Christmas Recipe Bonanza: spiced buttered turkey, best ever potatoes, lemon, parsley, pecan sprouts and more. Plus win a turkey
Recipes that are kind to the cook, and kinder to the eater, for a relatively fuss free, but show-stopping Christmas meal
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Hello you fabulous people, and welcome to this very festive edition of Something For The Weekend. And OH MY is it a good one. As this email lands in your inbox, we’ll be bundling into the car in the dark to drive the half an hour from our house to a tunnel under the sea that will get us to France in time for a good lunch. And that’s still wild to me! We’ll then head to a favourite Northern coastal town where Christmas music is piped through speakers onto the boulangerie-and-fromagerie-lined streets, and hope to catch the Christmas jazz band parade (last year there were costumes and drummers on stilts) before grabbing hot chocolate and exploring the twinkling woodland grotto… And yes, I’ll be writing about it here for you some time of course.
It’s a fitting festive immersion for someone for whom, in reality - Christmas, in its edible sense at least - has been happening for quite some weeks, as I’ve been readying and perfecting my easy-but-elevated recipes for you, to share today, in good time for you to get planning and shopping. And in case the thought of cooking Christmas lunch is already filling you with dread, rest assured I’m coming at you with a relaxed repertoire which gives you permission to take shortcuts, as well as my top tips for keeping things running smoothly. At the core of this though, is a joyfully delicious, show-stopping menu that will make you, your family, and whoever you’re kind enough to cook for, very happy. Spiced buttered turkey! Crispy sage and garlic roasties! Fennel, sausage and sourdough stuffing! Lemon, parsley, and pecan buttered sprouts and carrots! Honey and cumin parsnips! Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, you’ll find some joyful roast inspiration in here. The potatoes alone are game-changing. Vegetarians - I realise this lot is meaty, but don’t worry, I have a really lovely veggie stuffing AND centrepiece coming in the next couple of weeks especially for you.
These are all dishes that I look forward to cooking, that make my mouth water, but that I can rustle up with relative ease and Christmas tunes blasting, because I DO want to have fun, and we always host Christmas now, so I’m going to do it my way. Since having our daughter, I’ve really made it my mission to cook a spectacular Christmas feast as simply as possible, so that I can feel relaxed and jolly around her, rather than the grinch in the kitchen who’s stressed out and panic drinking.
After all, it is just a roast, and I want this roast - undoubtedly one of the most special of the year - to be exactly that, so I’ll still be cooking a well-sourced whole turkey, and it’ll be basted with gently spiced butter. I’ll also still be making my own gravy, spiked with sweet, aromatic Marsala wine, and rustling up a tray of the most beautifully golden, crispy, garlic and sage-infused potatoes to dip in it. Cooking from scratch and celebrating good ingredients is my jam, but there are small cheats I’m planning on taking which will make life easier, and in this newsletter I’m sharing my straight-forward approach which will help us all stay calm, and more importantly, be able to relax and enjoy the day as well as turning out an utterly delightful Christmas feast for family and friends. My hope is that you will draw from it the things you find most helpful, and - if the whole menu feels like too much - you could mix and match from it, i.e skipping the spiced butter for the turkey, but rustling up the frankly unbelievable stuffing the day before. Whatever you do, make the stuffing. It’s sooo good and perfect for those Boxing Day turkey sandwiches.
One thing I’ve taken to doing in recent years is scrapping the starters altogether. There is so much food involved in the Christmas meal that I just think starters are a bit gratuitous, particularly as I’ll be negotiating a small person’s naps/crushingly urgent appetites. So starters are out, but our family tradition is to open presents with a bacon sandwich and a glass of fizz, so stomachs are lined, and there will be snacks circulating for people while we cook the lunch.
What I’m also dialling down and editing out are the more labour-intensive trimmings and accoutrements that there simply isn’t time for this year: the cranberry sauce, bread sauce and Christmas pudding will all be unapologetically shop bought (though I usually enrich the bread sauce with a bit of cream and freshly grated nutmeg), and the stuffing will be roasted in an ovenproof dish, rather than stuffed inside the cavity or under the turkey skin - meaning you won’t have to faff around with your hand up a bird and it won’t take as long in the oven. And on that note, the cooking times here apply to bronze, free range, slow grown turkey - it will not be the same for a lower quality bird which will need longer. The good people at Copas, where I source my bird every year because they are THE BEST, are giving away one of their amazing birds - see below for details on how to enter to be in with a chance of winning (sorry but that’s UK readers only).
Before we get stuck into all the recipes, I’m sharing some top tips below on things I think are really helpful to a successful, calm and fabulously fun Christmas cook out.
My Top Tips for a cook-friendly but deliciously decadent Christmas lunch
Do yourself a favour and read these, and the all the recipes a bit ahead of time
Delegate like a CEO
This should not be a one person job. Call on the many hands available to help you, and do so unapologetically. Get granny peeling sprouts, kids chopping potatoes, partners pouring wine/mixing cocktails and washing up… do not attempt to try and do it all yourself.
Salt the night before
One of the most important things is salting the turkey really well the night before you’re going to cook it, to season it from the inside out. The salt (and I’m talking sea salt flakes, not table salt) will get sucked into the meat, seasoning and tenderising it and making for a beautiful juicy bird. See the recipe for details.
Stay hydrated
Yes, you’ll probably want a flute of ice cold bubbles at your elbow while you rock around the kitchen, but do also make sure you drink a shedload of water because kitchens get hot and steamy and you don’t want to end up slumped in your lovely turkey.