I whittled down the massive mail bag to get to these.
What to wear? Sexy but family friendly.
I’m flattered you ask. One of my very close friends puts a layer of see-through mesh over her gigantic breasts when she wants to look respectable. That might work.
Festive appetisers?
The only Christmas appetiser I countenance is the sausage roll. These should be home-made, the sausage meat from the butcher and the pastry all butter, which any large supermarket will stock. Like the tonic in a G&T and the brine in a Martini, this makes the difference. Lots of butchers make non-pork sausages, so ask in advance if they’ll sell you non-pork sausage meat.
Otherwise, spare a thought for the poor cook: nuts, crisps and olives are fine. You are about to eat a massive meal, greedy guts.
To cake or to pie? Or both?
Pies would be mince pies, a cake would be a Christmas Cake. But neither of these are for Christmas Day, when I serve a trifle or/and a Christmas pudding. Trifle is my favourite dessert and I could eat it every day, but especially on Christmas. Christmas pudding, to the uninitiated, is (very similarly to Christmas Cake) a mass of dried fruits and nuts, bound with suet. It is cooked by steaming, as all puddings are, and served afire with brandy cream or butter. It is exactly the opposite of what one feels like after a long and heavy Christmas meal, and so represents the spirit perfectly.
What is a good winter entertaining cake?
Make a big cake and serve on paper plates or napkins – both are super chic. Since it’s Christmas, I’d use some associated spice in whichever cake you feel most comfortable making – infuse the butter with cloves and star anise or add a t-spoon of powdered ginger or cinnamon to the batter. Top with a great deal of whipped cream in lieu of icing so it looks like a snowy expanse.
Any tips for decorating a landlord-special kitchen?
Hang white cloth over everything ugly, and pin holly, ivy, fir etc to the cloth. Use candles. Don’t worry too much.
I always feel like I do too much - any advice to help refine and homogenise meals to a perfect simplicity?
One year, I almost burst into tears after cooking a much-too complicated Christmas dinner, which arrived to the table very late when the guests were all drunk. I was drunk, too, exhausted and disgusted by the idea of eating. For years I refused help in the kitchen on Christmas, and was a tyrant, ignoring the people I’d chosen to spend the day with and drinking a Beaujolais Cru I kept all to myself.
Last year I ended this practise and cooked with my brother and sister. We devised a simple menu and parcelled out the tasks equally. Unsurprisingly, the solution to doing too much is asking for help. This year I’ll be cooking at my flat with a terrible electric oven and little space. I’ll enlist help but, more importantly, have simplified the menu: capon, stuffing, roast potatoes, roast onions, sprouts, peas, gravy and bread sauce, with a caesar salad to begin and a trifle for dessert. That’s two dishes in the oven (stuffed capon surrounded by onions and roast potatoes) and four on the hob (sprouts, peas, gravy and bread sauce). I’ll make the bread sauce and the trifle the day before and Caesar salad is just a matter of roughly tearing up lettuce and radicchio and frying some croutons.
Christmas is about indulgence, and there’s nothing indulgent about roasting a turkey and spending hours in the kitchen with a hundred timers on the go. What kind of lavish meal can I feed my family (or friends) that wont make me break a sweat?
For even more simplicity, I would cook something like a large lasagne or a decorated pie, meat or no. I was recently served a cauliflower cheese pie, about which I am still thinking. This with a big salad, candles on the table, Charlie Brown’s Christmas on the radio and lots of nice things to drink.
How do you make good bread sauce?
Bread sauce is left-over from a whole range of mediaeval thickened sauces, when bread was the primary medium for sauce thickening, before being replaced by flour (which we still use) and eggs (which we almost never use, but was very common until the 1960s). I don’t think it is a particularly hard sauce, though it is one that should be made a day ahead so it doesn’t get left to burn in the distraction of Christmas Day. Use Delia Smith’s recipe.
Which serving utensil makes the best weapon should political debate at the table get very heated?
I initially thought the carving knife but re-considered, since the point of a weapon in a debate is not murder but victory. This leaves serving spoons and the carving fork, but the first is too silly and the second too sharp. Reach, instead, for your glass of wine - or, in our case, our neighbour’s glass of wine. It has stunning results and is not assault. I think.
How do you make a Xmas meal still feel really special and festive if you don’t eat meat?
Well, nothing save the Big Bird need touch meat at all. And if you have no one eating meat, the festivity is easy to maintain — make something like an actually delicious nut roast or a whole stuffed pumpkin. The issue is when there’s one or two vegetarians - you don’t want them to feel left out, so must make sure their dish doesn’t seem like another side for everyone else. To do this, the best thing is to cook something for them alone.
This year, my vegetarian has requested baked cheese, so baked cheese she shall have, wrapped in sage leaves upon a bed of roast onion.
How to make a good gravy when you’re only eating duck and fish not turkey?
Well, duck is quite simple – use a good chicken stock and mix with the bits left in the duck’s roasting pan. For fish you have two choices – if you are sticking with the traditional English roast, I’d make a white sauce rather than trying to make a fish gravy. If you are going elsewhere, there are so, so, so many ways of cooking fish in sauces, which are as plentiful as gravies.
I have never nailed roast potatoes, any tips for crispy but fluffy outcome?
Boil them until they are crumbly and preheat the oven, with the roasting tin you are using in it. Toss the crumbly potatoes in more olive oil than you think you need, along with salt and rosemary, and transfer to the (hot!) roasting tin. Leave in the oven for a few minutes and shake the the tin, so that none stick. Most importantly, use a tray big enough to accommodate all the potatoes on one level with a bit of space around them. A crowded tray gives you soft, not crispy, potatoes.
Is eggnog respectable?
No.
What is a good alternative Christmas dinner?
I think something that becomes a whole through four or more parts, all of which have had special attention levelled upon them. No roast potatoes, then a sweet potato gratin; no sprouts with bacon, then cavolo nero with raisins; no gravy, then yogurt with a little tahini and so on. The point is to imitate the form of the meal, rather than its base components.
Best Christmas Drinks to serve?
It’s always so bloody hot, so I like something cool. When I drank, I thought cooled Beaujolais was the best thing on Christmas day. Gin and tonics are festive, as are Negronis. Martinis, too, if you can make them well. Champagne, though no one really likes it, is always apt. So is prosecco, which people generally prefer. Prosecco with peach is excellent. For non drinkers, Diet Coke, cold.
Australian Christmas survival tips?
Do you not think it a little greedy to try and celebrate a festival, whose importance lies in winter cold, darkness and want, in the land of perpetual sunshine?
Chanukah advice — what would pair nicely with a latke to make it a full meal?
My maternal grandfather only found out he was Jewish five years ago. So, I am neither culturally nor rabbinically Jewish, just a little Jew-ish, and know very little about the culinary culture.
Actually, can you invite me to dinner?
Turkey?
Look, it’s very boring to say this, but Turkey sucks. Capon, on the other hand, is excellent, moist where Turkey is dry. Capons are roosters that have been castrated and so become fatty, lazy and delicious. Try one this Christmas!
Reply to this email with questions for January. I’m thinking about how to make sure that sad month can retain a certain winter jollity. And, as ever, please refer your friends for free premium subscriptions and to grow Greed.