Topic: What are you doing for Christmas this year?

[George]

I will almost certainly spend the day and entire period alone, like I did last year, in my cold house. And, no, I won't turn the heating on. For the previous three years, kind friends invited me round to join them but Covid put a stop to that. I will cook a traditional meal for myself, based on chicken or turkey. I prepared a similar meal tonight, using frozen vegetables. It's quick, easy and far more tasty than a festive pub roast I had a few days ago. The pub (part of a UK chain) are quoting almost £50 for a meal on Christmas Day and I can't see how the food will be any better than what I had for £14 for a starter and main. The waiting time was so long, they gave me a free pudding, also. So it became 3 courses for £14. I would never go to a pub, restaurant or anywhere for Chistmas lunch. Would you, or have you?

I agree with scientists who urge caution for anyone thinking of parties or get togethers. But the Government are saying there's no restrictions and to have a good time. I think the Government are being a bit irresponsible, given the risk of Covid infection.

[Peripatetic Phil]

Christmas is still something of an unknown at the moment, but I hope that Lệ Khanh and I will be spending it at home together, in which case we will be sharing a guinea fowl with all the trimmings, washed down with a Gevrey Chambertin (Christmas pud will be washed down with a 5-putonyos Tokaji).  As we are now in Cornwall, and Lệ Khanh's family are no closer than five hours drive away, we will probably be spending it alone.  We will try to attend midnight mass on Christmas Eve, not because we are believers but because Christmas is all about the birth of Christ, whether or not that event ever really took place.  On Christmas Day we will perhaps play some board games (Go, Gomoku, Dama, Chinese Chess, Nine Men's Morris) and then watch a pre-recorded film in bed, accompanied by Squeaker-the-cat.  The house will, of course, be warm (D.v. & insha'Allah).

[Robbo141]

I usually get back to the UK for Christmas but Covid put a stop to that last year and this year too.  A 7 hour flight to potentially arrive heathrow, test positive and have to self isolate is just not worth it for me so will stay home in the carolinas, trying to persuade Mrs Robbo that turkey isn’t just for thanksgiving.


Robbo

[Peripatetic Phil]

[...] trying to persuade Mrs Robbo that turkey isn’t just for thanksgiving.

Perhaps a goose (fewer associations) ?

[bhamcurry]

this Christmas it'll be me, wife, kiddo, and kitties.

Christmas Eve we'll be going to the carols service at our church.

I'll be picking up our turducken on Monday, just in time for it to defrost for Christmas Day, which we'll spend together as a family enjoying lots of traditional and contemporary foods such as baked Brie, the turducken with assorted side dishes, Christmas pudding, Christmas cake, sherry, port, and so on.

No curry, though. I will face mutiny in the ranks if I try to curry the turducken 

[George]

How did your Christmas cooking go? I planned to have chicken thighs cooked to perfection for a roast type meal on Xmas Day but, on impulse, I decided to buy a small, Bernard Matthews frozen turkey from Iceland on Xmas Eve. It needed 2 days to defrost, so I am having it today (Boxing Day) instead. I just placed it in the oven at gas mk 4. The wrapping says 2hrs 21 mins so that's what I will allow. I didn't dry it, smear it with any kind of oil or fat or do anything to it at all. What's the point of seasoning with salt and pepper, let alone adding onions, stuffing, lemons or anything in the cavity? It doesn't make any more sense to me than the way BIRs are supposed to pre-cook chicken in liquid. No wonder most chicken apart from tikka is pretty awful in a BIR.

Update: image added. Conclusion: turkey is only potentially good for presentation. Despite no pre-treatment, my turkey ended up looking suitably bronzed. But the breast meat in particular is relatively dry with little going for it. I don't accept that the addition of bacon or something on top, would have altered the position much. Brining can make it more moist but, in a previous year, I found it alters the texture too much and I didn't like it.

[Peripatetic Phil]

Yesterday we had roast guinea fowl (1,6kg), bought fresh from Waitrose on Christmas Eve.  The accompanying instructions were used for guidance only, nothing more.  The bird was stuffed with Paxo sage and onion stuffing to which I had added some fresh beef dripping and some Knorr Chinese chicken stock powder.  The bird was placed breast-side down in a rounded rectangular cast-iron casserole on a bed of pre-heated beef dripping, completely covered in 50% green / 50% smoked streaky bacon, and then roasted for 40 minutes at 160^oC with the lid on.  After 40 minutes the bird was inverted, the bacon and lid replaced, and cooked for a further 40 minutes.  After this further 40 minutes the lid and the bacon were removed, the temperature increased to 220^oC, and the bird cooked for a further 10 minutes to crisp the breast skin.  The potatoes (which were already part-cooked in goose fat) were cooked in the halogen oven for about 50 minutes.  Bread sauce mix (with added mace, cinnamon bark and one clove) was mixed with 75% cream, 25% water, and brought up to thickening point.  When it failed to adequately thicken, a couple of teaspoonsful of white breadcrumbs were added.  The gravy was free-range chicken stock which was used to de-glaze the casserole dish and thereby gain additional flavour.  Vegetables were green peppers and spring onions for me, and a Waitrose mixed vegetable pack for Lệ Khanh.  Marks out of 100 :  100 — I don't think it could have been bettered in any way.  Washed down with a 2019 Aldi Gevrey Chambertin, and the dessert (a Waitrose 6-month matured nut-free Christmas pudding, steamed for two hours on the induction hob) was washed down with a 2020 Lidl Tokaji Késői Szüret Late Harvest Hárslevelű.  The wines scored 3/5 for the Gevrey Chambertin and 4.8/5 for the Tokaji.

Today the remaining half of the guinea fowl was again wrapped in bacon and re-heated for 40 minutes in the same casserole dish as yesterday.  It re-heated perfectly, and was just as good on day two as it was on day one.  Dessert and wines unchanged.
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** Phil.

[livo]

A belated Merry Christmas to everybody.  Only 364 days to go now.  I tried to post a Christmas message to our members earlier, on our Christmas morning (still Christmas Eve everywhere else), but the site was down for me.

George, I'm certain there are hundreds of YouTube videos and food blogs online giving recipes and instructions on how to prepare, season and cook a Christmas (or Thanksgiving) turkey.  Your plate, and the bird in the background, looks really good to me anyway.  I have cooked frozen and packaged turkey breast (just breast) that, when done as per the instructions, is moist and delicious.  Perhaps, even the use of a simple oven bag or maybe a foil covering for the initial cook would have given some improvement.

Our Australian Christmas:

Many of us have long since moved away from the traditional roast Christmas lunch.  Oven cooking roast birds, legs of pork and ham and root vegetables with gravy in potential 40'C days has now been replaced with cold foods and salads for many Australian families although my family still has a cold chicken on offer for those who don't like (or in the case of my son are allergic to) crustacean seafood.  We haven't had a "traditional" roast for Christmas lunch in over 20 years.  Of course we have a diverse multi-cultural society these days so I'm sure there are plenty of different tables on the day.

Our own Christmas day lunch table was barbecued lobster tails (w/ butter, olive oil, garlic, lemon and spice seasoning), fresh cooked tiger prawns, deep fried beer battered Blue-eyed Trevalla, fresh Sydney rock oysters, sliced cold leg ham off the bone, the cold roast chicken, garden salads and coleslaw, a potato bake and other accompaniments.  No chips this year as there were no little kids attending.  This is consumed (as tradition dictates) with beer, beer and beer, bubbly for the ladies.  For dessert we always have my mother-in-law's home cooked Christmas pudding with custard and her trifle (jelly, custard, sponge cake, fruit and cream) and fruit platters of watermelon, mangoes, cherries, pineapple, nectarines and peaches with a Botrytis Semillon.  We only had 14 there this year but it can reach 30 some years.

Of course all this is after fried leg ham and eggs for breakfast and a selection of cheeses, dips, crackers, nuts and olives, etc for pre-lunch nibbles.  We don't usually get to lunch until around 2.30 - 3.00 pm and it takes a couple of hours, so we eat very little, if anything, for evening meal.

We usually do pretty much the same for our Easter lunch on Good Friday, without the ham, however this was completely missed in 2020 and was a reduced number attending this year due to imposed restrictions.

An interesting piece of trivia: 

The Sydney Fish Market remained open for 36 hours straight leading up to Christmas Eve afternoon with 10s of thousands passing through over this time.  This year it was reported they were expecting to sell over 400 metric tonnes of cooked prawns and 250 tonnes of fish and other seafood.  Each vehicle is required to pay $5 for parking and the average price for cooked prawns is $50 / kg, some crabs and lobsters are up to $120 / kg. Fresh fish is anywhere from  $25 to $80 / kg for whole fish and average of about $40 - $60 / kg for fillets (depending on species).  It's a one hour drive each way (100 km) for us and we attended on 23 December at around lunchtime for our supplies and also enjoyed a seafood lunch while there.

I'm trying to decide between Pizza and Curry for dinner tonight.

[George]

George, I'm certain there are hundreds of YouTube videos and food blogs online giving recipes and instructions on how to prepare, season and cook a Christmas (or Thanksgiving) turkey.  Your plate, and the bird in the background, looks really good to me anyway.  I have cooked frozen and packaged turkey breast (just breast) that, when done as per the instructions, is moist and delicious.  Perhaps, even the use of a simple oven bag or maybe a foil covering for the initial cook would have given some improvement.

Livo - thank you for your kind comments. It may sound arrogant but I don't think I have much to learn about cooking turkey. I know the options and what I am doing. I may try brining again but for a shorter period. I think if the turkey is cooked upside down, the fat permeates into the breast and helps it stay moist. Better still, I may try buying a small turkey leg or breast to see what I can do with that. Even a turkey crown strikes me as far too large and often ridiculously expensive. I expect the results will be better than cooking an entire bird, like it sounds you found out. One approach for a family or group dinner, may be to place a whole turkey in the centre of the table as a centrepiece with all the trimmings but to plate up breast meat and/or leg cooked separately because it will almost certainly taste superior. I base that on cooking chicken breast in the oven for between only 6 and 10 mins for it to be perfectly cooked, unlike BIR style pre-cooked chicken. Seasoning is far easier, too. How can a poultry breast cooked for 2 or 3 hours come out very well at all?

Phil - the only game bird I have tasted is pheasant, four or five times. I find it edible but don't like the taste anywhere near as much as chicken or turkey. Is the taste of guinea fowl similar to pheasant?

[livo]

I could have bought a 7.7 lb (3.5 kg) fresh seasoned whole turkey today, reduced from nearly $40 down to only $15.  What would I do with it though?  Not enough people at home to eat it. I opted for a festive seasoned chicken at 2.5 kg reduced to only $5.20 instead.  No pizza or curry but a roast dinner on a very wet and quite cool evening.  Only 20' C and rain here today.  I love post Christmas shopping.