Masters Potluck

Traditions are wonderful. When my family started having a Christmas party two years ago, I immediately started calling it 'annual'. Traditions need to start somewhere, and they certainly need a little bit of help sometimes. A longer tradition in my family is my dad hosting a potluck to watch the final round of the Master's, which was made more entertaining for non-golf fans this year by the intrigue surrounding Tiger Woods' return. He was in the final round, not too far back, ready to make a run at it. Add a little bit of a wager to the event, as per tradition, along with a lot of alcohol and good company, and you've got yourself a relatively fun golf game. Miracle, I know.

A new tradition, I hope, was my responsibility of supplying a bunch of food for the party. My dad usually does a beef dish and a loaf of bread. He also buys a plate of pastries from a local bakery. I remember the Masters Potluck party from my childhood because it was the only time we ever had cream-filled things in the house. Eclairs, tarts, custards. I would have had no idea what they were without this annual event. So my dad bought the sweet tray and made his bread this year, but left the rest to me. Yes, everyone else was supposed to bring a dish, but usually the host of a potluck is responsible for a meat entrée and some kind of side dish, starch or salad - basically whatever food category is unaccounted for. To me, this is potluck etiquette. I intentionally went whole hog, though, and covered all my bases with the following menu:

Striploin Roast with Wild Mushrooms
Arugula Salad with Shrimp and Grapes
Baked Sweet Potato Fries
Spice-Rubbed Sea Trout
Kale With Garlic and Lemon (there are never enough greens at potlucks)

Sweet Hazelnut Torte with Butterscotch Frosting and Blueberry Syrup
Chocolate Hazelnut Torte with Butterscotch Frosting and Bakeapple Syrup
Vanilla Custard (I needed to do something with the leftover egg yolks from the meringues in the tortes...)
Hasty Pudding
Brownie Pudding

The amount of desserts looks ridiculous, I know. I made them so my mom and I would have something to eat, what with cream not agreeing with us. In addition to a rhubarb sorbet brought from friends at the local organic farm, we had more than enough options. The last two desserts I had made the day before, because my mom and I had talked about brownie pudding and I felt like making it that evening for dessert, but when I looked for the recipe I couldn't decide between the hasty and brownie puddings (the main differences in the recipes were dates in the hasty pudding and cocoa in the brownie pudding sauce. Otherwise they were very similar. I did melt the optional marshmallows on top of the brownie pudding this time, though, which I never used to do when I made this). So I made them both.

It was way over the top for host requirements, but I didn't want there to be a lack of food, and potlucks can be so disappointing, especially if you have dietary restrictions.

I'll start with the meat and work my way down the list:

Striploin Roast with Wild Mushrooms

Ingredients:
dijon
garlic, minced
pepper
Worcestershire sauce
dried rosemary
4lb boneless rib roast
salt
olive oil
shallots, peeled and quartered
balsamic vinegar
dry red wine
wild mushrooms (a mix of shiitake and portobello), cut in half-inch slices
oyster sauce
fresh parsley

Oyster sauce is a weird addition. You wouldn't associate an Asian condiment with a European-style roast, but the sweetness and earthy flavour works well with the dry red wine and balsamic. The recipe even calls for a fair bit of it, so it's not like it's just there to hang out.

This is supposed to be made with a striploin roast but there was 'narn' to be found in my Newfoundland grocery stores. So Bonnie Stern's Heartsmart Cooking said that a boneless rib roast would work just fine. What I bought seemed like the closest thing to a boneless rib roast...actually I had to buy two smaller roasts to get to 4lbs, but I didn't have a choice. That's why it cooked a bit too fast, I'm sure, but I don't eat beef anyway, and you can get away with serving beef medium in Newfoundland sometimes. Blood is often frowned upon here.

The recipe says to combine the mustard, garlic, pepper, Worcestershire sauce and rosemary and to pat it all over the roast. Then let it marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes or in the fridge "for longer". Pick a duration and roll with it. I'm not a big fan of marinating at room temperature and I had lots of time to let the roast sit in the fridge, so I gave it a good 3 hours.

I think I forgot to add the salt...hmm...I don't recall. It's supposed to be sprinkled on just before searing the meat. Too late now, I guess. I heated the oil in a skillet on medium-high and seared the roast on all sides. Not a lot of fat was left in the skillet after I transferred the roast to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. I have no idea why it's supposed to be lined with parchment paper. Or even why Bonnie Stern calls for a baking sheet. Why not a real roasting pan? Mysteries of life.

Then the roast got stuck in the oven for 45 minutes at 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Now I've recently been making a lot of roast meats, but mostly things that are braised. This recipe didn't say to cover the roast (neither did it specifically say to leave it uncovered) but I'm a bit scared to leave meat uncovered in the oven at a reasonably high heat. Seems like a recipe for disaster (aka a recipe for dry meat). I decided to cover it, which was probably a bad idea since it over-cooked. After 45 minutes I checked with a meat thermometre. It was supposed to read 135 Fahrenheit and it kept going up and up from there. I didn't want to see where it stopped...I hate thermometres. At least now I knew it was okay to leave the meat in the aluminum foil to rest for 20 minutes. The recipe again didn't say anything about covering it, but I thought that was pretty standard? The juices would spread out in the meat, but it might cook a little more from the remaining heat. What to do, what to do? Leave the meat in aluminum and let the juices spread, or remove the aluminum to stop the cooking? I figured I had a better chance with the aluminum on. I'm such a novice.

Then I tried to skim off some of the fat from the baking sheet (this is where my parchment paper confusion comes in. All the juices that accumulated in the pan kept the meat from sticking, so the paper just got covered in blood and juice. Didn't really seem to serve a purpose). So I gave up on the skimming and poured the liquid into the skillet where the roast had seared an hour before. The skillet was set to medium-high again and the shallots and vinegar were added to deglaze the stuck bits.

I was supposed to cook until the vinegar evaporated and the shallots began to brown, but who knows when that is? There was so much juice from the roast that it's impossible to tell when there's any vinegar left. The shallots didn't really want to brown either. I had a time-line going on dinner, so I waited about 10 minutes and figured that had to be enough.
Then the wine. So fun. I used the only dry red we had - a 2006 Clos de Jordanne Pinot Noir...not what I ideally would have liked to use for cooking because it's a pretty nice bottle, and the recipe called for 2 cups of it, but I knew it would make a fantastic sauce, and there'd be enough left to sample on its own after. This liquid got reduced to a 1/2 a cup while I again scraped down the brown bits stuck to the skillet.

Then in went the mushrooms. Some mushrooms don't like the idea of "1/2-inch slices". So my mushroom shapes were a bit abstract. Turns out I was supposed to remove the stems from the shiitakes, which would have made slicing them easier. No heads up on that one from Bonnie, though. Just think of it as mushroom art, and know it will be delicious either way. Much better than Yoko Ono's Orange, anyway.

The mushrooms cooked for 10 more minutes. Finally the oyster sauce was added and cooked for 5 minutes. Oysters and mushrooms. That makes sense to me now.

The parsley got added to the sauce, the roast got sliced and the sauce got poured on top. I wish I'd stopped pouring about halfway through. There was way too much sauce for the roast. Basically the roast ended up hiding under the shallots. I think a big problem was that the recipe had said to cut the shallots into quarters. Quarters lengthwise? Or in half lengthwise and then in half width-wise? Next time I will go for quarters lengthwise, because my shallots seemed a bit too chunky, even after I'd coaxed the layers out of them in the skillet. The beef should be the highlight of this, not the shallots. I could also just use half as many shallots, and then I'd have an extra glass of wine to share!!

Still, the roast was very much enjoyed, and most of the meat disappeared. It seemed like there was a lot leftover but it was mostly shallots and sauce. The guests knew what they were after.

For someone who doesn't eat beef, I think I did okay. Next time I will mess up less. Definitely a good mantra...