Christmas dinner chefs tips
No doubt many of you are already planning and dreading the experience of cooking Christmas dinner this year. It’s obviously a very important day and we are all bombarded with tv programmes, books and magazine articles from celebrity chefs and cooks about exactly what we should do on the day and how wonderful their Christmas is going to be as they all effortlessly create a stunning banquet while still somehow spending the entire day with their family and not missing out on any of the fun while stuck in a hot kitchen. Well we are here to tell you what a load of old tosh that all is! For starters, any real professional chef is so exhausted with the busy December they have spent cooking at work that they will be happy with a pot noodle on Christmas Day if they can get away with it as long as it includes a day off. For those who are cooking for their families (as all five of the Cafe Bar One kitchen brigade will be) it should be about balancing a nice meal with enjoying the day. Use good ingredients, plan properly, prep properly and concentrate on the cooking but it is just one meal and once it is over everyone will be happy, full and will carry on enjoying Christmas day. Whenever we talk like this about cooking important dinners, we always get the same comments along the lines of ‘well thats easy for you to say when you do it for a living’. To an extent this is true, but a lot of it is down to leaving as little as possible to the last minute. So we have decided to share a few of our tips that we will be using when we cook our own Christmas dinners. When we started talking about this blog, both Ian and Gez recommended booze as a good way of relaxing and both start this at a very early stage in the day. Gez’s Mam, Pat, didnt expressly say this but Gez can confirm that she doesnt shy away from a glass or three while cooking at Christmas – more about that later! We have split our tips into three areas – Meat, Veg and trimmings. Meat Turkey – if you are eating turkey you will no doubt have read many different ‘definitive’ ways for cooking the bird. The only logical one we have ever heard is from Marco Pierre White who buys two or three small turkeys, poaches them until cooked the day before, then blasts them in a hot oven until the skin is crispy for just 45 minutes on the day. This way all of the meat stays tender as it poaches evenly and you dont have to get up at 6am to put it in the oven. Now this probably is way out of most peoples comfort zones, so here is another tip. Turkey doesnt really taste of much, is dry whatever you do to it and is simply a large colourless lump of protein! Buy a probe and when it is up to 70 degrees take it out, wrap it in the foil and leave it to rest for as long as you want. Carve it before everything else is ready and put the meat on a hot plate with a little bit of hot water and cover with foil again and stick in the bottom of your oven. It will stay warm, may actually get more moist but most importantly you wont be scrambling to carve it when everything else is going cold. Goose – if you are having goose, cut all of the fat off the back end and set aside, slow cook it for around four to five hours on a low heat in foil, unwrap towards the end to crisp it up and dont expect loads of meat. When I asked our butcher about the goose I was ordering from him, Browns on Chillingham Road, he recommended about 12lbs for 6–7 people. Vegetables Vegetables cause the most trouble as everyone does so many of them. Ians best tip was to let your mother in law score the bottom of the sprouts. He doesnt believe you really need to do this but it saves for arguments. Gez agrees as any menial task for the in laws means less time for them to poke around with the more important aspects of the meal and tell you how you should really be doing it! Think about how many people you are actually prepping for – do you really need eight different types when usually you manage with maybe three? The absolutely key to a stress free christmas is to parboil all of your veg the day before. Do you really think that restaurants cook all of your veg to order from raw? Cook your veg until they are just starting to soften then drop them into a bowl of cold water to cool them quickly and stop them cooking anymore (this is known as refreshing). Also, as your fridge will no doubt be pretty full at this time of year, cover your par cooked veg and just leave them in a cold area of the house – garage, utility room – they wont go off! On the day, serve your veg last – it cools the quickest so when everything else is done and on the table either blast each of them in the microwave or keep a large pot of boiling water on the go and drop each of your par cooked veg in for just a minute or so and send them to the table as they are ready. Potatoes – Par cook them for 5–10 minutes the day before (you want the outside soft, but the inside still firm), drain them, shake the pan a bit to bash them up then take the lid off to let the steam out. Again just leave them in a cold area of the house. Always roast your potatoes from cold as any steam stops the outsides crisping properly. They will only take around 30 minutes then and dont worry about timing that perfectly with everthing else as even if they are done early they take ages to cool down and a last minute blast in the oven always heats them again. Parsnips – Dont par boil parsnips to roast them you will just make them soggy. Cut them into even chunks, toss them in olive oil and roast them the day before. On Christmas day pop them back in the oven and after ten minutes or so pour honey over them and shake then in another ten minutes or so you will have honey roast parsnips. The Trimmings Finally the all important accompaniments. Gez fries the fat trimmed from his goose and strains it to use for cooking potatoes so saves on the cost of the expensive shop bought types. Also, if cooking any type of of bird like goose, make sure you stuff it with fruit such as prunes. These birds forage for sweet fruit and berries and their flavour is enhanced by serving them with similar fruits. Stuffing – Make your stuffing a few days in advance so you can just forget about it. Even with sausage meat in, it wont go off due to salt content. And dont waste your time stuffing the bird with it – it causes really uneven cooking so just pop it in a bowl and stick it in the bottom of the oven. If you like Christmas pudding then serve it with brandy flavoured sweet white sauce like Pat. You may want to make this in advance unless you like it so strong that it takes your breath away which is what happens when you are heavy handed with the brandy due to be ‘exhausted’ after cooking for hours! Finally, Phils tip when dining with a confused Dad, label the horseradish if you have any on the table. His Dad recently covered a dinner in lashings of what he thought was bread sauce to subsequently find it was horseradish, much to the amusement of his fellow diners! Thats it then. We will stick a few recipes on here before Christmas but happy cooking and if anyone has any queries that Gordon, Jamie, Nigella etc etc etc havent addressed then drop us an email and we will get our heads together to see if we can help you.