Christmas Cooking: Christmas Dinner Tips

It's Christmas! as Noddy Holder may shout out, but for those cooking Christmas dinner the jubilance may be somewhat offset by fear.

I've generally been put to cooking my own version of Christmas dinner on New Year's Eve because my mum enjoys cooking Christmas dinner. The term enjoys is very confusing for the situation, considering the level of panicking and noise emanating from the kitchen during the process.

I'm very aware that a lot of you out there who have been assigned to cook the feast, voluntarily or otherwise, that may not necessarily be chefs at heart and the thought of preparing a feast may keep you awake at night. If you're one of these people, I'm here to help!

There was a consideration of providing recipes, but between tv shows, cookbooks, and the internet, you don't need more recipes. One thing absent in a lot of these sources is the helpful hints of preparing the feast as a whole, or any help or when things go wrong.

For today's post I'm going to go through some tips to use and provide a few ladders to get you out of a hole you may have dug yourself into. Some items will be dish specific and others general concepts, regardless there will be something useful to apply.

My advice is geared towards a traditional British Christmas dinner, but will be mostly applicable what ever your location or traditions.

Be Prepared

There's a few bits of preparation that can save you time and stress for the big day.

The Menu

I'm assuming with the wealth of material out in the world, that recipes are available to you and you know what dishes you wish to cook, if not don't worry, have a look around at many sources and pick what sounds good to you. 

The term feast is misleading, yes there'll be a lot of food and likely more dishes than your typical roast dinner, but you don't need to go overboard with the variety of dishes. Typically you want a main feature, whether that be meat or otherwise, a selection of vegetable based dishes, and whatever is nostalgic to you. Roast potatoes are required, obviously.

The great thing about a traditional Christmas menu is that most of the ingredients are incredibly cheap, to the point where supermarkets on Christmas week compete to have the lowest prices on vegetables, yesterday I got a kilogram bag of potatoes for 15 pence! If you're having a meat centrepiece this will by far be the most expensive part of your meal.

Time Management

I'm not going to tell you to prepare a Gantt chart, by all means do if this is how organised you are.

Its great to have a general idea of when to cook you dishes, hopefully you took advantage of the previous menu tip and haven't gone crazy with the amount of dishes, if your list of items to cook feels insurmountable, perhaps question if they're all needed.

One of the most frequent fears comes at the time management stage, both for a feast or roast dinner. By far the most common issues is around making sure all of the dishes are served hot at the same time.

Here's the crux of the issue, does all of the food need to be hot for service? The answer to a most items will be yes, but importantly, not all.

I'm not a meat eater these days, but nonetheless many will be and this will be the pain point, but the thing is that massive bird or joint taking up all of your oven space, doesn't need to be piping hot for service, and shouldn't be either.

Meat and poultry needs to rest, otherwise it'll be dry and also harder to carve. A turkey for example, you want to rest for at least an hour. Not only have you just immensely improved the quality of your feast's main item with literally no effort, you've also removed a huge stress. 

You now have a lot more room in the oven to keep items warm or cook, whatever you need it for.

Another related item is that there's a lot of pots to spin at once, and again, does there need to be?

Christmas is a busy day, but there's other days before it that aren't paired with gift exchange and arguing family members. Much of you feast can be prepared in advance, some items even quite a while before, although granted this isn't so helpful to read on Christmas Eve.

Warm Up

I mean warm up in two senses, both useful.

Mentally prepare yourself if this is feels an overwhelming task, have a drink (its Christmas, and your kitchen, your rules) if needed. Put on some music, pretend to enjoy the experience and it may happen by accident, or at least lighten the load a smidge.

In a more literal sense on the big day, preheat, this goes for cooking on any day of the year. A lot of time is wasted waiting for ovens to heat up and pans to boil, get them going whilst you're preparing the food to go in them. You'll be amazed how much time you save and easier your life will be.

A third angle on warmth, your kitchen is going to get very warm, that rest meat isn't going to go cold. If you've got a pot near an oven or hob generating constant heat, put your plates or empty serving dishes there.

We're Cooking

Starter

Really? You're doing doing a starter ahead of a feast? Personally this feels like an extra item to go wrong and divert attention, but if you're doing so, go for something simple or prepared well in advance.

An old school Prawn Cocktail is a classic for a reason, its incredibly simple and may be stuck in the 1970s, but it still works both on taste and a talking point.

The Turkey (or meat dish)

I'm assuming turkey here, but the principles will generally apply to other poultry or joints.

As we already discussed this will be cooked earlier and needs to rest, but beyond that lets try and make it as painless as possible.

First things first, giblets, if your poultry came with them check the cavity, thats where they'll have been put, usually in a plastic bag. They're provided for you to make a stock or gravy with, but I've heard of people not knowing about them and cooking the plastic with their turkey, as nice as that sounds, it also blocks air flow in the cavity.

Resting is really important, not just in time saving. When you've just cooked meat the juices and flavour that they're carrying are still running around inside the meat, if you cut into it all those juices flood out leave a dry meaty husk. If you let the meat take a little nap and rest, the juices also settle down into the whole item, making sure that every bite will be moist.

I prefer to cooking stuffing separately, homemade hopefully, but if you're doing it the old way and cooking with the bird, it goes in the neck end under the skin. I've seen it stuffed into the cavity and again, blocking the air flow whilst cooking.

An important tip if buying from a supermarket, don't always trust the instructions on the packet. Look up the timings in a book or online, often the complaints or dry meat or poultry stem from the supermarkets erring well on the side of caution, comically so in some cases. It wouldn't be the first time where the timings on the shop bought turkey have been an hour more than needed.

Gravy

Gravy naturally follows the meat if you aren't going instant, i'll only silently judge if you are, its a busy day, and my mum will use instant. One thing you don't do is complain to someone who's already panicking.

I'm not going into recipes, but as little time as it takes to make a gravy, if you want top save as much time as possible on the day, make your gravy following an earlier roast dinner in the year and freeze it. All you'll have to do on the day is heat it up.

It's not a terrible idea to have a pot of instant gravy in the cupboard as a cheap contingency.

Roast Potatoes

Roast Potatoes can be boiled a day or two before, in fact they produced better results when pre boiled, drained and left uncovered in the fridge overnight. This dries out the potatoes thoroughly, and dry potatoes means crispier potatoes when the cook in the oil or fat of your choice.

This will be dependant on what you're cooking alongside your potatoes, but assuming there's nothing that needs to be sealed in to rise, burp the oven. This means open and close to door to let the steam out of the oven, as mentioned previously dry potatoes means crispy potatoes.

Vegetables

Typically vegetables take little time to cook, how they are cooked tends to have the most variance between households from being cooked plain to all sorts of elaborate embellishments. 

Not matter how you choose to cook them, most of your vegetable preparation can be done well in advance, again a huge time saver. Consider keeping the peelings and trimmings to make a vegetable stock, even for a future day.

If you're doing Brussel Sprouts, against my judgement as I don't like the little cabbage balls, don't cut crosses in the bottom. This is a weird traditional cooking process that has somehow survived, but it'll just overcook them.

Pudding

If you choose to do a pudding realise that Christmas Day is a day long, there is no need to rush it out, people will be full, and not need it rushed out. 

Take your time with dessert, dependant on what time you have the main meal, you could leave quite some time for a bit of rest between courses. 

Happy Christmas

I hope a few of these pointers are helpful to you, and you have a great Christmas Day!

There's going to be one more post to wrap up the year, but for the moment enjoy your Christmas whatever it is you do as tradition.