Christmas day dawns and an unmissable opportunity for a culinary show off such as myself. Currently at Chez Nous we have my partners family staying for Christmas 4 adults and 4 lovely kids subjected to the full Frugal Gourmet experience 
This is a blog about Christmas dinner, but I have decided not to blog about the entire dinner in one go, but to spread it over a few days. Today I am just going to write about the Amuse Guele.
Amuse Gueles are from a cooks view point great fun, you can offer nearly playful titbits to excite the palate for the treats to come (the gourmet part of the Frugal Gourmet comes to the front for this post).
So what was on offer;
Amuse Guele
- Veloute of Pea and Coconut with Coconut Froth
- Spiced Chocolate Macaroons with and Foie Gras
- Crispy Pigs Ears with Tartare Sauce
Yummy
The Pea and Coconut soup is something I have already blogged about the post can be found here. It was just a little bit appreciated by all concerned.
Moving on to Macaroon’s this is something that I don’t want to write about in detail now, though I will at some future point. Suffice to say that making Macaroons is much easier to do that people make out, the recipe that I followed can be found at Pure Gourmandise an excellent little site, but it is in French, you can however put her exquisite recipes through a translation engine, a bit of commonsense should yield positives .
Sow on to my pigs ears which I endeavoured to turn in to a gastronomic silk purse. The recipe is an Essence one, not complex but not quick. I will run you through it, but I won’t give you the detailed recipe out of respect for the copyright. However if you are a reasonable cook you can deduce the method.
My Pigs Head
First off get your pigs ears, this may be difficult in Tesco’s and therefore a chat with your friendly butcher will be useful. If you are lucky you might get them for free, I got the whole head 
Cut off your pigs ears then simmer in a fragrant broth for 3.5 hours, the ears should be very tender, with the cartilage very soft.
Carefully remove the ears and press overnight in a fridge between two trays.
To prepare to serve; cut the ears into 7mm strips, coat in flavoured flour, beaten egg and breadcrumbs and fry in a deep fat fryer until crisp and golden. Drain and serve.
Crispy Pigs Ears with Tartare Sauce
To make Tartare sauce just take a portion of Mayonnaise a how to is available here from one of my earliest posts. Simply add some capers, gherkins, grain mustard and mashed anchovies. I nicked the picture from the net but the finished article did look very similar, its just that I was busy eating.
The ears went down very well partly because I didn’t actually tell everyone what they where (particularly the Kids). The kids all assume they where eating some type chicken nuggets
In my view they where good fun and I would do them again but onl;y for a similar occasion. The bigger question is what am I going to do with what the ears were attached too. Watch this space!
