Christmas tips pt 5

There coming thick and fast now.

Some of the recurring themes throughout the tips I have posted are all about being quick and easy to serve, different ideas, good kitchen time management and at the same time reducing the wastage and just doing thing differently. Here are some more quickies for you.

If serving bread sauce with the roast turkey/goose why not make your own if you have a blender. Remove the crusts of sliced bread (unsliced and does not have to be fresh) Dice into rough cubes. Bring some milk slowly to the boil with bay leaf and half a onion studded with cloves in it.
Add the cubes of bread to the milk and simmer for 10 minutes, put the mix in the blender, and finish with grated nut meg and fresh milled black pepper. Simple and easy. Uses up old bread, less E numbers from the packet mix and the pleasure of making your own. There is no exact quantities for the recipe just use what you think is enough for your numbers.

Sage and onion stuffing is traditional with roast turkey etc and although packet mix is easy you can make it yourself without too much effort. Peel and finely dice some onion, sweat the onions in fresh or dried sage.
Having grated breadcrumbs before hand add to the onions. Add enough chicken stock to cover the mix, stir in and cook till the liquid has been soaked up. I like to add chopped chestnuts and pieces of orange/satsuma/clementines/apricots at this point and finish off with seasoning. Finish and serve or place in a dish and bake for a crispy top.



Roast potatoes I have mentioned in Christmas hints pt3 but here is another quick and tasty idea. Prepare and roast as you prefer and use sea salt and fresh/dried rosemary to add extra flavour. Sage is another way of spicing up your potatoes instead of the rosemary.

Boiled potatoes skin on or skin off can be infused with fresh mint. Tie the fresh mint in a bundle for easy removal after cooking. Don't throw the water away after cooking. Use the flavoured potato water as a stock base for any soups you might make with the left over vegetables. Any left over cooked potatoes can be sliced and sauteed in butter and chopped parsley and served with cold ham or cold cuts on Boxing Day or served with a hearty Christmas breakfast. They can also be used up in the traditional potato salad for the buffet.

A little tip for you. Sometimes the potatoes slightly over cook and start to fall apart. If that happens then use the fallen potatoes as an alternative to the potato salad mix. Remove and drain any excess liquid, add chopped chives or chopped parsley, a little cream and seasoning and mix with some sweated onions and serve cold in a bowl on the buffet.

If you are up for a little extra work take the mix described above for the fallen potatoes and shape in to small cylinder shapes, roll in seasoned flour, dip in egg wash and coat in fresh/dried breadcrumbs to make home made croquette potatoes. Pan fry of shallow/deep fry in hot oil until golden. Goes well with fish dishes and I am sure the kids will like them as well. (most likely coated in lashings of tomato ketchup)

I seem to be mentioning using bread in some of the tips above but for me the best way to use up old bread is to make a Bread & Butter pudding, serve with a brandy snap basket filled with brown bread flavoured Ice-cream and set on a pool of raspberry coulis and or a cold vanilla sauce (custard if you like) hhmmmmm...Delicious. We used to serve it in the restaurant for Sunday lunches and the Head Chef loved it. You did hear me right when I said brown bread Ice-cream. We used to make all our own Ice-creams and brandy snap baskets. You won't believe how easy they are to make but perhaps I will tell you another time.