For as long as I can remember I’ve been heavily involved in, if not solely responsible for, the preparation and cooking of our family Christmas meal.
Peelings and peelings of peelings is an early memory, my tiny six-year-old’s hands unable to properly grip the big wet potatoes, my fingers fast-numbing against the basin of cold water that holds them as they await their disrobing, my mother's chosen technique of paring the skin away from the potato with a small knife making my attempts at the task quite the most treacherous chore, and yet, I wanted to be nowhere else. Wrapping sausages in bacon is another early memory. Preparing packet stuffing too.
As years passed, and no doubt as Delia, Nigella and then Jamie had an improving influence on Christmas cooking traditions across the country, so did our own preparations take on a slightly more technical bent. We’ve drawn the line at brining the big bird, but we do make meat and vegetable stuffings from scratch now and we wrap our turkey in a blanket of slightly rough-hewn butchers-end bacon which gives it welcome protection on a long cook whilst also flavouring both the meat and the gravy in a wonderful way.
My inspiration for this week's newsletter though is the list that gets drawn up every single year and pinned to the fridge. On it tasks and rough timings are etched out, instructions loosely scrawled. It means as a household we’re united as one in the fast-ebbing tick-tock down towards the eventual harassed shout of ‘lunchtime’, before the staccato instructions to the gathered cast that go something like, ‘Tom, will you pour the wine?’ ‘Jack, will you help carry plates to the table?’ ‘Becks, will you help me serve?’ ‘Polly, will you make sure Grandma’s OK?’ ‘Hannah, are there water jugs on the table?’ And we’re off.
So I thought I’d recreate that list here. For the purposes of timing, I am going to assume we’re aiming to eat at 2 pm. I’m sure many of you won’t actually be eating at 2 pm, but if say you’re planning on a late lunch at 4 pm, an early dinner at 6 pm, or even a late bacchanalian Christmas supper at half past eight or nine, you can just adjust the timings by the requisite amount; equally, you can bring it forward by an hour or so if you’re a sucker for punishment.
I’m sure you have your technique and schedule down pat, in which case ignore/snigger/marvel at this and then roundly ignore it; but for anyone that finds the concept of preparing a full-bore Christmas lunch nausea-inducing, there might be something useful in my ramblings below. Or it might just confirm that it’s a crazy undertaking and you’re right to have booked a table at the pub in the village. Either way, this is how it unfolds for me. Enjoy.
The cast list:
Turkey
Roast potatoes
Honey glazed carrots
Roasted sprouts with chestnuts and bacon
Mum’s red cabbage
Cranberry sauce - bought
Bread Sauce - made
Gravy
Pigs in blankets
Devils on horseback
Two types of stuffing
Christmas pudding
Brandy cream and butter
A Stilton for the ages
Fruit
Nuts
The Night Before:
For you, this is actually the key to the whole shooting match.
If you can gather a good number of helpers and distribute the tasks, this bit can take under an hour and can provide much merriment. Pop on a disgustingly cheesy playlist, something Michael Bublé heavy seems to do the trick, and instigate a rousing sing-song. Cracking open a bottle of something seems to help draw a crowd and maintain morale too.
Tasks to be completed:
Peel carrots, and store in Tupperware in the fridge
Prep and halve sprouts, storing 2/3 in Tupperware in the fridge, finely chiffonading 1/3 and storing for a raw salad with parmesan, lemon juice and black pepper to be served on toast alongside smoked salmon etc before lunch tomorrow.
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