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I hate to mention Christmas, but?

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Re: I hate to mention Christmas, but?

Postby jeral » Tue Nov 10, 2020 9:33 pm

I use one of these inexpensive little gadgets for boiled eggs which is almost foolproof for soft/medium/hard I find, although as you have to watch it changing, not entirely foolproof ;)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/iTimo-Changing ... 7864400775

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Re: I hate to mention Christmas, but?

Postby Pepper Pig » Tue Nov 10, 2020 10:21 pm

It is November 10th and I am already sick to death of Aldi’s nonsensical Kevin the carrot Christmas Ads. Tonight, during GBBO, Santa, aka Jim Broadbent, wished me a Merry Christmas.

Foxtrot Oscar mate,

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Re: I hate to mention Christmas, but?

Postby karadekoolaid » Tue Nov 10, 2020 10:38 pm

To be frank, spending a small part of one's life perfecting the cooking and eating of a morning egg is, for me, high on the list of good things to do. Far more important than sex.

:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:
Get thee to a Nunnery, Simon Hopkinson!!

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Re: I hate to mention Christmas, but?

Postby Uschi » Tue Nov 10, 2020 11:38 pm

I don't give the whole egg-boiling business much thought. I boil them for ten minutes and they are perfectly hard.

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Re: I hate to mention Christmas, but?

Postby dennispc » Wed Nov 11, 2020 4:43 pm

With respect to those for whom Christmas is a celebration of Jesus Christ let us also remember..   not to stress about Christmas Day.............

Here's my top tips!!! 

Christmas Dinner
I have concluded that the inevitable stress of Christmas dinner is created by adverts, supermarkets and TV chefs...

It's a Sunday dinner for goodness sake!!!

We do it quite happily 51 weeks of the year but can we the consumers be trusted to manage by ourselves on one day of the year...apparently not so, here goes..

1. Turkey... It's a big fecking chicken that's all, 20 minutes per lb plus 20 minutes at 180 degrees - jobs a good un! Get yourselves a meat thermometer £3 off the Internet poke it in the offending bird if it says 75 degrees or over its cooked!

2. Stuffing - regardless of what Jamie Oliver says you do NOT need 2lbs of shoulder of pork, onions, bread crumbs, pine nuts and a shit load of fresh herbs to make stuffing....( no fecking wonder he's bankrupt if thats what he spends to make stuffing!

What you need is Paxo and a kettle!! If you wanna liven it up squeeze 3 sausages out of their skins and mix that in with your Paxo before cooking .

3. Gravy - Jamie Oliver is copping for this one as well....

Bisto Jamie.... All you need is Bisto!
I ( nor any other woman I know) has got time on Christmas Eve to piss about roasting chicken wings and vegetables, adding stock and flour, cooking it for another half hour, mashing it all up with a potato masher and then straining the whole sorry mess to make gravy 

4. Vegetables...

Never mind faffing round shredding sprouts and frying them with bacon and chestnuts to make them more palatable... If you don't like them don't buy and cook the fecking things!! If your family only eats frozen peas then that's good enough!

5. Roast potatoes

Yes, I par boil mine then roast them in goose fat but Aunt Bessie also does the same 
.
6. Trimmings /Christmas pudding and the like

Aldi or Lidl!

(oh and while we're on the subject of pudding- if birds custard is what your family likes on the wretched thing then that's fine - you do not need brandy butter /rum sauce etc or anything else that costs a fecking fortune and takes 2 hours to make!)

7. Family
.
Children

Feed the little blighters first separately, if they only want turkey with tomato sauce - fine leave em to it, it doesn't matter. Once they are fed bugger them off to play with their Christmas presents so that YOU can enjoy your dinner in Peace!

Adults

Anyone that can manage to get their sorry arse to your dinner table is also capable of helping to serve up/ sort the kids out/ clear the table /wash up /dry up etc.

And Finally.....

NO ONE....

And

I mean no one... APART FROM THE COOK IS ALLOWED TO GET PISSED AND FALL ASLEEP BEFORE THE WASHING UP IS DONE!!!

Rant over 

Merry Christmas! :chrissytree1

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Re: I hate to mention Christmas, but?

Postby jeral » Wed Nov 11, 2020 7:09 pm

I imagine that's how most of us do it anyway with plenty of cheats and maybe one or two "specials", Dennispc, but we don't have book deals waiting in the wings ;)

The worst crime is typically too few irresistible roast spuds, not whether carrots are orange glazed or not. Maybe spud peeling should start at Easter ;)

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Re: I hate to mention Christmas, but?

Postby Stokey Sue » Wed Nov 11, 2020 7:43 pm

I have a lot of sympathy with that view - except that I don't believe either Paxo or Bisto is fit for human consumption, but other shortcuts are available

For year I thought I hated both gravy and sage - actually it was Bisto and Paxo sage & onion I disliked

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Re: I hate to mention Christmas, but?

Postby mark111757 » Wed Nov 11, 2020 8:23 pm

Dennis

I was doubled over laughing. You hammered home a lot of points. One thing that always got me was having the kids sit at the kids table, usually at the end of the main table. Like the kids had nothing to offer which was as far as I was concerned totally bull shit. So I mentioned it to mum one year and lo and behold a spot magically opened up . it shouldn't have taken that for action to happen.

We alternated between an aunt house, mums bro and SIL and our house. As I recall things turned out good food wise. The women took over the kitchen and they did a good job. We had boxed stuffing from the bird and dressing from outside the bird. And these birds were stuffed full and we ate it and did not get sick. I would do roasties in goose fat

Which lead to the discussion was stuffing from the bird or was it dressing. To me it was stuffing was from the bird as you stuffed it. Dressing was done in a casserole dish outside the bird.

I saw someone once put a turkey on the middle oven grate with a very large piece of tin foil under it to catch the juice in a huge pile of season bread cubes. I can only imagine the flavour. To me this is dressing.

Stove top brand stuffing on this side of the Atlantic with lots of sage/poultry .seasoning.

When I worked at the store chef would make multiple pans of stuffing to sell but they seasoned it with herbs de provance ( or however you spell it). Not enough umph in it for me
Last edited by mark111757 on Wed Nov 11, 2020 8:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: I hate to mention Christmas, but?

Postby smitch » Wed Nov 11, 2020 8:32 pm

I love Paxo. I actually prefer it to ‘proper’ stuffing :oops:

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Re: I hate to mention Christmas, but?

Postby Earthmaiden » Wed Nov 11, 2020 8:34 pm

I too have a lot of sympathy with this. I like a fairly informal time where everything is nice and children included, it doesn't have to be perfect (that opinion has come with age, I used to think differently). That said, I really do hate Paxo and am disappointed if there's no bread sauce. A bit of Bisto added to stock and roasting tin adds bit of colour and thickening and not much else really.

The years when MIL had a man in tow who made fabulous brandy butter were definitely the best pudding years! :yum

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Re: I hate to mention Christmas, but?

Postby mark111757 » Wed Nov 11, 2020 8:42 pm

Here at the facility we have what are known as select menus. Basically the residents that have them can pick and choose what they want or don't want. Or it you want dbl portions.

Here is next Saturdays and what I chose

Image

Even tho it is not listed sugar free cookies and jello are offered.

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Re: I hate to mention Christmas, but?

Postby Amyw » Wed Nov 11, 2020 9:11 pm

mark111757 wrote:Dennis

I was doubled over laughing. You hammered home a lot of points. One thing that always got me was having the kids sit at the kids table, usually at the end of the main table. Like the kids had nothing to offer which was as far as I was concerned totally bull shit. So I mentioned it to mum one year and lo and behold a spot magically opened up . it shouldn't have taken that for action to happen.

We alternated between an aunt house, mums bro and SIL and our house. As I recall things turned out good food wise. The women took over the kitchen and they did a good job. We had boxed stuffing from the bird and dressing from outside the bird. And these birds were stuffed full and we ate it and did not get sick. I would do roasties in goose fat

Which lead to the discussion was stuffing from the bird or was it dressing. To me it was stuffing was from the bird as you stuffed it. Dressing was done in a casserole dish outside the bird.

I saw someone once put a turkey on the middle oven grate with a very large piece of tin foil under it to catch the juice in a huge pile of season bread cubes. I can only imagine the flavour. To me this is dressing.

Stove top brand stuffing on this side of the Atlantic with lots of sage/poultry .seasoning.

When I worked at the store chef would make multiple pans of stuffing to sell but they seasoned it with herbs de provance ( or however you spell it). Not enough umph in it for me


Dressing as youv e described doesn’t exist over here . Dressing would only mean a salad dressing . Our stuffing can either be done inside the bird or in a separate dish / rolled into balls .

I quite like paxo stuffing to be honest

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Re: I hate to mention Christmas, but?

Postby PatsyMFagan » Wed Nov 11, 2020 10:04 pm

Uschi wrote:I don't give the whole egg-boiling business much thought. I boil them for ten minutes and they are perfectly hard.



I don't even boil them that long ... when I was taking eggs for my lunch to work, I would put a couple in a small saucepan in cold water and with a lid. Bring the water to the boil, and when it does, turn the heat off. Leave the eggs in the water until I have made my breakfast smoothie and any other stuff I am taking with me. When almost ready to leave home, I run the eggs under cold water and then just pop them with the rest of my food for the day.

For soft boiled I follow the same procedure; turn the heat off and set a timer for 4 minutes. Voila ;)

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Re: I hate to mention Christmas, but?

Postby Uschi » Wed Nov 11, 2020 10:21 pm

Dennis, you are right on many points, but as for the gravy, one can easily roast some extra veg (shallots or onions, celeriac, carrots, leeks) and some apples with one of said Sunday dinners, and when they are soft, add a little stock and blitz them until you have a thickish paste. Freeze this and for the Christmas dinner roast some sprigs of rosemary with the bird, and later use the drippings and the vegetable puree along with some red wine to make lashings of wonderful gravy.

Or make this gravy completely ahead, with said Sunday dinner, freeze it and use it on the day. :wino

As for dessert ... I always make Dr Oetker's red wine mousse (also a day ahead).
I even stuff the apples I usually bake with dinner the day before and sometimes I even make the potato dumplings ahead so I just have to simmer them in hot water. Magic1

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Re: I hate to mention Christmas, but?

Postby jeral » Wed Nov 11, 2020 10:40 pm

mark111757, as you probably know, we're told not to stuff the bird's cavity these days to ensure the flesh is cooked throughout, so stuffing now has its own dish or tray and a nice crispy top). As such, it is one of the trimmings, along with bread sauce, cranberry sauce, spiced red cabbage, chippolatas, Yorks puds maybe. Would they be your "fixin's"?

I'm not that sure spice or seasonings occur much, logically to allow the meat/gravy taste to remain the star, although red cabbage could have clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, vinegar, so there's always an exception. (Definitely no mac n cheese, yet, but never say never, eh?)

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Re: I hate to mention Christmas, but?

Postby Amyw » Wed Nov 11, 2020 10:57 pm

I don’t take any notice of the not stuffing the bird advice . If you use a meat thermometer or just pierce deep into the bird to check it’s cooked , you’ll be fine.

I’m not sure about the spice /seasonings thing as I always season any bird I cook . Quite often I’ll add some garlic and herb butter underneath the skin , then there’s covering the breast with bacon to flavour it and putting a lemon up it’s bottom !

If not doing a full traditional roast , there are lots of recipes out there for spicing up a chicken . I’ve cooked an Indian spiced roast chicken before with some Indian style sides and a peri peri bbq chicken with roast potatoes etc

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Re: I hate to mention Christmas, but?

Postby Pepper Pig » Wed Nov 11, 2020 11:04 pm

I haven’t done it this year yet but I always make Jamie’s make ahead Christmas gravy. It’s fab.

https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/chi ... ead-gravy/

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Re: I hate to mention Christmas, but?

Postby Earthmaiden » Wed Nov 11, 2020 11:53 pm

We've always cooked stuffing in the neck of the bird.

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Re: I hate to mention Christmas, but?

Postby Stokey Sue » Wed Nov 11, 2020 11:57 pm

We always made stuffing "buns" - for ease, and because we all like(d) the crispy brown bits they get on the outside

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Re: I hate to mention Christmas, but?

Postby jeral » Thu Nov 12, 2020 12:12 am

If you're one of those who likes a sea of gravy it really does have to be good tasty stuff whether for meat or vegetarian grub, or conversely if only a drop of wine jus, it has to be good. Is it too strong to say gravy or jus is a meal maker/breaker?

Amyw, the other thing about not stuffing a bird cavity is to avoid the outer flesh/extremities cooking and drying out before that which is nearer to the core is cooked, so better left hollow to equalise cooking (like a bundt tin does). Can always drizzle strained roasting tin juices onto a separate dish of stuffing and cook it while the bird is resting.

As mark111757 was referring to seasonings with umph, and US mixtures often include garlic, onion, and maybe a hot pepper hint, our herby flavours are just different, relying on extra flavours from trimmings. I've never heard of anyone ever adding garlic to a Christmas bird dinner plate, but why not if you like it?

Can I add a PS that I'd love to eat an Indian "traditional English" Christmas dinner which I imagine has all sorts of spices, garlic and other goodies :)

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