Ok, so it’s Christmas Eve and a little different this year, as younger son and DIL are hosting Christmas dinner and I’m in charge of producing the hors d’oeuvre and a trifle for 22 people ……….should be easy eh? Oh no, I have to make my life complicated. Follow me below the chocolate curlicue for a cook’s Christmas wail (alas not wassail but I may resort to it shortly).
First up, the trifle. Well, I just HAVE to make chocolate leaves for decorating the top right ? Two days ago I collect the rose leaves and for two hours I sweat bullets over making reasonable chocolate leaves, my hands are hot as hell and I have to resort to using a pair of eyebrow tweezers to separate the chocolate from the leaf without the d*** chocolate melting.
Next it’s the hors d’oeuvre – the oven will not be available at DIL’s, so hot food will be confined to things that can be warmed in the microwave, or served in a slow cooker. I spent weeks scouring the internet and pondering what to make and finally whittle down my list to include seafood, fish, vegetables, meat and cheese as:
Cheese wafers
Asiago and artichoke dip
Various style sausages with a honey, soy & rosemary glaze
Layered crab dip (known by my friends as ‘Sex on a plate’ due to the sounds they make as they consume it
Smoked salmon
Bacon wrapped asparagus with a caramelized lemon mayo
And finally, the piece de resistance, a terrine with a dried apricot, orange and pomegranate chutney.
Cheese wafers, no problem, done and in the freezer. The chutney came together like a dream, though I did spend quite a lot of time trying to determine if I had the sweet / acid balance and seasonings right. The ‘sex on a plate’ is easy, even if there’s lots of fiddly chopping. The local supermarket has yielded the Asiago and Artichoke dip. Mr. Goose will take care of buttering the bread and laying out the smoked salmon and the sausages can just cook away in the slow cooker tomorrow morning.
Alas, it’s the stupid terrine that has me in a tizzy. I have this vision right ? I’m going to use the special professional terrine mold I purchased years ago and have only used once, for a chocolate terrine. I’m going all Julia Child and going to produce perfection.
I pull the chicken stock from the freezer, and carefully defrost it, clarify it with egg white and it looks lovely. Even though I made sure it was thick enough to gel when I made it, now, for some reason, it’s not gelling up on the mold. No problem, I think to myself, I’ll add a pinch of gelatin. I tear my baking supplies apart and find all sorts of strange and wonderful things things, but no plain gelatin. How can I have missed the fact that I have no gelatin on hand? Like I do use it once or twice every few years! Ok, fine, I’ll reduce the stock until it gives a good set. This involves many anxious moments of dropping boiling stock onto a cold plate to see if it will set up.
Then I find that there is a teeny tiny gap right at the bottom at the corners where the mold comes together and the stock oozes through. So ok, I will line the mold with non-stick foil, which involves at least four hands but Mr. Goose comes to the rescue. No problem with covering the bottom of the mold with my chicken stock, but we’re going to forget about the sides at this point – too much stock has been lost to oozing and boiling.
Next up, the filling. Oh, oh, I forgot my blender is on the fritz, but hopefully the food processor will take up the slack. I find the sack of shallots I bought has to be picked through, some are definitely either dried up or starting to go off. Brandy, no problem, there’s that lovely bottle of very special brandy Mr. Goose got at the duty free, I’m sure he won’t mind – 37 years have given him a good idea of when not to cross the cook. Finally my filling is ready, but in spite of checking how much it holds, I’m short about an inch. Hell, it will have to do, though unmolding tomorrow might be trickier.
So I started 5 hours ago, somehow haven’t yet managed to get dressed and decide showering / dressing will wait until later, when the neighbors come over for a drink. Next up, roasting lemons. Older son wanders in to ask what’s for lunch, my reply is short and contains swear words. Where the heck is the Wassail and how come the mince pies seem to be frying in the over ?