FoodieChat

OK, stomach stretching exercise number two!  The family dinner for 7.  This consisted of a 3.8kg bird, a 2.9kg ham and a few sides.  First, the bird.  I know, we eat turkey every year.  But given that we only really eat it once a year, I think that’s fine!  This year, we tried the free range turkey, and I followed Tobie Puttock’s recipe.  Big fail!!  Here’s the prepared bird – stuffed inside and also under the skin. Eww, what a gross job, touching the dirty squishy thing!  First mistake was to rub the outside with butter – the bird burnt within the first 20 minutes when we were meant to have the oven on at 220! Lucky we checked it and foiled it.

The recipe called for 2 hrs in the title, 3 hrs in the body of the text, and the instructions on the turkey wrapper said 40-45mins per kg.  how confusing is that!  We also stuck in a thermometer for good measure.  But alas, it was so dry and overcooked. Sorry family

For sides this year, I bought my first ever baby carrots.  They weren’t that baby, but I thought they looked very sweet with their little tops still on.  The prices were quite variable – $3.80 at coles and $2 at the local greengrocer.   I used a very easy glaze – boiling them for 2 minutes and then dressing with a mix of golden syrup and olive oil and seasoning.

My one experimentation came in the form of Luke Nguyen’s Hanoi Crisp Parcels that I saw on Masterchef as well as Chef’s Christmas.  I was very worried that they wouldn’t fry up, as the skins are first soaked in water to reconstitute them, then wrapped with the raw filling and finally deep fried. I wondered how something wet would fry up, but thankfully, they worked!!! Yippee!! They did take a while though, but there were no explosions or burning or sogginess.  Phew.    They tasted absolutely DIVINE when wrapped with a perilla leaf and mint leaves and dipped in the nuam choc sauce.  A fantastic kinda DIY entree.

We love our prawn cutlets and calamari in our family, and along with the Hanoi crisp rolls, we had a very healthy entree platter

OK, some grilled veges as the token greens

I guess a bit of everything isn’t tooooo bad right? hehehe.  When a bit of everything happens a few times over a number of days, it all adds up to a bit of a gut!

And finally, the other main was a glazed ham.  If you search “glazed ham”, or “Christmas ham” you will find endless recipes involving a combination of orange juice, maple syrup, mustard, marmalade – but mostly requiring cloves.  Take your pick really!  We chose a maple, orange and mustard glaze.  I think the ham turned out quite pretty  And I continue to enjoy omelettes, ham and cheese sandwiches and pasta.

And a decadent dessert to finish. Creme brulee made with real vanilla beans!  And the mandatory ferrero Christmas tree.   Moderation? that’s for wusses

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 29th, 2010 at 9:39 pm and is filed under Special Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.