Valerie talks you through the Christmas meal in detail, giving hints, tips and recipes along with the all-important timings.
The Guide comes in sections, so you can read the whole festive treatise, or just cut to the chase and
see what is pertinent to your own situation.
If, after this, you still have any problems or enquiries, please e-mail valerie@cix.co.uk no later than
22nd December to guarantee a response in time for the last of the shopping/cooking days.
Season's Eatings!
It's a daunting menu, isn't it? Not only for the cook but also these days, when we're all at pains to cut down our intake of fats or carbohydrates – and sometimes both - it's a fair amount to be expected to eat, as well!
Over the years, I have changed the way I present my family's essential Christmas food. Too often, I have found people unable to resist a second helping of turkey and then discovered that they are completely unable to enjoy a slice of plum pudding, or a mince pie, without feeling uncomfortable for the rest of the day. This, when one has gone to so much trouble to produce a special meal, is a shame for both the cook and the eater.
There are two ways around this. I have got into the habit, since most of the people who have Christmas Lunch with us are usually in the house on Christmas Eve as well, of having a Christmas Eve supper - normally something light, like a cheese soufflé and salad, or scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on bagels. I then serve the Christmas pudding and mince pies with all their rich accompaniments while people still have room to enjoy them. On Christmas Day, I find people are only too happy to go straight on to coffee and nuts after the main course which, in turn, means that they can normally find space for a slice of Christmas cake with their tea some time later.
The other way around the tummy/food interface is to serve the main course for Christmas Lunch and then have a turkey sandwich or a sausage roll for supper, followed by the pudding and mince pies.
Of course, there are those who will want to serve the traditional, full meal and for them I have listed the timings. Those who wish to split the Christmas Feast over one or more meals will find it easy to adapt the timings, since it will simply involve removing the items they don't want at lunch or dinner from their reckoning.
There are those, too, who will want to have available, in addition to the main event, some cheese and celery, a trifle, nuts, petits fours and fresh fruit – and jolly good luck to them! Happily, these extras require no cooking, so I have not included them in my timing plan. (I have included a recipe for a trifle, since this is such a feature of so many people's Traditional Christmas Meal but, since trifle requires to be made the day before, it doesn't appear on the timing schedule.)
Fortunately, there is a lot of work that can be got out of the way in the weeks before Christmas. Very few people these days do not have a freezer or at least a freezing compartment in the refrigerator and this can be used to lighten the work-load.
- You can buy cranberry sauce, but you can make a delicious and ridiculously easy Cranberry & Clementine Relish as soon as cranberries become available in the shops (from November onwards) and not only have enough for your own use, but some jars left over to give to people as presents.
- You can make your bread sauce and freeze it. I must admit to leaving bread sauce off my Christmas lunch menu – with so many extra accompaniments it is seldom missed and it's one thing less to bother about, but if you want to have bread sauce then make it up to a fortnight in advance and let it defrost at room temperature overnight on Christmas Eve.
- If you buy fresh cocktail sausages – and again these are normally available from supermarkets in the chiller cabinet from around November (and a good butcher will make them up for you if you ask) – then you can prepare the sausage and bacon curls well in advance and freeze them. I normally decide how many I shall want and then double the quantity because they're so popular – especially as a cold snack later in the evening! I use de-rinded streaky bacon, which I gently stretch with the back of a knife and half a slice should easily wrap round a cocktail sausage which can then be secured with a cocktail stick. Or use chipolatas and a whole slice of streaky bacon. If you have the space to freeze them on a tray or trays, you can then store them 'freeflow' style in bags and take out as many as you want.
- Choose at least one vegetable dish that can be made in advance and frozen – which is why I have suggested a red cabbage and apple casserole. Sprouts, as is well-known, are not countenanced in the Kiertzner family, but I defend to the death your right to eat them if you wish! They will have to be organised on the day, but you can save a lot of time by buying frozen or vacuum-packed chestnuts to serve with them. The frozen chestnuts are raw and will need poaching in a little milk or water, but the vacuum-packed variety will simply need to be heated either by warming through in a little stock or butter, or microwaving.
- You can make the stuffing well in advance and cook it in an oven-proof dish, then freeze it ready for defrosting on Christmas Eve and re-heating on Christmas Day. I do like to stuff the neck end of a turkey, as I think it gives it such a wonderful shape, so I normally make a simple sausagemeat and chestnut stuffing for the bird, which doesn't take very long and can be put together on Christmas Eve and then I make a different stuffing to hand round separately and this will be the one that has been frozen. A decent stuffing, served cold, is pretty well a meat-loaf anyway, so having lots can only help in the Boxing Day snack department. If you prefer to stuff the cavity of the bird you will need to allow extra cooking time which may well result in dry breast meat. If you don't want to go to the bother of making two stuffings, then don't! But don't freeze raw stuffing mixture – it must be cooked if you're planning to make it in advance.
- Mince Pies are probably the most popular thing in our house and I regularly lose count of the endless dozens of these I make in December – but one of my own particular treats is to take an afternoon out to make a large batch of them whilst listening to a good thriller on the radio – the combination of wafting spice and ghoulish murder is irresistible! Allowing for the dozen or so that get eaten before they've had a chance to cool down – "Well we've got to test them, haven't we?" – it still allows for a goodly amount to be tucked away in the freezer. If you haven't room in your freezer for boxes of mince pies, they can be made several days before Christmas and stored in an airtight tin, then gently warmed through before serving. I always make mincemeat and I give a recipe for it, but if you don't want to, or haven't time, there are several good-quality varieties on the market these days and I don't know a brand that can't be improved by adding a tablespoonful of runny honey
and a couple of tablespoonsful of brandy, whisky or rum before use!
- Christmas Pudding – you made yours on Stir-Up Sunday, right? If you didn't, there's a recipe available, or buy a really good quality one from a well-known supplier. Of all the bought puddings I've tasted over the years, my favourite is still Fortnum & Mason's – rich, dark and very grown-up.
- Rum Butter and Brandy Butter – make as much as a month ahead and store in the refrigerator. Anything with that much sugar and alcohol in it isn't going to go off.
- This may sound silly, but check that you have a roasting tin that will take the size of turkey you plan to buy – and check that the tin you are going to use will fit your oven!! A good quality roasting tin will repay the money you spend on it. If you're not sure about sizes, go and look at turkeys before you plan to buy yours and get an idea of what a 16lb (for example) turkey actually looks like! Since most people only cook one a year, if that, they can be forgiven for not holding this information in their heads. If you are buying a turkey from a butcher – and I sincerely hope you are – take your roasting tin with you and ask to have the bird put in it to make sure it fits. You want to have some space around it – cramming the bird in and designating it a 'snug fit'
will not do – the turkey needs to have some space around it for the hot
air to circulate properly.
- Make stock from the turkey giblets on Christmas Eve.
Having had overnight to cool, it can then be skimmed and re-heated
for gravy the next day. There is so much happening during the last
half hour before serving lunch that the last thing I want to do is
make gravy in a large roasting tin on top of the cooker, when I need
the space for other saucepans. Therefore, when I have removed the
bird to its resting place I pour all the liquid from the roasting
tin into a large jug and put it to one side – and then I wash the
roasting tin up and get it the hell out of the way!. When the
turkey drippings have cooled they will have separated into fat and
jelly. I remove the fat (and dispose of it – it doesn't make the
wondrous roast potatoes that goose fat does, sadly) and I keep the
jelly back to add to the stockpot when the carcass is boiled up on
Boxing Day. You can, of course, make gravy the traditional way in the
roasting tin, but you'll give yourself much less grief by using
well-flavoured giblet stock, which can be re-heated in an ordinary
saucepan and thickened with a small amount of cornflour and gravy
browning slaked with a tablespoon or so of water.
So those are the things that can be done in advance without detriment.
I am going arbitrarily to pick 2pm as the start time of Christmas Day lunch. You may want to have it earlier or later, in which case simply start your preparations that much earlier or later.
I am also going to assume the dressed weight of the turkey (i.e. once it has been plucked and drawn) is 16lb – easily enough for eight people with plenty left over for sandwiches and a decent carcass for stock. The general rule of thumb is to allow half a pound per person when buying turkey, because the bones are large and heavy but, as I say, this is on the generous side.
Please may I entreat you, if at all possible, to buy a fresh, farm-reared bird from a reputable butcher? Battery turkeys are as bland (and will have led as unhappy an existence) as battery chickens – and the frozen chaps, whether butter-basted or otherwise, are pumped full of water which simply results in a smaller, wetter, bird than you might have expected. Now that supplies are readily available again of really top-quality birds such as Kelly Bronze and Norfolk Black, please, please consider spending the extra money and buying a turkey fit for the table on which you have spent so much effort, time and money. I promise you it will be worth it.
Anyhoo – to work!
First of all, decide on what time you want to eat. As mentioned, I've chosen 2pm and everything will now be worked backwards from that time.
For a turkey under 18lbs dressed weight, allow 15 minutes per pound plus an extra 15 minutes, plus 30 minutes' resting time (this last is very important). For a turkey over 18lbs dressed weight, allow 20 minutes per pound, 20 minutes extra and half an hour's resting time. You also want to make sure the oven is hot when you begin cooking, so allow at least 15 minutes' heating up time, based on your knowledge of your oven...some cookers might need longer than this to reach the required temperature.
Working on the basis of a 16lb turkey, therefore, it will want 1x15mins heating time, 16x15mins plus 1x15mins cooking time, plus 1x30 mins resting time – that translates to 255 minutes' cooking time and 60 minutes' heating/resting time – or a total of five and quarter hours all told. If you're eating lunch at 2pm, therefore, you need to be in the kitchen at 8.45am.
Once you've worked this out, the rest is quite straightforward. You simply have to decide what is the earliest acceptable time for you to be in your kitchen on Christmas morning and adapt your timings to suit your circumstances! Those with small children will doubtless have no problem with an early start. Those without may want to eat later so they can enjoy the benefits of a festive lie-in.
I shall now give you a timetable and we can talk about other stuff afterwards.
Christmas Eve
- If you are using a frozen turkey, make sure it is fully defrosted by Christmas Eve. It will relieve you of the worry of whether or not it will be safe to cook on Christmas Day. In addition, you will be able to remove the giblets from the carcass, if supplied and make stock with them for gravy. Read the defrosting instructions that come with the turkey and follow them. Very last thing before you go to bed, take the turkey out of the fridge so it can come up to room temperature overnight. It is unlikely to be so unseasonably warm that this should prove a problem, but if you're concerned that your kitchen might be too warm and you prefer to cook your turkey straight from the fridge you should allow another half an hour roasting time to make sure it's thoroughly cooked.
- Make the stuffing that will go in the neck of the turkey and refrigerate overnight in a bowl that has been covered in a double layer of cling-film to prevent the smell from attaching itself to anything else. If space in your fridge is at a premium – and it usually is at this time of year, make your stuffing and then pat it into a block and wrap it well in cling-film – this way it will take up much less space.
- Take a whole packet of butter and soften it. If you don't have a microwave to zap it in, then put it in a bowl and squeeze it with your hand – the warmth will soon start to soften it. Season it with some salt and pepper. You can add some finely-chopped fresh herbs as well, if you like, along with crushed garlic and lemon zest. This mixture will be used to stuff between the skin and the meat of the turkey before it goes into the oven, to act as a self-basting mechanism. If it's possible to do this job on Christmas Eve, then do. Please see 'Christmas Day' for more details.
- If you have made your sausage and bacon curls ahead of time and frozen them, take them out of the freezer to defrost overnight.
- If you are serving the cabbage and apple casserole and you have already made and frozen it, defrost it overnight. If you are serving other vegetables, you can prepare them ahead of time and put them in plastic bags in the refrigerator – just make sure that you include in the bag a dampened square or two of kitchen paper as this will keep the prepared vegetables from wilting. You can peel or scrape the carrots and cut them into batons or rings, you can trim the Brussels sprouts if you're serving them and put the little crosses in their bottoms that they so richly deserve. If you are preparing white vegetables, such as parsnips, these can also be done ahead of time, but you need to sprinkle some lemon juice over them to help prevent their going brown. (If you're oncerned about this, play safe and prepare them on Christmas Day.) Only the potatoes need preparing on the spot.
- Make the Trifle. Traditionally, this is served in a glass dish so that one can see the layers. Personally, I don't mind what it's served in, as long as there is enough headspace between the final layer of cream and the top of the bowl so that it can be double-wrapped in cling-film to prevent anything else from coming into contact with it.
- If you can spare the space and the cutlery, it's a good idea to set the lunch table – with the extra care and time that goes into this, it's nice to be able to do it in peace and quiet.
- Sharpen your knives now, while you have time and remember to do it. Include the carving knife, even if the person who will be carving on Christmas Day likes a little flourish before the first incision.
Christmas Day
Season's Greetings! If you're eating at 2pm, then you should be in the kitchen at 8.45am – turn the oven on to GM5 or equivalent and then make the first of what will doubtless be many strong cups of tea or coffee...even I can't face a glass of claret before 9am.
During the time the oven is heating up, prepare the turkey. There is much discussion every year, on television and in magazine articles over whether the turkey should be placed in the roasting tin right side up or breast side down. I find the weight of the bird tends to flatten the breast if it's put in upside down, even though the principle behind this idea is to make sure the cooking juices run into the breast meat, keeping it moist. The way around this is to use plenty of butter, hence the making on Christmas Eve of a flavoured butter for this very purpose. It needs to be soft before use so, if it has hardened overnight, soften it again either in the microwave or by squishing it with your hand.
The aim is to separate the skin from the meat, to create a large pocket where soft butter can be inserted to help keep the bird moist. It sounds complicated, but it isn't. Carefully ease the skin away from the top of the turkey, starting at the vent or open end. It's not as difficult as it sounds, although you may have to use a knife to begin with – when you have separated the skin from the meat at the end, carefully insert your fingers and hand between the two and very gently move your hand into the space you have created and, using your fingers to break any connective tissue at the point of the breastbone, carry on with this gentle pushing and wiggling until you have separated all the skin on the upper half of the turkey from its meat. You do need to take this gently, so as not to tear the skin. If you're squeamish then wear those extremely thin disposable rubber gloves that surgeons use and which are now available in most supermarkets, although it is easier without and if you do opt for gloves oil them first, or the dry rubber could tear the skin of the turkey which you want to avoid. When you have separated the skin from the meat, start pushing in the softened, seasoned butter and ease it over the meat so that it is evenly distributed. You can do this on Christmas Eve and if it's something you haven't done before it might take a little time, so do it in slow time on Christmas Eve or perhaps allow yourself an extra quarter of an hour to do it in the
morning, so start your day at 8.30am.
If you really don't like the idea of putting your hand inside the turkey, then you can simply smear lots of butter on the outside before layering rashers of bacon over the top for extra protection. But if you think about it, whatever you put on the outside is going to slide right off the moment it has melted, whereas the butter that
melts in the cavity between the breast and skin is going to melt into the bird, keeping it deliciously plump and juicy.
Next, turn the bird upside down and pull out the flap of skin at the neck end put the chestnut stuffing, if you're using it, into this space, making sure you leave enough skin to tuck over the stuffing to prevent it escaping whilst cooking. What you're aiming for is a rounded picture-book look to the turkey, but don't pack it too tightly; it swells during cooking and could burst through the skin – and the main stuffing will be served separately anyway. Having secured the skin with skewers or cocktail sticks, turn the bird the right way up again and place carefully into the roasting pan. Smear the bird with some oil, or more butter if you prefer, then lay strips of streaky bacon over the top of it to act as a security blanket. Now cover the whole thing with foil, tucking the ends loosely around the side of the tin and put into the oven. Because you have taken such pains to make sure it bastes itself during cooking, you won't need to look at it again until mid-day.
There is usually a lull at this point. Your family will have its own traditions and chief among these doubtless will be at what time the presents are opened. Being Danish, my husband's preference is to follow his family's tradition of opening presents after dinner on Christmas Eve and I think it works spendidly. We have a delicious dinner, a quiet opening of presents with time enough to appreciate everything and then Christmas Day starts off at a gentler pace. However, if your preference is for presents on Christmas Day morning, with or without a light breakfast and with or without a glass of Buck's Fizz, then you now have time to enjoy this part of the day, without rushing in and out of the kitchen to check on things.
If you are going to steam a Christmas pudding large enough for, say, eight people, it will need about four hours, so you should get it on a back burner at around 11am. This will ensure that it's ready at 3pm, which gives you an hour for eating and digesting the main course. If you have bought (or made) a pudding suitable for the
microwave then follow the instructions at the time you want to serve it. I'm all for not taking up valuable cooker space with something that's going to sit there for most of the morning, but as long as allowance is made for it then it shouldn't be a problem.
Timetable
I have been cooking and serving Christmas Lunch since I was fifteen and I still keep the timetable in the kitchen and tick things off as they're done!
April 5th – put the sprouts on.
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It is sometimes the case that, however carefully you time things, they simply don't cook the way you expect them to.
This is one of the reasons that timing the turkey to be ready half an hour in advance of service is such a good idea. If for some reason your bird is not cooked, you have time to do something about it.
If it only needs another twenty minutes' cooking or so, then don't worry, just cook it on and leave it to rest for ten minutes instead of thirty.
If it looks like it needs another hour, then perhaps your cooker is not as hot as it should be – they do all vary. If this is the case, you will have to announce that lunch will be a little late and move everything else forward by half an hour. Far better to eat at 2.30pm instead of 2pm and have everything perfectly cooked than determine to sit down at 2pm come what may and run the risk of food poisoning!
The important thing is not to panic. What's the worst that can happen? People will simply have slightly sharper appetites if they have to wait a little and will enjoy their lunch all the more.
Of course, if the reverse has happened and your oven is hotter than the norm and your turkey is cooked ahead of time, again – don't worry. It will keep hot quite happily if left to itself for at least an hour and don't forget, by the time it's carved and covered in hot gravy and other accompaniments no-one will know it was ready early.
