Year End Eating (and sourdough baking)

In most years, my wife's brother Marty comes a few days before Christmas until a few days before New Years to cook.

And cook.

And cook.

A brief look at the breads, all of which played supporting roles to Marty's main meals, will give you an indication of the week of extravagance.

Part of Marty's spreadsheet for when things get prepped.

Here's what happens in our kitchen (may take a while to load the video.).

Our first specialty bread was fougasse to accompany Marty's frikadeller.  Frikadeller are oblong, exceptionally tender Danish meatballs and despite my best efforts I could not make a plateful of them look photogenic.

Isaac is my professional fougasse shaper.

As soon as fougasse comes from the oven we coat it with olive oil.  This year's olive oil was donated by Wisam.  His family pressed it on their farm in Palestine.  The oil is sumptuous, light, and tastes partly of vanilla. After the olive oil was brushed on, we sprinkled the warm bread with flake salt harvested in the south of France.

For a nosh I made sourdough brioche.  It was my first try.  Brioche are enriched doughs meaning these two small loaves were made with five eggs and a pound of butter.  Yes, a pound of butter.

Every year Marty and I collaborate on blini, Russian pancakes.  I make the sourdough starter.  This year's batch I launched with my Russian rye starter filled out with one-third rye, one-third buckwheat, and one-third wheat flour.  Marty fries blini and supplies lox from Russ and Daughters.  He also makes creme fraiche by mixing fresh buttermilk with heavy cream.  He leaves it out of the fridge where it thickens in about 24 hours.

Blini, lox, creme fraiche, red onion, capers.  Heaven.

Isaac and Delaney arrived bearing homemade babka, rugelach, cranberry-orange pound cake, and little pecan pie-lets.

To accompany a Christmas dinner of roast lamb, Danish red cabbage, and baked brussels sprouts we all took a hand at shaping Uighur naan.  Uighur naan are flatbreads topped with scallions, black sesame seeds, cumin, and salt.

Below is a Danish rye I made for the annual smorrebrod: Danish open faced sandwiches.  The rye is a dense loaf laden with rye, spelt, and wheat berries, flax seeds and sunflower seeds.

Finally, this is year five that Marty and I have made sourdough croissants.  We're still searching for that perfect combination of buttery flavor, light crumb, distinct layering, and a crust so wafery that every bite shatters into a snowstorm of flakes.  We also tried our hand out Kouign Amman.  

Kouign Amann are a puff pastry from the Breton coast of France.  For a long description, read Meet the Kouign Amann: The Obscure French Pastry Making it Big in America. Before baking they are sprinkled with sugar and salt.  The sugar caramelizes in the heat, salt sets off the sweet, and after it cools the Kouign Amann are crisp-chewy on the outside and multi-layered like a pressed croissant on the inside.

The European butter Marty brought with him from California made this year's croissant tastier than ever.  We took five days to make the dough.  The extra time meant there were a lot of sourdough flavors infused throughout.  The crust was flaky.  The insides, however, were more close-packed than we were hoping for.  Wait until next year!