For those of us that celebrate Christmas, what’s on the menu?
In my family we take turns on what day our families gather to celebrate Christmas. This year Christmas Day is with the In-Laws. I am smoking a couple of chickens with a baked stuffing, as well as two rolled pork sirloins. Spuds, salads and many, many, many deliciously cold Stella Artois.
On Boxing Day lunch is with my family, I will be bbq’ing two lamb shoulders and a glazed ham, again with salads and spuds. Also, surprise, surprise, many, many, many, many delicious ice cold Stella’s.
For centuries in Poland, Christmas Eve was a day of fasting, and at the same time the day of the greatest gluttony. The table is dominated by fish dishes, dumplings and sweet desserts with poppy seeds. Traditionally, even atheists like me don’t eat meat on this day. For several years, the Christmas Eve supper has been held in our house, mainly due to the size. Usually there’s exactly the same set of dishes every year. This year on my table:
herring in oil with onion,
herring in sour cream with apples,
Greek style fish (common in PL, fish w/ vegetables & tomatoes, probably unknown in Greece ),
fish stewed in mushrooms and sour cream,
pierogi: Russian style, and the other with sauerkraut and mushrooms,
I’m thinking were gonna do deep fried turkey this year, never done it before and curious. Also got a chunk of pork I’m brining and turning into a ham I plan to smoke tomorrow. The usual canadian sides - stuffing, potatoes, veg.
Deep fried turkey is good. No shortage of videos on youtube where some redneck will show you the proper way to make it. There is a Cajun recipie for it, but that requires some real skill with the fryer.
The week after Thanksgiving is the best time to find videos of people being awarded their Darwin Award fore deep frying a turkey that has not been totally defrosted.
And its going to be great because I am not touching anything (good for me and everyone, I’m a disaster chef) as we are back at mum’s house in the UK for Christmas
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