Lesson Learned: Christmas Dinner 2010

So I’ve been thinking about starting a new section on my blog called Lesson Learned. A place for me to share insights and lessons learned from my kitchen adventures. I think this year’s Christmas dinner is a good place to start. So here it is, the first edition of Lesson Learned. I have four lessons to share, plus I will be posting two recipes from Christmas dinner, the Winter Squash Soup and the Apple & Cranberry Oat Crumble. About the crumble my Dad said, “I could eat a little of that every day for the rest of my life.”

But first, I want to say how much I enjoyed preparing this meal with my sister, we truly rock in the kitchen together! We prepped everything in Erin’s, relatively small, apartment kitchen, and then finished the meal at our aunt’s house, in a kitchen full of family, food and wine. I had a blast!

We made a few changes to the original menu. We had prime rib instead of filet of beef, we had fingerling potatoes instead of New potatoes, and we had shallots instead of cipollini onions. We bought what looked good. I think it is important to stay flexible and to buy what is fresh and in season.

Lesson 1: Frying cheese

So our original plan to make warm goat cheese crostini did not work out, we were unable to find the goat cheese crottin. Our new plan was to roll fresh goat cheese balls in panko and then pan-fry them. At first we tried frying them in olive oil and it didn’t work, so we tried butter, still no luck, they were a mess in the pan. Finally we sprayed a baking sheet and stuck them in the oven under the broiler for a few minutes This worked but they didn’t have that fried goodness we were looking for. So what went wrong? I think I know the answer. We should have put the goat cheese balls in the freezer before we tried to fry them. This would have allowed the breadcrumbs to crisp and would have created a warm gooey center, plus they wouldn’t have stuck to the pan so badly. So lesson learned: When frying cheese in a pan, freeze it for a few hours first. Really I already knew this; I would never deep fry breaded cheese without freezing it first, the same principle applies to pan frying. 

Lesson 2:  Sticking with a classic

For years our family has been making a summer squash casserole for holiday meals. A mix of yellow summer squash, zucchini, onions, and carrots, combined with a couple cans of cream of mushroom soup and sour cream. Stuffing mix and melted butter are combined to make a crispy topping. Delicious, but not exactly gourmet. So this year I wanted to keep zucchini on the menu but I wanted to make a more “sophisticated” dish. So we made Ina Garten’s Zucchini Gratin, good but nothing special. So what did I learn? I learned that sometimes an old classic, even if less sophisticated, is often better. The gratin wasn’t bad, but it lacked much of the depth that we all love about the summer squash casserole. I’ll be switching back to the casserole for future holiday meals, not every dish needs a foodie flare. 

Lesson 3: Better with butter

I love Brussels sprouts and for a year now I’ve been making them by frying them in rendered bacon fat for a few minutes (until they start to brown) and then simmering them in chicken stock for about 30 minutes (until tender). Well for Christmas dinner one of our eaters was a vegetarian, so I used melted butter to fry the sprouts instead of bacon fat. Well guess what? They were way better! Not a hint of the bitterness that keeps many from eating this lovely vegetable. Butter it is from now on.

Lesson 4: Egg size matters

For dessert, one of the things we made were profiteroles. These pastries are a French dessert made with “pâte à choux” dough (a light pastry dough used for éclairs, profiteroles, beignets, and croquembouches) baked into little puffs, which are then sliced in half and served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream in each puff and chocolate sauce drizzled over the top.  I’ve made the pâte à choux dough before, half a dozen times at least. Every time I have used large eggs, but my sister had bought extra-large eggs and I hadn’t noticed, so the dough was too wet and the puffs wouldn’t puff. We ended up scraping that batch used two fewer eggs and voila! C’est magnifique! Lesson learned: 8 large eggs are equal to 6 (or 7) extra-large eggs.