December 25, 2020 Thanksgiving with a Difference for Christmas

 December 25, 2020  Thanksgiving with a Difference for Christmas 

My mother not only had a gourmet cooking school, she also wrote a cookbook.  The concept for the cookbook and her school was to provide recipes for an entire meal so students would learn how to creatively plan an entire meal. One of her most elaborate meals was Thanksgiving Dinner. The departure of her menu for Thanksgiving shows her creativity in menu planning with a view to tradition and seasonally available ingredients.

What I present here are the recipes in the menu from mother’s cookbook with a bit of commentary on the adjustments we made in our Christmas dinner. 

  We substituted Cornish game hens for the duck. We did not have fresh figs or wish to use cherries for the sauce, so I used a combination of a fig and port jam plus Suzette’s maraschino syrup that contained Cherry liquor and cognac to dilute the fig jam.  

We used pomelo instead of grapefruit in the fruit salad.

We served the meal like an extended French 5 course meal because we added a pre-appetizer course of fresh yesterday on the half shell.  The only thing lacking was a cheese course after the meal to make a six course meal. 

Shucking the oysters

The oysters Rockefeller being prepped for baking 

A roasted Cornish game hen

 A plated entree 

The finished Oysters Rockefeller

The bombe 

The bubble bread

 

The inside of the bombe

The fruit salad 

The baked oysters Rockefeller

Bob spreading cocktail sauce on a raw oyster 

 

                                                             Making the  Jubilee sauce

 

On Wednesday December 24 I went to 999 Market and purchased 24 oysters and the butcher threw in an additional oyster since that was their last oyster.

At around 10 on Christmas Day we   began the meal by making a cocktail sauce by mixing to taste lemon juice, ½ of a shallot minced, then a ½ T. horseradish, and catsup.  I then sucked the 25 oysters.  Twelve went into a bowl and into the fridge for the oysters Rockefeller and the other thirteen on to a tray filled with ice cubes.

We opened a bottle of Gruet Brut champagne and squeezed some fresh orange juice into champagne flutes and drank mimosas as we ate the oysters.  A lovely first course.  

We had requested that Willy arrive at 1:00 and we cooked from 11:30 until 1:30.  When Willy came he started a fire in the ceramic brazier by the gazebo and brought Robin’s sweet three month old French 

terrier who slept in his dog bed covered by a blanket beside the brazier while we ate the meal.Suzette made 12 oysters Rockefeller.  She undercooked them by about three or four minutes which prevented the sour cream from going into solution with the spinach.  They were still delicious and the oysters were cooked, so it was a almost successful dish.

Everything else was first rate.  We roasted the Cornish game hens on Spandex cookers in the oven with the baked acorn squash.  I made the pecan and onion fried rice and it dried out a bit as it sat on the stove in its iron skillet, but I enjoyed its more toasted nutty flavor.

We served the last of the Gruner Vetliner ($5.99 at Trader Joe’s) and then I opened the 2018 Melon of Bourgogne produced by De Ponte Winery in the DundeeHills of Oregon’s Willamette Valley $21.00. 

  Each dish was plated with ½ of a roasted game hen sauced with the Jubilee sauce, some fried rice, ½ of baked acorn squash filled with green peas and a piece of the wonderful yeasted bubble bread Willy made with two risings.

We were so full we could not eat Mother’s Pumpkin Bombe  dessert until in the evening when Willy returned to open gifts.

 It was one of the greatest meals ever and a tribute to mother who taught me how to cook. 

Bon Appetit