Challenge #25: Anything But Turkey

[miss_s_b]

So I know we're all* going to be cooking festive treats this week. And I love festive food, generally. But turkey is so boring. So give me your non-turkey festive food.

Do you have a great sprout method?
Is your Christmas Pudding to die for?
How about a nice Christmas ham?

Get to it!

(And Merry Christmas/Newtonmas/Saturnalia/Yule/Midwinter Festival of your choice)

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* OK, maybe not all, but you know what I mean

Comments

[el_staplador]

Ooh.

*breaks out Polish Cookery*

(The Wigilia is countertony's job, as he's the one with the actual Polish heritage, but I bet he wouldn't object if I helped...)

[miss_s_b]

* googles *

Ooooooo that sounds yummy

[magic_at_mungos]

Admittedly we have a non traditional Christmas food but definitely buljol and bake is up there.

There are both dishes from Trinidad so we made them part of our celebrations.

Buljol is basically a fish salad type dish usually eaten after lent.

Get some salted white fish (usually cod. Morrison’s are surprisingly good at having it).

Soak overnight to get the salt out and the using a knife, strip the meat from the skin and bones.

Cut up sweet peppers and red pepper into fine cubes. Mix into the fish with olive oil and trying not to make it too wet. Serve on a dish on a bed of lettuce and sliced avocado.

Fried bake is just your ordinary bread dough (we make it with strong white flour but ymmv). Once risen, make it into balls a little smaller than the size of your palm and then fry either in a pan or a deep fryer.

If you’re feeling energetic or have lots of fish, mix in some of the shredded fish and onions into the dough before leaving it to rise and then frying. This is also yum and called accra.

[miss_s_b]

Oooooh the bread thing sounds ace!

[magic_at_mungos]

It is amazing and is a lot lighter than regular bread. The effort is making the dough but we outsourced this to our bread maker (usually overnight) and then stuck it in the airing cupboard to rise.

It was quite hard not to scoff it all when it was still hot. Here’s a receipt that looks fine but as all things, this dish is quite individualistic so most people will prepare it slightly differently https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.simplycaribbean.net/blog/the-best-trinidad-style-fry-bake/amp/

[miss_s_b]

Thank you!

[cosmolinguist]

I could post the recipes of my family's Christmas candy since I have actually helped my mom make that... :)

[miss_s_b]

Awesome!

[summerstorm]

I'm specifically looking for duck recipes if anyone has any? Like, links would be fine. I fucking love duck but I've only had it at restaurants and this is the first year I can get it raw to cook. It won't be a main holiday meal bc my parents are like 'nope, not eating duck' (we're having lamb and ham on Eves and salmon and... bream? on Days) but still. My favorite duck dishes I've had, in order:

Rataskaevu in Tallinn
Brasserie Gustave in London, cherry sauce
some weird beer place in Munich, just straight roast

Thoughts?

Maybe I'll get it soon enough to share it but we'll see. My father is very much the kind of throw stuff at things and see what happens so I'm not sure we even have recipes for the main meals. And our sides are generally seafood (which I'm generally too full to eat, unless it's norway lobster. I'll make room for that).

[miss_s_b]

Whole duck or bits of duck?

For duck breast I generally preheat the oven to 160^oc, score the skin, rub it with salt and pepper, put my cast iron frying pan on high heat, fry it skin side down for 5 mins or so then throw the pan in the oven to finish of for 10 mins or so.

If you put some halved pitted cherries in the pan with it at the throwing in the oven point, you get a nice sauce.

[summerstorm]

I'm not sure, actually. I don't think a whole duck would fit in my electric oven, so I'll probably find duck breast since I prefer that over thighs and stuff. Are cherries even in season? I wonder what is in season right now...

I also tend to avoid frying pans but it's a start (and I can always make somebody else do it even if they won't eat it). Thank you!

[miss_s_b]

I get them in bags from the freezer in sainsbury's when they're not available fresh, but they had them in my greengrocer yesterday, so it's looking like they might be in season somewhere.

The reason you fry it scored and skin side down first is there's a LOT of fat under the skin, and you want that too ooze out and crisp the skin up (and form part of the sauce).

[summerstorm]

oooh, that makes a lot of sense. I think my parents usually do that by using the gratin setting in the oven after the fact but I could be wrong. (Can you tell I don't cook much?)

[miss_s_b]

I cook loads, and in the past have done so professionally, and I don't know what a gratin setting is, so I think we're all learning from each other, which is good :)

[summerstorm]

Maybe a southern Europe thing? I'm in Spain, and it looks like gratin is more of a French technique, but I mostly read recipes from US/AUS/CAN so I'm not sure how rare it is to use the setting on meat rather than on like, mac and cheese or lasagna.

[miss_s_b]

Sorry, I was unclear, I've made a bunch of gratins (they are French in origin, I think) but I've never known an oven with a specific gratin setting.

[summerstorm]

No, I figured that was what you meant -- I've seen gratin stuff in a lot of places for like potato and pasta dishes so I know that part isn't rare. :) But yeah, that makes it clearer.

[missdiane]

Sprout method? You mean like cutting brussels sprouts in half, tossing them in salt, olive oil and balsamic vinegar and roasting the bejeebus out of them until the outer bits are dark brown and luscious?

Don't do Christmas pudding

I'm rethinking eating pork.

Christmas is for going out for dim sum..NOMNOMNOM

[miss_s_b]

That does sound like a sprout method, yes. They had purple sprouts in the greengrocer's in Brighouse the other day...

[tree_and_leaf]

Due to a general lack of enthusiasm for turkey, and me cocking up ordering on line, we're having goose this year. I'm a bit scared....

[miss_s_b]

We're having goose this year like we do every year, because we are snobs.

Do give me a holler if you want tips, but the most important one is to do it onna rack above a roasting tin filled with potatoes, so you get goose fat roast potatoes.

[tree_and_leaf]

That is a top tip in its own right! We normally have duck, but we left it too late and Booths weren't accepting any new orders. When we were in Tod we got it from the butchers, but I've yet to find a good butcher where we are now.

[miss_s_b]

I have a good local butcher, but I supplement them by buying stuff from Farmison. They're not cheap, but they're very, very good.

[tree_and_leaf]

I hadn't heard of them, but they look really good! Not cheap, as you say, but I'm trying to go the 'less, but better' route with meat where I can. Thanks for bringing them to my attention.

[miss_s_b]

No worries. The venison is particularly good.

[tree_and_leaf]

Noted!

[summerstorm]

What is goose like? I've never had goose. I need to get back on my feet and start traveling again and pitching press meals to restaurants so I can continue down my list of 'try every bird and also mammal as long as it's not a domesticated species'. My problem is whenever there's duck I make a beeline for it instead of trying anything else, but hey, I did have pheasant the one time.

[miss_s_b]

It's reasonably ducky in flavour, but the texture is different to duck (and, indeed, anything else).

I really love it.