CHRISTMAS DINNER!

My favourites.

OH MY GOD. It’s finally Christmas again! And I have a mammoth post in celebration.

Tis the season to eat your weight in delightful foods and collapse in front of a Harry Potter movie. And Christmas dinner plays no small role in the development of your festive food coma. This year I couldn’t get home to the family shindig, so I set about making dinner for my boyfriend and I. And ended up making enough to feed my entire family, had they been here.

And if you want to eat far too much at Christmas, this is how you do it. Start with a plan of what you’re cooking and when you want to eat. If you’re as anal as me, make a damn schedule.

My festive menu:

• Ham cooked in coke
• Chicken
• Pigs in blankets
• Stuffing 
• Roast spuds
• Buttered leeks 
• (and shhhh.. Shop-bought greens and mash.)

Serves a LOT more than 2. Would easily serve 4-6.

Ingredients for the Ham

• 750g chunk of ham, unsmoked
• 1.5 L coke
• 1tsp cloves
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• ½ tsp black pepper
• ½ an orange peel
• 2 tbsp golden syrup, or dark molasses if you have it
• 1 tsp mustard powder
• 1tbsp brown sugar

Method for the Ham

Measure out your cloves, mixed spice, pepper and peel.

Place in a large pan with the ham and coke.

Slowly bring to the boil and let simmer for an hour. Give about 1 hour per kilo plus 15 minutes extra if it’s cold from the fridge.

After simmering, take out and place on a roasting tray. Score the fat into diamond shapes and dot with cloves. I must have bought a weird one because there was no discernible fat to score, so I didn’t do that part. Pour over the syrup/molasses and rub in the sugar and mustard powder.

Either bake right away at 220 degrees for 10 minutes or, if you let it cool, cook for 30 minutes.

Once cooked, slice and add to your Christmas plate.

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While the ham is boiling, you can get to work on the chicken. I don’t do anything overly fancy with this because I just don’t think it needs it.

Ingredients for the Chicken

• One uncooked whole chicken
• 1 tsbp butter
• Salt and pepper

Method

Place the chicken in a roasting tin and cut the little string that holds the legs together. 

Tasty angle.

Get your hands in between the skin and breasts and make an opening through which you can rub in some butter. 

Add more butter to the legs and wings, salt and pepper all of it and stick in the oven at 220 degrees. 

Buttery.

Cook for however long it says on the packaging. A medium-large chicken should take 1 hour 30-40 minutes. When cooked, take out of the oven and let sit for about 10 minutes before carving into that delicious bird.

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Okay, so while the chicken is in the oven and the ham is boiling, get a start on errything else.

Roast spuds. The greasy, shining jewels of the Christmas table. My favourite things ever. I made 6 million of them because they’re just that good.

Ingredients for roast spuds

• About 4 medium-large potatoes
• Salt

Method

Peel and chop spuds, place in a pan of salted water and bring to boil. Cook for approximately 30 minutes, or until a knife goes easily through. 

Once cooked, drain the water and transfer to the roasting tin with the chicken in it. Slather them in the chicken juices and place back in the oven. 

Will take approx 45 minutes to an hour to become golden and crispy on the outside and just perfection.

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Okay, we’re juggling a few balls in the air now. While the ham is either boiling or just out, and while the chicken and roasties are roasting in the oven, make a start on your stuffing and pigs in blankets.

Ingredients for stuffing

• Half a red onion, thinly sliced
• 125g bread
• 1 tsp herbs de provence
• ½ tsp black pepper
• 40g butter
• 1 egg yolk

Method

Put bread in a food processor and grind to coarse crumbs. 

Chop and add in the onion.

Add this to the breadcrumbs, herbs and pepper and mix. 

Add in the egg yolk and mix further.

Finally add in the butter.

Mix well.

Either form into balls and bake for approximately 30 minutes, or use for pigs in blankets, oooor both!

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Now the pigs in blankets are a bit of a new thing at my dinner table. In my family, they are what I’m in charge of when I participate in my nanny’s Christmas dinner. Big responsibility! 

Ingredients

• One batch of stuffing, as above
• 6 big sausages, or 12 chipolatas
• 6 rashers of bacon, sliced into 2

Method

Slice the sausages in 2 lengthways, being careful not to go right through. Slice the bacon in two lengthways also, going right through. Place 2 tsp of stuffing in the cut sausage, or 1 if you’re using the smaller sausages.

Wrap with the bacon, 2 bits if using big sausages, 1 if using smaller.

Place on a baking tray and bake for approximately 30 minutes until crispy and cooked.

Okay. They exploded a bit. But it's fine. They were delcious.

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Alright, so. The ham is under control, the chicken, roasties and pigs in blankets are in the oven. You have half an hour left to tackle the veggies. I slightly cheated this year since I foresaw so many leftovers, and bought ready-to-cook greens (peas, beans, broccoli). The only veg I prepped myself was buttered leeks.

Ingredients for the leeks

2 leeks

1-2tbsp butter

Method

Peel off the outermost leek layer and clean the rest well.

Slice off the ends, and then slice into thin discs. Put in a bowl and clean. I find it easier to clean them by popping the layers apart. 

Heat some butter in a non-stick pan. 

Add the leeks and cook down for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

FINALLY: plate it all up and EAT.

This was to feed two people. TWO. There's a half a chicken and 3/4 of a ham on the counter.

And then.. EAT THE LEFTOVERS FOR DAYS!

So much food. So many dinners to come.

A tower of cold meats and vegetables.