the poison doughnut: Christmas feast 2007

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Christmas feast 2007

Christmas this year was a celebration of laughing, roasting, barbecuing, fresh cool salads and the massive and tenfold-rewarding benefits of cooking in advance. Mum and I roasted the meats two days before, and we served a cold buffet for 18 on a breezy and warm Christmas Day. The only things we served hot were the potatoes (both kinds) and the pudding. The first major event was the ham with orange glaze. We did that in the big hooded barbecue. Then there was the boned and rolled turkey with a couscous stuffing, also in the hooded barbecue. Mum did a small rolled pork roast in the Weber with woodchips, to give it that soft smoky flavour.
As well as the three meats, there was a tricolour tomato salad with balsamic dressing, and a salad of green and yellow beans (blanched and cooled) with a dressing of garlic olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest and salt.
Then the potatoes... these crunchy ones, and these soft flavoursome ones.
What else? My cranberry sauce, made by putting a 500g packet of frozen cranberries in a saucepan with sugar, orange juice and Tabasco until thick and syrupy. Excellent, it was.

Then there was the summer pudding. We used about a kilo of fresh berries (strawberries, blackberries, blueberries and raspberries), cooked them with a little sugar, drained off the syrup, lined a mould with white sliced bread and filled with the berries, let it sit overnight in the fridge weighted with a can on top, and then turned out onto a serving dish. There was also my aunt's Christmas pudding, vanilla ice cream, custard and hard sauce, and my Christmas cake.