Does anyone want to share any cooking tips for the best roast turkey/veg/potatoes ready for Christmas Day?
Christmas Pudding tips always welcome too!
Best tip: Let someone else do it :P
Butter basted turkey is very suculent, not dry at all, if you slide your hands under the skin and rub butter in, then a few times while it's cooking use a baster to squirt the melted butter and juices mix under the skin.
Best turkey=not buying a whole bird. We get way better results from those turkey crowns you can buy. Cooks quicker, you know it is actually cooked through, carves easier and neater, leaves more room in the oven and just generally reduces stress!
In so saying my grandmother made the most succulent bird by cooking it then stripping it into bats of gravy and cooking further. So moist and delicious!
Just Jenson wrote:
Does anyone want to share any cooking tips for the best roast turkey/veg/potatoes ready for Christmas Day?
Christmas Pudding tips always welcome too!
Great idea!
I'm not doing anything crazy big this year, but my biggest tip from previous years is to do as much of it as you poassibly can the day before!
In addition to tips for the traditional meat-based meal and standard puddings, does anyone have any great tips for Veggie or Vegan Christmas dinners? Or any other alternatives which you enjoy? Mine is a meat-free home, and SO many Xmas tips involve meaty juices being used etc :( :( Any tips are gratefully received!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyrhOtVIKzI&spfreload=10
They have other videos on veggies & everything else, they are amazing! My go-to cooking channel! ^_^
Don't try and cook your meat/roasties/stuffing etc all at the same time - your oven never seems big enough and it's too stressful. Cook the turkey first and when done cover in a couple of layers of tin foil and a teatowel, then put the veg etc in the oven. Even an hour or so later, the meat will still be hot and succulent from being well rested, and you're far less stressed! Lol
We are veggies and alternate between a Quorn roast or the chicken style fillets for our roast dinner. We cook the fillets in a small amount of oil and season with mixed herbs and garlic. We also have some Quorn veggie sausages on too as they taste like sage and onion and are really yummy. We also like Asda' own veggie gravy which is really tasty :) xx
I don't get too fancy, so I don't have many tricks up my sleeve that I can share. The only two things I say to everyone is:
If, like my family, you have mashed potatoes with your Christmas dinner, invest in a ricer. Potatoes mashed with a ricer instead of a standard masher are SO much smoother.
Make your own roast potatoes. Most people I know just buy frozen because it seems like one of the most convenient places to save some time. The thing is though, home-made roast potatoes just taste so much better. It's worth the effort. I put a little garlic oil into the roasting pan, and it makes them even better.
Nobody in my family likes Christmas pudding, so instead I make my mango upside down cake. Not very traditional, but very yummy! Happy to share the recipe if anyone fancies something different this year.
Is there anyone here on LH who doesn't celebrate Christmas? If so, do you have any fun traditions on the day that everyone else is going tinsel-crazy? One of my best friends is Jewish, and her family's tradition of chinese takeaway and movies has always sounded like a lot of fun to me.
I shall be doing the cooking this year, and learnt from 2 years back )when I did it all then) to prep all the veg the day before so they go straight in the oven.
Potatoes boiled and kept in the morning, ready to go in the oven.
My sister-in-law is cooking two turkey legs and bringing them cooked.
I am doing a leg of lamb on the bbq (as there is no space in the oven). The turkey legs will go for a quick bbq blast before serving.
The tip I learnt the hard way is that coal on the bbq takes longer than planned to be ready to cook on!
Visit grand parents is the best tip, can't go wrong. Why isn't nans and grandads food is always unbeatable
Turkey wrapped in bacon and nothing else just bung it in the oven :) thats what we do just like mom did back in the states.
x
I find these guys have the best tips and recipes: https://sortedfood.com/
They are just fab! They actually made a 'cook-along' youtube video recently to make a full Christmas dinner in 4 hours. Their sauteed shredded sprouts look AMAZING... I will definitely be trying those this year!
/edit: Whoops just saw MissNoir linked them too! haha... they really are brill :)
My best tips.
For the best roast potatoes, peel and chop into large, even pieces some maris piper potatoes. Boil for about 5 minutes then pour into a collander and leave for about 5 minutes - this dries them out just a little bit and also helps drain out some of the starch. Rough up a little bit and put them in a hot baking tin that's had some goose fat (if you don't want to use animal fat, just use some olive oil, but don't heat it up for too long as oil will smoke) then carefully pop the potates in the tin (they should sizzle when they go on. Quickly coat all sides with a little oil and then cook for 30-40 minutes, turning half way until they are golden brown on the outside. I always cook them with onion and garlic in the pan as well for extra flavour and then a quick sprinkling of ground salt and pepper over the top before serving - PERFECT!
For a veggie side dish, I just roast some carrot, parsnip, red onion with a little butter, salt and pepper. Or if i'm just doing parsnips, drizzle with a little bit of honey.
For sprouts - I halve them and take the stems off, then I boil them quickly for about 4 minutes, then put them straight into a bowl of ice water (helps keep the colour). Then I dice some bacon, fry that with a little butter, sage, garlic, salt and pepper - once the bacon is crisp, I toss in the sprouts until they are cook through and coated in butter. Delicious!
Meat I always cook the day before - it saves time - just don't carve it until the day, i find it keeps the moisture in, so it doesn't dry out too much when you quickly re-heat it on the day. I keep it in the pan, cover it in foil then put it in the garage (or you can put it in the fridge, just beware it will take it a little longer to heat through, but not too much)
BUY DISPOSABLE FOIL TRAYS FOR EVERYTHING. Seriously, I cannot stress this enough - when you've got so much cooking to do, there's only so many times I can load up the dishwasher - so I cook EVERYTHING in disposable foil trays which can then go in the recycling when finished with.
David, I now want my Christmas dinner now! You can come and cook mine if you want to 😘
Roast your spuds in goose fat. Par boil them first before you put them in the oven. They should turn out fluffy on the inside and crispy on the outside.
Edit: sorry hadn't read David's post properly, just the disposable foil trays. That'll teach me for rushing!
Sooo... Are we all going to David's for Christmas dinner? :P
stuffing balls paxo mix add salt pepper and garlic and the add a little sausage meat mix up roll in to balls and bake job done and lovely at that
Go traditional and roast a goose!!! Delicious and only takes half as long as a turkey!
My tips would be: Cook all your meat the day before and use disposable foil trays for cooking to save a lot of washing up. I normally cook my veg in the steamer on the day and wrap up some meat in tin foil and pop it in the steamer with the veg to heat it up as this stops it drying out. Oh and make sure to keep basting your turkey throughout cooking to keep it nice and succulent. 😀
Another 'Veggie' here
There's so much choice now for veggies we have Quorn rolls, in chicken, and a beef one. 'Cheatin eatin' joints from Holland & Barrat in Chicken/Beef/Gammon.
All to be washed down with Asda Asti Spumanti (vegetarian) And British vegitarian wines from Liddle in red and white.
All the above make a good cold sandwich, with pickles, washed down with a good ale.
VirginAngel Why did I find your post Hot? I probably had a flash back of 'Last Tango in Paris' lol.
Enjoy. x