My Christmas Day

This time last week I was determined to post everyday and give a blow by blow account of all my Christmas preparations. However so much did I resemble a headless goose during the ensuing period, that I never actually got time to write anything.
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Christmas is now over. We had a fabulous day with friends and family and a lunch I was really proud of. Now I feel tired and lazy, and really just in the mood for looking at pretty pictures, rather than reading pages of badly drafted prose. If you're feeling the same way, sit back, scroll down and check out my Christmas Day. From the 5.30am start, to the teaching myself to bone a goose (with the help of a Mark Hix instructional video on my lap top), a relaxed brunch with presents, a late and long lunch, board games, pudding and trifle several hours later, some dance floor action and the demolition of Y's gingerbread record player.
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Enjoy

Christmas Eve morning Y & I went around the corner to Farm Direct to collect our goose (organic, from Gill Wing Farm, East Sussex), ham (from Dowland Produce, Wiltshire) and veggies. (Not a Christmas Day activity, but the guys at Farm Direct are so lovely and I think their new business of providing meat, poultry, dairy, fruit & veg from farms direct to Islington residents from a tiny brick hole in the wall is brilliant, so couldn't not mention them)
Christmas morning, 6am: the boning of the goose.

(note the pile of bones in the background! - going in today's stock!)

A stuffing for the goose of pork mince, chicken livers, smoked bacon, breadcrumbs and herbs.

Christmas Day, 10am: everyone else finally wakes up! Time for a lovely brunch of smoked salmon blinis, fruit & yoghurt cups and cheese - provided by Y's cousin & sister.

The aftermath of brunch and presents!

The day's supply of bubbles, very generously provided by friends and family Erenie & Jacque.

The table had been set since about Tuesday, with home made crackers for all.

Christmas Day, 1pm: sage, pork & apple sausage rolls.

The goose, rolled and ready for some oven action.

Brussels sprouts cooked in roasted chestnuts, lardons, butter, olive oil and white wine. Basically anything to mask the actual taste of the sprouts.

Carving the goose.

Ham and sweet potato & white potato dauphinoise.

Christmas Day, 3pm: lunch is ready!

Goose, ham, bread sauce, roasted tomatoes, dauphinoise potatoes, roasted honey carrot & parsnip, Brussels sprouts with chestnuts and lardons.

Happy customers!

Christmas Day, 6pm: chocolate & boozy cherry trifle, and Christmas Pudding (made lovlingly by me in early November and complete with thrippences) with custard and brandy butter.

Christmas Day, some time after 7pm: dance floor action! (we could have almost worked off one sausage roll - between us)

Christmas Day, later: time to demolish the gingerbread record player!

I LOVE Christmas. I hope you had a great day too.

Thai Cookery Class

Coming from Australia, Thai food is virtually our national cuisine. But I haven't had a good Thai meal in this country, that is, until today. This Thai meal was enjoyed at (what feels like) my favourite home away from home away from home, Ashburton Cookery School, and was made by me!

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I went back to Ashburton in Devon (after spending 5 days doing their Intermediate Course in November) to do a one day Thai cookery course. I was dubious as to how much I'd get out of it - I have made my own red and green curry pastes, own and even use such things as galangal, tamarind pulp, kaffir lime leaves and shrimp paste - what was a British chef going to teach me! Well this was before I met Chef Joe, who has actually spent a short amount of time in Thailand, some of which was spent being taught Thai cooking. I had never even heard of such things as apple aubergines, pea aubergines (both above) and kra-chaai and never before seen fresh turmeric! I left the course feeling really excited that my Thai repertoire had expanded beyond curries and really hoping that the mortar pestle I had politely requested for Christmas would be wrapped up and under the tree by the time I got home.
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There was only 8 people in the class, which made it very intimate. Some people were locals and others had travelled from further afield. We had a couple of chances to chat whilst we ate at different times, and also whilst pounding away to make curry paste. Although the camaraderie was never going to compare with the group I spent a week with in November (purely because of the amount of time we spent together), it was a fun, foodie group, and I enjoyed discussing Thai and other food with them.
First up was spring rolls filled with pork mince and vermicelli noodles (above - making the filling for the spring rolls, below - rolling the pastry) and other yummy herbs and spices. I was really interested to learn about seasoning in Thai food. I am always adding oyster and fish sauce, a little sugar, a squirt of lime, but usually without thinking much about it. Something I will definitely try to put into practise is tasting my curries and other Thai food and seasoning them with white pepper, oyster sauce, sugar, lime etc, so that all the flavours of sweet, sour, chilli/fiery are distinctive.
The spring rolls were accompanied by a tangy tamarind dip, and delicious fish cakes which we made also.The star of these little starters for me was the amazing Nam aa-jaad dip to go with the fish cakes. It packed a punch whilst also delivering those fresh, clean flavours one associates with Thai food. I could have (ok, I admit I did) have eaten it by the spoonful.
Back into the kitchen and time for some stress release in the form of mortar & pestle action (or portar & mestle as Y has taken to calling it). We bashed, ground and smashed our green curry paste for a good 20 minutes - fortunately we were in pairs so we could tag team it, but my pathetic triceps still felt it. Once the curry paste was made, our chicken green curry with fragrant Jasmine rice was ready remarkably quickly. Whilst perhaps not the most attractive colour in the world, the taste was seriously good. I'd go so far as to say the best Thai curry I've ever eaten.
I had a bad Tom Yum soup several years ago and had sworn it off for life. But having not eaten anything at Ashburton I haven't loved, I figured this was as good a time as any to give it another go. Tom Yum is now my favourite soup (above & below)! A fiery burst of chilli, whilst being soothing and cleansing at the same time. I stood in a little cloud of yumminess and savoured every mouthful, including the types of tiger prawns we take for granted in Australia.
There was just time to pour a sugar syrup of Pandanus leaves (above) over some melon, with a splash of coconut milk (a different and delicious dessert - below), and ask some questions of Chef Joe, before heading off back to real life again (which I was jerked back into rather viciously with an 8 hour coach trip back to London because of awful traffic and snow).
I very much enjoyed learning more about Thai cooking. This class was not so much about technique (which the Intermediate Course was) but about learning the foundations of a different cuisine and how to build upon them. If you enjoy Thai food and would like to know more about cooking it, I'd definitely recommend this course. There are other cuisine courses too such as Italian, and I believe an Indian course will be introduced in 2010. In future, I think I will try out such courses as Patisserie and Game, although the Express Dinner Parties sound great too (you can check out the courses here). My ideal of course would be to return for another week to do Intermediate Extra (may have to dream about that one for a while longer though!)
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Last time I was in Ashburton I stayed at the accommodation provided by the school, which I enjoyed because I could chat to the other students over breakfast. This time, at the recommendation of a student, I stayed at the Ashburton B and B at 44 North Street, which is very cosy and homely - I felt very well cared for during the 12 hours I spent there.

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I was a guest of Ashburton Cookery School for the 1 day Thai Cookery class.
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Click here to read about the week I spent at Ashburton Cookery School attending the Intermediate Cookery Course.

Count down to Christmas: 5 days to go!

I love love love Christmas. Last Thursday night many food bloggers met for some Christmas drinks and the topic of conversation invariably turned to "what will you be eating at Christmas?". I think it's fascinating to hear what traditions other families and cultures have, and how they are often relentlessly adhered to throughout the generations. The food bloggers I've met are a diverse bunch, so I got to find out about Romanian Christmas (hard to beat, I'm reliably informed by Smell My Kitchen that it basically involves eating every part of the pig from sun rise, well past sun set. There is also a traditional dessert, that is very difficult to make, often goes wrong even for seasoned professionals, can never be finished because there is too much of it, and doesn't actually taste that good, but of course you have to make it yourself - you can't have a shop bought one, even though they are often better), Italian/Latin American Christmas (Can be Bribed with Food will be enjoying a delicious glazed ham amongst other delights), Malaysian/Chinese/German/English Christmas (A Rather Unusual Chinaman's parents serve an incredible feast with no less than 6 different types of meat/poultry/fish), and traditional English affairs (as recounted by EssexEating and FoodUrchin).
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For me, this will be the first year I have hosted Christmas and had to actually cook. Having woken up for my first 27 Christmases in my parents' home, and spent my first UK Christmas last year with Y's cousins, the responsibility has finally fallen to me. I'm anxious that after years of watching and assisting my mum, aunty and grandmothers put on a "choice spread" (as my brother would say) I should carry on the tradition from afar.
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Under Superwoman's (i.e. my mum) careful instruction, I made our Christmas pudding sometime in early November. It has been sitting in a cool place ever since and I check it regularly to make sure mould has not started growing on it - although I think the amount of alcohol in it should kill anything living.
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Last weekend I made my own Christmas crackers. But really, the hard work started in earnest today.
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Y & I are hosting 5 friends and family for Christmas. We are all heading to carols by candlelight at Royal Albert Hall the night before and will be spending the night at our house. We will be having supper after the carols of vichysoisse soup (leek & potato) with homemade bread, accompanied by warmed spiced apple juice from Chegworth Valley, which we picked up at Broadway Market last week.
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Christmas morning Y's cousin C will be putting on a light brunch, before our Christmas lunch later in the day.
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We will have sage and pork sausage rolls as nibbles, then roast goose, glazed ham, Brussels sprouts, dauphinoise potatoes, honeyed carrots and parsnips and of course bread sauce. For dessert we will have the Christmas pudding with creme anglaise (left over from the pear tarte tatin I made last weekend) with brandy butter/hard sauce, and trifle. For those still hungry, there will be Y's gingerbread record player to demolish.
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Today (Saturday) I rugged up and went to Broadway Market to pick up some cherry tomatoes and chestnuts for Christmas Day, as well as enjoying delicious Climpsons coffee and picking up Violet cupcakes for Y. After some other present shopping and catch up with a friend and Y at Food Lab in Islington, I got to work in the kitchen.
I made dauphinoise potatoes, layering the usual potatoes with sweet potatoes (above). It takes a while to make, but the flavours of garlic infused cream can't be beaten. The baking dish of starchy creamy goodness is currently in the fridge, weighed down with a massive of tupper ware container of soup. The soup was the next thing I made - lots of chopping of onions, leeks and potatoes, which I actually find rather therapeutic.
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I have found a recipe for the cutest little pork, apple and sage sausage rolls in December 2009's delicious. magazine. As per the magazine's suggestion, I made the sausage rolls up to the point where they're ready to cook and froze them. On Christmas Day I can just pop them in the oven to cook. Y & I snuck some of the dodgier looking morsels to cook and they are pretty damn good I must say. Here's the recipe:
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Sage sausage rolls (delicious. magazine, December 2009)

2 rolls of puff pastry
plain flour, for dusting
1 medium egg, lightly beaten

filling
450g sausage meat (I used pork Cumberland sausages)
50g fresh breadcrumbs
50ml real ale
6 fresh sage leaves, finely chopped, plus small sage leaves for decorating (approx 28)
small handful flatleaf parsley, finely chopped
1 eating apple, cored and grated
1. In a big bowl, mix all the filling ingredients (except for the sage leaf garnish) with your hands. Season and chill for 30 minutes.

2. Roll out the pastry (onto lightly floured surface, or in my case, the lovely blue plastic the pastry comes in) and cut into lengths which are about 10cm wide. Shape/roll/etc the sausage filling into long log-like shapes to lie down the middle of each strip of pastry (obviously you don't want to make the sausage so fat the pastry can't cover it).
3. Brush one edge of the pastry with some egg, and then fold the pastry over to seal in the sausage. Chill for 10 minutes.4. Cut each log into sausage roll type pieces (maybe as long as a matchbox?) and place on a baking tray. Brush with egg and top each with a sage leaf.
5. You can either cook them straight away in a preheated oven at 220 degrees C for 10-15 minutes, until puffed and golden and cooked through (I think everyone knows what a cooked sausage roll is meant to look like). Or freeze them first on the baking tray, and then in a freezer bag. The magazine says I can cook from frozen, for 15 minutes.
These are really good and will be the perfect way to start Christmas lunch, and may be brought out again Christmas night, when we're slumping into food comas.
By this time it was 8pm and we were ready for some dinner. Last weekend Y & I had quality time with our new pasta machine and made tortelli, stuffed with aubergine (first roasted over the open flame of my stove top, until the skin was blackened, and then finished in the oven), blitzed sun dried tomatoes, basil and a little truffle oil. We also made fettucine and froze the lot. So when the water had boiled, I simply popped the tortelli from the freezer into the water, 2 minutes later they were cooked and lolling about in a frying pan of anchovy butter and basil infused olive oil (both of which I made in last weekend's frenzy of activity), another minute later the tortelli was in bowls, and not much later in our stomachs! Hmmmm, these were so yummy - especially the smoky aubergine and truffle oil.
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A quick after dinner job of making brandy butter/hard sauce for my Christmas pudding, and it was off to sleep.