My family, G's family, and my sister's in-laws all gathered at our new place for Christmas dinner. I really enjoy cooking and entertaining so I had a blast.
The two mains were prime rib and a whole baked salmon. I'd never done prime rib before so I was pretty scared. Added to that, anything that big requiring over an hour of baking scares me as well. What if it's over or under done when it's dinner time? What if it comes out all messed up? There's no way to salvage something like prime rib or Thanksgiving turkey: if it's messed up, that's that- go get the yellow pages and pray for an open pizza joint.
The prime rib was pretty easy actually, and much easier than turkey. I stabbed it a bunch of times w/ a steak knife all over and inserted smashed garlic cloves in the holes, then crusted the whole thing with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper. Into the oven it went. A digital instant read thermometer probe is a must. Set that baby to 125F and go pour yourself a glass of red.
Baking salmon is pretty boring by now. I think my guests have figured out my M.O. Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper, and add your favorite mix of leafy green herbs. This time it was basil, dill, thyme. The main wrinkle was that it was a 12lb. whole salmon, head on, not the usual Costco filet pack. Oh yeah, filled the cavity w/ lemon slices and slit the body on the outside to insert more herbs on lemon or lime slices.
A few lessons learned from entertaining:
- Make dishes you actually want to eat if there are leftovers. This goes for pretty much any meal, by the way.
- Having two ovens would have been really nice. I had to wait for the prime rib to finish before I could start the salmon. I got the beef started late, so we started dinner w/ just the that while the fish was baking. But the salmon was so big, I had to change from baking to broiling to speed it up. A second oven would have helped.
- Make dishes simple so leftovers can be re-used easily and creatively the next few days.
- There was lot of salmon left since people got full on the beef and appetizers. We packed a bunch of it for families to take home, but still had a good chunk left. The next morning, I made salmon omelettes and waffles for breakfast. Then the following night, I made salmon fried rice with mushrooms, green onions and scrambled egg. All gone! Instead of fried rice we almost had spaghetti instead- make your marinara sauce, thrown in some capers, the leftover salmon meat, add your pasta- voila!
- There wasn' t much prime rib left, but it became roast beef sandwiches today.
Anyways, aside from the cooking, it was fun to be with family.
