The Christmas recipe and cooking tips thread.....

[Panter]

Here's my recipe given to me by a chef from a fish keeping forum last year for making mince pie pastry. The mince pies were superb


This is not a recipe for sweet paste (pate a sucre) as we call it in the trade. This is a better recipe:-

500g Plain flour
250g Butter
170g Icing sugar
2 Whole eggs
2 Egg yolks

Method:-
Mix the sieved flour, icing sugar and butter together gently until it forms a sand like texture.
Blend the whole eggs and the egg yolks together.
Add the eggs to the flour and mix in gently (do not overwork the pastry).
wrap it in clingfilm and let it rest in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

when rolling the pastry out be gentle with it or you will have a very hard pastry

any other tips or recipes for anything Chrismassy?

 

[laurence]

i had a brilliant xmas meal last year... a sandwich from a corner shop. i ate in in Holyrood park, but saved most of the bread and shared that with a group of swans (and one lone goose who was sheltering with them). i hope to do a similar thing this year, but maybe with home made sarnies and some some lettuce for a bit of variety.

my other xmas meal tip is - boil water, add spaghetti until al dente, drain, add pesto sauce. eat.

 

[Pete]

I posted this a year ago on ACF, but it's well worth bumping it up again for those who didn't see it first time around. We've just made the first couple of batches for this season ...
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...lifted unashamedly verbatim from The Grauniad - but worth trying out, to hit those extra calories you need at this time of year! Very seasonal as you need the chestnuts (I suppose you could use frozen, don't know whether it'd be the same). I found it was as well to roast the chestnuts until they're really sweet-flavoured, then chop them fairly fine, you can use a bit more than the recipe says.

Chestnut Chocolate Fudge Cake (from The Guardian 18/11/06)

A dark, dense indulgence that should see any chocoholic through the festive season. You’ll get through great slabs of it at tea time, if you’re hungry, but it’s also intense and classy enough to serve in smaller cubes, with coffee, after dinner. Makes 12-16 pieces.

75g Prunes, roughly chopped.
75g raisins
3 tbsp brandy
150g dark chocolate broken into pieces
100g unsalted butter, cubed
150g gingernut biscuits, roughly crushed
150g cooked and peeled chestnuts, roughly chopped

Combine the dried fruit and brandy, and soak for at least two hours (or up to six). Line a 20cm square tin, or a 20cm diameter round tin, with clingfilm. Put the chocolate and butter in a bowl over a pan of simmering water and leave to melt. Combine with the fruit and the brandy, the biscuits and chestnuts. Pour into the tin, pressing down in an even layer. Leave until cool, then refrigerate until solid. Use the clingfilm to lift it out of the tin, and cut into squares. Serve with tea or coffee.

 

[Arch]

Saw a recipe in the free Morrisons Christmas magazine for mince pie baked alaska. Make up meringue (look it up), then take the lids off mince pies, put a little scoop of vanilla ice cream on each, cover in meringue, and flash under a HOT grill for a couple of minutes to just crisp the outside of the meringue.

Sounds really nice.

 

[Aperitif]

i had a brilliant xmas meal last year... a sandwich from a corner shop. i ate in in Holyrood park, but saved most of the bread and shared that with a group of swans (and one lone goose who was sheltering with them). i hope to do a similar thing this year, but maybe with home made sarnies and some some lettuce for a bit of variety.

my other xmas meal tip is - boil water, add spaghetti until al dente, drain, add pesto sauce. eat.

I did the spaghetti thing laurence...circa 1996

Figs, halved and baked,(not half-baked!) with Gorgonzola melted on top is a nice appetiser for xmas

 

[Panter]

Roast your spuds in goosefat (its only once a Year, your arteries will flush most of it out in that time,) they're spectacular

But, don't go traditional and get a goose for Christmas dinner, they're rough

 

[papercorn2000]

I've got a great recipe for fat-free Xmas cake that I got from TGO magazine a few years back. I'll look it out and post it.

 

[John Ponting]

Top Tip that was passed down from my grandfather ...


Let your wife do the cooking at XMAS.

 

[Gerry Attrick]

Eeeyup Panter,

Nowt wrong with a good goose. I have had ropey ones in the past, but no more than ropey chickens. The ones we get are superb. Think organic free range.

 

[Fnaar]

I like a good goose on Xmas day. However, Mrs F prefers it if I just let her get on with cooking the turkey and keep my hands to myself.

 

[Tetedelacourse]

I like a good goose on Xmas day. However, Mrs F prefers it if I just let her get on with cooking the turkey and keep my hands to myself.

And not one mention of stuffing or chipolatas

You've CHANGED

 

[Fnaar]

I did the "I caught my dad stuffing the turkey" line in another thread over the weekend.... and I've also done the "an old man sneaks into your room at night and empties his sack" at least twice. Three times now...

 

[Panter]

Eeeyup Panter,

Nowt wrong with a good goose. I have had ropey ones in the past, but no more than ropey chickens. The ones we get are superb. Think organic free range.

It was from Icelands come to think of it.
It was like cardboard that had been stewed in lard and we dumped it in the end.

Gone for a nice fresh chicken this Year

I like a good goose on Xmas day. However, Mrs F prefers it if I just let her get on with cooking the turkey and keep my hands to myself.

Cheers

Chris

 

[dan_bo]

Blobs.

3 fingers yates' aussie white wine
sugar
lemon
hot water

mix 'em all up and serve with a podger.

have seven.

fall asleep in front of fire.

burn legs on fire.

awake and curse blobs.

 

[abchandler]

awake and curse blobs.

I'm sure I've seen this in another thread recounting a night's entertainment somewhere