Need Christmas Dinner Advice? Ask Here...

notfromhere

the beer revolu wrote: »

For stuffing I lay out a large sheet of foil and cover it with Lidl Serrano ham, I put my stuffing on top of that then roll the whole lot up into a big sausage and cook in the oven. Goes down a treat.

hi,how long would u cook this for and at what temperature thanks

the beer revolu

notfromhere wrote: »

hi,how long would u cook this for and at what temperature thanks

There's nothing that needs cooking in there so it is just a matter of heating it up.
I'd throw it into the oven for half an hour or so at whatever temp you have the oven at (anything from 180 - 220C.)

Stheno

After buying the goose requested by my OHs children this evening, my OH felt then was the best time to announce he does not like goose

I felt close to murder.

I'm thinking of getting a turkey crown for him, any suggestions on best way of cooking it?

nudger

post 41.:)

Stheno

nudger wrote: »

post 41.:)

thanks sorts out all my problems being able to boil it and not roast.

brian ireland

Any recipes for vegetable soup? lots of 5 cent veg to use up :D

mark17j

Would it be ok to just boil my ham this year using onions and bay leaves without roasting it afterwards, last year I found it was very dry after roasting? I was also told to boil the sprouts in the left over ham water for better taste.. ?

huskerdu

mark17j wrote: »

Would it be ok to just boil my ham this year using onions and bay leaves without roasting it afterwards, last year I found it was very dry after roasting? I was also told to boil the sprouts in the left over ham water for better taste.. ?

Absolutely,

I put the ham on a bed of slices of onions, carrots, and apple and add water, or white wine, or cider or apple juice. Add garlic, bay leaves, and ground black pepper ( not a fan of cloves, but go for it if you are).

Don't put too much liquid, make sure that the pot is well sealed so you don't loss lots of steam and the ham will steam beautifully.

It is common practise to cook veg in the ham water, but cant comment myself, as I have never cooked a sprout in my life.

Dubl07

huskerdu wrote: »

Absolutely,

I put the ham on a bed of slices of onions, carrots, and apple and add water, or white wine, or cider or apple juice. Add garlic, bay leaves, and ground black pepper ( not a fan of cloves, but go for it if you are).

Don't put too much liquid, make sure that the pot is well sealed so you don't loss lots of steam and the ham will steam beautifully.

It is common practise to cook veg in the ham water, but cant comment myself, as I have never cooked a sprout in my life.

As above with two additions: 1) You're not 'boiling' the ham; you want to poach it in barely bubbling liquid. 2) 20 mins to the pound is ample. Let the ham sit in the hot water for a few minutes off the heat if you're not going to bake it. If you decide to glaze after all see below.

I take my ham out of the pot 40m-50m early after calculating 20m/lb (eg 10lb ham - 200mins so poach gently for 160mins). Then I remove the skin but not the fat, score, clove, glaze and bang into a preheated oven for 30mins, on a rack set over a roasting dish containing a couple of inches of the poaching liquid. The effective 'resting' while I'm doing the business of skinning, cloving and glazing allows the heat to equalise a lot in the joint before the final burst of oven heat.

I think a lot of people boil until done and then glaze.

You can reserve some of the ham liquid to steam the sprouts and it adds flavour, or you can fry a couple of rashers/trimmings from the ham, remove from the pan, add sliced sprouts and a ladle of the ham liquid and stir-fry/steam-fry the sprouts until the liquid is gone before adding back the bacon. That's quite tasty.

MurdyWurdy

Ham Glaze - does it need to be made in advance or can you make it in the morning you want to glaze your ham? Can you buy any nice ones?

I was going to slow cook my ham but fancy a glazed one now

Gloomtastic!

Going to try covering the turkey in muslin and basting with butter this year.
How many layers of muslin do I cover the turkey with?

GHOST MGG

Melt some butter...and during cooking..using a large kitchen syringe inject the butter into the sides of the breasts.
Ideally for the perfect christmas turkey you really want to half steam and half roast it..but i understand that not everybody has combi ovens!

Stheno

So I ended up buying a small turkey in Tesco to please the OH as turkey crowns seem to be mad money.

So now I have

1. goose
1. 3kg ham
1. 3kg turkey

I'm planning on slow cooking the ham overnight in cola, then glazing and finishing it, roasting the goose the traditional way with the apple and onion stuffing kindly suggesting, and thinking of taking the turkey apart so am left with legs and crown, putting the legs into the oven with the goose and stuffing, and then poaching the crown?

For sides the savages (and seriously they are savages, they had an entire roast chicken and 2kg of ribs between them today and there are three of them) are having:

Roast potatoes
Chips (homemade)
Brussel sprouts with lardons
Stir fried savoy cabbage
Roasted carrots and parsnip

Sauces will be:

1. Goose gravy
2. Turkey gravy

Sound good?

Danii86

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

Going to try covering the turkey in muslin and basting with butter this year.
How many layers of muslin do I cover the turkey with?

I'm a big advocate of the muslin on the turkey. I only use one layer and take it out maybe once during cooking to baste (the musling soaks up the juices so I find I only need to do it once) and then take it off half an hour before its done to crisp up the skin!!
I soak the muslin in a herby melted butter before I put it onto the bird (thyme parsley bit of garlic and some lemon zest) and I get the most devine turkey!

the beer revolu

mark17j wrote: »

Would it be ok to just boil my ham this year using onions and bay leaves without roasting it afterwards, last year I found it was very dry after roasting? I was also told to boil the sprouts in the left over ham water for better taste.. ?

It would be ok but you'd be missing the lovely glaze that make a ham a christmas ham.
If your ham was very dry it was because it was over cooked (either in the water or the oven or a combination of both). A ham only needs about 15 - 20 minutes in the oven to glaze.

the beer revolu

MurdyWurdy wrote: »

Ham Glaze - does it need to be made in advance or can you make it in the morning you want to glaze your ham? Can you buy any nice ones?

I was going to slow cook my ham but fancy a glazed one now

Don't bother buying a glaze.
You'll find lots and lots of recipes for glazes but the simplest is just mustard, honey, salt and pepper and sugar.
I just mix up a tablespoon of honey with the same of your favourite mustard and some salt and pepper. I slather this over the ham which has had the skin removed, the fat scored in a diamond pattern and has been studded with lots of cloves. Then I sprinkle a little sugar over the lot for extra crunchiness and put in a hot oven for about 15 mins until it is going nicely golden.

Mustard and marmalade would also be a nice glaze.
Basically if you use mustard and anything sweet - it will work fine.

curly from cork

Juggling a lot of meats on the 25 th ( goose , turkey, spiced beef, lamb, ham ) would it be ok to poach the turkey crown, as per post #41, on Christmas Eve and then roast it up on the day to brown it and re heat ?

lovelypoint

Great thread, and probably need to stop reading it, lest I get too many ideas, lol.

Anyone have any tips for cooking a boned and rolled turkey. Am ok with the legs, as will stuff them and roast them for 45/ 60 mins, as mentioned here. In hindsight, I wish I had left the crown intact, as the poaching idea sounds great, but guess I was on a boning and rolling buzz after reading of boning and stuffing the legs here, lol.

I imagine I will just stuff and roast the breast, just have no idea of timing, and don't want to let it dry out by overcooking it. Of course any tasty thoughts for additions also welcome

9st n 09

Great thread, can't believe I've missed it till now!!!!!

My question is on my roasties. Was watching one of Jamie Olivers many many Christmas programmes, and one of his suggestion was on Christmas Eve you could parboil the potatoes, carrots and parsnips, roll them around in the fat and then cool then, pop them into the fridge and then put them straight into the oven on Christmas day. Has anyone ever done it like this? I normally do it all on Christmas day, but as I'll be doing the stuffing and ham on Christmas Eve it would be no bother to parboil the veg at the same time leaving 1 less job to do the next day?

Thanks a mill,

T

9st n 09

MurdyWurdy wrote: »

Ham Glaze - does it need to be made in advance or can you make it in the morning you want to glaze your ham? Can you buy any nice ones?

I was going to slow cook my ham but fancy a glazed one now

I always do mine in the slow cooker and then finish it off with a glaze of butter, brown sugar and whiskey in the oven for 20 or so mins. Always goes down a treat.

aaabbbb

Planning on doing an xmas style dinner new years day , but there'll only be 2 of us so I'm stuck for ideas ??

Banjo String

Ok.


So my wife ever so kindly volunteered me to cook Christmas dinner for her family this year, she's in work today, (until 9pm) so am Going make a start at prepping some of the food.

Where to start though?

I've a boned and rolled turkey
A ham
Carrots
Sprouts
Spuds
Cauliflower (to go with cheese sauce)

**stuffing being brought to me along with the cheese sauce by mother in law**

Everything else though has to be prepared and cooked by me.

Now, I'm no novice in the kitchen, but haven't did a Christmas dinner before.

Do I just concentrate on boiling the ham and cooking the turkey today, or could I peel, chop and maybe even par-boil spuds today?

Should I peel and slice carrots today?

Help me folks.

Whistlejacket

You could boil the ham today and have it ready to just finish in the oven with the glaze while the turkey is resting tomorrow. Likewise you could parboil the veg and keep them in the fridge. Then just pop them in the oven tomorrow for roasting.

There's some good practical advice on here:

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/category/occasion/Christmas/cooking-tips

Happy Christmas and enjoy

OU812

http://fatdogwalks.wordpress.com/2010/12/23/the-christmas-dinner-excel-file/

the beer revolu

curly from cork wrote: »

Juggling a lot of meats on the 25 th ( goose , turkey, spiced beef, lamb, ham ) would it be ok to poach the turkey crown, as per post #41, on Christmas Eve and then roast it up on the day to brown it and re heat ?

I wouldn't do this. It would take a lot to reheat the crown - so much that you'd be cooking it again. Also not good to be continually heating and cooling food from a food safety point of view.

That is a lot of meats, alright.
I'd serve the spiced beef and ham cold (we always serve these cold).The goose or turkey could also be served cold too (or one of them) and warmed up by pouring very hot gravy on the sliced meat.

Frigga_92

Oh god, I hope someone can help! Husband picked up the turkey and ham yesterday, turkey is perfect but the ham is huge. He is quite friendly with our local butcher and our butcher gave him a bigger ham than he ordered (to be generous and lovely) but the only problem is we've no pot in the house big enough to cook it in. However, it does fit in my slow cooker (just) but I have no idea how to cook it in the slow cooker. Does anyone have a recipe for slow cooker christmas ham? I was planning on boiling the ham today and then baking it in the oven tomorrow before serving but am open to any different sort of slow cooker recipe that there may be. All help appreciated.

foodaholic

26sdrawkcab wrote: »

Oh god, I hope someone can help! Husband picked up the turkey and ham yesterday, turkey is perfect but the ham is huge. He is quite friendly with our local butcher and our butcher gave him a bigger ham than he ordered (to be generous and lovely) but the only problem is we've no pot in the house big enough to cook it in. However, it does fit in my slow cooker (just) but I have no idea how to cook it in the slow cooker. Does anyone have a recipe for slow cooker christmas ham? I was planning on boiling the ham today and then baking it in the oven tomorrow before serving but am open to any different sort of slow cooker recipe that there may be. All help appreciated.

I cooked mine in the slow cooker. Cover with coke ( not diet) and cook on high for 6 hrs but you'd prob leave it a bit longer

I took the fat off then and scored it into diamond shape and I stick it in the oven with glaze for 20ish mins

Frigga_92

foodaholic wrote: »

I cooked mine in the slow cooker. Cover with coke ( not diet) and cook on high for 6 hrs but you'd prob leave it a bit longer

I took the fat off then and scored it into diamond shape and I stick it in the oven with glaze for 20ish mins

Thank you! Found a similar recipe online that uses gingerale (we've no coke in the house) so i've gone with that.

foodaholic

26sdrawkcab wrote: »

Thank you! Found a similar recipe online that uses gingerale (we've no coke in the house) so i've gone with that.

Ciders also good 😜

Faith

Banjo string, I merged your thread with the pre-existing thread.