CHRISTMAS DINNERS

CHRISTMAS AND BEFORE CHRISTMAS

Actually, I'd like to start before Christmas with dinner Sunday evening.  I had picked a fillet of Mahi Mahi from the Buford Farmers Market a couple days before in anticipation of making a quick meal over the weekend.  I was reading about preparing fish when I came across an article on Asian fish.  It got me started thinking and I came up with a marinade of bourbon, soy sauce,  balsamic vinegar and fresh ginger.  I placed the fillet into the marinade for a couple hours before sauteing the fish.  While it was cooking I reduced the marinade to a thick sauce and poured it over the fish to finish.  With the Mahi Mahi, we sauteed French string beans in olive oil and garlic to accompany the fish.  Simple and delicious. 
Christmas Eve...was Charlotte's day to make food which she began the day before with Swedish gravlax.  She made this by smearing  two large salmon fillets with vegetable oil.  In the pan she place fresh dill (a whole bunch).  One fillet is then laid on the dill.  A mixture of salt, sugar and white pepper is poured onto the fillet.  More dill and then the other fillet on top.  The remainder of the salt, sugar and pepper is poured onto the top fillet with more dill, then weights are place on the "fish sandwich" and popped into the frig. 12 hours later the whole thing is flipped over and weighted for another 12 hours.  Before our Christmas Eve party, the salmon was very thinly sliced across the fillet.  It is eaten with a mustard, vinegar, honey, oil and dill sauce spread on Swedish crisp bread called Knackebrod and a thin slice of cured salmon placed on top.  Swedish Christmas finger food!
Christmas Day...very simple again.  We made a standing rib roast.  I picked fresh rosemary from the bush outside and made a poultice of garlic, rosemary, thyme, crushed black pepper and olive oil.  This was smeared all over the roast and then placed into a Dutch oven.  We had plenty of glogg (mulled wine) left over from the Christmas Eve party and poured about a cup of it into the Dutch oven for making gravy later on.
With the roast we had Charlotte's Swedish roasted potato wedges and more French string beans.  During the cooking process we enjoyed a bottle of Rose Champagne and a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon with dinner.