Stephencooks

Porcini Cream Lasagna

  

This lasagna is extremely seductive, I think because of the unique combination of a group of foods and flavors that are each fully capable, on their own, to drive frenzied obsession: cream, butter, porcini mushrooms, white truffle oil and Parmeggiano Reggiano cheese.

Last year we were invited to a New Year's bash at a restaurant-owner friend's house and asked to bring a food contribution and I immediately thought of this dish. At the party, the table groaned with beautiful roasts, creative salads and appetizing desserts, but my simple platter of pasta emptied the fastest, and just last week one of the other guests who had been at that party asked me if I would be making "that mushroom pasta dish" again this year. (Alas, I'm not going to be in town for the party.)  Seductive and memorable: what more could you want?

Crispy Fried Smelts

  

Here's one more way to prepare your Christmas smelts. Battered and fried crisp, this is the most popular way to cook them, and no wonder...these little guys are addictive.

Christmas Dinner Menu: Wood-Roasted Standing Rib of Beef

 

Christmas Dinner usually means some sort of roasted meat as the centerpiece, and in my house I usually fall right in step: turkey, goose (actually braised, following Julia's recipe), chicken, or, for a down-home Christmas, slow-smoked pork shoulder. This year it's going to be a very traditional standing rib of beef, with all the trimmings, and since I  don't let weather keep me from my grill I'll be doing it outside over a live fire.

Sun-Dried Tomato Crostini 

Of course, we always have drinks and a few nice goodies to keep the crowd happy before dinner begins. This easy crostini is perfect for the occasion, and especially nice with Beau's suggested prosecco.

Roasted Butternut Soup, Savory Red Rice Pudding and Sage Foam

When the guests are called to the table, this festive soup makes a perfect first course: colorful and unusual, with a chewy red-rice island topped with sage foam garnish. And, it can be made ahead of time, except for the foam.

Wood-Roasted Standing Rib Roast

 This is a tremendously reliable preparation, always popular and relatively easy on the cook. I serve it at Christmas with Yorkshire Pudding, and my old standby, Herb-Roasted Potatoes.

Yorkshire Pudding

This is the traditional accompanyment for roast beef and they make the holiday meal a  little more special.

Herb-Roasted Potatoes 

Easy, popular comfort food, these potatoes have been in my repertoire for many years. 

Steamed Broccoli

My all-time favorite vegetable: brocoli steamed and dressed up with a little olive oil and some minced fresh herbs (and maybe some slivered almonds for Christmas).

Baby Greens with Golden Beets, Roasted Grape Tomatoes and Parmesan Shavings

I like to keep salads simple for big meals, and this one is especially festive-looking.

Dessert! This meal of classic favorites deserves to be followed with a memorable dessert, and I think this one qualifies:

Fiery, Dark, Dangerous  Chocolate Soufflé 

A fitting end to this grand feast is this chocolate soufflé, which has been enhanced - some might say "kicked up a notch" -  with espresso and  cayenne pepper.

We've finally arrived at the end of our Christmas Dinner and we're just sitting around, sipping a little more of the tawny and enjoying a quiet, peaceful evening with family and friends. I had a lot of fun putting this together and I wish you a tasty, happy Christmas!

 

Herb-Roasted Potatoes

  

These tasty, crispy potato wedges appear over and over on my table and my guests never tire of them. This recipe was buried in a multi-recipe post published in the early days of Stephencooks, before I realized that it would be easier to find recipes on the site if each one was the subject of its own post, but since it's so important and frequently requested I decided to republish it as a stand-alone article. Enjoy!

Christmas Eve Menu - The Feast of the Seven Fishes

 

Okay, I confess. I don't really know the Catholic traditions and holy days. My father was a lapsed Catholic and I was raised in the First Suburban Church of Whatever.

But that doesn't keep me from observing the ancient tradition of the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve. While it's rooted in the teachings of the Church, for me it's just an excuse to go all out with my favorite fish dishes.

Christmas Eve

The Feast
of the
Seven Fishes

* * * * *

Baltimore Crab Cakes
–
Mini-Pissaladieres:
Olive & Cheese Tartlets
–
Oysters Gratin
with Brussels Sprouts
–
Lillian's Bacalla
–
Baby Calamari Stuffed
with Shrimp and Pancetta
–
Pan-Roasted Smelts
–
Mussels Julia
–
Seared Swordfish
Pasta all'Aglio Olio
–
Homemade Pistachio
Ice Cream
–
Tennessee Bourbon Cookies

* * * * *
Scroll down for photos & recipes.

The Feast of the Seven Fishes is an Italian Christmas Eve tradition built around fish of all kinds and prepared in as many different ways as possible. Our friends Donna and Pasquale introduced it to us about ten years ago in their kitchen in Tribeca.

Christmas Eve in the ancient Catholic church was a vigilia di magro -- a sacred fast day, on which no meat could be consumed. This stricture has long since been lifted, although many devout Italians still fast on Christmas Eve. In Southern Italy and Sicily the tradition of a Christmas Eve feast organized around fish dishes developed over the centuries, and the tradition lives on in all regions of Italy.

The menu and the number of fish dishes varies from family to family and village to village, but it's usually seven, although the reason cited for the number varies. Donna's dad says it's a commemoration of the last seven of the Ten Commandments, which prescribe rules of human interaction -- as opposed to the first three, which address human relations with God. Others say it is to remind us of the seven deadly sins. In any case, seven fish dishes is a feast!

Two dishes that seem to show up in everyone's traditional Feast of Seven Fishes are smelts and baccalà in some form or another.

Baccalà is better known to a lot of New Englanders as salt cod -- a staple on the long sea voyages of whalers and traders in colonial days. Also important in Portuguese and Puerto Rican cuisine (it's bacalao in Spanish), salt cod is usually available in markets around the end of the year, though you might have to ask for it. If you have an Italian specialty market that carries salt cod it's usually worth the price premium to buy the higher grades they usually carry. (If you think you might want to try this, read the recipe now..it takes some planning ahead.)

Plan your own Feast of the Seven Fishes right here...
Click this box to browse 50 perfect seafood recipes.

Smelts are those silvery six-inch fish that show up in the fish markets every year around the onset of winter -- relatives of trout and salmon, they are wild-caught in the winter as they move into position off the coast for their early spring spawning run up the rivers.

Other candidates for the Feast of the Seven Fishes include Tuna Livornese (pictured above), Boiled Shrimp, Baby Calamari Stuffed with Shrimp, Cod Roasted with Pancetta, Leeks, Mushrooms and Tomatoes,  Steamed Lobster or Shrimp Risotto, Roasted Mackerel with Lemon and Thyme, Smoked Trout or Salmon, Baked Sea Bass or, for a less formal touch, try my Jambalaya Calzone or a Smoked Salmon Pizza.

Almost any fish dish you can imagine can turn up in a Feast of the Seven Fishes. Did I mention grilled halibut steaks with crab sauce? Steamed crabs? Lobster fra diavalo?

The meal is usually served one course at a time, with lots of time between courses, in the Italian tradition, during  which the cooks work on the next dish and the guests drink wine and talk...and talk!

So here's is our menu for this Christmas Eve. We hope you enjoy the Feast of the Seven Fishes, with these or whatever fish dishes you choose!

 

Betty's Authentic Baltimore Crabcakes

These crab cakes are a great starter for any meal! And here in Maine, where we have great fresh crabmeat all year long, they cannot be beat.

 

Mini-Pissaladieres: Quick Tartlets with Olives and Cheese

I always like to have one or two non-fish dishes on the menu, for a little counterpoint. This is one of my favorites.

 

Oysters, Brussels Sprouts and Pancetta Gratin

I always have an oyster dish on the menu on Christmas Eve and this is one of the best.

 

Lillian's Christmas Bacallà

This dish is a quintessential Italian dish, and for us it carries so many good memories of past Christmas celebrations.

 

Baby Calamari Stuffed with Shrimp and Pancetta

  

These little bites make a nice change of pace at this point in the feast...

 

Pan Roasted Smelts

These little fishes are best served with a nice crusty Italian bread for mopping up the garlic-, lemon- and oregano-flavored sauce.

 

Mussels Julia

I don't need much of an excuse to serve mussels, so of course they show up on our table on Christmas Eve.

 

Seared Swordfish with Pasta all'Aglio Olio

Of course there has to be a pasta dish in this meal, and with all the other things going on I like the simplicty of Pasta all'Aglio Olio with a seared chunk of swordfish...

And for dessert...

Homemade Pistachio Ice Cream with Sliced Strawberries

 

Kevin's Tennessee Bourbon Cookies

We wish you a wonderful Feast, and a peaceful, happy Christmas!

 

Pan Roasted Smelts

  

These little seasonal fish (see this post for more information) call out to me every time I see them in the fish market in winter and early spring. Relatives of salmon and trout, they are caught off the Atlantic coast in winter where they gather in preparation for their spring spawning run up the rivers and streams.

This preparation is a traditional Italian dish, typically served without sides as a fish course. The garlic, lemon and oregano flavor the pan juices, which are best when mopped up with a crusty Italian bread.

Lillian's Christmas Bacallà

  

Every year we have a traditional "Feast of the Seven Fishes" at our house on Christmas Eve. Our friends Donna and Pasquale introduced it to us about ten years ago in their kitchen in Tribeca.

I'll never forget my first taste of Donna's grandmother's bacallà, a savory stew made from salt-preserved cod which is always the centerpiece of the Seven Fishes menu at Donna and Pat's house on Christmas eve. Donna's grandmother, ninety-two-year-old Lillian -- "Big Nonna" to her extended family -- still makes it every Christmas at her home in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Baccalà is better known to a lot of New Englanders as salt cod -- a staple on the long sea voyages of whalers and traders in colonial days. It's also important in Portuguese and Puerto Rican cuisine (it's bacalao in Spanish), as mentioned in my recent post on Serenata de Bacalao.

Curried Celeriac and Red Pepper Cream Soup with Celeriac Crisps and Fried Capers

  

This simple soup brings the clean, unusual taste of celeriac together with the bite of a typical Indian curry preparation, and the addition of celeriac crisps, fried capers and the red pepper swirl gives it a festive air for the holidays.

Christmas Dinner Menu I - Roast Chicken with Porcini, Sausage and Rice Stuffing

  

Winter descends on us quickly here in Maine. By Christmas we normally have a heavy snow blanket and temperatures in the teens. Holiday lights, gatherings of friends and family, and the special meals we cook bring needed warmth to our houses and our lives.

The silence over the land on Christmas Eve here is profound and inspriring. The scent of wood fires drifts across the fields and forests, and if the night is still we can hear the pounding of the always-restless ocean on the rocks below our road.

The Christmas and New Year's Day holidays in a food-focused house are always special. Open houses, Christmas Eve,  Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day all present opportunities for festive dinners and entertaining, and this is the time when we seem to stop worrying so much about fat, calories and expense as we pull out all the stops and prepare luxurious and special meals for our friends and family. Exotic ingredients, from far away lands, out of season produce imported from the other side of the world, and special bottles of wine become the rule rather than the exception.

Menu planning for the holidays often starts early in my house, usually signalled by the arrival in mid-November of the December Gourmet, with its annual lavish presentation of a Christmas menu. I normally spend several days with the cookbooks, old menus from dinners past (I keep a file of all the dinner parties and holiday meals, for future inspiration) and my computer-filed recipes -- it's one of my favorite holiday activities, and this year I've had extra fun creating multiple menus for posting on Stephencooks.com!

Wasabi-Laced Smoked Salmon Spread
For holiday meals there is always a pre-dinner hour when guests are arriving and the cooks are putting the finishing touches on their creations, so I always like to have a few delicious snacks available. Nuts and crudité are easy, and so is this salmon spread with a twist, which I serve with little toasts.

Scallops with Honey Sauce, with Bitter Greens
When the diners finally gather at the table, this simple, elegant preparation of scallops, greens and tomatoes with a honey sauce is a festive-looking and delicious first course. The greens and sauce can be prepared the day before so all that has to be done when it's serving time is to sear the scallops and plate them.

 

 

 

Tuscan Wood-Roasted Chicken with Porcini,  Sausage and Rice Stuffing

This festive preparation, with a marinated, then roasted whole chicken stuffed with a porcini, sausage and rice, was developed from a Tuscan Chicken dish originally presented by Kevin at Seriously Good. The stuffing can be prepared a day ahead and, though it's best done on a live charcoal and hardwood fire, it can be done in the oven. This will serve six, so for a larger meal consider doing two, or adapting the recipe for a small turkey. 

Kevin's Beer Bread
Since Kevin inspired the main dish, his Beer Bread Rolls seemed to be the perfect accompanyment for this meal. This is an original recipe of Kevin's, using whole wheat flour and a lager or ale, although Keving suggests using a stout or porter for if  you want a more assertive beer flavor.

 

Roasted Brussels Sprouts  with Bacon, Apples and Onions

This dish, which I developed this fall for Thanksgiving, seems to me to be the perfect side for the roasted chicken and rice stuffing.

Arugula Salad with Toasted Pine Nuts and Roasted Grape Tomatoes
I like to keep the salad fairly simple for these festive meals, and this composition  is festive-looking and fresh. If you want to add some shavings of Parmeggiano Reggiano that would be a nice touch.

Mocha Mint Granita

This variation on the traditional esresso granita again brings a festive holiday spirit to the meal, with the mint garnish. As the granita melts in the glass and combines with the whipped cream, it becomes a frozen flavored cappucino.

Tennessee Bourbon Cookies
These cookies were developed from another of Kevin's recipes -- this time, his grandmother's traditional Christmas Bourbon Cake. In addition to the bourbon, they're full of raisins, nuts and spices, making them the perfect finishing touch for our Christmas dinner.

At the end of the dinner, I plan to put out a selection of  Tennessee sourmash whisky, grappa and single malt Scotches --  drinks that can be savored over good conversation with good friends!

Ok, I've had some fun with this, and I've got several more to post in the coming days. Please email me, or leave a comment, if you have any questions about any of the recipes, and don't forget to check out Seriously Good.

Merry Christmas!

 

Plantains and Serenata de Bacalao (Saltcod Salad)

  

Okay, I had a lot of fun around here over the last few months with fall foods, all those cozy, sit-by-the-fire dishes that seemed so welcome as summer waned and then disappeared. But a few days ago I was doing my shopping with the first snowstorm of the winter (which hasn't even technically started yet) bearing down on us and suddenly I was thinking...tropical. Fortunately, even in Maine these days you can find plantains, yautía and other staples of Puerto Rican cookery.

I guess it was the salt cod I picked up, for one of our favorite Christmas traditions (an Italian salt-cod soup, the subject of a future post) that made me think of Puerto Rico. Ten years ago, in the first few months of our courtship, E and I went to PR with our friends Carmen and Jeff. It was a magical week in the sun, and one of the first times I really got to appreciate what an enthusiastic and adventurous eater E is. We ate plantains almost every day, drank dark rum, and on several nights Carmen (who is Puerto Rican and lived on the Island for seven years when she was young) cooked traditional dishes for us.

Serenata de bacalao - a salad featuring salt cod - was one of the most memorable of Carmen's dishes, and she generously shared the recipe with me. Salt cod, now somewhat of a rare delicacy, was the foundation of several economic and civil empires over the last few centuries, as documented in the wonderful book by Mark Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World.  As a result there are many, many preparations featuring salt cod in many different national cuisines.

Plantains, along with yautía, are the potatoes of the Island. They are prepared in hundreds of different ways: boiled, fried, fricaseed, you name it. Last night I just did two of the most common and popular: fried ripe plantains and plantain pie, which is sort of the Shepard's Pie of Puerto Rico, although a lot more interesting.  A tumbler of ice and dark rum with a squeezed lime section floating in it and I was ready to face another Maine winter!

Anchovy Sage Risotto and Carrot Tower with Shiraz Jelly

  

This was another stunt-cooking entry in the Paper Chef online competition in which participants are given three ingredients and a weekend to cook somthing up an blog about it. The ingredients for this edition were rice, carrots, anchovies and "something from the other side of the world that helps make this dish a celebration for you." Pretty clear, except for the wild card ingredient, which required a bit of thought and research. 

A little Googling brought me to this website, where I found that "the other side of the world" from me here in Maine is somewhere in the eastern Indian Ocean off the Southwest corner of Australia. Leaving out online ordering or a drive to the Megalopolis, there are very few products available in Maine actually imported from "the other side of the world" -- especially if you're being pretty narrow and concentrating on the Southwestern region of Australia (the eastern Indian Ocean itself doesn't seem to produce much in the way of product for export, and the western Indian Ocean -- which is rather far from Australia -- produces mainly toothfish, renamed Chilean Sea Bass, for export but that's an overfished species now in extreme danger so we don't like to cook with that anymore).

One lonely bottle of 2003 Mad Fish Shiraz, from Southwestern Australia. That's it: the only ingredient I could find that was truly "from the other side of the world!" A little more Googling among the wine sites told me that the Mad Fish is a respectable wine, and a sip confirmed it: oakey, blackberry/spice notes, all those good wine-reviewer words (go Googling if you want to read more about this wine). 

I had pretty much decided already to make an anchovy-sage risotto and perch it on top of a carrot pancake, so I guess I could have just poured a glass of the Mad Fish and put it in the shot, but this is the Paper Chef! The fun is in trying to use all the ingredients in ONE dish that tastes and looks good. So, after a little research and experimenting I decide to top the tower with a disc of jelly made from my other-side-of-the-world ingredient.