'tis the season...

Hi, Y'all!

Thanksgiving just passed (although we're in Germany, we actually like celebrating that holiday). Our neighbors lived in the US for quite some time and therefore it deemed suitable to devour a bird together. With two couples it didn't make sense to prepare a whole turkey, and so we had a duck instead (I bought that via grutto.com - no ad, we paid for it ourselves). I like their principles and whereas we eat mostly vegetarian, we sometimes have something special when there is a special occasion. But let me stress that there are vegetarian or vegan dishes which are equally delicious! 

I stuffed the duck with apples, oranges and onions and spiced it with s+p. Placed it onto a rack and below there was a sheet pan with veggies (carrots, leek, onions, knob celery), the stuffing which didn't fit in the duck, vegetable stock and some spices (a cinnamon stick, star anise, some cloves and a laurel leave). The giblets, the throat and the wings I also placed on that sheet for extra taste. The idea is that all the liquid from the bird is caught in the sheet pan to enhance the taste. It went into the oven for one and a half hours at 150 degrees Celsius, and then I took the liquid from the sheet pan and used it as base for the sauce. I put the oven to 200 degrees Celsius for another half an hour to get the skin especially crispy. For the sauce I caramelized some sugar in a pot and deglazed it with some balsamic vinegar and red wine and reduced until it reached a honey-like texture. I then added the liquid from the sheet pan and a bit of cream, but no thickeners.  

In the heat of the moment I did not take any pictures but here's one from preparation: 

Meanwhile I set the table, and as we are lacking some pendant light above our table, we had three large candles as centerpiece. Thanks Bine for your deco-inspiration with the wine corks :-) 

Dumplings were store-bought, but as compensation I did the red cabbage from scratch. So, first there was the shredding of the cabbage (I am so thankful for my KitchenAid!) and then I had to massage some salt into the cabbage to soften it up. 

Then I caramelized some onions in a dutch oven (because I was afraid that my pot wasn't large enough) and deglazed them with balsamic vinegar. (If you see a pattern here - you are damn right!) 

Add into the mix some apple and orange juice, some water and of course the star of the show, the red cabbage. Furthermore a teabag full of spices, e.g. a laurel leaf, some juniper berries, some cloves and a cinnamon stick. Let that simmer until it is as soft as you like it - and that may take an hour or two. Therefore, I prepared the cabbage in the morning and simply reheated it in the evening, which worked perfectly fine. I was so busy with bird and sauce that I didn't want to bother with homemade dumplings and cabbage. 

When the cabbage was almost done, I added half a glass of mountain cranberries and that's it for the vegetarian version. But hubby aka taste tester deluxe said something's missing. Thus I threw some diced bacon in a pan and fried that until it was crispy. Bacon and fat joined the cabbage, and the combination of fruity and smoky was absolutely delish! Added bonus: the cabbage was beautifully glossy! 

Well, that was end of November, a very nice and yummy evening, and now its advent already... Some things never change - Christmas is just around the corner all of a sudden :-) And therefore I will post some Christmas decorations soon! 

Be thankful and be blessed!