What are you cooking for Xmas?

I've literally just finished putting my Christmas dinner schedule together. 6 hours total!

Doing turkey, apricot & pecan stuffing, sage & onion stuffing, pigs in blankets, a glazed ham, roast spuds, roast parsnips, mashed swede, carrots, sprouts, braised red cabbage, bread sauce and gravy!

I can't wait :D

Nice, what time shall I come round? :D
 
We are having Finnish Christmas meal tomorrow which includes ham, smoked salmon, homemade cheese, homemade mustard, swede casserole, carrot casserole, beetroot salad and a traditional christmas bread my mum sent over to me. Would be more things normally but there is only 3 of us here tomorrow.

We will be going to my partners dads house on Christmas eve for the whole Christmas so wont be making anything that evening myself but on Christmas day I will be cooking turkey with parsnips, sweet potato, carrots, sprouts, broccoli and cauliflower cheese with roast potatos, pigs in blankets and stuffing. I also made the gravy last weekend for the meal and its waiting in the freezer.
 
apricot & pecan stuffing, sage & onion stuffing, ...... mashed swede,
are the stuffings with minced pork / sausagemeat ... our pork butchers will have a 50yd queue tomorrow am.
always find swedes a bit unreliable, maybe 1/3 rd of times swedes are woody, you can tell on first cut, but a difficult purchase - but mashed with butter/black-pepper - yes.

I also made the gravy last weekend
you cooked up the giblets ? - not sure all turkeys have them now, maybe because people forget to look and have inadvertently cooked them up (millenial errors?)
 
Nah I made a chicken gravy using wings and will add all the juices of the turkey in on Christmas day. We are having a crown so it wont come with any giblets as far as I am aware (it wasnt chosen or bought by me). Not that I would be able to miss them if it does as I wont just bung it in the oven, will be prepping it first of course.
 
As it happens. I did an epic wing rib last week for my birthday:

Salt and pepper the beef heavily at least 12 hours in advance and place in a large box in the fridge on some grease proof paper.
Make up Yorkshire batter 12 hours in advance (200ml plain flour, 200ml beaten FR eggs, 200ml SS milk, add milk & eggs to bowl and add spoonful of flour at a time whisking until smooth).

On the day, make up a mixture of colman's english mustard powder with maple syrup to form a paste.
In the bottom of a roasting dish put 2-3 thick sliced onions, 1 large (or 2 small sliced leeks), a large sliced carrot and a small sprig of thyme. Place in oven a 160C.
Rub the mustard/maple mix all over the beef, sear in a hot pan (will ruin a bad pan, but I have a copperstone one which is magic).
Place beef on top of the veg and roast at 160C until done (Use thermapen, I tend to pull @~50C for med rare). Let the beef rest.
After about 1/2 hour of roasting, I tend to put some beef stock into the roasting dish and every 15mins baste the beef.

You probably want to start your roasts before the beef comes out, make sure you save the salty starch water from blanching them for the gravy.

When the beef is done, leave to rest in a warm place with a tent of foil over it (double skinned).

Wack the oven upto 220, stick a muffin tray in with a little bit of beef dripping in each hole.
When oven is upto 220, pour the batter mix in quickly and quickly return to the oven (you could even have the muffin tray over a cooker ring while doing this to maintain the heat).
Yorkshires take 10-15 mins IIRC.

For the gravy, take the roasting dish with the remains of the veg, and heat over the cooker until there's little or no liquid left and the veg is starting to fry. Meanwhile reheat the potato starch water in the microwave, and the pour into the roasting dish. Let the gravy simmer for 10mins or so then sieve the liquid into a jug.

Thank you for this. Sounds great. Didn't realise you could make the yorkie batter so far beforehand. Roughly how long did it take to come up to 50 degree internal temp at 160C oven?
 
Thank you for this. Sounds great. Didn't realise you could make the yorkie batter so far beforehand. Roughly how long did it take to come up to 50 degree internal temp at 160C oven?

I worked on 15mins/ib + 15mins, and then test it. (IIRC it took maybe another 10mins on top of that)

Apparently making the Yorkshire batter the night before allows the proteins to break down making a smoother lighter batter.
The potato water in the gravy is a Rick Stein trick which means you don't have to faff about with flour or end up with gravy that tastes of under-cooked flour, and the maple syrup and mustard rub I saw on an OU program about the Maillard reaction once.
 
are the stuffings with minced pork / sausagemeat ... our pork butchers will have a 50yd queue tomorrow am.
always find swedes a bit unreliable, maybe 1/3 rd of times swedes are woody, you can tell on first cut, but a difficult purchase - but mashed with butter/black-pepper - yes.
The sage and onion stuffing uses 12 Cumberland sausages and the apricot one uses a 500g pack of minced pork.... mmm porky :D

As for swede, I've never had a duff one! I just dice it, boil it, mash it, then add a shed load of butter, seasoning and a splash of malt vinegar to give it some zing. Yum!
 
we'll be cooking turkey crown and beef plus a nut roast for vegetarians :) as well there will be roast potatoes, carrots, parsnips, sprouts, bread sauce and gravy, cant wait!
 
Ordered a whole turbot for Christmas day. Never cooked one before, any tips?

So, they gave me two whole Turbots. I'm cooking for two people. Apparently they thought I asked for 2 - 3kg whereas I thought they asked how many it was feeding. Thankfully they kept one, but it's a fair size fish! £70 for that and 12 scallops. Think it'll be a turkey crown from Tesco next year!!
 
Thankfully they kept one, but it's a fair size fish! £70 for that and 12 scallops. Think it'll be a turkey crown from Tesco next year!!
Meh. The girlfriend and I spunked £50 on a rib of beef, 2.5kg. We want leftovers :o It's only Christmas once a year :)
 
3Kg of beef rib ready to go in the oven. We followed the Heston method posted above, so around 70 C for 8 hours to get it med rare - medium. We salted and seasoned with mustard powder, garlic, rosemary and beef stock cubes 24hrs in advance.

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It got a blast at 230C to crisp up at the end. Really pleased with the results. Leftovers:

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Did the ribs in a BBQ marinade yesterday. Another few hours at 80 C. Delicious and likely to be repeated next year.
 
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