After golf yesterday, I cooked dinner for the family & a couple visiting from Tokyo for the holidays.
We had 12 for Christmas “dinner.”
Cheese and nuts etc to start
Smoked trout roe, smoked salmon and Kaluga caviar on toast points and potato chips. Some bought crème fraiche.
Crabmeat Ravigote
Homemade Gravlax on rye with cucumber slices.
Mini Crabcakes
Lobster tails Sous Vide then grilled then tossed with truffle butter.
Grilled Oysters
Raw Oysters
Crab boil potato salad
Boiled shrimp
Dessert was my sister’s carrot cake and Pullman’s chocolate Doberge cake.
Started with Kingston Negroni, Poinsettias. Took out 4 bottles of champagne, 1 bottle of prosecco, Brian Loring Chard and Pinot a random bottle of Sauvignon blanc, half of a bottle of Sauternes (20+years old) and then hit the whiskey.
How were the cheese straws? I didn’t see them on your list. I make a variant in a disk shape that includes Rice Krispies that have been very popular with one of my wine groups.
They were an excellent batch.
The recipe is from the grandmother of one of my daughter’s good friends. We were sworn to secrecy. Plus it took six months to find the antique Swedish hand crank dough extruder.
In my house growing up, we called those Rice Crispy Treats. Very popular indeed.
So when you were growing up, you made savory Rice Crispy Treats?! Very advanced. The only version we knew (and loved) were with Rice Krispies and marshmallow.
It’s funny - I didn’t even know about the sweet marshmallow version until someone brought them to a bake sale when I was well into high school.
I now feel fortunate to have been raised in a home with both kinds of crisped rice treats, though the sweet marshmallow version was more common. They were a staple of elementary school bake sales. My mom would make the cheese crisps fairly often for events but even more frequently would contribute sausage cheese balls, which I also like a lot but which aren’t as wine friendly as the cheese crisps.
Man I ate a ton of the sausage balls. Great for camping trips. Only three ingredients.
Some delays in posting. Sunday night dinner.
Leg of lamb on the grill.
Sugar cone cabbage, the “gravy” from the Christmas Eve osso bucco on some truffle mashed potatoes.
It was just the two of us for NYE, and we are rolling towards the yearly reset (Dry/Diet) starting Jan 2, so we considered carefully what to have for dinner. We already had the caviar and smoked salmon ready to go, so I suggested we go in a totally different direction for the main course: bacon cheeseburgers!
We used a mix of Flannery Kali blend and Adventurous blend, to get some of the aged elements in there, along with Chef Jonathan’s secret herbs and spices mix. Broadbent Applewood Bacon. Potato rolls. Grilled onions for Jonathan. American cheese (purhcased for the boys’ breakfast sandwiches the other day). Condiments of choice. Sheer perfection. The 2010 Vajra Kye was a perfect pairing, the exact right match, not just a delicious wine drunk alongside. I daresay that, though we were in bed well before midnight, we rung in 2026 in style.
NYE is always a good excuse for me to cook a big meal, stay home, and go to bed early. 3 courses for this evening
Albacore Tuna Crudo - Avocado, Chili Crisp, Mushroom Chips
The tuna is Hawaiian Albacore (aka Tombo) that was lightly brined and then torched before slicing. The mushroom chips are a favorite garnish of mine - take a large king oyster mushroom and slice on the mandoline, then fry at 350ish for maybe 60-90 seconds, until the chips are golden and the oil stops bubbling. This is a riff on a similar crudo I made recently, I think I liked this one even more.
Rock Shrimp Tempura - Harukei Turnip, Avocado, Grapefruit, Chive
These are wild gulf rock shrimp that are just so delicious with an almost crunchy texture, so frying them seemed to make sense, lol. The same avocado element is on the bottom of the plate here, the turnips are also fried and provided a nice counter to the shrimp. Both sweet, but one being oceanic and one being vegetal was a nice combo. This dish needed more acid though and salt, though. This was a dish I totally freestyled so much to improve here.
Ribeye, Celeriac, Mushrooms, Salsa Verde
For the main course, I wanted steak this year. This was a prime ribeye that weighed about 1.2lbs. When I got it, it had a really perfect looking spinalis section, and also a ton of fat between it and the eye, so I decided to break it all down and render some tallow to cook the steak in.
The puree starts with caramelizing some shallot slowly, then adding the sliced celeriac, cover with cream and reduce. I also added a bay leaf. You can see a couple little rounds of celeriac hiding in there too, they were just quickly sautéed while the steak rested along with the tops of the king oyster mushroom that I used to make the chips. An Italian style salsa verde finishes everything off. This dish was really delicious and the flavors were well balanced. The spinalis on its own was unbelievable, but I think the eye portion suffered a bit from not having that fat around it.
Happy New Year everyone!!
Gorgeous meal!
I gave my wife free rein in the NYE dinner choice and she voted steak. Planned to just grab one from the freezer. I had to run to the store for some black eyed peas and ribs for New Year’s Day and paused by the butcher counter and saw a very pretty ribeye.
Left it out on the counter for a couple of hours after salting. She also requested twice baked potatoes. These were the best I have ever made. Some truffle Perigord sauce with added mushrooms rounded it out.
The favorite champagne of my wife. She can identify it blind every time. Burger would also have made her happy. And I would have had all her caviar.
Sheer perfection in a meal.
that burger Sarah had was thick!! 
Fancy is fun, but very hard to beat simplicity for sheer enjoyment and satisfaction.
And that was after I smooshed mine so I could take a bite! Jonathan’s mouth is a lot bigger than mine, when speaking literally.
That would have been my only “complaint.” I can only open my mouth about 50% as wide as before my radiation treatments. Had PT etc and it helped but didn’t restore. So I’m a knife and fork guy for many burgers and dogs.
