TO ALL CHRISTMAS DINNER COOKING HOME CHEFS, PART 2

CHRISTMAS IS COMING SOON

When you have read part 1 of Christmas is coming soon, I assume that you are convinced that pre-preparation of your Christmas dinner with the vacuum method works. 

There is usually a bit more to a Christmas dinner than a main course, even though your main course is and should be the highlight of the evening.

But you will most likely also have one or two starters and a dessert to complete the menu and to make Christmas dinner a true feast and memorable to look back at.

Let me refer back to some parts of part 1 of my Christmas article.

I mentioned that we all tend to overdo Christmas dinners and make them  lavish. It is perfectly okay to be lavish during Christmas though but if you put in a lot of effort and your efforts result in being futile, there is no gain for anybody. 

I would like to  therefore give you some tips to choose your menu wisely and proportionately.

An average adult consumes between 700 grams and 1 kilo of food during a dinner with a starter, main course and dessert.

This fact is calculated per meal segment. 

Starter 150 grams

Meat (or other protein) 175 grams

Vegetables 200 grams

Potato (or other carbohydrates) 150 grams

Dessert 150 grams

Drink 150 ml

These segments combined total up to 975 grams.

But it is Christmas and we are allowed to indulge our self. Enjoy the occasion and be merry and happy, so keep the above list just in mind when you shop.

If you plan for ten people for example, this list will help you not to break your wallet .

A turkey will give you between 50 and 55% of meat in a raw state, cooking loss will be 

10 to 15 %.

So for ten people you need approximately 2 kilos of meat, which a 5 kilo turkey will give you and you do not need an 8 kilo turkey because you are afraid that you do not have enough.

For hard vegetables like the parsnip, Brussels sprouts, carrots and red cabbage you can calculate a weight loss of 10 to 12 % from the raw weight due to peeling and cleaning. Cooking loss is negligible for these types of vegetables.

Same percentage of weight loss can be used for the potatoes.

Now back to my menu.

Whole Roast Turkey with a Sauce of mixed Berries and Port Wine

Garden Herbs infused Roast Potatoes

Assorted Garden Vegetables

Roasted Chestnuts

Christmas stuffing 

Having done your pre-preparation with the vacuum method as explained in part 1, all you need to do on Christmas day is to place your turkey in the oven and you need about ½ an hour to finish the condiments, roughly 1 hour in the kitchen.

So there is time to complete your dinner with a starter and a dessert.

Let’s fill in some ideas.

When planning a menu one should always keep variety in mind, when your main course is meat choose a starter with vegetables or fish.

Think also about shapes, color and textures of the dishes to serve.

It happens to be that I am in charge of the selection of dishes in this article and I love fish. So I choose a surprising fish based starter.

Quite easy to make and best of all it can be made in advance. I keep in mind that chefs also celebrate Christmas

My starter:  

SMOKED SALMON SOUFFLE   (serves 6)

Soufflé always sounds a bit scary but do not worry about this recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

40 Gr Butter

25 Gr All purpose flour

300 Ml Milk

85 Gr Philadelphia cream cheese

2 Tsp Chopped dill

3 Nos Egg

85 Gr Smoked Salmon (chopped)

Zest of ½ Lemon

To Finish:

6 Tbsp Crème Fraiche

6 Small Smoked Salmon slices

Twigs of dill, some color full winter salad leaves

METHOD: 

Place the butter, milk and flour in a saucepan and bring to a boil while stirring on medium heat.

When the mixture boils lower the heat and add the cheese bit by bit and the chopped dill, mix well to incorporate.

When the cheese is incorporated turn off the heat and add the eggs one by one.

Add the chopped smoked salmon and lemon zest.

Pre-heat an oven to 180 -200 Celsius or

Grease six ramekin moulds and cover the base with grease paper.

Divide your mixture over the six mould about ¾ full.

Place the moulds in an ovenproof tray and place in the oven, fill the tray half way full with hot water.

Bake for 15 minutes uncovered.

You will see that the mixture rises above the edge of the mould.

Remove from the oven and let cool, the mixture will now sink somewhat, that is ok.

When the soufflés, have cooled down cover them and store with the moulds in the refrigerator.

You can do this up to two days in advance.

To finish the dish before you serve: 

Remove the soufflés from the moulds. If needed move a small knife around the inside of the moulds. The grease paper on the bottom of the moulds will help the removal.

Pre-heat your oven to 180– 200 Celsius or between 350 and 390 F

Place the soufflés on a baking tray, top with a tablespoon of crème fraiche each and bake for ten to fifteen minutes or until the soufflés puff up.

Place some of the color full leaves on a plate, then the soufflé, top with a slice of smoked salmon and a twig of dill

Serve warm.           

      

Main course:

Best is to follow the cooking instructions given by the turkey supplier, some have a pop-up pin and sometimes there are cooking times given.

I explained how to finish the vegetables, sauce and potatoes after you have pre-prepared and vacuumed them in part 1.

That leaves us with a dessert, personally I prefer to use something easy, something that you just have to place on the table.

Remember that you will be also somewhat poofed after the main course.

Besides, desserts are usually quite tedious and time consuming to make. 

I advise therefore buy a nice Christmas cake or log.

After or with that coffee, some pralines and the whole family, including you, can lean back very satisfied.

You will have a great Christmas dinner this way.

Pre-preparation and vacuuming an important and time consuming part of your dinner has saved you a lot of time on Christmas day. 

Go for it.  

Written for PMG 

By Professional Chef Marinus Hoogendoorn 

Culinary expert in recipe development. 

www.vacupack.com

   

TO ALL CHRISTMAS DINNER COOKING HOME CHEFS, Part 1

                                    CHRISTMAS IS COMING SOON

                           TO ALL CHRISTMAS DINNER COOKING HOME CHEFS 

Part 1 

By the time this article reaches you, thanksgiving is history for 2013, sure hope you had a great celebration.

So what’s next, Christmas is around the corner, one of the scariest events for many home cooks to look forward to.

Planning a menu, get your supplies, trying not to break the bank, preparing a guest list, all lovely subjects to get your brain cracking.

It is my personal opinion that when you have guests on a once a year occasion like Christmas, do not cook something you have no experience with. Cooking a dinner you are familiar with, will almost certainly result in a dinner table full with happy people.

The reason why I think that way is that we all tend to overdo our Christmas celebrations, we plan to make too many dishes, side dishes, snacks and desserts.

By doing so we end up in the kitchen most of the day and forget that Christmas is actually also for us, the chefs.

Christmas is a family gathering for everybody to enjoy. 

First remember that you are at home and you cook Christmas dinner for family and friends.

So your menu planning should be based on beating the clock, not breaking the clock, getting all worked up and placing oneself out of enjoyment of the family gathering Christmas should be.

Let me help you a little bit and give some tips how to make your Christmas dinner a lot easier.

Traditionally Christmas dinners must have a roast, the choice of which type of roast is all yours, a leg of lamb, goose, turkey, game or whichever roast you are comfortable with.

The highlight of your dinner should be a big platter with a roast for everyone around the table to share.

Now here is your first time saver, instead of making individual plates with vegetables and potatoes, and have the plates scattered all over the kitchen because you are not a restaurant and also likely not equipped to accommodate individual plating for a large group of people, place all your vegetables and potatoes around your roast, it looks great, grand and impressive as a centre piece.  

Let’s say you have chosen to cook,           

Whole Roast Turkey with a Sauce of mixed Berries and Port Wine

Garden Herbs infused Roast Potatoes

Assorted Garden Vegetables

Roasted Chestnuts

Christmas stuffing 

Many of the components in this menu can be made in advance, let’s have a look.

Potatoes, choose Russet or Maris Piper potatoes, leave them whole, wash and boil in water with salt for ten minutes, rinse under cold water, peel the skin off, cut into the size you like, a bit chunky is nice for a dish like this. Drain and cool.

Place the potatoes in a vacuum bag, add some olive oil, a few sprigs of rosemary and parsley. 

Vacuum and store in your refrigerator.

You can do this two or three days in advance, the oil and herbs will give a lovely flavor to the potatoes during the storage time.

Now the vegetables.

Say you choose carrot, parsnip, Brussels sprouts and red cabbage.

After cleaning and cutting to shape, keep the vegetables chunky as well, cook,

Carrots and parsnip Blanch 12 minutes  - cool in ice water

Brussels sprouts Blanch 8 minutes  - cool in ice water

Red cabbage Cook 1 hour with your spices, e.g. vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, bay leaf, red wine, salt and sliced apples. Cool (no ice water)

After the vegetables are cooled, drain and vacuum pack, store in your refrigerator

You can do this also 2 to 3 days in advance. NO FREEZING.

If you are not too comfortable vacuuming the red cabbage, store this item in a container, it will be fine or even better, because the flavors have time to develop, for 3 to 4 days. You can however vacuum the red cabbage, stay in front of your vacuum sealer and when the liquid comes  half way up the seal strip, press seal. It works but be careful. 

Buy pre-cooked chestnuts, like the canned type.  

The sauce. 

You can perfectly use frozen mixed berries for this, add 100 grams sugar and half a cup of port wine to 500 grams of berries, bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Mix with a whisk. If it is too thick, add a bit of water.

Store this also in a jar, you can vacuum many components, but there are some that a not so suitable for vacuuming. Do ensure that your jars are very clean, best is to boil them a few minutes before use.

The sauce will stay fine for a few weeks, similar to marmalade or jam.

Major advantage, besides a relaxed Christmas day for yourself, is that you can make a mistake, if major you have plenty of time to redo the item.   

Well you are almost done and it is not even Christmas eve.

Last but definitely not least, the turkey.

If you buy a frozen turkey, make sure that the turkey is well thawed, depending on the size this may take up to 2 days.

Season the turkey by placing cut oranges, rosemary, salt and pepper in the cavity.

Do this 1 day in advance, cover the turkey with cling wrap or a wet towel and store  in your refrigerator. Remove from your refrigerator on the morning of serving, this allows an even temperature in the bird and with that a better finished result.

I believe that is works better to have the stuffing separately cooked from the bird, unless you have a de-boned turkey.

Everybody has his/her own preference for a stuffing, so choose one you like.

Prepare the stuffing preferably one or two days in advance, so the flavors can develop as well.

If your stuffing is fairly firm in consistency. Vacuum, this works perfect with bread and also meat based stuffings.     

Christmas day:

You wake up without the feeling that you have a tough day ahead, feels good right.

You can still spend a bit of time on some snacks, the not to be missed sausages with bacon and maybe a starter and a dessert.

Based on your cooking time and the roast you have chosen, when you have chosen a turkey like in the sample menu, plan such that the turkey is 45 minutes ready prior to serving time .

Remove the turkey from the oven and cover with aluminum foil.

Remove the potatoes from the vacuum bag, place your potatoes in a baking tray, drizzle with some olive oil and roast in your oven for about 30 minutes at 325 F.

Heat some oil in a frying pan add the carrots and parsnip, season and fry for 5 to 10 minutes.

Fry the Brussels sprouts with the chestnuts similarly in another frying pan.

If you did vacuum the red cabbage, the easiest way is to heat the whole bag in a pot with hot water for 15 minutes or so. No scare that it will burn.

You can heat the berries sauce in the microwave, you need this item warm, not boiling hot.    

Now you are ready to serve.

Place the turkey in the centre of a large serving plate, half of the parsnip, carrot, Brussels sprouts with chestnuts and the roast potatoes on one side and the other half on the other side of the turkey.

The stuffing on the cavity side and the drained (do not forget to drain off excess liquid) red cabbage on neck side.

Place your sauce in a separate bowl.

WOW. Success guaranteed.

Written for PMG 

By Professional Chef Marinus Hoogendoorn 

  USA  www.vacupack.com

 Canada www.vacupack.ca