Christmas Food & Drink

I have no real plan for Christmas yet, I will start working on that in December when we've settled a bit more. Right now the move demands too much attention.

What I do know for sure is that I will make white chocolate peppermint fudge, as I make fudge often and this sounded delightfully Christmassy.
 
morning glory said:
Interesting - a majority here don't seem to like turkey very much. I personally love it - much more tasty than chicken and just as versatile. I'm not sure about prime rib as I confess I've never cooked it or had it. Its very expensive to buy a prime rib here and they seem huge so maybe that is why. I'm not a big red meat eater and my kids if they come to Xmas dinner are largely vegetarian.
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I love some well cooked prime rib, but I have never cooked it. It is too big for me to cook for myself (obviously), it is expensive, and has to be cooked just right. Last year, I got a good deal on a prime rib roast, and I cut it into bone in, double cut steaks. That gave me some rib roasts I could deal with. I smoked them with hickory at about 200F for around two hours, and finished to medium rare in the oven.

Beef seems to be quite a bit cheaper here in Texas than in the UK -- there are cattle grazing a couple of blocks from my house -- but prime rib is still rather pricey.

I'm not a big turkey fan. I much prefer a whole chicken rotisserie cooked over wood in my backyard than a turkey. I've hunted wild turkey, and that is some pretty dry, chewy meat. At least the ones I shot here in Texas. Up North, the turkeys probably have more fat for the colder weather.

I love well cured and smoked ham. I'm glad we do ham for Christmas. The best part is the ham and bean soup and ham sandwiches after Christmas.

CD
 
At this point in time I have some ambitious plans, but given that I shall be quite busy work wise things may not go to plan. So far, my 'to-do' list comprises:

Smoke a side of salmon
Make porchetta (I was going to do this a few weeks ago, but gave up and froze the meat to do later)
Make pastrami (never done this before)
Make sloe gin
Smoke some nuts.

Most of the above will be for giving as presents. We are eating out at sister-in-law's on Christmas day, and our contribution to the meal is to take canapes and a cheese board. The latter is easy (just spend a shed load of money at the cheesemonger's) the former will require a fair degree of planning and experimentation.
 
Turkey is my least favorite meat (of the meats I eat). I'd much prefer to do a chicken for Thanksgiving, or even a duck. To me, turkey is the unflavored gelatin of the meat world. And I've had it fresh, smoked, deep-fried, roasted, broasted, toasted and any number of other ways. Also, I live in a big turkey-hunting area, and the wild turkey's as dry and chewy here as anywhere else.

Culinarily, the best thing I can say about turkey, IMO, is that it's such a neutral substance, it can be used in a lot of different way and it just sort of picks up whatever flavors are around it. It's like tofu that way (no wonder tofurkey is a good non-meat substitute - they have about as much natural flavor). My preference, if I have to have turkey, is to have it in a pot pie.

White meat versus dark meat - I also much prefer dark meat to white, and normally at home, when I roast a chicken, I won't even taste the breast. The wife can have that, and I'll stick to the thigh, leg, and wing. As the old song says:

Kill me a chicken
Bring me the wing
They think I'm workin'
But I ain't doin' a thing
It's just ride, ride, ride, ride
 
TastyReuben said:
Culinarily, the best thing I can say about turkey, IMO, is that it's such a neutral substance, it can be used in a lot of different way and it just sort of picks up whatever flavors are around it.
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I am beginning to wonder if farmed turkey in the UK has a better flavour than in the US - a good turkey should be slightly gamey in flavour and not 'neutral'. Chicken is a far more neutral meat unless its top of the range free-range chicken which is not culled when only 12 weeks old (as most are).
 
morning glory said:
I am beginning to wonder if farmed turkey in the UK has a better flavour than in the US - a good turkey should be slightly gamey in flavour and not 'neutral'. Chicken is a far more neutral meat unless its top of the range free-range chicken which is not culled when only 12 weeks old (as most are).
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I don't know, but I've eaten plenty of turkey in the UK, and it's uniformly bland and stringy, just like here in the US.

I was poking around, like I do every year at this time, reading humorous articles about turkey-hate (oddly, no one seems to like turkey, but we all eat it out of respect to...something?), and one of the remarks that made me laugh was someone who said, "That's why we drink so much at Thanksgiving, to forget how awful the turkey is!"

On a slightly more serious note, I read a piece where they talked to a couple of chefs, and the consensus was that roasting an entire 20+ pound animal that's naturally low in fat is a exercise is futility, even with brining and basting and all the butter crammed under the skin, because by the time the meat is done all the way through, most of it will be grossly over-cooked. That's why they all preferred chickens/capons, because they're smaller, so they cook faster and less time to dry out.

Their recommendations were to, at the very least, was to cut the turkey up and roast the pieces separately, which gives greater control, or to even braise it instead of roasting it.
 
Turkey in the UK used to have a terrible reputation of being dry and tasteless. I think that was mainly for two reasons: one......they were all mass-produced birds that were raised and fattened up as quickly as possible - I think I read somewhere that the standard white turkey is one of the fastest growing animals in the world! Mass-produced turkeys tend to be slaughtered at about 12 weeks old. So its no surprise that they haven't got much flavour.

But there's been an increasing trend over the past decade(?) of paying more attention to the breed and provenance of your Christmas turkey - resulting in much better-tasting birds. We only ever buy free range Norfolk Black turkeys which take about 27 weeks to grow. Because they've grown slowly and are older they have a much better flavour, more fat and if cooked properly are just as tender and as juicy as smaller birds. They are also hung for a couple of weeks to improve the flavour.

Which brings me on to the second reason for dry and tasteless turkey.....most people over-cook it! There are many resources telling you for how long to cook your turkey based on it's weight, but for a 4.2kg bird (the weight I happen to have the data for) they all give cooking times of 3 to 3.5 hours. In fact a 4.2kg Norfolk Black is perfectly cooked through after 1hr 45 mins :ohmy: No wonder people think turkey is dry if they leave it in the oven for twice as long as it needs!

For me a duck isn't special enough for Christmas - maybe because we have duck fairly often. Same goes for beef.....I do love a roast rib of beef but it just doesn't feel Christmas-y. Some years we have had goose for Christmas - that makes a nice change and of course you end up with lots of lovely goose fat to use up over the rest of the year :okay:
 
It's not that I don't like turkey, I do. I even cooked a breast not long ago to make turkey club sandwiches for Craig, and we used some of it for the turkey pot pie the other night. One bag in the freezer left to use up in something. But, given a choice between turkey and prime rib, well, it's prime rib hands down. Also, if we've just had turkey for Thanksgiving, neither one of us wants it again for Christmas.

We don't make huge turkeys, we always get one of the smaller ones, maybe 11-13 pounds. In the event we need more turkey, we'll make 2 smaller ones. Mine don't come out dry and stringy, even the breasts. Craig likes them smoked. That's okay for me, but not my preferred choice, I'd rather roast in the oven. Regardless of whether we brine, rub, or just make a compound butter and put under the skin, the turkey goes in the oven breast side down for the first half of the cooking time and then I flip it over for the remainder of the time, and I baste the second half of cooking. We also don't overstuff it, if we put stuffing in it at all. Stuffing just adds time to the cooking, which can lead to a dry, stringy turkey. We make dressing. If you want the drippings flavor, just mix in some of the pan drippings with your dressing when you mix it up.
 
Here's how turkey goes for me in the UK:

We'll pick a nice place for Sunday lunch. There'll always be roast beef on the menu, and occasionally a turkey as an alternate.

I always choose the beef. Always. The wife, though, will go through some variation of, "I really like the beef, but they have turkey, and I get turkey only at Thanksgiving...I'm gettin' the turkey!"

Then our plates arrive, and the beef is just perfect, and she'll take an enthusiastic bite of her turkey...then a second one...and then a third one, each less eager than the last, and then, the inevitable question:

"How's your roast beef? It looks really good..."

That's my cue that we're about to swap plates and I'm getting stuck with the foul (and that's not an autocorrect error)! :laugh:
 
TastyReuben said:
I don't know, but I've eaten plenty of turkey in the UK, and it's uniformly bland and stringy, just like here in the US.
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I wouldn't eat it in a restaurant - unless it was a really top notch restaurant. Most places will use cheap turkeys and it will have been pre-roasted a re-heated.

MrsDangermouse said:
Which brings me on to the second reason for dry and tasteless turkey.....most people over-cook it! There are many resources telling you for how long to cook your turkey based on it's weight, but for a 4.2kg bird (the weight I happen to have the data for) they all give cooking times of 3 to 3.5 hours. In fact a 4.2kg Norfolk Black is perfectly cooked through after 1hr 45 mins :ohmy: No wonder people think turkey is dry if they leave it in the oven for twice as long as it needs!
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Absolutely - and a well hung turkey will improve flavour immensely.

medtran49 said:
the turkey goes in the oven breast side down for the first half of the cooking time and then I flip it over for the remainder of the time, and I baste the second half of cooking. We also don't overstuff it, if we put stuffing in it at all. Stuffing just adds time to the cooking, which can lead to a dry, stringy turkey.
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I'd agree with these tips - I do that too.

But hey! How about sous-vide turkey?
 
morning glory said:
I am beginning to wonder if farmed turkey in the UK has a better flavour than in the US - a good turkey should be slightly gamey in flavour and not 'neutral'. Chicken is a far more neutral meat unless its top of the range free-range chicken which is not culled when only 12 weeks old (as most are).
Click to expand...

MrsDangermouse said:
Turkey in the UK used to have a terrible reputation of being dry and tasteless. I think that was mainly for two reasons: one......they were all mass-produced birds that were raised and fattened up as quickly as possible - I think I read somewhere that the standard white turkey is one of the fastest growing animals in the world! Mass-produced turkeys tend to be slaughtered at about 12 weeks old. So its no surprise that they haven't got much flavour.

But there's been an increasing trend over the past decade(?) of paying more attention to the breed and provenance of your Christmas turkey - resulting in much better-tasting birds. We only ever buy free range Norfolk Black turkeys which take about 27 weeks to grow. Because they've grown slowly and are older they have a much better flavour, more fat and if cooked properly are just as tender and as juicy as smaller birds. They are also hung for a couple of weeks to improve the flavour.
Click to expand...

Turkey here is very much a corporate farming product. They feed them until they can barely walk, and off to the mega-mart. I'm sure I could get a prime breed of turkey, lovingly raised on good feed, but I don't know where, and wouldn't know what to ask for.

The biggest problem with turkey is that they are... big. The white and dark meat parts don't get done at the same time. If you stuff your turkey, that adds even more cooking time to get a safe stuffing.

Now, over here, the daring among us deep fry turkeys. You have to do it outside, and make sure your insurance is paid up before you start. It is dangerous by itself, add in the fact that it is mostly done by men who have been drinking beer since breakfast, and -- I think you get the picture. I have assisted in a few deep-fried turkeys (not on my property). We always followed all of the safety procedures, and have never had a mishap.

Deep-fried turkey is actually pretty good. The skin is really crispy. The meat is about as moist and tender as you are going to get from a turkey. The flavor is good.

Don't even think about stuffing the bird. (BOOM)

CD
 
morning glory said:
:roflmao:

Yes - I've seen turkeys being deep fried (on TV programmes). It can imagine it might work very well.
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Usually followed by an explosion and a call to the fire department!

I watch a lot of cooking videos, just for entertainment, and a few years back, I watched one where a chef meticulously described how to prepare a turkey to ensure moistness.

Paraphrasing, he said you first needed to brine it, then make sure it's got about a half-pound if butter worked in between the skin and meat, then to be sure to baste it every 20 minutes.

Additionally, never bread-stuff the bird, but to instead use herbs and wet aromatics, like onion and celery and lemon and apple, because besides imparting flavor, they'd release their own water into the bird from inside, furthering moistening the flesh.

Lastly, and most importantly, let the bird rest for at least 40 minutes, to allow the juices to resettle, and then (and only then), carve yourself a little meat off the breast and...then pour about a cup of gravy over it, because even after all that, it's still going to be a dry, tough mess! :laugh:

We ate turkey occasionally as a kid, because my granddad raised them. We've also ordered farm-fresh ones, and have had plenty of the supermarket ones. Our last turkey came from a small family farm just up the road.

Smoked, fried, braised, whole, from the farm, spatchcocked, from the store...doesn't matter to me. It's just a mouthful of blah.
 
caseydog said:
Turkey here is very much a corporate farming product. They feed them until they can barely walk, and off to the mega-mart. I'm sure I could get a prime breed of turkey, lovingly raised on good feed, but I don't know where, and wouldn't know what to ask for.
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I think probably around 90% of the turkeys sold over here are the same :thumbsdown: But there are a (growing) number of places online that will supply good quality birds, and even some of the supermarkets now stock better quality ones (though probably not as good as the artisan suppliers). We're very lucky that we can buy one from a local smallholding - you have to reserve one in September and you're never quite sure what size it'll be, but they are absolutely delicious.

caseydog said:
The biggest problem with turkey is that they are... big. The white and dark meat parts don't get done at the same time. If you stuff your turkey, that adds even more cooking time to get a safe stuffing.
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We're always told that everything is bigger in the US ;-) obviously that's true for turkeys: TastyReuben mentioned about 20+ lb turkeys, and medtran49 mentioned that they get smaller turkeys weighing 11-13lbs ......I think the largest readily available in the UK are around 7kg (15lbs), I'm sure you can get bigger ones but they're not very common. We find a 4kg bird is plenty big enough to feed 6 of us, with plenty of leftovers.
 
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