Last year my husband and I went above and beyond to create the most amazing dinner and experience for everyone who came to spend the holiday with us. This year I decided I did not want to compete with our success so we would just keep it low key but go with some less traditional foods. Obviously we would put on a feast that would be unforgettable , just not so extravagant.
We had quite a crowd, My mom came from north eastern Oregon and stayed for 10 days. I miss her so much already, it has been years and years since I was able to spend that much quality time with her. Steve's mom, sister and her family were here as well, our house was quite full with 10 of us for 3 days. 60 meals were prepared over 3 days.. we consumed a vat of butter, a wagon load of carbs and we all need to diet now.
Everything was going well, we were making a BBQ prime rib and my famous or perhaps infamous roasted duck. Along with all sorts of fabulous sides.
About 1.5 hours before serving time I removed the duck from the oven to pour out the fat that accumulated in the bottom of the pan when I failed to grab both sections of the damn thing, I pulled out the roasting rack and that was all I had in my hands a roasting rack and a duck but no pan. The pan of drippings, mind you there was not just a scant 1/2 cup it was more like 4 cups of juice and fat just fell into the oven draining into the vent holes in the bottom. I have a gas oven so the floor of the oven is above the flames that heat it up there are long opening for heat to pass up through. All the juices went down into where the flame element is. Well at first it didn't seem so bad. I wiped up what I could see, turned on the fans, it was starting to smoke pretty bad....but nothing to worry about So I put in the Yorkshire puddings. Figuring I'd clean it after cooking.
Smoke was pouring out of the oven but we checked it and figured it would burn off and I'd just have a mess to clean later. Pretty soon it was not just annoying smoke but horrible black thick smoke, Steve opened all the windows and turned the whole house fan on to clear the air for breathing. Now it is like 37 degrees in five min from the fan. everyone is donning coats and covering up with blankets.
I opened the oven and HOLY HELL flames erupt out of it, smoke is curling through the kitchen and my daughter yelling to call the firefighters... someone said pour water on it....
NO water
NO firefighters, I can handle this just calm down people.
I poured salt a lot of it all over the flaming oven bed, pulled the Yorkshire puddings. They were a bit blackened but still edible. Thankfully I was house sitting the neighbors house, so my sister-in-law suggested we use their oven to finish the puddings, while we sorted out our own mess.
My first thought was sure I'll burn down not just my own house but theirs too... Happy Holidays! Ok we'll cook them over there....
Anyhow, since it was freezing in our house the oven cooled off quickly and in the 20 min the puddings needed to finish cooking my husband and I unscrewed the bottom plate of our oven and cleaned up all the salt, the grease, the juice from the duck and put it back together in time to cook the stuffing and whatever else we ate.
I like to make certain our holidays are unforgettable I think I managed to do it once again. We won't remember what we ate but we will all remember the flaming oven.
What will I do next year, how could I possibly top this experience?
Happy Holidays from Chef Cytel!
Sounds very memorable! That's a plus and a half!
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