I'm cooking this year and I thought I'd share my menu for the big day tomorrow.
As an aperitif we're having chilled Prosecco with salt & pepper cashew nuts and bacon & prune rolls (half a rasher of streaky bacon wrapped around a soft prune, held together with a cocktail stick and then baked in the oven - serve warm). I'm making the cashew nuts myself too as they sometimes have a wheat flour coating. I chuck them in a non-stick frying pan on a medium heat - stir/shake well to stop them burning. When warm and a little toasted shake on fine sea salt and black pepper, toss and put them in a bowl to cool.
For the starter, I'm curing gravad lax - as I write this it's been in the fridge a day and is looking goooood! I bought the freshest 600g piece of boneless mid-side salmon fillet I could find. The curing mixture is: 100g sea salt, 125g caster sugar, 3 tbsp gin and 100g of fresh dill chopped quite small. Just mix it together in a bowl, line a small baking tray (the same size as the salmon) with a long piece of cling film and spoon a third of the mixture onto the base. Lie the salmon skin side down on the mixture and spoon the remainder over the top and down the sides until the fillet is well-covered. Wrap the clingfilm over the top of the fillet and put it in the fridge with something heavy on top (mine's under the turkey - they may as well get to know each other!). Turn the fillet over in the tray at least twice a day. Don't throw the liquid away that forms in the tray. I'm serving it with a mustard & dill dressing (mustard, caster sugar, lemon juice, salt & pepper, dill), slices of cucumber and a handful of rocket leaves.
We're going all traditional for the main course - roast turkey and all the trimmings ... roast potatoes, chestnut stuffing, brussels (with bacon bits, shallot & chestnuts), mashed swede & carrot. To make chestnut stuffing, fry an onion in butter & olive oil, when it's soft add some chopped mushrooms until they're cooked and then stir in a chopped clove of garlic. In a bowl, mix some gf sausage meat (I got mine from our butcher but you could empty the skins of supermarket-bought ones) with fresh herbs to taste (sage & parsley in my case), a tin of chestnut puree (can be hard to track down but well worth it - Merchant Gourmet is the UK brand in supermarkets) and some chopped cooked chestnuts (bought vac-packed - you could make your own but I've tried it and personally think life's too short!). It's also best to add the giblets from the turkey that you like the look of - that's usually limited to the liver and heart in my case. Stir in the cooked onion, mushrooms & garlic and mix well. I stuff the turkey - under a part of the skin, inside the cavity - but some people prefer to cook it separately in balls or in a buttered oven dish. I think it usually ends up tasting better than the turkey!
I haven't decided on the pud yet ... I 'volunteered' to cook this year way too late to make a Christmas pudding. I was going to make a sticky toffee pudding but I think it'll be too heavy after all that food. I'm deliberating between a classic lemon tart and a chocolate tart. Lemon would be more refreshing but I could serve a clementine cream with the chocolate one and add some brandy to make it more Christmassy. Mmm, chocolate may be winning out ... I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.
As an aperitif we're having chilled Prosecco with salt & pepper cashew nuts and bacon & prune rolls (half a rasher of streaky bacon wrapped around a soft prune, held together with a cocktail stick and then baked in the oven - serve warm). I'm making the cashew nuts myself too as they sometimes have a wheat flour coating. I chuck them in a non-stick frying pan on a medium heat - stir/shake well to stop them burning. When warm and a little toasted shake on fine sea salt and black pepper, toss and put them in a bowl to cool.
For the starter, I'm curing gravad lax - as I write this it's been in the fridge a day and is looking goooood! I bought the freshest 600g piece of boneless mid-side salmon fillet I could find. The curing mixture is: 100g sea salt, 125g caster sugar, 3 tbsp gin and 100g of fresh dill chopped quite small. Just mix it together in a bowl, line a small baking tray (the same size as the salmon) with a long piece of cling film and spoon a third of the mixture onto the base. Lie the salmon skin side down on the mixture and spoon the remainder over the top and down the sides until the fillet is well-covered. Wrap the clingfilm over the top of the fillet and put it in the fridge with something heavy on top (mine's under the turkey - they may as well get to know each other!). Turn the fillet over in the tray at least twice a day. Don't throw the liquid away that forms in the tray. I'm serving it with a mustard & dill dressing (mustard, caster sugar, lemon juice, salt & pepper, dill), slices of cucumber and a handful of rocket leaves.
We're going all traditional for the main course - roast turkey and all the trimmings ... roast potatoes, chestnut stuffing, brussels (with bacon bits, shallot & chestnuts), mashed swede & carrot. To make chestnut stuffing, fry an onion in butter & olive oil, when it's soft add some chopped mushrooms until they're cooked and then stir in a chopped clove of garlic. In a bowl, mix some gf sausage meat (I got mine from our butcher but you could empty the skins of supermarket-bought ones) with fresh herbs to taste (sage & parsley in my case), a tin of chestnut puree (can be hard to track down but well worth it - Merchant Gourmet is the UK brand in supermarkets) and some chopped cooked chestnuts (bought vac-packed - you could make your own but I've tried it and personally think life's too short!). It's also best to add the giblets from the turkey that you like the look of - that's usually limited to the liver and heart in my case. Stir in the cooked onion, mushrooms & garlic and mix well. I stuff the turkey - under a part of the skin, inside the cavity - but some people prefer to cook it separately in balls or in a buttered oven dish. I think it usually ends up tasting better than the turkey!
I haven't decided on the pud yet ... I 'volunteered' to cook this year way too late to make a Christmas pudding. I was going to make a sticky toffee pudding but I think it'll be too heavy after all that food. I'm deliberating between a classic lemon tart and a chocolate tart. Lemon would be more refreshing but I could serve a clementine cream with the chocolate one and add some brandy to make it more Christmassy. Mmm, chocolate may be winning out ... I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.
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