Happy Thanksgiving!

The CC was "traditional" — American, Filipino, French, Indian, Italian, Japanese. (Thai couldn't make it sadly.)

Lamb chops with rosemary & anchovies
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Brussel Sprouts with parmesan & pomegranates
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Stuffing with chestnuts & sage
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Champagne with pomegranates
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"Fruit Salad" with apples, tangelos, pomegranates

Fruit Salad

The CC just adores the name mostly because it totally lies about the underlying subject — well, maybe not about the "fruit" part — but this ain't no bloody salad!

This Indian dish has so much amazing science and trickery inside of it that it's worthy of the slipperiest of slippery gods. (Oh, Agni! Oh, Loki!)

What is it?

Fruits in a milk reduction with complex spicing.

When stated like that, it sounds so boring which it totally is not. It's a masterpiece of complex chemistry with that assured magician's sleight of hand which veers it towards genius.

One day the CC returned to his apartment where his roommate greeted him sheepishly, "I'm sorry. I ate it all. I couldn't resist."

The CC knew even back then the kinda effect this dessert has on people so he just said, "Why don't you go shopping? We'll make it again, and we'll make a party of it on Friday?"

And we partied.

He grilled the steaks, his girlfriend (now wife) cooked the rest of the meal, and the CC had already spent his time earlier reducing milk for dessert. We were poor graduate students but we had a blast.

How does it work?

You reduce whole un-homogenized milk until it resembles a thick soup. You add cardamom, saffron, and slivered almonds. Then you cool it down till it's really ice-cold. You add fruits in a bowl, pour the soup all over it and eat it.

When the CC added the citrus fruits to the bowl, the roommate yelled, "It's gonna curdle." Logical thinking but dead wrong! That's the magic trick.

When the proteins are denatured and the final product ice-cold, the citrus doesn't have enough time to make the milk curdle. Eat it right away or GTFO, as the kids might say these days.

The more variety of fruits you add the better. The CC prefers apples, oranges, pomegranates. You may prefer something else. Go nuts!

(The citrus fruits must be peeled. The tannins in the skin have a higher probability of making it curdle.)

What's the problem?

It's hard work. It's an insane amount of work specifically since the kinda burners that we have in apartments are rather puny.

All you're doing in the most important step is "reducing" milk i.e. you're removing the water from the milk and simultaneously denaturing the proteins.

This is one of the truly rare cases where the CC is going to talk about specific equipment. You are best off with a enamel-coated cast-iron pot — something like a Le Creuset.

There's a reason for this. The CC grew up with this dish. It took hours and hours and hours and hours of stirring. It always does. Back in the day, the CC thought that having a book would be an antidote which was logical until he dropped the book into the flames and the house almost caught on fire. Not so great after all.

What's so great about the enamel-coated iron pot is that it heats the milk uniformly.  From the sides as well as the bottom. The milk bubbles away at a uniform rate. You stir occasionally and try not to worry too much.

You'll worry anyway.

You want the milk to reduce by half. It'll change color because the water goes away and the bright white milk turns cream-colored.

The CC wants to point out that most Indian desserts involve reducing milk into various levels of submission. When looked at in that light, this is the easy end of the spectrum!

Ingredients

(serves 6)

2 gallons whole milk
sugar

6 cardamom pods
saffron
1/4 cup slivered almonds

1 orange - segmented, skin peeled
1 apple - cut into cubes
1 pomegranate - seeds separated

Note 1: The product itself is not amenable to storage but the milk mixture absolutely is. You can make more and just pour it over the fruits right before serving.

Note 2: When you serve it, it's great if you can chill the bowls ahead of time. It's not strictly necessary but it's nice.

Recipe

Heat up the milk in a pot. When it comes to a boil, reduce the heat and start stirring. Keep stirring. This is gonna take the better part of two hours or so.

Add the sugar to taste. The CC prefers less but your tastes may vary.

Keep stirring.

Seed the cardamom pods and crush them to a powder in a mortar and pestle.

The milk should reduce by half and the color changed from bright white to almost cream-colored.

You didn't miss the memo about keeping on stirring, right?

When reduced by half, add the cardamom powder, the saffron, and the almonds and take off the heat. When it has cooled down, stick it in the refrigerator till it is ice cold.

Put the fruits in a bowl. Pour the milk mixture all over it. Serve at once.

Thanksgiving Menu

Lamb chops with rosemary, anchovies & lemon
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Saffron Roasted Potatoes
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Brussel Sprouts with Parmesan & Pomegranates
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Champagne with Pomegranates
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Russian Cookies

Brussel Sprouts with Parmesan & Pomegranates

Every year when Thanksgiving rolls around, the CC remembers a little too late that he has forgotten to post this recipe. This year he's determined not to repeat the same old error.

This is simplicity itself and yet amazing.

Ingredients

(serves 2)

20-24 brussel sprouts
olive oil
salt
pepper

1 cup coarsely grated parmigiano-reggiano

1/2 cup pomegranate seeds

Note 1: Under-salt the brussel sprouts a little because the parmesan is salty too.

Note 2: This recipe is actually better at room temperature or just warm rather than hot. You can make it ahead of time.

Note 3: Not kidding when saying that it serves 2. The CC has continuously increased the amounts over the years and there are never any leftovers!

Recipe

Shave the brussel sprouts with a mandoline. If you don't have one, cut them real fine with a knife.

In a shallow vessel — a wok works great! — heat up some olive oil. When hot, dump in the shaved sprouts, salt and pepper, and sauté until they are done.

Take off the heat and toss with the grated parmesan.

Top with pomegranate seeds right before serving. Adds both a visual punch and a sweet crunchy counterpoint to the umami and salty flavors.

Thanksgiving

Champagne with Pomegranates
♥ Bruschetta with Spicy Roasted Squash, Onion Jam & Feta ♣ Roasted Lamb with Rosemary, Caramelized Lemons & Black Pepper  ♦
Pear, Oyster Mushroom, Pomegranate, Pinenut & Prosciutto Stuffing
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Fingerling Potatoes with Figs & Thyme
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Cheese Course ♦ Chocolate

Wild Rice with Cranberries, Pomegranate with Orange-Walnut Vinaigrette

Food and Social Class

One of the greatest descriptions of the relationship of food to mores and social class is undoubtedly the description of Madame Bovary encountering the dining room at the ball given by the Marquis in Flaubert's masterpiece.

What is left unstated is just as important as what is shown.

Emma's shock realization that many of the women had not put their gloves in their glasses (the conventional way for women to notify the servers that they were abstemious in the consumption of wine) is a show-stopper for her - the idea that women of a certain social rank would publicly consume wine is unthinkable to the petit bourgeois society that she is a product of.

The Marquis opened the drawing room door; one of the ladies (the Marchioness herself) came to meet Emma. She made her sit down by her on an ottoman, and began talking to her as amicably as if she had known her a long time. She was a woman of about forty, with fine shoulders, a hook nose, a drawling voice, and on this evening she wore over her brown hair a simple guipure fichu that fell in a point at the back. A fair young woman sat in a high-backed chair in a corner; and gentlemen with flowers in their buttonholes were talking to ladies round the fire.

At seven dinner was served. The men, who were in the majority, sat down at the first table in the vestibule; the ladies at the second in the dining room with the Marquis and Marchioness.

Emma, on entering, felt herself wrapped round by the warm air, a blending of the perfume of flowers and of the fine linen, of the fumes of the viands, and the odour of the truffles. The silver dish covers reflected the lighted wax candles in the candelabra, the cut crystal covered with light steam reflected from one to the other pale rays; bouquets were placed in a row the whole length of the table; and in the large-bordered plates each napkin, arranged after the fashion of a bishop's mitre, held between its two gaping folds a small oval shaped roll. The red claws of lobsters hung over the dishes; rich fruit in open baskets was piled up on moss; there were quails in their plumage; smoke was rising; and in silk stockings, knee-breeches, white cravat, and frilled shirt, the steward, grave as a judge, offering ready carved dishes between the shoulders of the guests, with a touch of the spoon gave you the piece chosen. On the large stove of porcelain inlaid with copper baguettes the statue of a woman, draped to the chin, gazed motionless on the room full of life.

Madame Bovary noticed that many ladies had not put their gloves in their glasses.

But at the upper end of the table, alone amongst all these women, bent over his full plate, and his napkin tied round his neck like a child, an old man sat eating, letting drops of gravy drip from his mouth. His eyes were bloodshot, and he wore a little queue tied with black ribbon. He was the Marquis's father-in-law, the old Duke de Laverdiere, once on a time favourite of the Count d'Artois, in the days of the Vaudreuil hunting-parties at the Marquis de Conflans', and had been, it was said, the lover of Queen Marie Antoinette, between Monsieur de Coigny and Monsieur de Lauzun. He had lived a life of noisy debauch, full of duels, bets, elopements; he had squandered his fortune and frightened all his family. A servant behind his chair named aloud to him in his ear the dishes that he pointed to stammering, and constantly Emma's eyes turned involuntarily to this old man with hanging lips, as to something extraordinary. He had lived at court and slept in the bed of queens! Iced champagne was poured out. Emma shivered all over as she felt it cold in her mouth. She had never seen pomegranates nor tasted pineapples. The powdered sugar even seemed to her whiter and finer than elsewhere.

Anardana

Dried seeds of a particularly tart variety of pomegranate.

They are powdered, and add a wonderful tart aroma to dishes. One of those Persian ideas that migrated its way to Central Asia, and thenceforth via the Mughals to India.

Thanksgiving Traditions

Well, turkey is conventional but we all have our own little traditions.

The CC always features pomegranates at his Thanksgiving dinner.

How did it start? Many a moon ago, the CC's friends and the CC decided that they liked pomegranates better than cranberries, and so it began.

The CC tries to vary it up each year, featuring it in totally different ways, everything from pomegranate juice and champagne to dessert made with pomegranates.

One year, the CC was being helped by a "cooking virgin". Needless to say, the CC could hardly resist handing him the task of plucking the pomegranate seeds.

The poor boy plucked out each seed one by one not knowing how to pluck a pomegranate. After half an hour, the CC showed him how to invert the peel, and brush off the seeds. His jaw dropped, some choice words were bandied about the CC's heritage, he hastily retreated in a sulky mood to the boudoir, beer in hand, and proceeded to yell at the television until the rest of the guests arrived.

Whee! What fun we have together!

So readers, what are your traditions for Thanksgiving?