So, what are you guys planning to cook for Christmas this year? 

 

This is my menu this year. All are my inventions  

 

- Sea urchin ceviche

- Ham consomme with summer vegetables

- Roast Bresse-style chicken with Sauce Arigote, potatoes, and carrots

- Cassata in a Christmas Pudding style

 

Every year, the idea of my menu is to keep it light and cool but still capture the flavours people associate with Christmas. Years ago, I served European style Christmas dinners, which was always too rich and heavy for December heat. I wanted to serve ham, but there is always too much meat and there are leftovers for weeks. So I hit on the idea of making it lighter - turn it into a consomme! This will be the first year I will not be serving turkey. I managed to find a Bresse-style chicken, and these chickens are monsters. The one I ordered weighs 3.5kg. 

 

These are pictures from 2014: 

 

 

Tunnel boned poussin stuffed with bacon and mushroom couscous. 

 

And these were from 2015: 

 

Traditional caviar service. 

 

White asparagus with 63deg egg, baby manchego, and red peppercorns. 

 

Roast baby fennel with St Agur, honey, and lemon. 

 

Turkey porchetta roll (whole deboned turkey stuffed with truffle butter, sous-vided, fried, and garnished with fresh truffle). 

 

Christmas meringue. (The only dish which I cheated - I bought the meringue shells from the supermarket and filled it with a fruit coulis which I made). 

Simply stunning................Merry Xmas

Food p@rn at its best.  Looks awesome Keith!

This year's Xmas dinner will be one that is a small and cosy affair.  The planned menu will be 'portion easy' and will take on a cultural twist(Dutch) from my spouse's side.

 Prawn cocktail  & Platter of fresh oysters, Cider cured ham with apple and kumquat glaze, Sous vide saddle of rabbit with cognac, berry pavlova and xmas pudding.

 

Mate, im coming to your place for lunch this year!  YUM

G'day all, wow that looks fantastic!  As I'm now on a permanent diet of sorts, my food has to be mostly protein, no more than 70 grams of carbohydrate per day and minimal fat.  Oh well, wish me luck!  Regards, Felix.    

Still working on the menu but this is how the table looked last year before the carnage

Tradition rules here.

Chrissy brekky of French bubbles and local prawns and first splash in pool.

 

Huge ham glazed and ovened, Turkey cooked the day before(I reckon it's an emu or an ostrich to be honest it's that big) and now smoked for 6 hours very slowly, almost cold smoked. Xmas pud and numerous other 'stuff' cooked and prepared by the dinner table guests.

 

We're seating 30+ and probably a dozen very annoying ankle biters.

A sister with 7 kids all partnered and all breeding and not a bloody catholic in sight...go figure.

 

1960 Xmas dinners are so similar to ours and that's a good thing for our family unit. We toast the departed and acknowledge their influence on the menu and welcome the new additions from the Millennials and GenY and X.

 

The seafood is local and half or better will have been caught by me and a nephew/niece or two.

 

Apart from a brief quiet moment as everything is served, we don't all sit down together, we all scatter. Eldest get best seats the rest take what they can find.

 

Who can seat 40 odd at once ffs.

 

Hope everyone's Xmas is as good as ours is[will be].

 

All the best you lot for Chrissy.

I ended up serving five courses. I could not find sea urchin in my fishmonger's so I made something else instead. It was really warm yesterday, so my light and cool menu worked pretty well. Here are some pics: 

 

 

"Modern Bloody Mary". Clarified tomato water (2kg of very ripe tomatoes yields 800mL of tomato water), Grey Goose Vodka, Smoked tomato granita, and peeled cherry tomato injected with flavourings (Worcestershire sauce). 

 

 

"Ham and Pea Consomme". Peas and ham cubes were encapsulated in an aspic made from reserved ham consomme. 

 

 

Pour the consomme into the bowl, and the gelatin begins to melt ...

 

 

And you end up with a very nice clear, clean, and bright tasting broth. 

 

 

"Mushroom with Mushroom sauce". Flame grilled King mushrooms with wild fennel fronds, served with a spicy mushroom sauce. 

 

 

"Roast chicken in a roast chicken". The chicken was a monster 4kg bird from [url=http://www.milkingyardfarm.com.au/]Milking Yard Farm[/url]. First, chicken necks were roasted to make a concentrated chicken stock. From this, a 3% brine was made and injected into the chicken. It was allowed to rest overnight, then roasted for 6 hours in a 70C rotisserie, then allowed to rest again for an hour. It was finished with a blast of heat to make the skin crispy. 

 

The rest of the chicken stock was made into a Sauce Ravigote. 

 

 

Triple cooked potatoes in duck fat. 

 

 

Flame grilled asparagus. 

 

 

Sous-vide carrots with honey and lavender, with roasted hazelnuts. 

 

 

Dessert was an ice cream Cassata with Christmas pudding flavours. Unfortunately, my mirror glaze did not turn out. 

Edited December 24, 20169 yr by Keith_W

This is one of the most beautiful menu's I have seen. 

 

Just beautiful !!!!

 

I normally do a 12 - 15  hour slow roasted pork and duck fat potatoes and few other things but not doing much this Xmas just making some coq au vin and a Torducken roast.