[GCW]

Christmas Pudding rocks, ye Heathen.  Burn him at the stake by dousing him in brandy (and a sprig of holly)!!

[slackline]

 

Ye Gods!   The Boffinator kills his tastebuds w/ smoke and smothers everything in chilli... 

[points finger]So his taste itself is in question![/points finger]

I'll probably have some chilli sauce to go on my roast (too bland otherwise  ).

Wife and I make curry on xmas day, mmmmmm curry!

[Graeme78]

Roast Lamb - for us normal people; what's a really good cut? Was thinking rosemary/garlic to flavour (xmassy enough?) and use some of the fat with some Red Vino for the gravy

I would do a shoulder of lamb, whack it in the oven with a bit of water in the roasting tray, stops it drying out, for about 4 hours, I think, at about 150, don't know the gas mark. The meat will fall off the bone.
Skim off the fat from the juices for your roasties. Take the remaining juices and make gravy with that.
That should do for your lamb, although some may find that a bit too basic. Serve with red cabbage etc.

[Sloper]

I would counsel against taking the fat from a roast for making roast potatoes as it usually has a lat of water in it and will smoke like fuck.

For an easy 'posh' Christmast dinner Ii'd suggest roast pheasant with chestnuts and truffles.

Cost <£25 for four or £35 for 6 so more than reasonable.

Time to cook and prepare <2 hours,

Knowledge and skills, basic.

Menu

Smoked fish
Roast Pheasant with chestnuts and truffle
Christmas pud.

TIPS

You should be able to get a breast of pheasants for around £7.50 from a butcher don't buy supermarket birds they're usuall smaller, less well shot (eg the beater stands on their head and rich twat shoots them up the arse) which means the breast can be bruised and damaged.

Buy ready roasted and pealed chestnuts from a supermarket for around £2 life's too short to roast and peel your own.

Truffle oil is available in many supermarkets for around £4 and keeps reasonably well in the fridge.

For a starter KISS, get some smoked eel and smoked salmon and serve with finely grated onion and lemon horseradish mascapone. (get pure horseradish not stuff mixed with turnip and mayo) and good brown bread.

Wine anything white and crisp.

For the main, Take the breasts of the pheasants (easy really, be confident, take a sharp knife and turn the pheasant on its back, now run your finger nail down the side of the breastbone and run the knife along side the breast from front to back, this will give you a good view of removing the reast around the collar bone. Use scisors to cut throught the wing joint (try and leave the stump it looks better). Marinade with a little truffle oil and fersh herbs.

Take of the thighs (save these for a casserole) then chop the carcass and legs and fry with onion, carrots, parsnip cores a bit of garlic and herbs, when browning nicely add a tablespoon of cornflower and shortly afterwars 1 pint of water and allow to simmer nicely for about 40 minutes.  Add some brandy and strain, season and reduce to the right consistency.

To roast the breasts brown them off in a hot frying pan with the chestnuts then place in a hot oven for about 20 minutes, test how done they are an then leave to rest for 5 minutes.

While the breasts are restsing deglaze the pan with the sauce and add a good drop of truffle oil.

Serve the breasts with hearts of spring greens and roasted carrots, parsnips and other root veg eg swede, celleriac, jurasalem artichokes (no turnip) and of course roast potatoes.

Wine, don't go over board a decent burgundy would suit, not a heavy rhone.

Christmas pud with mascapone.

Buy the best christmas pudding you can afford, those in ceramic bowls really are worth it. Steam it slowly and if desired flame it (tip put the plate in the microwave on full power for 3 minutes before you put the pud on it, most brandy needs to be warm to burn) and serve with mascapone, which is really easy to flavour if you like

[saintlade]

Posted by: Graeme78
Insert Quote
Quote from: saintlade on Today at 06:32:54 am
Roast Lamb - for us normal people; what's a really good cut? Was thinking rosemary/garlic to flavour (xmassy enough?) and use some of the fat with some Red Vino for the gravy

I would do a shoulder of lamb, whack it in the oven with a bit of water in the roasting tray, stops it drying out, for about 4 hours, I think, at about 150, don't know the gas mark. The meat will fall off the bone.
Skim off the fat from the juices for your roasties. Take the remaining juices and make gravy with that.
That should do for your lamb, although some may find that a bit too basic. Serve with red cabbage etc.

Cheers for that, slow cooking should be a good way of going, have 2 ovens to play with if I remember correctly so can do the roasties separately. Quite keen to roast the spuds twice to get them really crispy, once the day before and then again with the separated fat, so should be able to leave the meat to stand, whack the oven up, drain off the juices, let them separate and then chuck the fat over the roasties 20 mins of reheating and getting crispy and shit.

Anybody have any experience off this premade sausagemeat stuffing? Worth a punt? Don't think I'll bother doing stuffing otherwise as it's more to worry about.

[fatdoc]

I would counsel against taking the fat from a roast for making roast potatoes as it usually has a lat of water in it and will smoke like fuck.

For an easy 'posh' Christmast dinner Ii'd suggest roast pheasant with chestnuts and truffles.

Cost <£25 for four or £35 for 6 so more than reasonable.

Time to cook and prepare <2 hours,

Knowledge and skills, basic.

Menu

Smoked fish
Roast Pheasant with chestnuts and truffle
Christmas pud.

TIPS

You should be able to get a breast of pheasants for around £7.50 from a butcher don't buy supermarket birds they're usuall smaller, less well shot (eg the beater stands on their head and rich twat shoots them up the arse) which means the breast can be bruised and damaged.

Buy ready roasted and pealed chestnuts from a supermarket for around £2 life's too short to roast and peel your own.

Truffle oil is available in many supermarkets for around £4 and keeps reasonably well in the fridge.

For a starter KISS, get some smoked eel and smoked salmon and serve with finely grated onion and lemon horseradish mascapone. (get pure horseradish not stuff mixed with turnip and mayo) and good brown bread.

Wine anything white and crisp.

For the main, Take the breasts of the pheasants (easy really, be confident, take a sharp knife and turn the pheasant on its back, now run your finger nail down the side of the breastbone and run the knife along side the breast from front to back, this will give you a good view of removing the reast around the collar bone. Use scisors to cut throught the wing joint (try and leave the stump it looks better). Marinade with a little truffle oil and fersh herbs.

Take of the thighs (save these for a casserole) then chop the carcass and legs and fry with onion, carrots, parsnip cores a bit of garlic and herbs, when browning nicely add a tablespoon of cornflower and shortly afterwars 1 pint of water and allow to simmer nicely for about 40 minutes.  Add some brandy and strain, season and reduce to the right consistency.

To roast the breasts brown them off in a hot frying pan with the chestnuts then place in a hot oven for about 20 minutes, test how done they are an then leave to rest for 5 minutes.

While the breasts are restsing deglaze the pan with the sauce and add a good drop of truffle oil.

Serve the breasts with hearts of spring greens and roasted carrots, parsnips and other root veg eg swede, celleriac, jurasalem artichokes (no turnip) and of course roast potatoes.

Wine, don't go over board a decent burgundy would suit, not a heavy rhone.

Christmas pud with mascapone.

Buy the best christmas pudding you can afford, those in ceramic bowls really are worth it. Steam it slowly and if desired flame it (tip put the plate in the microwave on full power for 3 minutes before you put the pud on it, most brandy needs to be warm to burn) and serve with mascapone, which is really easy to flavour if you like

you can really cook mate, nice one

[Sloper]

Yeah I'm a better cook than I am a climber and I'm an even better cook when I don't  when cooking.  The thing is though that's a theory that has yet to be proven!

[Houdini]

Isn't truffle oil much more expensive than €5 a bottle?

Father-in-Law always asks for truffle oil from his daughter when she goes to Italy, but they never buy him any as it's 50 or €60 a bottle (they say).

On a similar note, is it really worth paying top dollar for Balsamico Modena?  I've never coughed up more than €10 a bottle.

[Bubba]

Isn't truffle oil much more expensive than €5 a bottle?

I thought it was too - when I wanted some recently I couldn't find any in any of the local Sheffield supermarkets and it was too late at night for the delis - where do you get yours Sloper?

[Sloper]

Waitrose have it for about £5 and I'm sure I saw some in tesco's on a nappy buying / prole spotting trip.

[fatkid2000]

Waitrose have it for about £5 and I'm sure I saw some in tesco's on a nappy buying / prole spotting trip.

Yep = they do it for £7 at Waitrose, but it's like all things trendy in cooking you can pay huge sums of money for it - just like olive oil.

[Joepicalli]

Isn't truffle oil much more expensive than €5 a bottle?

Father-in-Law always asks for truffle oil from his daughter when she goes to Italy, but they never buy him any as it's 50 or €60 a bottle (they say).

On a similar note, is it really worth paying top dollar for Balsamico Modena?  I've never coughed up more than €10 a bottle.

Truffle oil is worth the amount of truffle in the oil + the price of the olive oil: if its being bought in Piemonte from near Alba white truffles may well be involved and that's God's money. As for well aged balsamic that has been through the full barrel change processing its worth it if you have a taste and appreciate the difference I generally pay £15 250ml for general use, I have had a bottle of 100ml which cost £85 and this ain't vinegar in the traditional sense. I used it for sweetening and adding , well, an indescribable flavour to red fruits including tomatoes and nothing else. I wept when it ended.
Hope this answers your questions houds.

[Houdini]

It does, I wouldn't cook w/ it though; simpler stuff like mozzarella salads.

[tomtom]

Further to the how to cook roast spuds discussion here, the Grauniad has tested a load of methods...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2009/dec/17/best-roast-potato-recipe

[Paul B]

We just prepped 3 hampers for presents as we didn't want to buy the same old sh*t.

They include:
Aple and cranberry chutney
Spiced beetroot and orange relish
Large jar of smokey paprika peppers in oil
Large jar of spiced pickled pears
Home-made cherry, almond and coconut flapjack
Mulled wine kit i.e. bottle and a bag of spices in Muslin
A truckle of cheese bought from the farmers market
chocolate
and an alcohol of choice.

decorated brilliantly by Nat
all recipes from BBC good food site, I might get round to sticking a snap up as we're really quite proud.

[Houdini]

RE:  Spuds



Best I've tasted come courtesy of an old relative.

Desiree. 
Peel and slice in half along the length (only quartering the largest) par-boil in salted water.
Half inch of oil (vegetable or sunflower) in a roasting dish and the dish on an Aga hotplate.
Add the potato when the oil is rather hot, no roughing up the outside, the boiling is enough, occassionally spooning over the oil and maybe a turn half way through cooking.  .

[Bonjoy]

Roast Goose for me (naturally) and goose fat roast potatoes. I don't see any reason why fat from a roast would smoke, so long as you only pour off the fat, taking care not to include any juices underneath.

Xmas cake has been maturing for about 6 weeks now and being regularly fed on Brandy. The homemade marzipan (and not homemade icing) will be added next week.

[rich d]

Can anyone give me some inspiration for xmas eve. Needs to be fairly easy - as we've got pressies to sort, have a christmas feel/taste - but not be rehearsal for the full chrismas experience on the day itself.
Cheers Rich

[robertostallioni]

Venison.

[Sloper]

Can anyone give me some inspiration for xmas eve. Needs to be fairly easy - as we've got pressies to sort, have a christmas feel/taste - but not be rehearsal for the full chrismas experience on the day itself.
Cheers Rich

Leg of pork with saute cabbage.

Make sure the leg of pork has a good thick layer of fat and has been at room temperature for at least 6 hours before roasting.

Deeply score the fat and rub in salt.

Then un roll it and stuff in some d'agen prunes, rosemary and plenty of chopped garlic, salt pepper etc.

Roast for about 3 hours on a very low heat before turning up to a very high oven for about 10 mins per lb.

Saute cabbage, use january king or similar, to a pan put in a good splot of olive oil and a good knob of butter, thinly slice the cabbage (thinner than coleslaw) and saute add some freshly grated nutmeg and season.

To drink, samur or any light red

[rich d]

Leg of Pork sounds very good. Venison possible. Cheers Guys

[Sloper]

Venison is tricky to get right, particularly roasting joints and not exactly cheap; if you're going to do it insist on getting a rack, I got one from Chatsworth last year and I think it was about £30 to feed 4.

A good leg of pork will be around £10 to feed 8.

Which leaves £20 for some wine.

[robertostallioni]

Can anyone give me some inspiration for xmas eve. Needs to be fairly easy -  have a christmas feel/taste, Cheers Rich

Venison is tricky to get right and not exactly cheap

On Christmas Eve? You just need to stay up late enough...

[rich d]

Got Venison from the farm near Barnsley on the M1 - always found it to be fantastic, but not cheap. My favourite is as a carpaccio, rolled in crushed pepper and herbs and some berries, with a horseraddish cream - very good.
Don't know if my daughters would forgive me if I caught the venison on the roof.

[sjw]

Mince Pie Flackjacks

Day off + rain + boredom = this.

Bit of an experiment with the amounts as I combined a few recipes, but they turned out first class. Good for the bait box over the festive season. Enjoy.

Shizzle:

100g butter/magarine
100g brown sugar
125g clear honey
300g mincemeat
400g oats
1tsp mixed spice
1tsp cinnamon
cap of brandy (optional, but not really)
icing sugar to dust

Bizzle:

Oven at 180C. Get your butter, brown sugar and honey in a big pan on a low heat, stirring occasionally. Don't let it boil or it'll be rubbish. When the sugar has dissolved (about 5 mins) add the mincemeat, spices and brandy for a couple of minutes, until it's all liquid like. Lash the oats in the pan and mix thoroughly. Tip into a lined baking tray, press down firmly and cook for 15-20 mins.

Let it cool in the baking tray before lifting out, but take the baking paper off before it goes cold. Make sure it's cold before cutting or it'll fall to bits.

Sift loads of icing sugar on top when it's cut, it makes it look well good.