Our Christmas Culinary Adventure
Ooops… I just realized that I haven’t really posted anything about our Christmas dinner and culinary adventures! I have been posting it in many places such as my Facebook account and I have used it in a holiday newsletter which I sent out to our friends and family, and that’s why I have this feeling that it’s already done here also. Apparently not! Apologies for that, but let me make up for it for posting it here now.
We tried our best at creating hygge, but with a spacious home and hot climate, it wasn’t as easy. We didn’t want to invest too much in Christmas ornaments and decoration, because this may be our last Christmas in Jakarta. So, instead of having a plastic Christmas tree (which we thought was just too tacky), we decorated the house with two Christmas stars (Poinsettia) and several other Christmas ornaments – including the Christmas balls and lights which we just stuffed into a tall glass vase and put in the corner.
The cookie jar that you see in the centre of our coffee table is filled with self-made kaastengels (Dutch for cheese cookies). It’s a Dutch-Indonesian tradition for Christmas, but we also had some Danish cookies available for our after meal coffee.
The cooking already started on the 23rd. Following a recipe from Torben Jensen, chef at Gråbrødre Torv 21 restaurant in Copenhagen, Denmark, I made the red cabbage from scratch while my hubby was finishing up his work on the last day before the holidays.
On the 24th afternoon, we started the process for ris a la mande, which would be the dessert for the Christmas eve dinner. It’s a Danish tradition to serve ris a la mande, with chopped up almonds but also with one (only one!) whole almond in it. Whoever finds that whole almond will win a prize. We were lucky enough to find an instant Milchreis (milk rice or risengrød) package from Dr. Oetker at Ranch Market, which is the basis for making ris a la mande. We had one small portion of it with a sprinkle of sugar and cinnamon powder and a teaspoon of butter. It was a nice way to ease into the Christmas eve atmosphere.
Then came the duck. It was bathed in boiled water and honey to help make the skin crispier, as per suggestion from one of the recipe’s reviewer who left a comment in the above linked recipe. I thought that it worked, but my hubby didn’t agree. The duck was sprinkled with salt and pepper, stuffed with pitted prunes and apples and then roasted in the oven.
While the duck was roasting, we whipped some cream together (about 400 ml) with one stick of vanilla and about 1/4 cup sugar or to taste, to be later folded into the leftover risengrød and mixed with chopped almonds. Don’t forget to put in one whole almond into the mix! The idea is to serve this dessert later after everybody have stuffed themselves with good food, and to get them to keep eating until they find the whole almond. 
Inhumane, I know!
The side dishes for the duck was normal boiled potatoes, as well as small brown potatoes, which are potatoes cooked in caramel. First you melt about a cup of sugar or as needed (judging from the amount of potatoes you will use) and then add butter when the melted sugar starts to turn brown. Add the potatoes. Remember to keep the heat low after the potatoes are added so that they don’t get burnt before they absorb the caramel taste.
Finally, the food was ready! Being a good and understanding man that he is, my hubby allowed me to have a few Canon moments. I have been taking pictures of the whole cooking process anyway, he thought, so why stop now? But after a few clicks, we couldn’t resist the fragrant smell of our delicious food, and we dug in.
But, wait! The story is not yet over. I have yet to tell you about the ris a la mande scandal!
Normally, the ris a la mande would be served with cherry sauce. We couldn’t find it here, but we could find canned pitted cherries in its juice. So that’s what we opted for. We blended it a bit and then heated it to reduce the sauce.
A few hours after dinner, we sat at the table again and enjoyed the dessert. I didn’t find the whole almond in my first serving so I was about to get myself a second one, despite of my already full stomach, when I noticed my hubby’s bowl. He tried to hide the whole almond under his spoon but I spotted it anyway! Well he certainly tried to get me to eat more of the dessert, which eventually I did, just because it tasted so good! 
But I wasn’t really surprised that he found it – looking back to a few hours before, he was the one who hid the almond in the first place! 
Tags: Christmas, duck, ris a la mande, risengrød