Duvel

That should be feasible …

Simple dinner: xulleta (or entrecôte) and green beans with butter & garlic. The cuts here in Spain are always too thin for my liking, so you don’t get a proper crust without overcooking. Nevertheless, I managed a decent compromise …

I’d appreciate the effort 🙏

We render Schmalz mostly from pigs, but ducks, geese and sometimes chicken, too. If you do that with meat attached (and shred that once cooked), you’ll end up in all cases with rillettes. Otherwise, just Schmalz 🤗

Indeed. Griebenschmalz will contain pieces of the crisped skin and meat bits, but in this case from pork 🤭 … This one has onion and apple, too …

After the Christmas food marathon there are plenty of leftovers, and I like to turn them into something nice … This morning: Trinxat. Finely chopped cabbage, chopped potatoes and crumbled blood sausage, lightly bound with potato starch and fried up in bacon fat and served with a fired egg on top … And for the next days … all the meat turned into Canelons. Life is good !

After all the holiday food, I just baked a rye bread and put some cold cuts & cheeses on the table (plus pickles, Schmalz and - for some reason - octopus) … No complaints ☺️

They have, of course. But you are right - not to be exported. Hence I order when in Japan 😜

I think it is more of a service than an exploit - think “omotenashi”. You can order at any national Amazon: if Amazon as a transnational company would have any interest in blurring national markets, it would have been done.

Technically, just as my last Christmas “dinner” post, this is lunch. But as we start at 16.30h and go on for some hours, the dinner thread is appropriate as well … Second day of Christmas one of my wifes aunts is hosting the 30+ members if the family. Just as on Christmas day, the menu is hard coded, no deviations. I started the dinner by demolishing the iberico plates … As usual, kids got their fill of macarons, while the adults prepared themselves for the lunch … After aperitif & snacks, we were served small sweet red peppers, stuffed with bacalla, pine nuts and raisins, then dressed with beixamel and gratinated with some cheese … I could eat a lot of those (and actually did). This is followed by “veal” fillet, marinated in white wine, lemon juice and Dijon mustard, then briefly grilled on a plancha. Served with samfaïna … Followed by torróns, traditional Christmas sweets, brandy, coffee, the works. Champagne, of course, and good conversations …

Here they are called galets. They are shaped like a shell / a conch. Easy to stuff with sausage or any forcemeat, which due to the shape will stay in place in the cooked product …

It a triple ring propane gas burner, suitable for oversized pots (like this 30L+ model) or paellas, mounted on a sheet if „unburnable“ metal … Something like this.

A Catalan Christmas dinner: Christmas soup with filled pasta … Accompanying meats & veggies … Chicken with prunes … Baked apple … Dessert !

Ahh … @rotuts is correct on the amount of plates and on the location. The picture was the prelude to the Escudella i carn d‘olla, the non-negotiable „lunch“ (~16.00h-21.30h) on the first Christmas day. Over the years I have graduated to play a bigger part of the preparation, and this year I did most of the work (under the watchful eye of my MIL) and all of the service. 24 adults and 9 kids - it was a busy evening … But starting from the beginning: my in-laws have a huge rooftop terrace, and in a sheltered corner the magic starts to happen two days before the meal … In different stages vegetables, organ meats, ears, bones, salted pork products and cured ham scraps are boiled for hours and eventually removed. It yields a rich, unsalted stock not unlike a good ramen base. Some hours before serving, the stock is salted and divided. In the larger part a variety of sausages, potatoes and cabbage are introduced and simmered for some more time. In the smaller part, huge garlic-heavy pilotas (meatballs) are simmered, then renoved and a special kind of pasta (huge shell shaped) filled with sausage meat are cooked. When done, the stocks are combined again and it’s time for service. First course (and what all are eagerly waiting for the whole year): the soup with pasta. You wont believe how much some Catalans can eat of that … Second course: boiled meats (beef, pork, chicken, lamb), ears, sausages, potatoes, cabbage and pilota, served as per request and dressed on the table with olive oil and salt. To be repeated until ~75% full … Third course (cooked in the meantime): roasted chicken with plums, raisins and pine nuts, that were marinated overnight in brandy, white wine and some proto-stock. Simmered until reduced and well caramelized. Fourth course: roasted apples with minced meat filling … Fifth course: coffee, brandy, cookies. Plus the kids reciting Christmas poems and collecting money from the grown-ups … Sixth course: Champagne & the Christmas toast. No complaints (even a foreigner made the soup 😜) ! Bon nadal 🙏

Before the storm …

Breakfast with the little one in a not so busy side walk cafe in a small town on the Mediterranean coast. Sunshine, a croissant with white chocolate and a cold beer - what could be better at 10.00h in the morning ..?

Sadly, no time. We had the reservation and I had to make sure we’d arrive in time. On the way home … maybe ☺️

‘Tis the season … for holidays. This year - as every second year - it means Spain. For which you need to cross France 🤗 You pass by cities like Bourg en Bresse, which decorate their highway stops with … We took an overnight stop at Lyon … Christmas market - unfortunately an eery emptiness, as all the counter-terrorist measures rather keep ordinary people away, too … Longest queue was at the truffled aligot stand … Was good - super creamy ! This was just a starter - I had booked a place ar my favorite Bouchon Chez Grand Mere in the old city … It located (mostly) in the cellar below the entrance … Copious amounts of house wine … Brioche with sausage … Chicken liver cake … Baked ravioli for little one … Veal head with sauce gribiche … Pike quenelles with crayfish sauce … St. Marcellin … Pralines tarte … Floating island … There was a coffee & digestif, but I was too done to take any picture 🙃 No complaints - too full for that, too …

Yeah … it’s a workhorse. I bought in actually in Japan - funny enough also 17 years ago 🤗 I will get a new (additional) one this Christmas. Bought it in May when visiting Japan as a double pack (larger & smaller one), and Santa will present those to little one and me, so we can cook together 🤭

@johnnyd: Love the choice of wine glass 🤗

Beetroot red (E162) …

I think I might move in with you 🤗

‘Tis the season to be jolly - fallalalalalalalalaaaaaa 🤶

Dinner started as early as 16.00h today, as we spontaneously invited some of the neighbors over for Feuerzangenbowle … I threw some sausage on the BBQ … And some Rahmflecken into the oven … There was a pudding apple cake as well … And plenty of Feuerzangenbowle. And a hot cocoa for the little one 🤗 Happy 3rd Advent 🙏

Well, if there would be cream …