What to cook for xmas this year?

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What to cook for xmas this year?
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Downsizer Forum Index -> Recipes, Preserving, Homebrewing

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Mustang

Joined: 15 Jul 2005
Posts: 768
Location: Sunny Suffolk

Posted: Mon Dec 01, 14 12:37 pm Post subject:

Nick wrote:

Mustang wrote:

I don't really worry about what they like or dislike .. I give them excellent food and its up to them if they eat it or not.

It's not excellent if they don't like it. Are you really cooking for them, or for you?

Nick, they always love my food

If I pampered to their specific requirements, I would have to always cook classic Turkey roast for my sister, bread and butter for my niece, crisps and chips for another niece, etc. I take them out of their culinary 'comfort zones' on xmas day, and so far, they've all really enjoyed it. However, the salmon and liquorice jellies didn't go down too well a couple of years ago.

I take a lot of inspiration from cooks such as Blumenthal and Keller, and enjoy getting out the weird and wonderful ingredients, methods, tools, as long as it all goes to delivering great flavour and impact.

Cathryn

Joined: 16 Jul 2005
Posts: 19856
Location: Ceredigion

Posted: Tue Dec 02, 14 8:24 am Post subject:

Nick wrote:

That said, what are your thoughts on dessert? You sound like you've majored on the main course, so dessert may challenge you more. Also, it's much more likely to be able to be prepared in advance, with last minute finishing. Make an edible snow scene? Large platter, mountainous base made of sponge cakes, snowy frosting, marzipan figures, chocolate or gingerbread chalets, frozen lake, tons of space to play with sorbets for snow drifts, foams and even dry ice fog. Spun sugar icicles, chocolate and mint leaves for trees, and so on.

Nick, when you do this, take lots of photos for the article.

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Tue Dec 02, 14 8:49 am Post subject:
It's been bumped to NYE. More time to prepare and plan. This weekend, I'm doing baileys chocolate pudding with gingerbread cottage snow globes.

Cathryn

Joined: 16 Jul 2005
Posts: 19856
Location: Ceredigion

Posted: Tue Dec 02, 14 12:49 pm Post subject:
Well that will have to do until New Year.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45509
Location: yes

Posted: Wed Dec 03, 14 12:05 am Post subject:

does anyone know where there is an unguarded zebra ?

very yummy and a big arse flap to make a spare drum skin for zebadee

thinking about equines i think little ponies are quite cheap at the mo and chances are jemima's waitrose organic carrot fed pet will be tender and have an undamaged skin

full freezer ,nice roast ,drum skin and some luggage for a tenner ,i need to look into this .

spose even after paying mr death to take the waste it is still a bargain

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Wed Dec 03, 14 7:40 am Post subject:

Horses are cheap, for sure.

Zebra, I've tried, and was singularly unimpressed, but it was a selling point of the place of having lots of exotic meats so quality died at the sword of quantity. However, I remember someone testing lots of exciting meats and deciding the reason we, globally, ate cow, sheep, pig, venison and chicken was that these were the tasty beasts. Not much beyond that was that nice.

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Thu Dec 04, 14 8:32 am Post subject:
The Great British Chef app for the iPad (regular and festive) is getting better and better. There's lots of inspiring dishes coming up in there, and they've massively improved it, technically. Might be some ideas in there.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45509
Location: yes

Posted: Thu Dec 04, 14 11:17 am Post subject:

when i last had zebra it was from a chap only doing zebra or wagu burgers,i was impressed with stripey but our dexters are far better than his wagu.

i suspect diet and post pop care might be factors affecting zebra quality (much like beef etc)

the usual meat being the ones that taste best theory has some merit but the usual ones are often the easy to manage/cheap to feed ones and i can think of some meats that few folk eat but are superb in flavour ,texture etc .for instance some of the tree boring beetle larvae ,sea slaters,cabbage white caterpillars from horseradish plants are delicious and missing from most western menus.meal worms are pretty good and popular in mexico,ants and ant eggs are nice etc etc .

i know there is an invertebrate theme there but apart from prawns and maybe a few other seaside treats most westerners dont eat the spineless.

snake is ace ,a quick fry in garlic butter or stewing for a big un.frog is too nice to leave for the french as are snails

it might be a cultural thing or a marketing/market forces thing but it isnt that the unusual meats just dont taste as nice as the usual platefuls .

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