What were your greatest cooking successes/failures in 2011?

What were your greatest holiday cooking successes or failures this year?

The lasagna, and sausage, potatoes and peppers turned out good and were very delicious. I was not that happy with my nutball cookies. They seemed too sweet and sugary, I think I might have put too much sugar in. Maybe my taste is changing. I also did not make spritz cookies which are my favorite. Also I should have served garlic bread instead of bread sticks.

I love to bake but I struggle with things that look pretty. I made a wonderful pie crust on Christmas morning. I even figured out how to crimp it, which if you knew my useless non-crafting fingers, would impress you. Now..there was some shrinkage in the bake but it still looked and tasted really good -- so I feel proud of that quiche.

Now..if I could only approximate some of the best biscuits I've ever had.....something to strive for next year!

I made Rick Bayless's black mole. An amazing dish and worth the effort.

Tried to make a hard sauce for the Christmas pud, but didn't have any confectioner's sugar so used regular.
Grainy, grainy, grainy. Never again. Woulda been better w/o it.

On the other hand, made the French-style pork pot roast from Cook'sSeptember 2011 issue, and it was a raving success. Yesssss!

Geo

FINALLY made a decent batch of SFO-style sourdough bread! Got the starter from New York Bakers - gratis. Lovely Xmas present!

Downside: the gravlax inexplicably turned out way, WAY too salty. I'm baffled - it's not like this was my first batch ever. Very disappointing. And I still feel so melancholy about the absence of Wikstrom's Swedish deli in Andersonville at this time of year - Erickson's just does not measure up in ANY way. So sad. I especially miss Wikstrom's vortlimpa - the Yuletime gussied-up standard limpa, containing a little candied peel and fennel seed. Great stuff for sandwiches, especially those made with baked ham and assertively-flavored cheeses, like caraway-seeded nokkelost or dill Havarti.

RIP, Wikstrom's. . .

Success - After discovering John's Live Poultry we ate some great birds this year. I think we had more duck this year than in the last 5 years combined.
Failure - my pizza still sucks. I just can't get the crust right.

zoid--

Would John's Live Poultry have pigeon? I just spent two months in London, watching cooking shows of an evening, and they do an awful lot of pigeon (not squab/piggeonneau, but the adult birds), and I sure haven't been able to find any in N. America on the net.

Geo

You got me curious so I called - (773) 622-2813
Yes they have pigeon - about $7 each.

Wow! That's a *great* price! Now I have to figure out how to get them to Montréal!

Tnx for asking!

Geo

Geo wrote:Would John's Live Poultry have pigeon? I just spent two months in London, watching cooking shows of an evening, and they do an awful lot of pigeon (not squab/piggeonneau, but the adult birds), and I sure haven't been able to find any in N. America on the net.

I don't think pigeons (or "pegens") are terribly uncommon at Chicago's live poultry shops. Sometimes a day or two notice is required.

Windy City Poultry — 4601 S Kedzie


Wing Ho 128 — 244 W 26th St

GEO...next time you are short on powdered sugar, you could try pulverizing regular sugar in your food processor. Not quite the same, but pretty close!

Hands-down, my biggest success was the porchetta I prepared for Christmas dinner. Luckily, I have another half of porky goodness resting comfortably in the fridge, so I'll be able to make it again soon! (If not, it freezes beautifully and will apparently keep for several months due to the fat content; see below for why this could be important to me personally.)

My biggest failure, on the other hand, came when I failed to cook the Easter ham I paid a small fortune for (I think I was ill or something; can't remember now). Thinking the ham would be prepared very soon after Easter, I left it in the fridge and didn't put it in the freezer for safekeeping. Well, when I finally had time to cook a big meal again, let's just say the ham was not a good candidate for the entree ...

Sharon

Geo wrote:Wow! That's a *great* price! Now I have to figure out how to get them to Montréal!

Tnx for asking!

Geo

I'd be happy to help in any way I can.
Does anyone know how to safely ship fresh poultry?

Total fail on the fairly famous biscuits from the Loveless Cafe (Nashville) mix. We subsequently had an opportunity to taste them at the source and they weren't so great there, either. So maybe it wasn't all me.

I just fucked up a nice roast and the sauce to go with it, ruining a roast and two beef neck bones. I'll have to make a new gravy tonight and cover it up.

At least that was the end of the year. The Thanksgiving turkey wasn't so great either, but it was underdone in places. I was able to salvage them by roasting them separately and turning the meat into sandwiches.

I will toot my own horn about my Christmas cookies, however—I was able to make 9 different kinds (plus 1 more that went directly into the freezer, unsandwiched) without burning a single tray, and every cookie came out looking nice and tasting good too. That never happens. Whoo hoo!
I also made brioche for the first time in years and it was kickass. It's so much fun to make and so easy it will be my new potluck staple, and I'm thinking of turning it into buns for bake sales.

Never mind the failures for now.

I've been intersted in charcuterie for quite some time and a few months ago, tried my hand at Foie gras torchon, following the detailed instructions on Michael Ruhlman's website. I have to say that they came out wonderfully, even though I was skeptical of a one minute poach in water.

If I remember correctly, you first temper to room temp, in order to be able to properly remove the veins and then soak in milk, before the marination with wine/ armagnac/etc...salt, pepper, and curing salt. Then the rolling, tying and poaching, followed by shocking and then re-rolling and then hanging.

Made 11 of them for an important club event. Sliced and then used aspic cutters to obtain perfect uniform discs. Saved and froze the scraps for canapes.

Very little loss in the cooking process and none of those big bands of rendered fat that you see in some photos. I'll do this again, for sure.

sundevilpeg wrote: I especially miss Wikstrom's vortlimpa - the Yuletime gussied-up standard limpa, containing a little candied peel and fennel seed.

Tag's bakery in Evanston has Limpa bread on Fridays that is very good and it always has candied peel-
I don't think it has fennel seed but but he Limpa bread is really good, and they also have this cinnamon crimp bread that is wonderful, esp for french toast-(ummmm)

Do you really think eating pigeons from Chicago is a good idea? The reason they can get them in a couple of days is that they can go out and catch them anywhere. They are considered rats with wings and feed on all kind of detrius, much of it might not be too good.

My failures are rarely interesting. Just lackluster.

I was very happy with Chanukah dinner this year. Made an Indian lamb stew from Claudia Roden. Did a test run and found the result dull. So, ever-resourceful Mrs. B. picked up our Madhur Jaffrey book and found a strikingly similar recipe with a couple of additional seasonings and some promising variations in process. We combined the 2 versions for the event and it came out marvelously. Tender chunks of lamb, with onion and potato:
* cloves
* ginger
* garlic
* chile
* turmeric
* coriander
* cumin
* tamarind paste
* coconut cream

To cross ref. with a pre-meal query I had posted about what to drink: I was thinking of going the Belgian ale route, but was at Howard's Wine Cellar to get bubbles, and ran the recipe by him. He came up with a particular Cotes du Rhone, densely packed with enough fruit, and structure to do the job. I was a bit apprehensive about conflict between them, but it worked beautifully, and very reasonably, price-wise.

My latkes were also quite successful, thanks in great part to input from LAZ. I went with a single giant latke served in wedges concept that I saw posted somewhere. But it took her advice to make it work.

Geo wrote: Now I have to figure out how to get them to Montréal!

If only they were passenger pigeons ...

Can't get those anywhere.

Rick T. wrote:Total fail on the fairly famous biscuits from the Loveless Cafe (Nashville) mix. We subsequently had an opportunity to taste them at the source and they weren't so great there, either. So maybe it wasn't all me.

biscuits are reasonably easy for me(after cooking them so often the family balks) but agree Loveless biscuits are a poor example--

toria wrote:Do you really think eating pigeons from Chicago is a good idea? The reason they can get them in a couple of days is that they can go out and catch them anywhere. They are considered rats with wings and feed on all kind of detrius, much of it might not be too good.

Some folks just call that "free range."

Tag's bakery in Evanston has Limpa bread on Fridays that is very good and it always has candied peel-
I don't think it has fennel seed but but he Limpa bread is really good

IrisArbor: No kidding? Never even thought to check there, even though it's literally on my daily beaten path. Thanks! Much obliged.

Learning to make crepes!