Christmas is over, and the fa-la-laas have come and gone all too soon. The 12 days of Christmas have seemed like one day and this has made me wish I had spent more of that holiday time doing just that: taking a holiday. We are all well too familiar with the whirlwind of activity that comes with the holiday season, (and more so for me as I was moving house this year) and how we are thrown into a frenzy when things go awry… I get quite concerned about that because that’s not what Christmas is all about. Hence to try not to get too caught up that I forget what it truly means, I tend to tiptoe rather gingerly into the festive period trying not to set off any “whirlwind mines”.
My undoing at Christmas is usually the roast. Actually, I’ve only cooked Christmas dinner three times, and during the first I cheated. I bought the roast ready-made. Two years ago, I scared the living daylights out of my guests when I emerged from the kitchen sweat-soaked and stressed. It was my first time making turkey, but thankfully and most mercifully, the turkey turned out well. This year I was in two minds. I debated with the other half on roast pork or goose. He won, and we had roast goose. It was also my first time making it. So I followed a Gordon Ramsay recipe on the internet, complete with sides, and made goose gravy using a recipe from Nigella Lawson’s Christmas book. The goose was not perfect sadly. I had forgotten to baste my goose at the start and a whole hour had almost gone by before I remembered, resulting in the meat being a little dry in places. Otherwise, the bits that were still moist were actually rather good. Kudos Gordon! (I was so ready to let the recipe take the fall if it turned out adversely)
There are a couple of things I don’t do when preparing a roast for a dinner party, or any dish for any party for that matter. Firstly, I don’t normally like using a new recipe without first testing it out. Sounds so simple, but I can get quite caught up at the sight of an exciting recipe accompanied with the glossy pictures and I’m like “ooh I could do that too”. Experience has taught me that doing that is the fastest way to utterly destroy your mood and the rest of the evening. But sometimes, as with a goose or turkey, testing it can prove a bit difficult. Our goose had already cost us close to £50 and I wasn’t about to spend another £50 for trial-and-error. Maybe that’s why I stress out so much over the roast. Pork is more versatile. In fact I had tested out a roast pork recipe some weeks before to see if I fancied it more than goose. It was a crack(l)ing recipe to say the least (courtesy of Marcus Wareing) and I had been pleased with it. But the other half thought that I should be more adventurous and festive. Point taken.
The other no-no that I don’t do is to roast for the first time in an unfamiliar oven. New ovens leave a funny burnt rubber kind of smell and that gets absorbed into your roast. Worse still, the heat intensity varies in different ovens despite the same temperature and that could either spell success or cinder in the roast. Let’s just put it this way, an oven can be as temperamental as a woman with pms and I’m not being sexist here. It’s true. Again, experience has taught me to avoid this, and so despite that I was moving house this year, I insisted on staying put at the old place for Christmas dinner just so that I wouldn’t have to deal with possible tantrums the new oven could throw at me.
It’s a bit strange writing all this in hindsight, but better late than never. I guess if all goes a bit wrong, it’s a good idea then to have a great dessert at hand to cover all manner of cooking sins cos at the end of the day, that’s what really lingers on your tastebuds no?
My undoing at Christmas is usually the roast. Actually, I’ve only cooked Christmas dinner three times, and during the first I cheated. I bought the roast ready-made. Two years ago, I scared the living daylights out of my guests when I emerged from the kitchen sweat-soaked and stressed. It was my first time making turkey, but thankfully and most mercifully, the turkey turned out well. This year I was in two minds. I debated with the other half on roast pork or goose. He won, and we had roast goose. It was also my first time making it. So I followed a Gordon Ramsay recipe on the internet, complete with sides, and made goose gravy using a recipe from Nigella Lawson’s Christmas book. The goose was not perfect sadly. I had forgotten to baste my goose at the start and a whole hour had almost gone by before I remembered, resulting in the meat being a little dry in places. Otherwise, the bits that were still moist were actually rather good. Kudos Gordon! (I was so ready to let the recipe take the fall if it turned out adversely)
There are a couple of things I don’t do when preparing a roast for a dinner party, or any dish for any party for that matter. Firstly, I don’t normally like using a new recipe without first testing it out. Sounds so simple, but I can get quite caught up at the sight of an exciting recipe accompanied with the glossy pictures and I’m like “ooh I could do that too”. Experience has taught me that doing that is the fastest way to utterly destroy your mood and the rest of the evening. But sometimes, as with a goose or turkey, testing it can prove a bit difficult. Our goose had already cost us close to £50 and I wasn’t about to spend another £50 for trial-and-error. Maybe that’s why I stress out so much over the roast. Pork is more versatile. In fact I had tested out a roast pork recipe some weeks before to see if I fancied it more than goose. It was a crack(l)ing recipe to say the least (courtesy of Marcus Wareing) and I had been pleased with it. But the other half thought that I should be more adventurous and festive. Point taken.
The other no-no that I don’t do is to roast for the first time in an unfamiliar oven. New ovens leave a funny burnt rubber kind of smell and that gets absorbed into your roast. Worse still, the heat intensity varies in different ovens despite the same temperature and that could either spell success or cinder in the roast. Let’s just put it this way, an oven can be as temperamental as a woman with pms and I’m not being sexist here. It’s true. Again, experience has taught me to avoid this, and so despite that I was moving house this year, I insisted on staying put at the old place for Christmas dinner just so that I wouldn’t have to deal with possible tantrums the new oven could throw at me.
It’s a bit strange writing all this in hindsight, but better late than never. I guess if all goes a bit wrong, it’s a good idea then to have a great dessert at hand to cover all manner of cooking sins cos at the end of the day, that’s what really lingers on your tastebuds no?
Happy 2010 to all!
