Christmas Dinner

Christmas dinner is one of the best but most stressful meals of the year. The pressure is on for everything to be perfect. Every year there has to be a disaster. This years was the cranberry sauce. It might not have been a problem had I not fallen asleep and been impossible to wake up. Oh well. Enough was salvaged to make it to the plate.

Lunch consisted of:-

Free range turkey
Homemade stuffing _ sausage meat, bacon, apricots, sage, rosemary, salt & pepper and onion.
Roast potatoes and parsnips
Carrot & broccoli
Sprouts with bacon, sage,chestnuts and butter.
Cranberry sauce (apart from the burnt bits!)

Notable wines. Ladies who shoot their lunch Shiraz and a very nice Prosecco from Oddbins.

Unfortunately due to eating too much on Xmas eve and big getting up till late we missed out on our morning fizz with Clem juice and pomegranate juice and smoked salmon and baked eggs. Gutted dot com. Oh well there’s always tomorrow.

Pinchos Morunos – Tapas

Ingredients

• 1 piece of pork tenderloin weighing about 400g
• 2 tbsp hot smoked paprika
• 1 and half tsp ground cumin
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1 tsp oregano
• salt and pepper
• olive oil

Directions

1. Cut the tenderloin into small cubes and marinate in paprika, lemon juice, ground cumin, cayenne, and olive oil for at least 6 hours.
2. Preheat a baking tray in the oven to 180 deg C.
3. Spread the cubes on the tray evenly and cook for about 13 mins in the oven.

You can stick them on a skewer and grill or bbq these if you like but leaving them in marinade makes them lovely and tender whichever way you cook them.

Cantonese Salt and Pepper Ribs

• Pork Ribs (2 sheets is enough for 4 as a starter or accompaniment)
• 3 tbsps good sea salt, like Maldon or Cerebas
• 2 heaped tsp szechuan peppercorns
• 1 large onion roughly chopped
• 1 red pepper chopped to about 1.5cm x 2 cm
• 1 green pepper chopped as above
• 2 or 3 cloves of garlic sliced thinly
• 1 chilli (optional)
• 3 tbsp sesame oil
• ground nut oil for frying the ribs

Directions

1. Cut the sheets of ribs into individual ribs and deep fry until cooked in the groundnut oil. It’s best to do them in batches and keep the cooked ones warm until they’re all done.
2. Put the salt and peppercorns in a dry non-stick pan and gently heat through. Then grind them roughly in a mortar and pestle. You won’t need all this mixture for this recipe but if you store it in a jar in a cool dry place you will have plenty for next time.
3. In a large wok heat the sesame oil and add the onions and peppers and fry for a couple of minutes, add the ribs (again do this in batches if they won’t all fit into the wok), and two table spoons of the salt mixture, keep tossing them so they don;t stick and then add the garlic. Adding the garlic last means that it doesn’t catch and burn and keeps the flavour better. If you like it more salty then add more of the salt/pepper mixture.

Haddocky Fishy Yummyness

Ingredients

• Haddock skinned,
• thinly sliced pancetta chopped,
• garlic crushed,
• creme fraiche,
• butter.

Directions

1. Little butter, fry off pancetta and take out the pan and reserve for later. Put in the haddock on a low heat for about 5 mins, add garlic and add pancetta and creme fraiche cook till all heated through and add some chopped chives.
2. Serve with cheesy mash (Spuds cooked in half water, half milk,drain then put a quarter of the cooking liquid back into the pan, mash with a potato ricer, add a mound of Red Leicester, chives and some mushed up garlic. Few green veg to finish it all off.