th-tradchrstmsdin.txt Date: Sat, 12 Dec 2009 From: TODD MASHLAN Subject: [Anglican] Traditional Christmas Dinner---Menu suggestions? It's getting to be that time! One of my fraternity brothers was just lamenting the fact that he has only been able to find turkey and roast beef recipes when googling 'Christmas Dinner Recipes'. Apparently, he expected there to be a goodly number of ham ideas for the proper and traditional family Christmas dinner. My family's tradition was to get whatever was the best deal that particular year. We've had turkey, ham, porkloin, roast beef, tenderloin... I've had the great pleasure of hosting or co-hosting 'parish family' holiday dinners (for folks who, for whatever reason, were separated from family and all of whose 'secular' friends had family obligations of their own). I did a goose with lingonberry sauce and roasted root vegetables one year. Another year's holiday dinner coincided (on the 5th day of Christmas) with the final installment of an AdChrEd Advent series on Feasts and Fasts and featured cornish game hen with wild rice stuffing on a bed of sauteed spinach and 5 carmelized onion rings served with a pear glaze. I prefer to reserve loins (pork or tender or whatever) for New Year's events, since they lend themselves more to buffet-style gatherings. But, What are your favorite holiday menus? Does anyone have a particularly favorite holiday ham entree recipe that I could share with my frat brother? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sibyl Smirl Ah, to have a real live CHEF to cook Christmas Dinner! ;^) That goose with lingonberry sauce sounds like Nero Wolfe's Christmas. Sadly, I have no menu ideas but the super-traditional turkey and fixins' that any of us could write in our sleep ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sally Mullock Over here 99.99% of families have turkey - not having had it last month, in fact not since Easter probably. What you are calling ham, is I suspect what we call gammon. Ham is precooked and sliced for butties. Gammon is for roasting .. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sibyl Smirl So _that's_ what "gammon" is! I've seen the word before in British novels, but never paused long enough to look it up! Todd, it just occurred to me that some of my family who cooked a huge meal once added Beef Wellington and basic baked ham to the turkey so that those who didn't want turkey, or didn't want total turkey, could have their choice. And I've seen the name and concept of "turducken" tossed around this year and for several years now, apparently a turkey stuffed with a boned duck, but have never eaten it. Still not much help, I suppose. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas N Rightmyer Ham is the upper leg of the pig. Wikipedia suggests that the British term is gammon. In Virginia and other places in the south some ham is air-dried with salt cure and seasoned to make "country ham" which tastes very different from the moist packaged version. It is frequently served with American biscuits - which are very different from what the Birtish call biscuits and Americans call crackers. The Wikipedia article is a good introduction. I went to the funeral today of Flower Ross who was instrumental in developing the Education for Ministry program of lay adult religious education at the University of the South in Sewanee, TN. We had ham biscuits at the reception after the service. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sally Mullock Tom, it's too late over here for me to get into a discussion of British v American food terms with Sibyl but I will continue tomorrow. Suffice to say, I wish I could get those round tubs of biscuits that you just bake over here as I love them!! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ken Peck I've been a guest for Thanksgiving & Christmas for over a decade. But when I cooked, I favored turkey for Christmas, roast beef for Christmas and ham for New Years. One year when I was the rector of St. Christopher's, Bandera, I had bought the Christmas turkey. Fortunately I hadn't undertaken to thaw the bird on Christmas Eve, because that afternoon the local undertaker showed up with a thawed turkey. But what to do with the other turkey in my small freezer? I had planned on having friends over for New Year's but I was certain that the traditional approach to turkey wouldn't be a great idea after Thanksgiving and Christmas. (Why are these holidays so close together anyway?) I came up with a French receipe for dinde. It involved a sausage and walnut stuffing and, if I recall correctly, layers of bacon on the breast instead of basting. Probably a receipe for a coronary. One thing about the turkey/roast beef/ham arrangement is that leftovers provided a variety for sandwiches. And yes, I've been to these holiday dinners where there were a variety of meats offered. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ken Peck Of course, the real Texas Christmas-time delicacies are pork-tamales. They aren't particularly easy to make. Even many good Mexican cooks are known to buy commercially made tamales. But not the sort one buys in cans in the grocery store. The really good ones are ordered from companies that specialize in tamales. It may be too late to order them for this Christmas, though. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Roy Kennish I enjoy all the meats and birds mentioned, also duck, pheasant and guinea hen. Guinea hen is especially nice but you need quite a few to feed a large party. My favorite side dish calls for one head broccoli and one head cauliflour cooked together and finished off in the oven, covered with melted cheese of choice. I like cheddar and monterrey jack is also good. JAMES kENNISH ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David What about goose? I had that one year for Christmas dinner, accompanied by a red Graves. VG. David ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Roy Kennish Of course, goose is excellent. I enjoyed it two Christmases ago. Some people are afraid of cooking goose but they needn't be. You need a roasting pan large enough to hold the goose on a rack so it can drain properly. If you have some extra mason jars goose fat may be used for future cooking. James Kennish ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dave Barton Not exactly, but close (about the turducken, I mean). A turkey, a duck, and a chicken (the "en" of turducken) are all boned --- all three. The chicken is stuffed, and a coating of *another* stuffing is placed on the chicken. The chicken is placed inside the duck, and yet *another* layer of stuffing is placed on the duck. It is then placed in the turkey, and all shaped as much as possible like birds. Cooking this monster is practically impossible. By the time the inner stuffing is even warm, let alone hot enough to kill all the nasty little buggies, the outside is crisped. Professional ovens can create an even temperature for long, slow roasting that will at least get everything cooked. You can then warm it in the oven, making the turducken one of the meals that it really is better to buy cooked. It is cut straight across, since all the birds are boned, leaving each slice containing some turkey, some duck, some chicken, and three separate stuffings. My wife's family has made a tradition of roast beef. A standing rib roast, properly trimmed and with little decorations on the ribs beats the living heck out of turkey for sheer swank. Prime rib makes a wonderful holiday meal. Dave Barton ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sibyl Smirl I think I remember that "goose grease" is also medicinal. But I might be wrong. It might just have been a base for creams and salves, as vaseline and lanolin are now, when it was common. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kathie Goblirsch We have goose every year. I love it -- it is all *dark* meat. To me, turkey breast is dry and tasteless. We also have wild rice with onion and mushrooms sauteed in butter. Lime Jello mold with mandarin orange segments and crushed pineapple for a palate cleanser. Which reminds me, I have to clear space in the freezer tomorrow so I can buy our goose and store it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sibyl Smirl Yup. If I'm going to eat turkey breast meat, I want lots of cranberry sauce with it, or maybe gravy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gary Gooch St. Mark's in San Marcos has traditionially served Christmas tamales after the Christmas Eve service. Once or twice we've had a man making them in the kitchen on the spot. One year I asked the Mexican lady in charge of the food if she had made them. She said no, she bought them at Sam's, and that they were almost as good as homemade. So you might give Sam's Club a try if you can't get them specially made. Gary+ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dave Barton That's because almost all turkey breast *is* dry and tasteless. Turkey is such a big bird that it is very difficult to cook the dark meet thoroughly and still have the breast be done just right, juicy and flavorful. Cooks have tried various methods down through the years. Larding, flavor injectors, "butterball" turkeys, low and slow, all of these are attempts to get the breast and the thigh to come out at the same time. There are two methods that tend to work better than others. The first is to separate the bird into breast and legs / wings and bake them all for different times. The thighs go in first, for about 45 minutes to an hour. The breast goes in second, and the wings go in last. The problem here is that you have to eyeball things. By far the best way to tell when a bird is done is internal temperature (please don't use those "pop-up" thermometers; they never pop until the meat has shrunk away and is, well, dry and tasteless.) The best you can do is measure each one separately and also take them *out* when they are done. If you do this, you will have a pretty good bird, if a bit uncoordinated. The second is to brine the turkey. SEE RECIPE: Brining the turkey ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: TODD MASHLAN Sibyl writes: >I think I remember that "goose grease" is also medicinal. But I might >be wrong. It might just have been a base for creams and salves, as >vaseline and lanolin are now, when it was common.< All I recall is that I ended up with nearly two gallons! of grease from 1 bird! And, after nearly two full days of cooking (I made the pate the day before), I wasn't in the mood for making salve!