Serving Suggestion: Duck, Chicken, Salmon

“Roasted Chicken Breasts with Orange Mustard Jus, Braised Leeks and Broccoli Greens”

Ingredients:

• 5 pounds oranges
• 4 qt chicken stock
• 1t spicy mustard
• 1t mustard seed, toasted in chicken fat or garlic oil
• 1T honey
• 2 shallot
• 200ml marsala
• 2t tomato paste
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 pinch coriander seeds
• 1 star anise
• 1t orange oil

Method:

1. Juice all your oranges, strain through fine mesh into a small pot. Reduce your orange juice by 3/4.
2. roast your chicken bones until golden brown then cook under pressure in 4qt of water for 1 hour 15 minutes. Strain and skim the stock.
3. In a sauce pot, sauté chopped shallots until softened. Add your tomato paste, cook until lightly browned. Deglaze with marsala. Reduce.
4. Add your chicken stock, star anise, bay leaf and coriander. Reduce by 3/4 on medium heat, skimming as necessary.
5. Once reduced strain the sauce into a <1qt pot. Add your orange reduction, mustard, honey, and mustard seed and continue to reduce until you reach the desired consistency. This sauce is rich from the sugars thus I prefer more brothy than saucy consistency.
6. Adjust seasoning to your preference using salt, honey, lemon, and butter.

At this point of the year the kitchen is filled with gift baskets loaded with crackers, chips, cookies, chocolate, popcorn, and fruit. The kitchen turns into a hot Wonka factory–the building temp is set to 76 and the AC doesn’t work here. The stove is ripping for 10 hours a day, the kitchen is a toasty 85 degrees effectively melting anything melty. It boggles my mind the amount of chocolate and candy that will go to waste.

The majority of these bags and jars and tins of poorly produced food will sit idly in the pantry for the next 6 months as I quietly watch the expiration date get nearer. At least then I don’t feel guilty throwing it away. These “branded” bags of chips, cookies, and nuts from Williams Sonoma or Harry and David aren’t very good. The whole Christmas food gift industry is a bit depressing. What do you think is the dollar conversion of “gifts that are essentially garbage” to “number of people you could feed or house”?

Interesting fact: Seventeen percent of the total U.S. gift market segment falls under corporate gifting, which totals $22 billion a year. In 2021, 67% of both consumer and corporate sales bought food gifts. Of those, 46% purchased food-based gift baskets for others, which combines corporate gift-giving with the popularity of gift baskets ⁽¹⁹⁾.

I do however respect the people that send olive oil and good quality spices as gifts. It’s smart. Everyone should send olive oil. If your household isn’t going through 1 liter of olive oil per month you need to evaluate your diet. Check out the PREDIMED study (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1800389).

The fruit at least is worthwhile but my goodness there’s enough grade A GMO fruit to feed a ship full of pirates. When did this whole thing with the oranges in a box start anyway? Why don’t you just send a big empty box that’s nicely wrapped with a card “dear-so-and-so I’ve donated $50 on your behalf to such-and-such charity. Merry Christmas.” That’s the whole point anyway. Nobody wants the fruit, it’s just the box and the thought. If you yourself grew the oranges in your backyard with actual thought and effort, then ok, send me a box of oranges or mangoes for Christmas, but otherwise I’d prefer an empty box. Every kid would rather play with the box anyway. Oh well, I guess I’ll make a sauce with oranges.