Dec/080
Chris cooks Christmas
Inspired by the boy Hugh F-W, I'm cooking Christmas for 6-8 of my friends this year. An epic shopping trip to Carrefour in Sallanches on one of the busiest days of the year wasn't the most fun, but later in the day I picked up the goose from the artisan butcher in Chamonix. Analltogether more civilised experience. Sitting on my kitchen table, the goose looks like a big bastard and to be honest it scares me a little. It doesn't scare the cat, though. She got so excited I had to lock her in the bedroom while to calm down while I dealt with the goose.
The first job was to take off it's legs and cure them for 24 hours or so in a mixture of salt & pepper, garlic, bay and thyme. Later the legs will be slowly cooked in goose fat to make a traditional French confit.
The crown of the goose is going to be filled with a chestnut stuffing and roasted on Christmas day, along with the potatoes done with goose fat, the usual veg and a proper goose-stock based gravy.
The first course is a soup. Cream of Jerusalem Artichoke with a parsley and chestnut pesto dabbed through it (thanks Hugh). I was a bit worried about finding the Artichoke things here in France. Mostly because I had no idea what I was looking for, never having heard of them before. Turns out it's quite a popular vegetable here in France. They call it topinambour. Who knew?
And for desert it's a poached pear tart with vanilla ice-cream. Washed down with what will probably be a good chunk of the 24 bottles of wine I got from my mate the other day (he runs a chalet and has a nose for putting delicious wine on his punter's table at very little cost to himself), I'm hoping Christmas dinner is going to go down well.
It's certainly the most adventurous meal I've ever attempted. Starting preparing a meal several days before serving feels a little strange, but hopefully everything will come together without stress on Christmas evening and I'll be able to enjoy eating it as much as I'll enjoy making it.
