Month: December 2007

A leg of the goose, served cold with a slice of the meat, was ideal for a leftover salad. The rest of the cooked potato, cubed with chopped spring onions and mayonnaise, made a potato salad. Then lettuce, green, red, & yellow peppers, onions and mushroom in just a...

Christmas dinner Originally uploaded by dynamist. I’m in London for the holidays, and have been avoiding the computer at all costs in favour of real relaxation. That has included consuming some of the best food I’ve had all year. This has been one of the best dishes, and one...

The days after Christmas are the heyday of leftovers. I ate some, like millions of other people. I used up the leftover potatoes and parsnips by frying them in slices to serve with scrambled eggs at lunch, followed by the rest of some apple pudding. The remaining half of...

One of the presents under my Christmas tree was a bottle of Buller Muscat. Buller have been using the solera method for their fine old wines since 1921. They draw off some to bottle from the older barrels, and top up with some new, so that the old can...

Santa must have seen my post about the Rington’s tea caddy, for he left me a rather nice box of the tea itself to put in it. It contained a packet of English Breakfast tea, and one of organic Earl Grey. This is leaf tea rather than tea-bags, so...

Goose is tasty and with excellent texture, but it is a very fatty bird and has to be cooked in such a way that the fat drains off during the process. I had three-and-a-half jars left of clear liquid which set into white goose fat. There is, I think,...

It was late in the afternoon before I felt like eating any Christmas pudding. This year I went for a very traditional plum pudding from Fortnum and Mason, which also has just about everything else in it from the fruit and nut menu. I steamed it for an hour...

Despite my misgivings on turkey, my family enjoys it, and so it came to pass that Turkey formed the ‘centrepiece’ of our Christmas meal. I removed and boned the thighs, to speed cooking time, and layered bacon atop the bird, with an onion in its cavity. It sat atop...

I find turkey tends to be bland and somewhat dry. Not so with a goose – moist, dark, and decidedly gamey. Mine came out well, given regular basting and a loose cover of foil except for the last 20 minutes or so. With it I cooked roast potatoes and...

My christmas cake, steeped as it was in festive spirit, went down a treat at the christmas party. After a few weeks of periodic feeding, it was ready to be iced. I used ready-rolled marzipan and regal icing, because I’m very lazy. I smeared the top with a thin...