refrigerator. It also freezes very well.

Spice Cake Serving Suggestions

You will probably enjoy slices of this spice cake recipe just as it is, at tea time or even for breakfast. However, the French like to use pain d'épices in many different preparations. Here are a few ideas:

• Slice and toast, then serve with butter and orange marmalade or lemon curd spread.
• Slice and toast, then serve with savory toppings, such as foie gras (a must!) and cheese - try Roquefort or goat cheese ;)
• Or use this cake to make other desserts where bread is called for. Perhaps to line a charlotte or top a crumble.

Below are our Coco&Co. goodies: winter chutney and spice cakes. I had prepared a bag full of ribbons, raffia string, kraft paper, tags and our special Coco&Co. labels (graphic design by Marco Jacob) created for the occasion. We had a lot of fun wrapping up our gifts for Christmas!

We will keep an excellent memory of this cooking session! The participants' warmth and festive spirit, plus the unpredictable effects of mulled wine turned it all into a memorable get-together party. There must have been some wine in that wine, as Marco said...

Bravo Coco & Co.!

Nose deep into chocolate! Le nez dans les Truffes!

Getting ready for the Holidays...Ready, steady, GO!

This year, I did not make the whole wreath myself, shame on me! I actually found the perfect basic wreath made of evergreens. So I just needed to add pine cones, holly, and yew ornaments, tie a ribbon that I had saved from a Williams & Sonoma gift, and Tada! Look, here it is, crowning our door!

These last few weeks I've been busy baking Xmas goodies, or looking for gingerbread, chocolate mousse, or chocolate truffles recipes. But today, I have decided to get back to the surface, and started to deck the halls for Christmas. Yeah! Get out, breathe the air! I was on a mission : find a good wreath, made of natural evergreens - a symbol for the strength of life- and bring it back home, intact!

Christmas wreath? Checked! I am very happy with it, the perfect accent to our home during the holidays...as they say. I believe so.

Christmas tree and nativity scene? I failed. Still to be found...Well, I will take Marco to St Lawrence Market this Sunday, and we will methodically hunt down the valley of Christmas-land to find THE tree and crèche (nativity scene) of our dreams.

OK. Time to chill out and go gaga together for this season's decadent choco truffles. I get easily carried away with the enchantment of Xmas preparations, I must confess...

Recipe based on Trish Deseine's recipe. Watch the video ...

Trish Deseine performs her magic and shows us the way to basic truffles.

This other one is quite yummy too. Photos and recipe found in Le Chou de Bruxelles, the food blog of Sigrid, a Belgian in Italy. I love her blog!

Ingredients:
chocolat noir à 70% 200g / dark chocolate
crème fleurette 15cl / liquid cream
beurre 25g /butter
café soluble 1 généreuse càc / 1 big tsp of instant coffee
cardamome en poudre 1 càc /1 tsp of ground cardamom
cacao amer en poudre / bittersweet cocoa powder, for decoration

.Chauffer la crème avec le beurre jusqu'à ébulition.
.Ajouter le café soluble et le cardamome, bien mélanger puis verser sur le chocolat cassé en morceaux.
.Laisser reposer à couvert pendant 5 minutes puis mélanger vigoureusement jusqu'à l'obtention d'une ganache bien lisse.
.Laisser figer au frais pendant plusieurs heures, voire une nuit entière.
.Prélever des cuillérées de la ganache figée et façonner les truffes puis les rouler dans le cacao en poudre. Réserver au frais.
Bring the cream and butter almost to a boil. Add the instant coffee and cardamom, stir well, and pour the mixture over the chocolate. Leave to cool for 5 min and then stir firmly to get a smooth ganache. Leave to cool for a couple of hours at least, overnight is even better.
Using your fingers, shape the mixture into small balls and coat them in cocoa powder, dark chocolate, white chocolate....Then chill for about 2 hours.

For the decoration, may I suggest also:
- Dark or white chocolate, in drops, grated, or chopped into small pieces.
- Slivered coconut
- Toasted sesame seeds
- Ground toasted hazelnuts or almonds

Wishing you a merry dip into chocolate for the holiday!

Let's Bourbon up our Marmalade for Xmas!

I have always loved orange marmalade in winter time. To me, it is invariably reminiscent of the holiday season and the traditional full English breakfast that I would occasionally rely on to boost me up on Sunday morning when I lived in England.

So I decided to make marmalade for Christmas...

Pffew! I just finished my first batch of homemade marmalade. That was quite an ordeal. The preparation is a bit long and tedious. I spent about an hour and a half just washing, cutting, squeezing out the juice, putting the seeds and pith in a cheesecloth, and slicing the fruit...
I started with a recipe from the Classic Conran,

...but ended up with the recipe from another cookbook, Simply British!

It took me two cookbooks indeed to get it right! After completing the recipe with the Classic Conran, I ended up with a marmalade that was a bit too rich in big chunks of orange rinds; so I had to seek for help with my French reference cookbook, published by Marabout, and specialized in simple English cuisine. I just needed to empty each jar that I had filled in with the marmalade, boil it all over again, add a small glass of flavourful Bourbon and process the whole with my hand blender. Better! The result is now sheer delight for our taste-buds, an explosion of delicate flavours...
Traditionally savoured on a piece of buttery toast- it is both sweet and bitter, joyful and sinful. Well, it sets us in the mood for Christmas just with one quintessential mouthful!

Here are both recipes, in English and in French, so that you can choose which one you prefer yourself.
Let's start with the English version:

ORANGE MARMALADE
Kate Jenkins
Robertsewns Golden Stitch
Lambs Wool Crochet , 2009
33.5 x 33.5 cm (13.2 x 13.2 ins)

This makes about 8 to 10 jars (enough for a year, pffew!)
6 bitter oranges (preferably organic!)
3 lemons
2 kg granulated sugar (I chose to go for 1kg white and 1kg brown granulated sugar)
1 hand-held blender
Wash the fruit well in warm water, using a stiff brush - a nail brush is ideal.
Place a square of cheesecloth in a basin to catch the seeds and pith. Cut the oranges and lemons in half and squeeze out the juice, putting the seeds in the cloth-lined basin. slice the fruit- thickly for chunky, or finely, or somewhere in between. Put the fruit, the juice and 2 quarts water in a large basin.
Tie up the seeds, add them to the fruit, and allow to soak for 24 hours.
Transfer the contents of the large basin to an 8-to10-quart kettle or pot -but not aluminum- and simmer gently for 2 to 2 1/2 hours (I would recommend that you use the hand-held blender to mix the fruit at that point, i.e before adding the sugar). Meanwhile, warm the sugar in a low oven.
When the fruit and water have reduced by half and the peel is tender, stir in the warm sugar to dissolve it then bring to the boil for about 10 minutes, or until it says "jam" on the sugar thermometer--220*F
Allow the marmalade to cool in the kettle for a good 20 minutes. Pour into hot, sterilized jars and seal tightly.

Suggestion:

At the end, add a small glass of whisky or bourbon! That's what I did, and I don't regret it..I added a small glass of U.S Kentucky Bourbon, Woodford Reserve, Distiller's Select by Labrot & Graham...and it gave to the marmalade such oomph! with its subtle flavours of smoked maple syrup, a 'je ne sais quoi' of strength and delicacy. In a word, it transcended it all!

And now in French:

MARMELADE D'ORANGES

Pour 5 kg de marmelade
1,5 kg d'oranges amères
2 kg de sucre
3,5 l d'eau
le jus de 2 citrons
Environ 8-10 pots de confiture, lavés et séchés au four à basse température.

Lavez les oranges. Coupez-les en 2 et pressez-en le jus. Prélevez le zeste. Retirez la peau blanche, les pépins et placez-les dans une toile de mousseline. Versez le jus dans une casserole avec le zeste, l'eau et la toile de mousseline. Portez à ébullition et laissez cuire 2 heures à feu très doux, jusqu'à ce que l'écorce des oranges soit tendre. Laissez refroidir une nuit.
Le lendemain, ôtez la toile de mousseline après l'avoir pressée.

Mixez le mélange (avec un mixer plongeant ou aussi dit mixer girafe!) en plusieurs fois, quelques secondes, jusqu,à ce que l'écorce soit réduite en petits morceaux irréguliers. Ajoutez le sucre, et ramenez très lentement à ébullition. Laissez bouillir 15 à 20 minutes. La marmelade est prête quand, lorsque vous prélevez un peu de confit d'oranges et le déposez dans une soucoupe, une couche se forme au bout de 1 à 2 minutes. Enlevez l'écume blance de temps en temps. Versez la marmelade dans les pots et attendez qu'elle soit complètement refroidie avant de les fermer.

Suggestion:
En fin de cuisson , vous pouvez ajouter un petit verre de whisky...

Happy marmalade time to you and your family!

HoHoHo...Winter-licious Chutney!

This Christmas, Marco and I have decided to extend my tradition of making homemade gifts to share the joy with our loved ones! We have booked our calendars and invited them over for cooking sessions in order to make their own Christmas gifts. It will all take place in our kitchen, with us, Chez Nous.
Hence, the name of this selection of recipes and gifts that we are going to make, let's call them the Chez Nous products...We are so looking forward to the fun of such future cheering sessions: Winter Chutney, Xmas Granola, orange marmalade, chocolate truffles with sesame seeds, Xmas shortbread cookies, olive oil crackers, and tapenade (Mediterranean olive purée), to name but a few. I will give them all out to you, in due time, of course!
The Chez Nous concept implies that our guests bring the ingredients needed for their own homemade gifts, and I provide the recipes, jars, boxes, labels, fabric bags, etc.
I am still working on the packaging, but as I started today with my first batch of Winter Chutney, I thought I would just share the recipe with you now...

Winterlicious Chutney: Curried Apple and Prune Chutney

Ingredients
2 kg cooking apples
6 cooking onions
500 g pitted prunes (or dates)
10cm piece of fresh ginger
4-8 plump garlic cloves
2 tbsp salt
4 cups of malt or cider vinegar
2-3 tbsp of Madras curry paste (I actually cut it with more spices and put 1 tbsp of cumin seeds, 1 tbsp of turmeric, 1 tbsp of curry and a pinch of cinnamon)
1 kg light brown or muscovado sugar
A selection of nuts & berries, according to your taste: hazelnuts, walnuts, pine nuts, pumpkin seeds, cranberries, currants or any other dried fruit, like a few thinly sliced apricots, for instance.

Makes 4.5 Kg

Honestly, I tend to halve the quantities as my pot is not big enough to contain a larger amount. And 1 Kg of apples is quite enough actually, it already makes up to 7 jars!

1. Peel, core and square the apples. Chop the onions, prunes & ginger & garlic. Put all the ingredients, except the sugar, in a large non-reactive pot, and simmer for 20 min over medium heat until the apples have begun to soften. Add the sugar and simmer for another 5 min stirring occasionally, until the sugar has dissolved.
2. Increase the heat and boil the chutney for 45-50 min, stirring often, until when reduced and thick.
3. Ladle into hot sterilized jars, cover with vinegar-proof seals, and label.

Best served with cold meats, like poultry or pork, or in sandwiches with mature cheddar, Stilton (the traditional British Ploughman sandwich combination works well here, as this chutney easily replaces the pickle or relish), or brie de Meaux cheese.

Getting ready for the season is starting NOW!
What a blast!