From Suq to Shuk

New Year's Goose with Elad

Another yum!  A few days before New Years, a bunch of listened as Gonzalo, a Spaniard visiting Tel Aviv during a break from his studies in Budapest, describe the Spanish tradition of consuming 12 grapes at midnight, one for each gong that rumbled from the church towers across the country and also played on national television.  Leemor decided that we ought to replicate that tradition here.  We went to the Shuk to buy a number of thing, but alas grapes are out of season in Israel.  So we purchased some raisins and I brought them home and after washing them, left them in a jar with some courvoiser and poire williams and a bit of water to infuse.  Rather than 12 grapes at midnight, we would swallow twelve slightly alcoholic raisins each.  Unfortunately no one knew what the intended purpose of the raisins in the jar was and as a result next to none were eaten.  I returned home with 90% of my raisins uneaten and decided to cook them instead.

Several days earlier I had bought some goose legs at the Russian supermarket in the Shuk.  Russians traditionally eat goose on New Years and so the large supply meant cheaper prices than usual.  I defrosted them for 24 hours, render out some fat, fried a few onions in that fat and then combined it all with a bit of duck stock.  I poured the raisins and onions into a pyrex roasting pan and lay the browned goose legs on top.  Left in the oven for about 2.5 hours, the skin was perfectly crispy, the meat incredibly tender, and the combination of alcohol and sugars in the raisins left a perfectly caramelised accompaniment.  Elad came over and we ate some goose, watched some Star Trek and had an excellent New Year's Day dinner. Enjoy.

Ingredients:

1 lb of golden raisins

1.5 cups of courvoisier (or other brandy)

1/2 cup poire william brandy

water as necessary

2 goose legs, fresh or defrosted

1 spanish onion, sliced radially

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp cloves

1/2 cup duck stock

S+P to taste

Directions:

Combine the raisins with the alcohol in a jar then add enough water to cover the raisins by 1".  Allow to infuse for at least 24 hours.

Pre-heat oven to 350F/175C.  Heat a large cast iron skillet over medium for about 3 minutes.  Add the goose legs, skin side down, into the pan and allow to render fat and brown the skin for 4-5 minutes.  Flip them over and brown the flesh side for a minute or so and remove to a plate.  Enter the onion into pan and lower the head to medium-low.  Sauté for 8 minutes, then add the cinnamon and cloves.  Add the raisins and then immediately add the duck stock.  All to come to a simmer.  Pour mixture into a pyrex roasting pan, place the goose legs skin side up atop the raisins and onions.  Sprinkle S+P genergous over the whole thing then wrap tightly with tin-foil. Place in the oven.  After 1.75 hours remove from the oven, remove tinfoil, return to the oven and lower to 325F/160C.  Remove after 45 minutes. Serve immediately with your favourite mashed potatoes recipe. B'Teavon!

Birthday Standing Rib Roast

A bit over two weeks ago I turned 24.  Last year I made an incredibly elaborate meal for my birthday of roasted duck breast, foie gras, with all sorts of sauces and accompaniments.  This year, I decided to return to my favourite meal growing up: standing rib roast.  For most of my life, this meal came accompanied by mashed potatoes, gravy and an apple pie for dessert.  Having consumed far more mashed potatoes than is healthy two weeks earlier for Thanksgiving, and given the fact that my birthday fell on the last night of Hannukah, I decided to make latkes instead.  Rather than go through the extensive preparation that duck requires, a standing rib roast requires very little work.  Its one aspect that keeps me from preparing it with more frequency is its relatively high price.  For my birthday, I was permitted to treat myself.

My butcher cleaned the roast beautifully and gave me a few pieces of beef fat to leave atop the roast such that it would baste itself.  I covered it with a bit of salt and pepper and allowed the oven to do the rest.  Meanwhile, I prepared a mustard-peppercorn-cream sauce and got to work grating my potatoes.  I was joined by my roommate Tal and my good friend Leemor and we delved into our delectable affair.  If you're looking to have a special occasion on which you spend a bit more money, but don't want to go through too much work, this is an excellent choice.

Ingredients:

For the meat

1 4 rib standing rib roast (about 2.5k)

a few bits of beef fat

1 leek, white part only, sliced in half and bits pulled apart (optional)

3/4 cup duck stock (optional)

For the sauce

2 tbls of green peppercorns, soaked in water for 1.5 hours then strained

1 shallot, minced

1 cup of brandy (I used courvoisier)

2 tbls of dijon mustard

1 cup of 15% cream

S+P to taste

For the latkes

2 lbs of potatoes, peeled and grated (large gauge) into a bowl of water with the juice of 1 lemon

1 grated onion (optional)

2 eggs

all-purpose white flour (as much as needed)

S+P

lots of vegetable oil

Directions.

Pre-heat oven to max.  If you choose to use the leaks and ducks stock, place them in the bottom of a roast pan and then place the rack on top of them.  Cover the roast in salt and pepper, then place it atop the rack.  Place the pieces of fat atop the bones and then wrap the top of the bones tightly in tin foil.  Place the roast in the oven for 20 minutes, then lower the heat to 190C/375F.  Remove after 40-50 minutes, or once a thermometer reads 165F in the interior.  Transfer to a warmed platter, tent with tin-foil and allow to rest for 30 minutes.  Slice and serve.

Combine the shallot and brandy in a sauce pan and bring to a simmer over medium-low heat.  Once simmering, add the peppercorns and cook until the shallots are soft.  If the brandy has evaporated before the shallots are soft, then add a bit of water until the shallots have reach the right consistency.  Add the mustard and cream, whisk well, and allow to simmer for another 5 minutes.  Serve immediately.

Completely strain the potatoes so that there is as little liquid in the bowl as possible.  Beat the eggs with salt and pepper in the bottom of a large bowl and add the potatoes, then mix well.  Dust with flour so that the top is just barely covered, then mix in.  If too liquid, add a bit more flour.  Heat a cast iron skillet over medium heat and allow to heat through.  Add about enough oil to the pan so it comes about 1/8" up the sides.  Add a test latke to the pan, one serving spoon full, and form in the pan.  The first latke usually doesn't come out very well, so continue to prepare them in batches until the batter is done.  Transfer each batch to a plate lined with paper towel and leave in a warm oven until ready to serve.

B'Teavon!

Bruschetta for the New Year

Although I neither attended nor prepared a large meal for Rosh HaShana, I decided to make something light but satisfying that was representative of the season and the holiday.  At the end of the summer we have the most beautiful tomatoes in Israel, and I was pining for some bruschetta.  Traditionally on Rosh HaShanah, we dip apples in honey to commemorate the sweetness of the new coming year.  While I forewent the honey, I decided to incorporate apples into my bruschetta.  I combined the apples with the usual ingredients for a bruschetta - tomatoes, shallots, basil, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  To give it an extra kick I used chilli infused olive oil and added some mint for freshness.  Rather than adding minced garlic to the mix, I used the typical Italian technique of scraping the toast with garlic to impart its intense raw flavour.  Unfortunately the apples that looked best were Gala apples and they were somewhat mealier than the Pink Ladies that I would have preferred.  Try to make this recipe with a hard apple like Pink Lady or McIntosh.  It's a simple thing to prepare and quite delicious.  Enjoy!

  

Ingredients:

1 ciabatta, sliced diagonally into 1/4" thick pieces

1 large clove of garlic

1 large gala apple, cored and 1/4" dice

3 roma tomatoes, cored and 1/4" dice

1 shallot, finely chopped

10 large basil leaves, finely chopped

10 mint leaves, finely chopped

1 tbls of chilli infused olive oil

2 tsp of high quality balsamic vinegar

S+P to taste

Directions:

Pre-heat the oven to 190C/375F.  Toast the bread in the oven for 10 minutes.  Remove and allow to cool.  Turn off the oven.  Once cool, scrape one side of each slice of toast with the garlic and set aside.

Combine all other ingredients in a bowl and toss well ensuring that everything is evenly coated.  Place atop the toast and serve.  B'Teavon!

Pesah Seder

Monday night Lior and I traveled to Moshav Yoq'nam for the Passover Seder.  Outside of Israel, Passover lasts eight days and there is a seder on both the first and second night of the holiday.  In Israel, Pesah is one day shorter and there is only seder.  More than any other Jewish holiday, Pesah is not only about the traditional and symbolic food but brings families and friends together to eat in large numbers.  The seder that we attended had 40 guests present.  The hosts of the seder, Micha and Yael, did a tremendous juggling act to seat and serve all of us, especially Yael, who barely had time to sit and eat.

I had been to two seders in Israel prior to this year.  The first was at our family friends' Yoav and Ruti's home in Li-on.  Yoav is Ashkenazi and Ruti Sephardi and the two traditions were amply present at the seder with some (myself included) a bit unsure of which tune to sing.  The second seder I attended was at our family friends' the Bohbots in Kiryat Gat, who are an entirely Moroccan family.  While the food was incredibly different from the food I traditionally at with my family at passover, the religious aspect seemed even more foreign.  Moroccans take their duty to read every word of the Hagadah seriously, and so we rushed to read as quickly as possible so we could get to the important act of eating.  The food was spicy and there was certainly no gefilte fish to be found.

Monday night was not only the seder, but also the host Micha's 70th birthday.  The large number of guests had come to celebrate that affair as well as the holiday, and before beginning to read from the Hagadah, several family members and friends made speeches to their father, uncle and friend Micha for well wishes on his birthday.  Micha preceeded to thank everyone for coming, and gave special thanks to his wife Yael for making their life together possible, after which she said thank you and took the only break of the night, whence she sat down and read with everyone from the Hagadah.

This was my first purely Ashkenazi seder in Israel, and not only was it Ashkenazi, it was on a Moshav (an agricultural community) where most of the family members present were also neighbors and each guest had brought a dish, usually from across the yard.  "Seder" means "order", with the idea that one person after the other, in order, reads from the Hagadah.  We did so dutifully up until the part where it's permitted to eat, and by the end of the meal we'd forgotten the second half of the Hagadah.  The traditional seder plate was set atop multiple tables with the requisite lamb shank, hard boiled, celery leaves (in my home we used parsley), salt water, horseradish and haroset (for Ashkenazim a mix of apples, walnuts honey and red wine) there to represent their individual symbolisms for the suffering and freedom we had come to celebrate of the Passover Exodus.

This year many dishes I had grown up with (though not necessarily eaten), were present.  Gefilte fish, Ahskenazi harosset, horseradish dyed florescent pink from beats, matzo ball soup and brisket.  There were a few things that I'd never before seen at an Ashkenazi seder, such as majadera (a dish of lebanese origin of rice, fried onions and lentils) and cheese cake for dessert.  There was also waldorf salad, which was grated and made with celery root rather than celery and was quite tasty, and another good salad of apples, fennel and currants.  Unfortunately my pictures didn't turn out as they usually would amongst the commotion of 40 diners, but here they are, to share a bit of my Pesah Seder.

Chag Sameach everyone!

        

Curry crusted chicken breast with a Sephardic style haroset

Although mostly recently I've been cooking some very exotic food, I've been attempting to cook Israeli "cuisine", so to speak based, on the fresh produce I buy in the Shuk.  Certainly there is a huge variety and one could cook using only fresh product here, but that's not actually true to the Israeli culinary tradition.  Israel is an ethnically diverse society of immigrants and their offspring all of whom have greatly influenced Israeli cuisine.  BT suggested that I try to present more dishes that are more in tune with the Shuk than with the Asian grocery store.

 The truth is that Jews have been involved in the spice trade for centuries.  While Ashkenazi cuisine is far more similar to Eastern European, Moroccan Jewish cuisine is practically identical to that of their former Muslim compatriots, as is the case for the Iraqi, Iranian, Bukharan, Ethiopian, Turkish communities.  These cuisines rely heavily on a great number of spices and ingredients that don't make their way into traditional Ashkenazi meat and potato dishes.

My intention, last night, was to make a cream sauce, and I even went out and bought some cream, that was never used.  I had about 1 tbls left of the spice mixture from the lentil soup made two days prior, and I knew I would somehow incorporate it into the meal.  I started by making the sauce, at whose intermediate stage I decided was finished.  This particular dish is not kosher, because I made the sauce with butter and duck stock, and pan fried the chicken in ghee, but it's nonetheless in that culinary tradition.

Haroset, is a dish traditionally served on Passover that represents the mortar of the bricks the Hebrew slaves laid in Egypt, and is bound with wine to represent the blood we spilled.  Traditional Ashkenazi haroset is made with apples, walnuts honey and wine.  I've encountered a number of Moroccan variations of Haroset that always include wine as well, but alternately contain dates, bananas, figs and even one with mango.  It was not my intention to make a Haroset tasting sauce out of my ingredients, but I did, and it tasted really good, so I went with it.

This is SO yummy!  Make it at home, it's not too difficult.

Ingredients:

1.5 tbls butter

3 tomatoes, cored, seeded and diced

1/2 red onion, diced

the pulp only of 5 figs

2 tsp of harissa

1/4 cup of duck or chicken stock

1/4 cup of red wine

1 tbls Ghee

1 chicken breast

1 tbls curry spice mixture (see post on Lentil soup with Papaya and Blood Oranges)

2 tbls flour

S+P

Directions:

Melt butter in a sauce pan over low heat.  Add onions and raise to medium-low.  Sweat for about ten minutes, they should start to become translucent but not caramelised.  Add the harissa and mix in well.  After about 2 minutes, add the duck stock.  After 4 minutes, add the red wine.  Bring this to a simmer.  Combine the diced tomatoes and the fig pulp in a bowl.  Slowly add the tomato and fig mixture to the pot, a little at time such that you allow the mixture to come back to a simmer after every addition of ingredients.  Once all the ingredients have been added, and the pot has been brought back to a simmer, cover the pot and turn of the heat.  Reheat on low heat with the lid on for 5 minutes before serving.

Pre-heat the oven to 175C/350F.  Combine the spice mixture with the flour and S+P, then dust the chicken in it, shaking off excess.  Heat the ghee in a cast iron skillet over medium.  Once hot, add the chicken, 2 minutes on each side, then move the skillet to the oven for 5 minutes.  Remove from the oven and remove the chicken from the pan, place in tinfoil, wrap, and allow to rest for 3-4 minutes, then slice and plate with the haroset.

B'Teavon!

  

Hannukah: Brisket with purple and orange latkes, purple mashed potatoes and a carrot salad

So the oil will indeed last for 8 days, the miracle being attributed to my parents.  On the first night of Hannukah I deep fried gyoza, unintentionally invoking the Hannukah spirit.  A while I ago I wrote about my purchase of purple potatoes and asked readers for input.  Well in the light of the present festival, I decided to make purple latkes.  Latkes are a traditional Ashkenazi (Eastern European Jewish) dish that is made of grated potatoes, eggs and flour (known to many as potato pancakes), that fried in oil.  Variations include grated onion, garlic, parsley and substituting potatoes for sweet potatoes.  They can be skillet fried (but make sure you've got lots of oil), or deep fried.

A few years ago, when I live in Jerusalem, I came to Tel Aviv to have a Hannukah dinner with my friends, Shira and Liat.  I made the latke batter just like my mother, but the latkes just weren't holding together.  Upon discussing the incident after the failure, my mother explained to me that you've got to give up all notions of being healthy, and have them half submerged in hot oil for the whole thing to work.  I've since made latkes to accompany dishes that are not whatsoever eaten in December, but last night's endeavor was seasonally appropriate.  Latkes are not as common in Israel as they are in the US.  Here the most popular tradtional Hannukah treat is a jelly doughnut, or "sufganiah" (pronounced, soof-gan-ya).  They tend to vary in quality.

I woke up yesterday in Jerusalem after going to see my friend Oren, and we went to the Shuk first thing in the morning.  I saw some interesting melon, which upon further inspection turned out to be some type of squash.  I bought beautiful grapes!  These two worked their way into last night's dinner.  After exiting Mahane Yehuda (the Jerusalem Shuk, which is superior to the Tel Aviv Shuk), we passed by the famous bakery "Marzipan" and bought some sufganiot.  They were filled with the sweetest jelly I have ever tasted.  Later, upon returning to Tel Aviv, I stopped in the bakery nearest my house which is WONDERFUL.  There the jam was perfect as was the doughnut.

I decided to make two kinds of latkes and use the purple potatoes two ways.  We had purple latkes, orange squash latkes and purple mashed potatoes.  A few days earlier I had left some dried figs to marinate in Darjeeling tea to potentially incorporate them into that night's dish.  Having not used them, they say in the fridge for a few days and I added them to my brisket.  Brisket is a great piece of meat to roast because of the fat that surrounds it.  DON'T CUT OFF THAT FAT.  Not too much of it at least.  The meat came out so perfectly, I'm thrilled to know there's still some left over in the fridge.  The salad was derived from advice from my mother on what I could do with the contents of my fridge without going out to buy more.  I peeled and grated all the potatoes, but the actual frying was executed by my friends Asaf and Ilan, whose help was much appreciated.  All in all, it was a great Hannukah meal.

Ingredients:

1 brisket, about 2 lbs

8 dried figs

3/4 cup darjeeling tea

2 pounds purple potatos, peeled and grated (largest gauge)**

1 yukon gold potato, peeled and grated (largest gauge)

1/2 long carnival squash (if not available, use butternut), peeled, grated (largest gauge)

4 eggs

flour to cover

1/4 liter of vegetable oil

3 tbls salt

2 tbls pepper

1/3 cup of milk

30 grams of butter

1 large carrot

20 champagne grapes, sliced in half

10, coarsely chopped

sugar, S+P and white wine/champagne vinegar, as needed

** when grating the purple potatoes, before you come even close to grating your knuckles into the mix, throw the rest of the potato in a sauce pan with some water.  Do this for each purple potato to have enough to make the purple mashed potatoes.

Directions:

Make a cup of darjeeling tea, put figs in a small bowl and pour over tea.  Cover in cellophane and leave to marinate in the fridge over night.

Pre-heat oven to 175C/350F.  Cut your brisket in two against the grain.  Cover with S+P.  One side should have significantly more fat than the other.  Place one piece, fat side up, in a dutch oven (heavy metal pot with a lid), then place the figs on top of the that piece and lay the second piece atop that, also fat side up.  Pour in the remaining tea from the bowl into the pot, place in the oven.  After 2 hours, lower the heat to 162C/325F.  Leave for 1 more hour then turn off the heat and leave in the oven while you prepare the latkes.

In one bowl, combine grated yukon gold potato with the grated squash, two eggs 1.5 tbls salt, and 1 tbls pepper.  Mix well with your hands.  Dust flour atop the mixture so that it is covered in a thin layer, then incorporate that with your hands.  Do the same with the grated purple potatoes.

Take your saucepan with the extra purple potatoes, bring to a boil, and allow to simmer until soft while you start to fry the latkes.

Heat a cast iron skillet or large frying pan over medium heat, and pour in enough oil so that it comes about 1/2" up the pan.  Form a compact ball of latke mixture in your hands, drop in oil and flatten a bit with a spatula.  This first test latke will let you know if the oil is hot enough or if something needs to be added to the batter.  Judging that, I'm afraid, comes with experience.  After your test batch of latkes and potentially changing the heat, fry all the batter in batches, leave each latke about 3-4 minutes on one side and 2 minutes on the other.  As each batch of latkes absorbs oil, add more oil to the pan as necessary, and allow to get hot before entering in a new batch.  Transfer to a plate covered in paper towel, and keep the latkes in the oven to stay warm.

Once boiling potatoes are so soft they far apart if touched with a fork, strain and mash completely in the pot, before adding butter, milk and S+P to taste.

With a vegetable peeler, discard the exterior of the carrot but then continue peeling, leaving the ribbons in a mixing bowl.  Rotate the carrot as your peel always in one direction, until you've peeled it down to the lighter colour core.  Stop peeling when you've reached the core.  Arrange carrots on plate, top with grapes and pecans, 1/2 tsp of sugar, a few drops of champagne vinegar and S+P to taste.

B'Teavon and Happy Hannukah!

Happy Birthday to Me - with roasted duck and foie gras

Today I turn 23 years old, but I'll be in school all day and don't have time to cook so I made myself and some friends a fantastic birthday dinner last night.  To any frequent readers it will come as no surprise that I bought a duck for my birthday.  I bought a frozen foie gras in August that had been sitting in my freezer ever since.  I told myself that if now was not a good time to defrost it and turn it into a terrine, then I don't know what is.

I took some inspiration for this meal from Tom Colicchio's "Think Like a Chef".  In it, Colicchio waxes prophetic about the holy trinity of duck, apples and root vegetables.  I went to the Shuk and bought some Pink Lady apples, celeriac, parsnips and sunchoke.  I had bought the duck the day before in the flooded Shuk and took it out in the morning to defrost.  When I opened the bag I noticed that I had a damaged product.  The ends one of the legs had been broken off and the there was a gash in one of the joints between the legs and the breast.  I stuffed my bird and made all sorts of loops with my kitchen twine to be able to truss it.  Roasted the bird for an hour, during which time I pushed my roasted root vegetables through a tamis (not that fun, but with a wonderful result).  I made a blackberry balsamic sauce and Ilan brought over cornbread.

All of the recipes dealing with foie gras say the same thing: make sure your hands don't warm up the foie as you work it.  Do you know how hard that is?!  I found myself dropping pieces of foie gras onto the cutting board as they began to soften in my hand out of fear that I was taking it a little too far.  I then slightly overcooked the terrine, but the result was nonetheless delicious, even if my terrine did shrink up in the fat as it cooled.  Teach me not to use a bain-marie again.

My friend Jordana arrived a little late, and Ilan and I had already finished our duck legs.  We all had foie gras toasts with the left over kumquat chutney, and then a simple salad of mesclun and figs with balsamic and extra virgin olive oil.  Needless to say I ate too much - too much foie gras at least.

I am so happy with the colours on last night's plates, it was in itself a birthday gift.  The recipe for the foie gras didn't go exactly as planned, so while I'll enjoy eating it, the recipe won't appear here I'm afraid.  The salad was as simple as listed above, so here's the rest.

Ingredients:

1 4 pound duck, cleaned and feathered, and excess fat removed from the cavity

1 leek, white part only and chopped

1 cup of chopped celery

4 mini lemons cut in 4, or 1 1/2 large lemon cut into small pieces

2 tsp time

2 tsp marjoram

4 Pink Lady apples, peeled

2 small celeriac, or 1 large celeriac, peeled

3 medium parsnips, peeled

1 fennel bulb, diced

3 cups of chicken stock

2 cups of frozen blackberry

1 tbls balsamic vinegar

1 tbls rasberry brandy

2 tbls sugar

2 tbls water

30 cherry tomatoes, yellow and red

1 tbls of olive oil

salt and pepper

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 175C/350F.  Core the apple by cuting of the flesh in three parts such that you're left with a triangular core.  Cut each piece for.  Cut equal sized piecs of celeriac, and parsnips to the extent that you can, combine all ingredients in a roasting pan with the diced fennel and chicken stock, and braise for 90 minutes.  Remove and mash with a potato masher, then transfer in batches to a tamis, pushing it all through and discarding the fibrous leftovers.

Stuff your bird with the lemons, leek, celery, thyme and marjoram, drizzled with a little olive oil first.  Truss your bird and brown it in frying pan over medium heat on all side.  Raise the temperature on your oven to 190C/375F.  Transfer duck to a roast pan, and roast for one hour.  Remove from the oven, pour out all the rendered duck fat and tent the duck with tinfoil.

Raise the temperature to maximum and set the oven on broil.  Combine cherry tomatoes with olive oil, s+p in a roasting pan and roast for ten minutes on the top rack.  Combine Blackberries, balsamic, brandy, sugar and water in a sauce pan, and allow to reduce over medium-low heat for about 20 minutes.

Transfer your duck to a cutter board and carve.  Leave your plates in the oven to get warm, then remove and top with purée, a slice of Ilan's cornbread, and duck.  Place the cherry tomatoes around, and sauce.

B'Teavon!

Thanksgiving, Part 2

So I did it, just as promised.  I made Thanksgiving dinner for myself, and while all was hot, I was the only one to taste.  Frankly, I did a great job.  And, like a dutiful American, I have a lot left over, and people will attest through those left over as to the deliciousness of my one-man Thanksgiving.

The menu was changed slightly from the one promised yesterday as I could not find brussel sprouts.  Instead, I made a butternut squash soup, that with gravy was my favourite item of the night.  I wasn't very meticulous in my  measurements last night, it all just sort of came together.  So For the butternut squash I'll give a full recipe down below, the rest I'll describe.

So I started with my chestnuts, roasted about a 1 lb. for half an hour.  Then, stupid me, forgot to slit them open, and they started exploding!  That was great.  I mean it.  I enjoyed.  I transferred them form the hot baking pan in which they were siting to a cool bowl, took out my pestel, and gave each chestnut a sharp blow to let the air out and keep them from exploding further.  I dug out all my chest nuts from their shells, and set them aside.

Then I seared my turkey in a little bit of olive oil.  I layered a roasting pan with leeks, carrots and parsnips and garlic (I LOVE BRAISED LEEKS).  I then laid my seared turkey breast above that, poured in chicken stock to cover the vegetables, wrapped it all tightly in tinfoil and left in a 150 C degree oven.  I left it in the upper half of the oven, and throughout the afternoon roasted a butternut squash, and three apples.

I made my soup (recipe to follow).  Without cleaning the pan in which I seared the turkey breast, I added a little more olive oil and then added the trimmings I'd taken off the bird with two wings that I bought.  I got everything good and brown and then deglazed the pan with some Jack Daniels, and poured in chicken stock to cover, I then let this reduce by half over low heat for about two hours with a lid partially on.  I strained that liquid, then boiled my chestnuts and roasted apple in it for about ten minutes, and added a fair bit of water.  I then puréed that until it was perfectly fine (no need for straining).  I cleaned out the original turkey frying pan, and made a roux.  I made quite a lot roux.  It turns out, however, that it was the perfect amount of roux, for all that liquidy turkey stock and apples and chestnuts that I was slowly whisk into it.   The result was positively the best gravy, I've ever had.

Now here's the recipe for a really excellent soup.  I paid tribute to both the natives who saved the white people in Plymouth or whatever... as well as the Indians for whom we mistook them.

Ingredients:

1 large butternut squash, cut in two lengthwise and seeded

2 tbls of butter

1 tsp yellow mustard seeds

1/4 tsp fenugreek

1/2 tsp cumin

1 tsp corriander

1/2 tsp pink pepper corns

1 large onion, medium dice

2 large carrots, sliced into discs

3 large cloves of garlic, minced

1 inch of ginger, peeled and minced

2 tlbs triple sec

1 large yukon gold potato. medium dice

4 cups of chicken stock

1/2 lime

water, milk, salt and pepper, all to taste

Directions:

1.  Coat your butternut squash in olive oil and salt, leaving it face down on a tinfoil lined baking sheet. Roast for about 45 minutes, in a 350 degree oven.  Remove from oven and peel away the skin.

2.  Melt butter over medium heat, add all of your whole spices.  when the mustard seeds begin to pop, add your diced onion.  All onion to brown, stirring occasionally, about 12 minutes.  Move onions to the side of the pan and add carrots.  Allow to brown on one side, about 4 minutes.  Deglaze with triple sec.

3.  Add your chicken stock, and let simmer for about 4 minutes.  Add enough water to double the height of the liquids in the pot.  Then add your diced potato.  After 5 minutes, at roughly chopped butternut squash.

4.  Let simmer for about 5 minutes, then purée the hell out of it.  When smooth, you may chose to strain through a chinois for that perfect perfect texture, or not.  I didn't last night, but have in the past.  If straining, reheat your soup, then add the juice of 1/2 lime, milk, salt and pepper to taste.

B'Teavon