I'd be lying if I said I didn't get disproportionately excited about christmas and christmas food. I've been hosting xmas at my house for 3 years and cooking the food for several years prior to that, having inherited the duty due to my enthusiasm for the task. I haven't had any disasters but I don't think anyone would disagree if I said that each year I'm getting a bit better at it.
The ideal is to get the entire meal to the table, hot, before 3pm and without a single frustrated outburst or stress-induced teary argument. Difficult, but not impossible.
This post is to tie together all the other ones, each relating to an element of xmas dinner or xmas in general. You might think there are a few things missing, each family has their own traditional accompaniments, but partly that's because we had a small scale xmas this year so I didn't bother with stuffing or redcurrant sauce. I bought the pigs-in-blankets ready made too.
Spicy Glazed Ham
Roast Goose
Rich Gravy
Perfect Roast Potatoes
Bread Sauce
Vegetables
Trifle
Bubble and Squeak
I've got my inspiration from various cookbooks, from my family, friends and just from doing it year on year. Below is a list of the books I've turned to time and again in recent Christmasses:
Nigella Christmas ~ Nigella Lawson
The Good Housekeeping Cookbook (1998)
Sunday Lunch ~ Gordon Ramsay
Christmas dinner isn't complete without a full array of delicious, seasonal vegetables. These are really easy, hardly a recipe at all, but I know I'm often interested in what other families cook for their dinner so I thought I would include them.
I also know there is interest from people new to the UK, who would like to create a British style christmas dinner for the first time but aren't entirely sure what it involves - so I thought I'd be comprehensive in my xmas posts!
Seasonally speaking, root vegetables such as carrots, parsnips, beetroot and swede, plus brassicas like brussel sprouts, as well as broccoli are all at their lovely best right now. I'm particularly fond of parsnips myself, my Mum loves beetroot, my Dad loves carrots and my husband is a broccoli fiend, so each and every one has to make it onto the christmas table.
Unlike a lot of other families, I haven't messed around with our veg too much. Partly this is because my Mum absolutely hates sweet flavours in savoury food, so the traditional honey or maple glazes are right out, and she's frankly not fond of nuts like almonds, pine nuts or chestnuts either, so souped up brussels wouldn't be popular.
I also don't want the veg to outshine the goose or the gravy, they are supporting actors and showering them in gifts of honey / cumin / sesame seeds / balsamic vinegar or any of the other common props won't help the stars of the show to shine!
I think the most important bit is the cutting - trying to make the parsnips and carrots fairly uniform in thickness before roasting them, to avoid burned tips or undercooked tops.
The beetroot needs to be pre-boiled in a large saucepan of water for a good hour until tender, before skinning and slicing into wedges.
Roast the beetroot in a separate tin if you can, to avoid the colour bleeding into the parsnips and carrots, which can go in together. Season with salt and pepper and coat in olive oil, mixing with your hands to ensure good coverage.
These root veg all take about 45 minutes to an hour until they're ready, but keep an eye on the beetroot; remove it and cover in foil if it looks like it's going to burn.
Swede needs to be peeled and chopped into inch square cubes, then boiled until soft and mashed with plenty of butter, salt and pepper.
Sprouts and broccoli only need the lightest of steaming or boiling with a small amount of water, keep the crunch - it's lovely.
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The holy grail... perfect roast potatoes: crisp and crunchy on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside. Worth fighting your Dad for!
If you're cooking goose for lunch, take all that excess fat, pop it in a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper and shove it in the oven at least half an hour before you intend to put the potatoes in.
You can also buy goose fat in jars or simply cook your roasties in another fat, such as olive oil.
While the fat is heating up, cut up your potatoes into thirds or quarters, depending on their size. Allow at least four potato peices per person, five to be on the safe side and six or seven if you want leftovers. Put them in a large pan and parboil them for about 15-20 minutes until fairly cooked on the outside but still firm inside.
Drain the water from the pan and sprinkle semolina over the potatoes. Put the lid on and give them a gentle bashing, to rough up the edges.
When the fat is hot, put the roasting tray on the hob, with the heat on if your kitchen is cool, and place the potatoes into the fat where they should start to sizzle.
Bung back in the oven for about 45-mins to an hour, turning them halfway through and draining off excess fat if necessary.
Roasties must be hot, so pre-warm the serving dish and keep them hot in a low oven until you're ready to eat.
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Even my Dad eats this and he usually hates bread sauce. For me, a roast dinner isn't complete without it and I certainly wouldn't be happy if christmas dinner didn't include it. The trick is to leave the milk to infuse for a very long time.
Pop a pint of milk (about 500ml) into a saucepan with a small, halved onion (or two quarters of a large one) with a clove pushed into each peice. Add a bay leaf, a peice of mace and a few white peppercorns. Put on the heat and bring almost to a boil, but not to boiling point. When you see bubbles starting take it off the heat and leave. Just leave it alone, for hours.
Strain the milk into a bowl full of torn bread, preferably a bit stale. The best part of half a loaf will do the trick, just remember to take off the crusts. Pop in the fridge and leave until you are almost ready to eat it.
When you're ready, decant the milky bready mixture back into a saucepan with several knobs of butter and a splosh of double cream. Heat up gently and season with salt, pepper and grated nutmeg. Delicious.
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Mmm, gravy. You could use granules. You could use a pot or sachet from the supermarket. You could rely on deglazing the pan with stock made from a cube. But this is christmas and the absolute best thing to have on the table is lots and lots of rich, deeply flavoured, piping hot gravy, made from scratch (and from happy birds).
Hopefully, you've got some giblets from your goose / chicken / turkey / other christmas birdie. Take the liver out and put aside, you can eat it separately pan fried on toast but it makes gravy bitter so don't include it (it looks like this).
Along with the giblets, put a few chicken wings, necks or even just old carcasses, into a large saucepan. Most butchers will sell you wings and necks for gravy, abel and cole also sells them, I also keep a load of bones in the freezer for use in stocks.
To these, add a quartered onion, a couple of bay leaves, some parsley stalks, a couple of broken carrots, a couple of broken celery sticks and about 10 peppercorns. Cover with cold water (a couple of pints / a litre) and pop on the hob. Bring to the boil then turn down and simmer for a good couple of hours. Keep tasting it, and don't take it off the heat until it has reduced down and has a good flavour (remembering that there's no salt in it yet though, so don't expect it to taste "finished").
Strain it into a jug and either skim off the fat or use a fat separator jug - I found one in the kleeneze catalogue and found it really useful. Leave it to cool and pop in the fridge, covered with clingfilm, until ready to make your gravy.
When you get your bird out of the oven and put it aside to rest, pop the roasting tray on the hob and add the stock to it (if it's been in the fridge it will be jellified, that's a good thing!). To this add a slosh of wine (red or white, your choice) and a spoonful of redcurrant jelly. Get it bubbling and burn off the booze, scraping the bottom of the tin to get all the caramelised bird juices into the mix. Result = awesome gravy.
Serve piping hot in a really twee gravy boat.
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Spicy Glazed Ham 
