The Christmas Dinner 2015 Thread!

Dizzyblonde

Neven Maguire is doing a Christmas special on RTÉ One at 7.30 tonight

http://www.rte.ie/tv/programmes/homechefchristmasspecial.html

RentDayBlues

I'm do all the prep I can on christmas eve morning, with 2 toddlers we're doing a simpler meal this year, but we're spreading the nicer food out over the day.

Breakfast:
French toast, bacon and maple syrup

Lunch Platter: (with the inlaws)
Crumbed brie with cranberry sauce
Pate with a selection of homemade bread
Smoked salmon pancake bites
Bucks fizz

Dinner:
Turkey, ham and stuffing
Garlic potatoes
Purple cabbage
Sprouts
Some other veg

Going to do a cheese platter for dessert in front of the tv, with some sneaky ports

MissFlitworth

On Christmas day my Mam will be cooking and she likes to do it all herself so, apart from the gravy which is my realm (although I nearly lost that right one Christmas before I figured out how to cook with alcohol and put nearly a full bottle of pinot grigio & full lemon's worth of lemon juice into it. *Bit* tart). Roasties, mash, sprouts, inexplicable mushy peas, turkey, boiled ham, stuffing (lots of stuffing) and gravy.

The other side of the table is from Norway so we'll have Norwegian Christmas dinner on Christmas eve - this is roast pork belly, meatballs, boiled potatoes, a killer cream gravy and a shot of aquavit (could happily skip that bit). Which means Stephen's Day will have the ultimate leftover sandwich with 4 different meats in it. Woop! Hungry already.

Toto Wolfcastle

Dizzyblonde wrote: »

Neven Maguire is doing a Christmas special on RTÉ One at 7.30 tonight

http://www.rte.ie/tv/programmes/homechefchristmasspecial.html

He's doing a Q&A on Twitter at the moment until 6 if anyone has a Christmas cooking question for him.

dee_mc

We'll have a nice simple Christmas dinner this year. I do it all except for the veg peeling, which is usually subcontracted
Turkey crown with herby garlicky butter under the skin, small bacon joint with a mustard, honey and whiskey glaze, potato and breadcrumb stuffing and some form of roast potatoes (probably just diced baby potatoes roasted with a bit of cajun spice) are the most important bits.
Every year we say we won't bother with sprouts because nobody likes them, and every year my mum ends up buying them on Christmas eve. Might tart them up with bacon bits.
And my homemade mulled wine cranberry sauce -wouldn't be the same without it
No idea what to do for dessert, we're usually too comatose after the main course to bother with it, but the starter will be Burren smoked salmon wrapped around Quark (soft cheese) mixed with lemon zest, juice and fresh basil. With brown bread if I remember to bake some.
This year is special because my little nephew will be having his first Christmas dinner! Could get messy

Faith

I'm thinking of doing venison this year. There's only two of us, but leftovers would be nice. Can anyone recommend a cut that's good for roasting?

Dial Hard

We all go to my folks for Christmas. My sister and I will stay there Christmas Eve.

Breakfast is a full Irish cooked by my dad, with champagne. Pretty much the only fry I'll eat all year.

Brown bread (which I make) with smoked salmon during the day.

Then dinner at about 7pm. We don't have a starter; the dinner is so huge that there's just no need for it. Turkey, ham (boiled, not baked), gravy, cranberry sauce (also made by me), mash, roasters, stuffing, carrots, sprouts, mashed carrots & parsnip and garden peas. My mam always buys a pudding and then gives out because nobody except her and my dad eats it.

Then, around midnight there's usually a round of turkey & Branston pickle sambos.

And then we do it all again on Stephen's Day.

Loire

dee_mc wrote: »

the starter will be Burren smoked salmon wrapped around Quark (soft cheese) mixed with lemon zest, juice and fresh basil.

Wow - that's added to my list!

Bateman

Anyone got any tips on turkey for 12 people? Full bird or boned and rolled? Where are people buying their turkey from? Apologies if this is the wrong thread for any of this.

The Black Oil

Going to attempt chocolate truffles.

Mrs Fox

Last night I made Christmas pudding truffles for a friend's do. Blitz shop-bought plum pudding, take about tablespoon and roll into balls. Freeze them for 30 minutes to firm. Then dip them in melted dark chocolate and let it set on a lined baking sheet. Then drizzle with melted white chocolate on top.
I got about 36 balls out of an 800g pudding.

The Hill Billy

Faith wrote: »

I'm thinking of doing venison this year. There's only two of us, but leftovers would be nice. Can anyone recommend a cut that's good for roasting?

A decent sized fillet would do you.

The Hill Billy

Bateman wrote: »

Anyone got any tips on turkey for 12 people? Full bird or boned and rolled? Where are people buying their turkey from? Apologies if this is the wrong thread for any of this.

The size really depends on whether you want leftovers or not. An 8lb crown would do a dinner for 12 hungry people. However, you could go for a 16lb full bird which will feed them & leave you with the making of sambos on St Stephen's Day.

I've ordered a 14lb full bird for our dinner & that's just for 4 of us. But we I love gorging for days afterwards on plates of cold turkey with plenty of salt & white pepper, & loads of pickled onions.

Dial Hard

Bateman wrote:

Anyone got any tips on turkey for 12 people? Full bird or boned and rolled? Where are people buying their turkey from? Apologies if this is the wrong thread for any of this.

I'd always go for a full bird, that say you get all the pickings etc and can make stock with the carcass.

We get our turkey off Sean O'Brien. Seriously.

Spanish Eyes

Can someone help me with stuffing please?

Not blowing trumpets or anything, but I can manage the rest of things fine including the roasties! But stuffing always goes wrong on me.

It is either too wet, too dry, or overcooked and hard, woe is me.

I don't stuff the bird, but make it separately. Maybe I should just stuff it up the birdie's bum and try it lol.

Anyway, it's just the usual breadcrumbs, onions herbs and seasoning. I gently fry off the onions in butter and rapeseed oil. Then add the breadcrumbs. When all mixed up put in a dish and dot with (lots) of butter and into the oven covered with foil.. I'm probably leaving it there for too long. I dunno. I'm fed up now.

Thanks anyway.

mirrorwall14

Turkey and veg in the slowcooker as we speak for the gravy base. Maris pipers bought ready to try tomorrow for frozen roasties as per boards advice and I'm going to have a stab at the stuffing balls too. I'll use some for Sunday dinner this week to test it out Only thing that'll be left then is to par boil and freeze the veg but I'll do that much closer to the time as I've done it before. Having to bag and tag everything because its only 3 of us on Christmas Day but 8 on Stephens Day!

Dizzyblonde

You might be leaving it in too long. I find 25 or 30 minutes is plenty, unless your dish is very deep. I also add hot water to the stuffing which works better than using all butter.

BaZmO* has a great recipe for stuffing balls in the Cooking Club if you fancy something different http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056772901

homemadecider

Just the two of us for Christmas this year; we're locking the door, putting on the fire and hibernating.

On Christmas morning we'll open a bottle of champagne and have a glass along with a slice of Lidl's Pandoro for breakfast.

We'll spend the day cooking together and making terrible jokes, eventually sitting down to eat beef wellington, brussel sprouts, roast spuds and gravy. There will be lots and lots of red wine.

Over a movie in the evening we'll get through some Jamaican rum cake and chocolate roulade, and probably several whiskeys.

We'll cook plenty of food so that the Stephen's Day hangover will be eased by lots of leftovers!

Dubl07

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Can someone help me with stuffing please?

Not blowing trumpets or anything, but I can manage the rest of things fine including the roasties! But stuffing always goes wrong on me.

It is either too wet, too dry, or overcooked and hard, woe is me.

I don't stuff the bird, but make it separately. Maybe I should just stuff it up the birdie's bum and try it lol.

Anyway, it's just the usual breadcrumbs, onions herbs and seasoning. I gently fry off the onions in butter and rapeseed oil. Then add the breadcrumbs. When all mixed up put in a dish and dot with (lots) of butter and into the oven covered with foil.. I'm probably leaving it there for too long. I dunno. I'm fed up now.

Thanks anyway.

I blitz the onions and herbs together. They don't need frying and the onion provides adequate moisture meaning I don't need liquid in my stuffing. If you're old school and want onion bits, just chop the onion a day or whatever beforehand and freeze it. The freeze/thaw works the same way it does with fruit structure so the cell walls are compromised. No need to fry. Crumbs, onions, fresh and dried herbs, seasoning and melted butter work for me. Meat juices are a bonus of course. I roast for 20-30 mins in a pyrex dish, uncovered.

Leinster1980

I'm making the starters and I'll be doing Delias scallops. I make them ahead of time, freeze them and then cook from frozen! They are delicious.

http://www.deliaonline.com/home/Print-Recipe.html?PID=2057&ampCID=469

dee_mc

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Can someone help me with stuffing please?

Not blowing trumpets or anything, but I can manage the rest of things fine including the roasties! But stuffing always goes wrong on me.

It is either too wet, too dry, or overcooked and hard, woe is me.

I don't stuff the bird, but make it separately. Maybe I should just stuff it up the birdie's bum and try it lol.

Anyway, it's just the usual breadcrumbs, onions herbs and seasoning. I gently fry off the onions in butter and rapeseed oil. Then add the breadcrumbs. When all mixed up put in a dish and dot with (lots) of butter and into the oven covered with foil.. I'm probably leaving it there for too long. I dunno. I'm fed up now.

Thanks anyway.

Spuds are your friend - I've never succeeded in making a nice bread stuffing, but my mam's old recipe - 50/50 breadcrumbs/buttery mashed potato, mixed with onions sauteed (ok, microwaved) in yet more butter, a sprinkling of herbs, a little salt and lots of white pepper, plus some finely chopped dried apricots if she's feeling fancy, pressed lightly into a ceramic dish (1.5-2 inches deep), dotted with even more butter and bunged in a hot oven for half an hour - never fails. My mouth is watering at the thought of it and I don't even like potatoes!

Mrs Fox

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Can someone help me with stuffing please?

Not blowing trumpets or anything, but I can manage the rest of things fine including the roasties! But stuffing always goes wrong on me.

It is either too wet, too dry, or overcooked and hard, woe is me.

I don't stuff the bird, but make it separately. Maybe I should just stuff it up the birdie's bum and try it lol.

Anyway, it's just the usual breadcrumbs, onions herbs and seasoning. I gently fry off the onions in butter and rapeseed oil. Then add the breadcrumbs. When all mixed up put in a dish and dot with (lots) of butter and into the oven covered with foil.. I'm probably leaving it there for too long. I dunno. I'm fed up now.

Thanks anyway.

This has been my stuffing go-to recipe since 2005:



[URL] http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2572/sausage-nut-stuffing-came[/URL]

Spanish Eyes

Mrs Fox wrote: »

This has been my stuffing go-to recipe since 2005:



[URL] http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2572/sausage-nut-stuffing-came[/URL]

Thank you Mrs. Fox and all who helped.

Your link is not working, but I am sure I can find similar if I search enough!

I think I'll do a dry run this Sunday with the free range chicken that's on the cards!

Thanks again.

Mrs Fox

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Thank you Mrs. Fox and all who helped.

Your link is not working, but I am sure I can find similar if I search enough!

I think I'll do a dry run this Sunday with the free range chicken that's on the cards!

Thanks again.

Whoops sorry, crappy mobile. If you search for BBC Good Food Sausage Nut Stuffing *thumbs up

Bateman

Someone mentioned a boards roaster recipe, or something, is there a thread I should be looking for?

Faith

Guys... It's two weeks to Christmas day. Two weeks today.

Where the hell does the time go?! :eek: :eek:

Spanish Eyes

Faith wrote: »

Guys... It's two weeks to Christmas day. Two weeks today.

Where the hell does the time go?! :eek: :eek:

It flies right enough.

But TBH it's the hiatus between Christmas Day and NY that I love.

Picking at the leftovers, making a chilli, slobbing around, eating whatever. Easy and no stress either!

kenco

Still not getting into the Christmas vibe due to annoying work....it will come though, it will come!

For the first time in a long time Im not hosting Christmas Dinner which is nice (sort of) but I do feel like a special bit of Christmas is lacking (sure I will get over it!).

So the day itself is likely to start with Breakfast Roulade (bacon, sausage meat and black pudding in puff pastry) with scrambled eggs for some and poached eggs for me (might go Duck for the giggles). Lots of coffee and oj.

Then various visits which will involve nibbles here and there and then onto the main event. Will provide the wine and cheese for same as the least I can do. Will be all the usual and no doubts will be superb.

Back home later this does add the challenge of the 'munchies' that kick in later on the evening so thinking of some spiced beef (might do it on Christmas Eve) in some ciabatta with horseradish and rocket salad in the absence of Turkey and Ham leftovers.

Of course if the Grappa man comes I will post late night snack have to indulge with a sharp espresso.....and then fall conk out on the couch!

Locker10a

Evening folks,

So i am posting here in a desperate attempt to sort my Plans for Xmas dinner, growing up in Ireland my granny would often have a boiled ham for us for dinner, we also always had this on Xmas day along with turkey.
I now live in the UK, this year I would love to have a boiled ham on Christmas Day! The only problem is i don't know where to get one or what cut I'm looking for.
I asked my mum which one i should buy and she assures me that we always had a filet of ham which would be boiled as far as i remember, however in UK supermarkets only seem to be able to find gammon.

My question is whether gammon in the UK is the same thing as a filet of ham in Ireland ? As i always thought gammon tasted differently or was not the same cut as the traditional ham we would always have.
Can anyone shed some light on this for me?
It would be greatly appreciated,
Thanks in advance

Faith

Mod Note: Merged with Christmas Dinner thread.