Christmas Cooking Thread

Share your successes and disasters, your recipes, tips and frustrations here.

Mine- pickled red cabbage al la Gass. Time to cook- 1 hour.

• Fry bacon and rosemary until crisp.
• Remove from pan, leaving oil. Add loads of butter.
• Add apples, and shredded cabbage.
• Add prunes and prune juice
• Add loads (I mean loads) of Balsamic
• Add red wine, brandy and a bit of cider.
• Add cloves, nutmeg, cumin seeds, fennel seeds.
• Add chilli and Worc sauce
• Simmer for 45 mins.
• Add the bacon and rosemary back in, glaze with clementine juice and serve.

Finished article:

That sounds delicious, if a little fiddly.

I recently discovered from youtube a sauce for chicken that's really tasty.
- chop up some onion and garlic and fry it gently in a little oil in the pan. I also add mushrooms and chopped fresh herbs if I have them
- add up to a pint of water and simmer
- add a teaspoon of salt
- add a few knobs of butter
- add a little flour if the sauce needs thickening
- Bob's your uncle!

Timcito said:

That sounds delicious, if a little fiddly.

I recently discovered from youtube a sauce for chicken that's really tasty.
- chop up some onion and garlic and fry it gently in a little oil in the pan. I also add mushrooms and chopped fresh herbs if I have them
- add up to a pint of water and simmer
- add a teaspoon of salt
- add a few knobs of butter
- add a little flour if the sauce needs thickening
- Bob's your uncle!

That sounds awesome.

One of the easiest cheat meat sauces is stock+jam+thyme+butter. 

Boxing Day Sprouts.

Par boil sprouts for a couple of minutes.

Fry onion, garlic and chopped bacon/panchetta.

Add sprouts, fry for a couple of minutes.

Put in oven proof dish. Break up sprouts a little bit with back of a fork, but don't mash.

 Pour over cream, add slices of mozzarella, a grating of permesan, sprinkle of paprika, bake until mozzarella is golden.

Serve with ham, turkey, beef, etc.

Put bread in toaster.
Depress lever.
Wait till toast pops up.

It's an old family recipe.

Proper roast: 
- Chicken/turkey/capon 
- Roast potatoes 
- sausage wrapped in bacon
- bacon rolls
- proper stuffing, cooked outside the bird
- carrots
- broccoli 
- roasted parsnips with honey
- sprouts roasted 
- a massive amount of proper homemade gravy 
- homemade cranberry sauce

All made fresh and with a bottle of good red. 

Cut off the seal,  pull out the Cork,  decant into a glass,  repeat until done. 

Have done my cauliflower cheese with mustard and garlic already to reheat in the oven tomorrow. Going to do sprouts:

fry pancetta, garlic and chestnuts until cooked,
Cut the sprouts in half and parboil, stir fry when drained with the pancetta etc.  
leave to cool, mix softened butter with fresh sage and use cling film to roll into small cylinder shape and refrigerate everything overnight. 

scrumhalf said:

Put bread in toaster.
Depress lever.
Wait till toast pops up.

It's an old family recipe.

Whoah, whoah, whoah - slow down there Gordon Ramsay. Bread type? Toaster setting?

Will be experimenting with butter-fried Christmas pudding and a boozy syllabub.

This evening I need to get some marzipan on the xmas cake (my great-great-grandmother's cake recipe) then ice it at some point tomorrow inshallah. 

A few mince pies already made a couple of days ago. 

Plenty of cheese in the fridge ready to go and we're all set I think

Put steak in toaster.

stickyfiddle said:

A few mince pies already made a couple of days ago. 

Kudos. .

I didn't know people actually make mince pies these days. I thought it was just Nigella Lawson and everybody else got them from M & S.

500g sausage meat, 1 large red onion, 2 cloves garlic, flat leaf parsley.

finely chop everything and season.

1 roll of puff pastry, un rolled and rolled a little flatter.

Arrange mixture into 3/4” lines and form 5 lines. Cut pastry into 4” strips and roll over each line of sausage mix. Pinch pastry together and cut each into 6 sausage rolls. Egg wash and 30mins at 200…. Yummy!

Kilgore said:

Boxing Day Sprouts.

Par boil sprouts for a couple of minutes.

Fry onion, garlic and chopped bacon/panchetta.

Add sprouts, fry for a couple of minutes.

Put in oven proof dish. Break up sprouts a little bit with back of a fork, but don't mash.

 Pour over cream, add slices of mozzarella, a grating of permesan, sprinkle of paprika, bake until mozzarella is golden.

Serve with ham, turkey, beef, etc.

Phwooooooar!

Turkey Stock gently cooking, tomorrow poaching Turkey Crown then roast to finish.
in the morning going to be using the legs to make a coq-au-vin type thingy, that gives me cracking gravy and lovely tender legs.
usual trimmings
yummy.

Kilgore said:

stickyfiddle said:

A few mince pies already made a couple of days ago. 

Kudos. .

I didn't know people actually make mince pies these days. I thought it was just Nigella Lawson and everybody else got them from M & S.

I try :)

Being celiac helps, sort of. Rather it makes the shop ones I can have worse and also more expensive, but mine are better than even regular shop pies, so I'm happy. I always liked cooking* before I went gluten free, so it's always just been what I do at Christmas - I reckon this is probably my 30th time making the same xmas cake recipe (I'm currently 40!)

*I even worke d in a bakery for a while, which was an awesome job apart from the significantly low pay. There is little on earth worse than a day spent deep-cleaning a flour/cocoa-coated bakery... I should remind myself of this more often. 

I'm having a go at beef wellington.  Never made it, or tasted it before.  I bought a slab of Sirloin (couldn't get any fillet / tenderloin at short notice) and I've just finished sous-vide'ing it with some salt & pepper, olive oil, garlic & fresh thyme.  It's in the fridge now ready for the duxelle I'll make in the morning.  It'll go in the oven for the last 25 mins of the chicken (I don't like Turkey.... it's like tasteless cardboard compared to chicken for me).

My back hurts on our tiled kitchen floor so I won't be going crazy with a tonne of home-made extras this year, plus there's only me, Mrs Fab, her sister and a little doggie she's looking after.

2 slices of nice bread
Touch of butter 
Couple of slices of turkey and a pinch of salt

That is my Christmas meal today so little to wash up as well 

I am happy to confirm these are for 2 people…

And so it begins….

The sausage sarnie is all mine.

Gassage said:

And so it begins….

The sausage sarnie is all mine.

Looks like a lot of your guests will have to kneel or stand - Have a wonderful day - And shouldn't that sarnie be for  the dog

This is all the cooking that’s going to happen here today

Im cooking this monster.  

That'll need a decent nap!

Looks great - good job hiding the sprouts. 

I’m really sleepy now… 

A bit of a change this year as we are self catering in the New Forest, kept it simple

Beef Stroganoff and a G n T. Look a bit of a dogs dinner but tastes bloody lush!!

Corned Beef Hash Boxing Day! 

Fishboy7 said:

Im cooking this monster.  

 

‘Kinell!!