The Life and Times of One T. Andre

Roast Goose

tandre07 — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 02:47:34 +0000

Christmas 2009 I cooked a roast goose for my friends who, like me were stranded in Miami, without family to spend the holiday with. I had for a long time wanted to try roasting a goose so I had finally done it. I hadn’t even tasted goose before making it that first time, so it was an adventure. It was generally a success, though the bird I got was a little large, so a bit on the tough side for goose, though the lovely fat the bird produced was used for about 3 or 4 months. I gave most of it to my guests at the dinner, and kept a little 8 oz. container for myself. I made some really lovely potatoes with it. I plan on using the saved fat from this year’s goose for that purpose for New Year’s Eve.

Beatriz’s mother had heard about my goose exploits and was keen on me making it for our noche buena dinner this year. I was more than happy to oblige (I had obviously forgotten how much work was involved before I readily agreed).

This year’s goose was tremendous, much better than 2009 even. I believe the bird I got was of higher quality (free range, no hormones or antibiotics), and it was a bit smaller (10 lbs versus 12 or 13 lbs), so the goose was tender and delicious. I made a traditional gravy using red wine and goose stock.

Roast Goose:

Ingredients:
1 10 lb goose
2 onions
2 apples
1 cup of prunes
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup of Calvados (you can use brandy or cognac)
1 cinnamon stick
salt and pepper to taste
2-3 tbs Chinese five spice powder
1 cup red wine
chicken stock (you can use water)
bay leaf

Method: Fill large pot 3/4 full with water. Bring to a boil. Prep the goose by removing the lobes of fat in the cavity (save for rendering later), cutting off wing tips (reserve for goose stock), reserving neck and giblets (for goose stock), and trimming fat from cavity (optional). Being very careful and using gloves, tongs, or oven mitts, dunk goose in boiling water for about a 45 seconds to a minute to tighten skin. The goose should get goose bumps (funny huh?) and the skin should tighten. I usually dunk half the bird at a time (removing the bird and using my protective gear to dunk the other half in). Using the tines of a fork, poke dozens of holes in skin of goose (be careful not to poke the meat, just the skin). Place goose on a baking sheet and place in refrigerator UNCOVERED for 24-48 hours (48 hours is better).

Make goose stock. Take chicken stock (or water), reserved goose parts, and whatever aromatics you wish (I didn’t use any, but you can add celery, carrot, bay leaf, onion, etc.), and bring to a boil. Simmer (removing scum from surface) for 1.5-2 hours. Remove goose parts and chop in little pieces. (to make gravy basically follow this recipe from my Thanksgiving post, adding red wine to the mix in addition to stock).

To roast the goose: Preheat oven to 350. Place prunes in bowl with brandy. Microwave for about 1 minute. Let cool, mix with chopped apples, cinnamon stick, bay leaf, and one chopped onion. Place mixture in cavity of goose. Truss the bird, and rub liberally with salt, pepper, and Chinese five spice powder.

Place goose in oven and roast for about 3 hours. For the first half of roasting goose should be breast side down. After 1.5 hours, flip the goose. Every 30 minutes use a turkey baster to siphon off the copious amounts. This is very important because goose fat can ignite if it gets too hot (I really like the added element of danger involved in cooking a goose, really mixes it up). RESERVE FAT! DO NOT DISCARD!

Remove when goose reaches internal temperature of about 170. The goose should be very crispy, and the drumsticks fairly loose and easy to separate from the bird. Allow 20 minutes for cooling, and serve. Follow link above for making pan gravy. You need to basically replace wine for the goose juices, because the juices were siphoned off with the fat of the bird. You can also serve the prune, apple, onion, filling as a side dish.

Click to view slideshow.

Christmas Dinner with Friends

tandre07 — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 02:01:55 +0000

Prior to Christmas, Beatriz and I hosted some friends over for a pre-Christmas dinner Christmas dinner (redundant I know). I wanted to do something a little different so I got a beautiful 10 bone pork roast from my favorite butcher and I used this great recipe from food and wine’s website. I usually brine pork, but this dish didn’t need it.

I served the dish with some yukon gold mashed potatoes (courtesy of our produce share, made with lots of butter and whole milk) and collards (braised in chicken stock, garlic, hog jowl bacon, and finished with a little vinegar). We had some really beautiful wines with dinner (our gift to our guests), including a really great Pinot Noir from California called Belle Glos 2009 Taylor Vine (though it could have been the Las Alturas version, I just found out today when I was looking for another bottle there are at least 3 different vineyards that Belle Glos uses. Whatever one I had it was a tremendous wine).

I placed aromatic vegetables in the pan I roasted the pork in. I made a pan gravy using white wine, and chicken stock, and the roasted aromatic vegetables.

Click to view slideshow.

Roast Chicken

tandre07 — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 01:34:48 +0000

Eh, it’s just a roast chicken. I felt like dressing it up a bit, so I stuffed it with a mixture of chicken livers, corn bread, chicken stock, shitake mushrooms, parsley, sage, salt, and pepper.

I stuffed and trussed the bird, and then I made an herb butter (thyme, parsley, rosemary), and placed the butter under the skin of the bird. Since the bird was stuffed, I wanted to add the fat to make sure the bird didn’t dry out (longer cooking time due to stuffing). Roasted at 350 for about an hour and twenty minutes.

Roast Leg of Lamb

tandre07 — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 01:15:02 +0000

The catch up blogging continues…

Sunday is usually the day when I make a more special meal. Special does not always mean elaborate though. Sometimes it means just a great joint of meat cooked perfectly in the oven, while you watch football or drink wine. Earlier this month I was at the local grocery store and found a beautiful 3-4 lb. leg of lamb (shank end). Beatriz and I adore lamb (probably our favorite meat), so it’s always a treat to make it. Best part of about the meal is I used what I had on hand to season it. We served it with some fingerling potatoes and a salad, using the vegetables we get from our organic buying club.

Roast Leg of Lamb

Ingredients:
1/2 cup good olive oil
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 tsp of crushed red pepper
3-4 tbs of assorted chopped fresh herbs (parsley, thyme, and rosemary is what I used)
zest and juice of one lemon
salt and pepper to taste
1 3-4 lb leg of lamb

Method: mix together first 6 ingredients. Rub herb mixture on lamb, and let lamb rest and room temperature for about 45 minutes. Place lamb in preheated 375 degree oven (I like to roast a bit higher heat because we liked a more brown outside and very rare in the center, you can cook at 350 if you want a bit more even cooking) for about an 1 hour or until internal temperature reaches 140. Remove from oven and let rest for 10 minutes. Carve and serve.

Strata

tandre07 — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:41:01 +0000

It’s been a busy December, so the blogging has been lacking. I did however cook many memorable meals this month. Earlier this month, Beatriz had three of her best friends from law school come visit us. We went out to eat around town, but before they left we hosted them over for brunch and made a strata. A strata is a savory bread pudding type dish made with layers of bread (I assume that’s where it gets its name).

I researched some recipes, and adapted a variation. The recipe was in Oklahoma Tex-Mex style, paying homage to my time at the University of Oklahoma and eating meals hung over at “The Diner” in downtown Norman. My dish adds cheddar, bacon, Ro-tel, and green onions.

Tony’s OK Strata

Ingredients:
6 large eggs
2 1/2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup whipping cream
2 cups of shredded Mozzarella cheese
1 bunch of green onions
1 can of Ro-tel green chile and tomatoes (you can use spicy)
10-12 strips of glorious thick cut bacon, 3 tbs reserved bacon fat
1 package of Peppridge Farms thin sliced white bread
salt and pepper to taste
Tabasco to taste

Method: Heat oven to 375. Place bacon on wire rack and bake until crisp. Remove from oven and drain bacon. Reserve a portion of bacon fat for adding to egg mixture. Chop all but 3 slices of bacon and set aside. Mix, eggs, milk, cream, bacon fat, Tabasco, and Ro-tel. Season mixture with salt and pepper.

In a 9 x 13 casserole, layer bread, cheese, green onions, and chopped bacon. Repeat until you reach top of casserole. Sprinkle cheese on top along with whole slices of bacon. Pour egg mixture and let soak. Cover with plastic wrap and place in refrigerate overnight (I did mine 24 hours in advance and it was fine).

An hour before cooking, take the strata out of the refrigerator to get it to room temperature. Bake in preheated 350 oven until poofy and golden brown, about an hour. Let cool for about 10-15 minutes. Slice and serve.

Fin

tandre07 — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 23:29:46 +0000

Oh man. The meal came off without a hitch. Just terrific. Best thanksgiving meal I’ve ever done. Best part? There’s photographic evidence. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Click to view slideshow.

Thanksgiving Prep: Part II

tandre07 — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 14:33:56 +0000

As I write this my dinner roll dough has proofed and my pie is cooling (no window sill in our loft unfortunately, though it would probably not be a good idea to leave anything on our windowsill in the neighborhood we live in…)

My next task should involve the sweet potatoes. Again a Martha Stewart recipe. I usually do a sweet potato casserole with a crunchy pecan topping, but this year considering that it’s just the two of us eating, I thought I’d go easy on the casseroles. Basically the dressing is the only baked casserole I’m doing. I’m also going to saute some string beans and mushrooms as our vegetable.

Here are my plans for my Turkey. This recipe was dictated by me to Beatriz so she could send it to her mom. Since she did all the hard work writing down my turkey recipe I’m just going to copy and paste:

Roast Turkey:

The day you’re ready to cook the turkey, take the turkey out of the bag. Throw out the brine. Inside the cavity of the turkey insert half and apple, half an onion, and a sprig of rosemary. The cavity should not be stuffed, there should be room so the apple, onion and rosemary can breathe and release air inside the cavity. Place the turkey on a roasting rack, so that you can collect the drippings that fall from the rack (you will need those for the gravy). If you don’t have a roasting rack take a baking container and put onions and carrots and celery on the bottom of the container. you don’t need to cut the carrots, the onions and celery can be in big chunks. Put the turkey on top of the layer of onions, carrots and celery so that it can drip fat and air can reach all sides of turkey.

Start roasting the turkey at 425 F for 30 min. Afterwards, lower the temperature to 350 for about one hour and 15 min. A turkey that size should cook for a total of about 1 hour and 45 min. – 2 hours. Internal temperature should be 161. During cooking you will baste the turkey.

Basting the Turkey (not as important a step as brining, but it will make the skin nice and brown and crispy)

Ingredients:

1 stick of Butter

1 1/2 cups of White wine

6-8 sage leaves shredded

In a small pot, warm the butter, wine and sage until the butter is melted and everything is combined. Each time you baste the turkey you can reheat the wine, butter, sage mixture to re-melt the butter.

Do not baste the turkey when you start roasting it. You baste the turkey for the first time after it’s cooked for 30 min. When you lower the temperature of the turkey to 350, that is the first time you baste it. Take a baster or a brush and rub the warm butter, wine, sage on the turkey skin. Do this every 30 min., so you will only do it about 3-4 times while the turkey is roasting.

Gravy

Ingredients

1 32 oz. carton or 2 14 oz. cans of pre-prepared turkey stock (or chicken stock)

The innards and giblets you took out of the turkey before you brined it.

1 onion cut in half

salt and pepper

2 table spoons flour

de-fatted pan juices that you collected from roasting the turkey at the bottom of the roasting rack or at the bottom of the roasting container underneath the onion, carrots and celery.

While the turkey is roasting, simmer stock, onion, turkey neck and giblets for about an hour until the turkey meat is very soft so that it falls off the bone and the liquid reduced by a third. Remove the turkey neck and gibblets, when these get cool take the meat off the neck and chop the giblets finely. Set the chopped giblets and neck meat aside.

After the turkey is done roasting. Take the turkey off the roasting container and set aside. Throw out the onions, carrots, and celery at the bottom of the container. Pour the pan juices into fat separator. Let it rest to separate.

Put roasting pan, the same one you cooked the turkey in, on stove or if the roasting pan cannot go on the stove, use a different pan. Put at medium to medium-high heat. First pour the stock mixture into the pan and then scrape pan to get bits out. Second, add a just 2 table spoons of flour and whisk the flour until smooth, no lumps. Third, add the pan juices, and if you want a little white wine but it’s not necessary. Add salt and pepper to taste. Finally, add the neck meat and giblets. The gravy should be a little thick but not too thick.

Thanksgiving Day Prep: Part I

tandre07 — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 14:00:24 +0000

As you may recall, in my last blog entry I prepared the fresh sugar pie pumpkin puree for the pumpkin pie. As pie tastes a bit better if it has some time to chill out, I was up at 7:15 am to make it. Last night I found a recipe I liked on Epicurious, which is really maybe my favorite recipe site (as much as I talk about Martha). Epicurious also has a great iphone app, which allows you to create shopping lists based on recipes you select, not to mention it’s far more convenient following a recipe from your phone than bringing the computer to the kitchen.

The pie is just about done. NOTE: I adjusted the pumpkin pie recipe a bit as I didn’t think the mix was “spicy” enough. I added vanilla extract, a bit more nutmeg, more cinnamon and a bit of allspice. I just checked the pie at 50 minutes and it’s still a bit wobbly. I hope the recipe called for enough egg.

While the pie was baking I focused my attention to the cranberry sauce, another item that benefits from being done early. From our produce share we got a pint of beautiful organic cranberries and some tangelos. Orange and cranberry so I made combined them to make my cranberries this year:

Cranberry Tangelo Relish:
Ingredients
1 pt cranberries
1 tangerine, zested and juiced
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup triple sec (or grand marnier)

Method: In a small sauce pan combine all the ingredients. Heat at medium high until cranberries pop and mixture begins to boil. Drop heat to a simmer and simmer 8-10 minutes, stirring frequently until mixture is shiny and thick. Allow to cool at room temperature and then cool in refrigerator.

While I was searching through my pantry for pumpkin pie spices I did also find a packet of yeast. I probably used it a while back to make pizza or something, because I’m not really a baker. I thought, it’s Thanksgiving why not bake some rolls? I had seen a really good looking recipe for “Granny Foster’s Refrigerator Rolls” on Martha Stewart, so I thought I’d give those a try. I halved the recipe. Right now the dough is proofing. I think this is a great recipe as the dough formed very easily (due to milk and melted butter I’m sure) and was super easy to work. I kneaded for about 5 seconds. I’m sure the rolls are going to be incredibly tender and flaky.

The Next round of preparation will involve the sweet potatoes and turkey prep. I’m shooting for a meal time around 4.

Click to view slideshow.

Pumpkin!

tandre07 — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 01:03:35 +0000

First of all I’d like to give props to my pumpkin Beatriz for taking photos for the last blog. I taught her how to use my SLR camera on our last couple of vacations and she did a great job with the blog photos.

As you know the dressing is ready to go. The next Thanksgiving task involves something new for me. Pumpkin pie. I’m pretty sure I’ve made it with canned pumpkin before, but never with fresh pumpkin. As an aside, my good friend Emeline, who until very recently lived in Paris, asked me to bring her several cans from America when I visited her in 2009 because it was near impossible to find in France! She probably loves pumpkin pie more than anyone I know!

I’m familiar with pumpkin pie and love it (though in the past I’ve made more sweet potato pies) but never made it with fresh real pumpkin. As I mentioned a few blogs ago, Beatriz and I joined an organic produce co-op and this week’s share included a sugar pie pumpkin. It was rather small, so when I was at Whole Foods earlier this week I bought another so I could make a homemade pumpkin pie (I’m going to use a store bought crust, but almost homemade).

I haven’t picked what my pumpkin pie recipe yet (feel free to suggest one), but of course all pumpkin pie recipes needs pumpkin, so I prepared the pureed pumpkin using Martha Stewart’s Recipe. It’s delicious and it’s not even seasoned yet. Really looking forward to the pie…

Click to view slideshow.

Get Dressing

tandre07 — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 22:24:32 +0000

It’s the day before Thanksgiving! Like I said yesterday I got ahead of schedule and brined my turkey. It’s going to be juicy and flavorful. I’m really surprised to find out how popular brining turkey has gotten. I’ve got a bunch of friends on Facebook talking about how they are brining their turkeys and what they’re brining their turkeys in. I’m excited to know that not as many folks will be eating dry white meat this year.

Today, getting the dressing prepped was on deck. My office closed at 3:00p today so I was able to take full advantage of the time. It’s now 5:01p and my dressing is prepped and in the fridge. Beatriz and I are going to grab happy hour somewhere. As I said yesterday, my dressing recipe was going to be inspired by Martha Stewart’s Sausage and Sage Un-stuffing, which is pretty much a fried stuffing roll. I’m making my dressing in the more traditional manner. What’s great about that is that it can be prepped the day before. Here’s the recipe:

Tony’s Chicken Sausage and Chicken Liver Dressing:

Ingredients:
1 onion chopped
3 stalks of celery diced
3 cloves of garlic minced
2-3 links of fresh hot Italian chicken sausage (removed from casing)
5-6 chicken livers
1 loaf of good white bread (chopped into bread crumbs in the food processor)
1 cup of diced prunes
1 cup of Calvados or brandy
3-4 tbs (chopped fresh sage)
5-6 tbs (chopped fresh parsley)
8 oz. Chicken Stock
3 eggs
1/2 cup half and half
1/2 cup white wine
1 cup chopped fresh chestnuts
salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil for sauteing
butter for sauteing

Method: Heat oven to 375. Score Chestnuts with “X” shaped incision using a paring knife. Place scored chestnuts on baking tray and roast 10-15 minutes until the chestnuts open. Allow chestnuts to cool. Peel chestnuts and discard the shells. Chop chestnuts and set aside. Meanwhile, soak chopped prunes in Calvados/Brandy. Place breadcrumbs in large mixing bowl.

Heat sauce pan or large skillet to medium high heat. Add 2 tbs of olive oil to pan. Saute chicken sausage and break up sausage to resemble ground meat. Add onions and celery and saute and translucent. Add garlic and cook until fragrant. Season with salt and pepper. Remove chicken mixture from pan and reserve.

Place pan back on heat. Add 1 tbs of butter and 1 tbs of olive oil. Add chicken livers and fry until firm but still a little rosy (be cautious as it will splatter). Remove chicken livers and set aside to cool. Add Calvados and prunes to pan and de-glaze. Add chicken-onion mixture, sage, parsley and chicken stock to incorporate. Turn off heat. Chop chicken livers and add to pan. Mix well, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Allow to cool.

When mixture has adequately cooled add mixture to bread crumbs along with eggs, white wine, and chopped chestnuts. Mix well. Mixture should be wet. Place dressing in a buttered baking dish. [at this point you can cover and refrigerate the day before, which is what I have done]. When ready to bake, place in 350 degree oven for 35-45 minutes until golden brown and crispy on top.

Pics:

Click to view slideshow.