Christmas cooking tips

My top tips for Christmas cooking. I’ll be cooking my 20^th or so Christmas this year and in my probably 15^th different kitchen, so this comes from lots of error over the years. This is not a recipe or even an instruction booklet. It is a dump of things that I’ve learned or done that work or make life easier. So the idea is to just read it and hopefully one or two of these will seem like they can help and, even better, give you some time back with your family on the big day.

General

Perfect turkey is great, but you will probably over cook it a bit. Get over that now. You’ll have gravy and bread sauce, so it’s not a big deal

Do a pan/ingredient audit first. Know in advance what pans you are using for what.

Get help. Someone else can wash something or serve or whatever. Don’t try and do it all. But make sure that person knows it’s them (do not expect people to pop up and just help. And even if they do, it will be when you don’t need it).

Wash up as you go. It’s boring, but keeping the sink clear, the worktops clear and spare things ready and clean when needed is critical and will help to avoid a panic from an unknown unknown.

People will get in your way and assume you know where everything is or that it’s also your job to open wine/champagne etc. Be strict with requests, but patient with them. Say no, but don’t get cross at them. Just prepare for it.

If you’ve done most of the cooking, you won’t be in the slightest bit hungry when you sit down to eat with everyone. It’s just tough and there’s no way round that. You can try avoiding tasting too much, but it changes nothing. So make sure you try all the food, that you don’t miss out on whatever snacks/nibbles there are before lunch.

Gravy

Cook a meaty stock the night before. Buy chicken wings and onion and carrot. Bake in the oven for 30 mins or so on a high heat. Then add to a pan with water to cover and simmer for 45 mins. Strain. You have a great meaty base for your gravy (I will actually do this on the day though)

If you have giblets, remember to remove them from the turkey. They look horrid. Just put them in some water, with a bayleaf and some peppercorns and simmer for an hour. Strain and you have some more lovely stock for your gravy.

Once turkey is out of oven, strain the juices into a bowl or jug. Leave for 5-10 minutes and spoon off some of the fat that has risen to the top. Not all of it. Fat is good in gravy.

Then juices go into a pan, bring to boil, some flour until thick and start adding giblet juice and then ‘chicken wing’ stock. I find this very meaty, so I like to add some water from the cooking of any green veg.

If it’s not thick enough – just mix some corn flour in water to form a watery paste and add in. It won’t split or be lumpy.

Potatoes

Get a good peeler. Saves a lot of time. This is the best: https://www.google.nl/search?q=potato+peeler&client=firefox-b&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9587WrIrRAhUkB8AKHVGiDUMQ_AUICCgB&biw=1366&bih=653#imgrc=9KGzEUoPIrYuCM%3A

Peel potatoes for roasting night before. Just leave in water overnight and they’ll be fine.

Bring to boil early too. Most important thing is they are dry before going in the pan. So bring to boil in the morning and leave them to strain whilst the turkey is cooking. No time is too long. Rough them up if needed.

When it comes to cooking. Put your fat in the pan. Lots of it. Obviously goose/duck fat is a favourite, but dripping is fine and much cheaper. Or even veg oil. Whatever you choose, put in the pan and put pan in oven to get it all hot. Then add potatoes. Season and put back in the oven. Don’t baste too often, a couple of turns is fine. Take out when look nice and ready.

If roast potatoes are ready early. It doesn’t matter. Leave them to one side and heat when needed.

Turkey

Dress turkey last minute before bed night before and leave out of fridge. So it is room temperature before it goes in. Birds are meant to be hung, so it really isn’t a health risk in my view.

Timings are a nightmare as everyone has a completely different view. The simple fact is breast cooks before leg. Themometer is the only way, but most of us don’t bother. So I average out the highest and lowest advice. And then check a leg 15% before the supposed end time. I check by piercing with a knife at a supposed thick point. Juices should not look red. But it’s hard to tell. Turkey will carry on cooking afterwards. So I tend to go on faith. I..e if there are not VERY obvious signs that it’s not cooked, I assume it will be ok.

Do NOT stuff your turkey. It’s normally a huge bird. Stuffing adds weight and therefore cooking time (which no-one ever factors in). But more importantly, for the stuffing to get heat, the breast needs it first. So by adding stuffing, you are committing to over cooking the turkey breast before you’ve even started. Put stuffing in a separate dish – in balls or not, whatever.

There are a billion suggestions to keep your turkey moist. They are mostly rubbish. Butter under the skin will disappear in the first half an hour. It really doesn’t make much difference. I put streaky bacon on top as the fat melts more slowly. But it’s out of habit as much as anything. Do whatever makes you happy.

Turkey, once cooked can sit for ages and hold its temperature. I only put my roast potatoes, stuffing, parsnips etc in the oven once I’ve removed the turkey. So it’s a good hour + before it’s even carved.

No-one likes carving. One solution is to remove the breast whole – as one piece (easier than it sounds). And then carve the breast on a chopping board. It is much easier although removes a bit of the romance. I always carve the leg with my hands – just peel it away and just cut any pieces that are particularly large.

Sprouts

There is a simple rule that no parent from the 70s or 80s knew about. When it comes to cabbage style veg (in particular, but actually all veg), the less you cook them, the nicer they taste. Don’t criss-cross your sprouts. Just boil them for a few minutes. Strain and then fry with butter or goose fat, until starting to brown. Some like to add pancetta and chestnuts, that’s fine too.

Bread sauce

Reheat it in the microwave (you did prepare it in advance, right?). I’ve still not got over the time around 20 years ago that I left a bread sauce unattended on a hob for a little too long and it burned. Not too much that everyone else noticed, but enough that I found it unpalatable. Such a sad sad Christmas.

Is cookery TV any help?

Around this time of year, there is a plethora of cookery tv shows telling you how to cope/prepare/ cook for Christmas. I've watched a few and they are utterly useless and unhelpful for anyone actually looking for help or advice. There are of course some that actually just seek to help you cook a certain dish. However many of them look like they are doing that, but what they are suggesting is almost completely unrepeatable in the home kitchen by the unskilled chef.

In order to help you understand if the programme you are watching will be of any use to you, I've written a list of things to look out for as 'klaxons' to know that this show is no good for you. So if you see any of these occur, just know that this is not a chef or dish to replicate at home.

Do they?

1. Use a random ingredient which can only be bought online (yuzu juice anyone?)
2. Tell you to use a ‘good quality stock’ (you know, like 1 cooked over 10 hours and reduced to 10% and using a whole veal carcass)
3. Squeeze lemon juice on everything (I'm looking at you Jamie)
4. Tell you anything about aroma other than to warn you that something might stink your house out (it smells so amazing. No. It smells like the cigarette next to my nose)
5. Never ever mention anything to do with clearing up all the mess afterwards (Jamie again)
6. Try to stop you using perfectly good ready-prepared stuff – e.g. tinned beans, frozen peas (pretty much any fad/super healthy chef)
7. Use pomegranate seeds. Ever (even in a pomegranate salad)
8. Claim to be relaxed about presentation before showing carefully presented food (Gary Rhodes takes the crown here)
9. Go on about how tasty something is (it means they can’t think of anything else to say. Which is a worry)
10. Fail to have a drink whilst cooking (The bossman, Keith, showed the way)

Any of these demonstrate they don't understand how cooking in the real world works.

Amsterdam: A guide

The weather (i.e. rain)

There are generally two types of rain in the world: standard rain and biblical rain. With the former, you tend to take standard preventative measures to stop getting wet: you wear a coat, take an umbrella and perhaps even wear a hat. 

With biblical rain, you either avoid it entirely or you get wet. With biblical rain, once you’re outside, there is no avoiding getting soaked. 

Amsterdam has special rain. Because whilst it utterly looks like ‘normal’ rain, it produces the same result as biblical rain. It’s really very clever. Umbrellas are useless. It’s too windy. You know when it’s been a rainy night in Amsterdam because the next morning the streets are littered with broken umbrellas. Hats or hoods are to be used with caution too as you need 360 vision in order to avoid getting hit by bicycles (see the section about ‘getting around’). And waterproof shoes (wellies) are a must. While Holland may be famous for being a flat country, not one single bit of pavement is in the slightest bit flat, so puddles spring up everywhere and are impossible to avoid.

Getting around

Amsterdam is a beautiful city with an excellent tram system and canals and a philosophy of bicycle first. Cars are very low down in the hierarchy, producing what, on paper, should be the dream city to just wander around. Much like the rain here, the result couldn’t be further from the expectation. 

Trams: As I mentioned, there is apparently a superb tram system in Amsterdam. It goes everywhere, is cheap and you just need an OV Chipkaart (Oyster card) to navigate your way around in comfort. The only problem is that in over a year of being here, I’ve yet to find out how one actually purchases a pay as you go card. Go to the station and they say you can do it on the machine. No, you can only top a card up on the machine. Someone else will tell you to go online. No, you can only buy season ticket type versions, for which you need special ID. Some say you can buy it on the tram. Again, no you can’t (you can buy a single journey). I literally have no idea where or how this is achieved. I know it’s possible, there are people using trams all the time, but it’s a mystery how. The good news is that it doesn’t really matter as Amsterdam is very small, so you can go everywhere under your own power or possibly get a taxi.

Taxis: There are taxi-ranks dotted around the city. Beyond that I haven’t a clue how one orders a taxi. You cannot hail them on the street. They also cost about a billion euros for a 5 minute ride, so taxis are generally best avoided.

Trains: The trains are excellent and not too expensive. For example to get from the airport to the city centre costs €5.20 and takes 10-15 minutes (platform 1-2 for future reference). Compare that with, say, the Heathrow express, which is £22 to cover bugger all distance, takes 20 minutes and, if you are not in the right terminal to start with, will also make you change trains. 

Tubes: There is a metro system, but I have no idea about that. And given Amsterdam is about the size of an out of town shopping centre, I have no idea what it does or why it exists. 

Walking: Walking is the single most dangerous thing you can attempt to do in Amsterdam. The cyclist is king. That doesn’t just mean that the bike takes priority over the car. Oh no. It means that the bike takes priority over anything and everything, including pedestrians. The expectation from the cyclist is that either you’ll not be there or that you’ll move. They will probably use their bell to tell you to move (the Amsterdam ‘bell’ is not a warning of their presence, it translates as ‘move very quickly now or you will get hurt’). 

You cannot relax at any point when walking. For example, if you are walking down a narrow one way street, you can be sure that cars will only be travelling in one direction. Bikes however have no rules. So even though the road is about the width of a car, they will happily go the wrong way down the road, on their phone, with headphones in, holding an umbrella. 

OK, I hear you cry, just stick to the pavements. WRONG! Amsterdam is small and compact. What this results in is frequent scenarios where the pavement just ceases to exist (much like bike lanes in the UK), so you have to step on the road. In addition, cyclists see corners as ‘impediments to high speed’ so will happily just cut across the pavement to avoid slowing down.

Crossing any road is fraught with danger. And unless you are an owl and can do a full 360 with your head, you have to keep looking either way – right over your shoulder, every step of the way. Do NOT just look in the direction of the traffic as you would in England. A cyclist will otherwise sneak through and kill you. 

Cycling: Well, you could do it at your own risk. But all the local cyclists will hate you. You’ll also have to control a bike that weights about half a tonne, that may or may not have breaks where you expect them to be, that has no gears and is so wide you’ll hit people, cars and other cyclists everywhere you go.

Food

Food is a bit tricky in Amsterdam. There really isn’t any such thing as Dutch cuisine. The locals will tell you the main food is Indonesian. There is some Dutch food – bitterballen – deep fried sort of croquettes with an unidentifiable meat stuffing and served with mustard. It’s perfectly nice, but not a dinner. There are lots and lots of restaurants covering most cuisines. Curry has a poor reputation, but there are plenty of superb pizza places. Weirdly though, restaurants are pretty expensive – even compared to London. I have no idea why. 

Weekends will see various food markets and whilst they initially look a bit shit, there is some superb produce there – and unlike the restaurants, can be surprisingly good value. Even if you have nowhere to cook produce, there will be plenty of food to buy and eat there and then.

There is cheese everywhere, obviously. Try to go to a deli or market rather than a tourist cheese shop which generally sell strange combinations of flavours with a cheese, rather than a great variety of local cheeses.

Flowers

Tulips everywhere of course. Do NOT bother with the oddly famous flower market (unless you want to buy bulbs). The gap between expectation and reality is one of the biggest I’ve ever experienced, even worse than the rain. There are about 30 stalls all of which look the same. I think there are 2 that actually sell a variety of flowers, the rest sell wooden tulips and bulbs.  

Beer

The beer is excellent here, although be warned that it is served with a massive head. So it ends up not that cheap when about 1/3 of the beverage is froth. It’s worth trying the local beers, but do note, they can be very strong. They also have a very good system for delivering beer to bars – rather than switching kegs for all the draft beers, they do it in the same way a petrol tanker fills up a petrol station – run a big fat hose into the building and pump the beer in. Nice.

Drugs

You smell weed everywhere. You can smoke it in bars, but not cigarettes. That’s all I can tell you I’m afraid.

Prostitutes

I’m led to believe they exist if you’re that way inclined.

Stairs

Even though Amsterdam doesn’t have many high buildings, it does love its stairs. But be warned. The stairs in Amsterdam play the same trick as the rain here. It looks like a normal set of stairs. But it’s not. It is more closely related to a ladder than to a set of normal stairs. They are near vertical with insufficient space for your whole foot and using them after a few drinks is as dangerous as walking around the city.

Crime

As a result of the fact that much of just trying to exist in Amsterdam is actually a life threatening event, there is very little crime in the city. The criminals here, if there are any, are too busy showing off their ‘stairs’ skills to graduate into petty crime. And more importantly, they know that if they snatch someone’s bag and run off, they will almost immediately either be run over by a car or a bicycle, fall into a canal or die falling down a set of stairs.