{"id":379,"date":"2009-12-26T22:24:52","date_gmt":"2009-12-27T02:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.com\/?p=379"},"modified":"2009-12-26T22:24:52","modified_gmt":"2009-12-27T02:24:52","slug":"dinner-december-25-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=379","title":{"rendered":"dinner, December 25, 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"smoked_eel_Blue_Moon_Fish\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I had originally intended to finish with a quince<\/a> pur\u00e9e the small rack of venison I had gotten from Ottomanelli<\/a> this week, but I had been misinformed about the availability of quince this late in December.\u00a0\u00a0 Learning the truth only the day before yesterday I quickly decided to use pears, one of the alternatives suggested by the recipe (in “D’Artagnan’s Glorious Game Cookbook<\/a>“).<\/p>\n

I had begun marinating the meat the day before that, in olive oil and crushed black pepper, along with Greenmarket rosemary, sage, and bay leaves (yes, I bought a bay branch at the greenmarket!).<\/p>\n

Yesterday, just before searing the rack and putting it in the oven for 20 minutes, I made the sauce, chopping up firm Bartlett and Bouree Bosc pears <\/em>and cooking them until tender with carmelized sugar and a combination of good Spanish red wine vinegar and stock which had been greatly reduced.\u00a0 The pear sauce was then pur\u00e9ed and kept warm.\u00a0 When the ribs were finished I separated them and served each portion on top of a helping of the pur\u00e9e, with a good portion of concentrated sauce infused with demi-glace spooned onto the meat itself and flowing onto the fruit.<\/p>\n

The potatoes and the kale were both brought home from the Greenmarket in recent days.\u00a0 I found the kale in fact in the farmer’s by-then-almost-emptied wooden box, still frosted with the snow, now slightly crispy, from last week’s storm.<\/p>\n

We had been listening to Bach’s Christmas Oratorio for much of the afternoon, but, not wanting to carry the traditional\u00a0 holiday playlist too far, just as we sat down to dinner we started listening to Bernstein’s “Candide<\/a>“.<\/p>\n

So for now, in this small place, in this best of all possible, possible, possible worlds:\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n