Dinner with my son and a friend of his, both of them former professional cooks. Xmas because it was Xmas, for us simply another excuse for a cookup and warmth, with neither presents nor tinsel. We had fun both planning and improvising on the spur and following the flavours of whatever we've been having a moment before. In the end, we stayed in the kitchen eating at the prep table and a couple of metres away from the range where one of us would always be fixing the next thing.
Smoked crocodile for an appetizer, camel for the hors d'oeuvre, breast of duck for main, flan for afters. Champagne, cava, bourgogne, sherry, calvados, mezcal and whisky, for both cooking and drinking.
Smoked croc, with champagne -- and counting the camel, I imagine that's what was on Bonaparte's menu in Egypt
Camel (garlic, black pepper, a couple of cloves, sea salt), tomatoes, olive oil, a few drops of truffle balsamico, a bit of bread fried in the camel's deglacé. This was a total experiment, never having handled camel before. Doesn't look like much, but the taste! After this, if we could have a bit of camel for lunch every day... excellent, wonderful, flavourful meat. More camel for the people!
Breast of duck, massaged in olive oil and coarse black pepper, lightly seared, then oven braised in the crock with champagne (it was a French duck), onions, garlic, chili, lemon zest, and a minimal touch of achiote, anis and clove. Once ready and the duck sliced on a plate, we heated up the stock with a generous dash of calvados. That last was a successful improvisation, and in the future I'll always use calvados for a duck sauce, a perfect combination of flavours.
Arroz pilau, one of the pilaff variants, this one Portuguese, basmati rice, saffron, lightly roasted almonds, raisins, an onion with cloves and thinly sliced onions caramelized in olive oil and honey
Sheep's milk flan with a sherry caramel. We've been eating with champagne and cava, so we felt necessary to open the bourgogne for the flan, which was kind of a surprise. Maybe it was the flan, or maybe the sherry caramel, but bourgogne goes beautifully with it.