ldubois2

Looking for advice: Pre-novice at this...for Thanksgiving made the Country Pate from the Dean and Delucca cook book. I made it without too much forethought, going to my local butcher thinking they'd have pork fat. Ha! With a need to improvise, I purchased very fatty salt pork, removed the fat and substitued after soaking it to remove some of the salt. Cut the meat manually as suggested, and it turned out ok. After reading much of this thread (and loving the pictures) I am now ready to try again. I have Bourdain's Les Halles cookbook and plan to do pate de campagne. Problem: Pork liver. My local, better grocer has veal liver and I purchased that on impulse when they did not have pork fat...now think it is likely too delicate a flavor, am I right? Would there be something better to use? These guys will save pork fat for me and have ordered that. They would not slice fat to line the mold, and had nothing they'd suggest. After I made the original Thanksgiving pate I looked on line to see if I could purchase jawl fat (what the Dean and Delucca says is the best option) and in error purchased caul fat. Jowl, caul...know the difference now. I received 10 pounds of caul fat which I divided into small packets and have frozen. (available in the US on Amazon.com). Also the D&D did not suggest weighing it down. It was tasty but crumbled, pieces did not stay together once sliced. Thank you for any help. Making gravlax and sausage for Christmas and this will be a great addition!

Received the Dori Greenspan "Around my French Table" cookbook last week and wanted to make the cover recipe but did not have any preserved lemons....came late yesterday from Amazon....so I made the roast chicken for les paresseux on page 200. Added the vegetables that are optional. The chicken was amazing. Best of all, she suggests placing a piece of bread under the chicken before you roast it and also placing the liver (if you have it) in the cavity of the bird along with the herbs and garlic. Then, when you take the chicken out of the oven and remove it to carve, take the piece of bread...now crispy and full of the cooking juice....and smear it with the liver and eat while carving. That in itself was phenomenal! And I have half a chicken left in the oven for today!

First sausage making experience....what fun...Julkorv

Cardamom Coffee cake! Absolutely...Never had with apples. Do you have a recipe to share?

Swedish Christmas update. We no longer have the ability to travel to the Swedish neighborhood in preparation of the Smorgasbord. Have changed the tradition and started preparing the foods we would purchase there. This will be the fourth year of making Gravlax...thanks to the topic posted here. Last year made Sylta...will make again and this year will make sausage. I have not been a fan of potato sausage over the years and was not excited about attempting. Found a recipe in a Swedish/American cookbook (1955 American Daughters of Sweden) that I am going to make today. It is called Julkorv and contains pork shoulder, veal, potato starch, pepper, ground cloves, ground ginger, powdered sage, ground all spice, sugar and salt....I have never attempted sausage before. Have the Kitchen Aid meat grinder/sausage stuffer attachment so am optimistic. Coffee cake and cookies. Also purchased a Lucia crown for my granddaughter with light bulbs...not the 13th of December but we incorporate that into our Christmas Eve tradition. If she goes along with it, she is four and rather choleric.

Made BB from Julia's recipe last Saturday. Read through the comments on this post first. Have the Keller recipe, the Bourdain and Julia's and followed hers adding the Beef Demi-glace as Bourdain recommended instead of the canned broth Julia's calls for. Wonderful...served the next day to a dinner party of 10. My pictures are not as artistic as Pille's. Made it in Le Creuset large dutch oven.

Babette's Feast for sure, Diner, Tortilla Soup...not fond of the plot but the food prep was great.

Marcus Samuelsson has a recipe in Aquavit for a Cured Tenderloin of Beef. He suggests a sugar/salt curing mixture and says to place the raw beef in a non-reactive pan that will snuggly hold the beef, cover with plastic wrap, weigh with a brick and refrigerate for 6-8 hours. Remove beef, wipe off salt, pat dry, wrap again in plastic and place in the freezer for about 30 min to make the slicing easier. Question: Does this seem like enough time to cure the beef and then eat....

I'm sure that Jaymes will have good information on this topic. You might even want to contact her directly.

In addition to the curly hair and "hair on your chest" distinctions my parents made between male and female children, we were told every seed swallowed meant a watermellon or apple tree was going to sprout in your stomach....

Hello, My first attempt at Gravlax was successful. I used two sides of salmon, farmed, from the local Jewel Food Store. I think they were about 2 lbs each, never frozen with skin intact. I followed a previously mentioned recipe that called for salt, sugar, crushed juniper berries and lots of fresh dill. Brushed with vodka first. Cured for about 48 hours, weighted with a couple of left over pavers on an old cookie sheet and turned it each morning and evening. First day I had alot of liquid....little the following turns. I used one of the halves for Christmas Eve Smorgasbord....it was terrific. Everyone loved it. The texture was still firm, not too salty (I rinsed it). Had some trouble slicing, so we removed the skin and slicing easier. Took some day after Christmas to Wisconsin where my family gathers with locals of scandinavian descent. There, using a Swedish cookbook my father had purchased, I made a mustard sauce using a mild swedish mustard, oil, vinegar, sugar and dill. Served with the gravlax.....fabulous. I had to leave before my dad presented his version of gravlax. He took half a side of salmon and cut it in two. Then salted and sugared. He could not find fresh dill, so he added dill weed and on a whim, decided to add fresh cilantro. Weighed with two five pound dumbells and was turning it whenever he remembered. I can't wait to hear my brother's report on the cilantro..... ldubois

Jaymes, Early in this thread you mentioned that you make pralines. My mother has been looking for a praline recipe for years. Would you share yours? I'd like to make them for her and pass along the recipe.

Hector, Thank you for the meatball recipe. It is similar to the one I use. We add allspice. I forgot to mention brown beans. I'd love the mustard recipe if you can share. Also what is Almond pudding? Is rice a la malta similar to rice pudding? We travel to Wisconsin on the 26th to prepare an additional smorgasbord for my father. He is the one who has perpetuated the tradition in our family. By the way, he built a home there that is modelled after Carl Larsen's home in Sundborn. He calls it New Sundborn. Very beautiful. That part of Wisconsin is very scandinavian: mostly norwegians but alot of swedes too.

The sausage is similar to what we would call "summer sausage". It is dried or cured with whole pepper corns. It is wonderful. What is mumma? We serve glogg on Christmas Eve. What kind of terrine will you make? By the way, we also put out a collection of Tomte and Dala horses. Straw goats, too.

Hello, Every year my family celebrates Christmas Eve with a smorgasbord that is rather Americanized. We are able to purchase some food in Andersonville (a changing neighborhood that was once populated by Swedish immigrants, became largely Puerto Rican and is now trendy) at a Swedish deli. There I get potato sausage, silta, prinz corv, some cheeses, frozen lingonberries, a variety of herring, sausage from Gotteborg (forgive the spelling) and a fresh ham. And yule limpa and hardtack. We prepare meatballs (without gravy), cucumbers in vinegar, potato salad, rice pudding, the ham (of course), shrimp, and whatever else suits us. I am interested in knowing what you would do in Sweden, would love a good, authentic, smorgasbord meatball recipe, and to discover if other people with Swedish ancestry celebrate in a similar fashion. Thanks for any input.