How to do Xmas without wanting to murder your relatives
Friday, December 4, 2009 at 10:33PM Consider the following three facts.
- Brought up by a stay-at-home Mum who cooked everything from scratch (more out of financial necessity than choice), I come from a family who're a bit snooty about putting shop-bought anything in their mouths. On any ordinary day of the year, let alone Christmas.
- I usually do the lion's share of Christmas day cooking.
- I like to relax on Christmas day.
Seemingly incompatible aren't they? But I know from experience that all three can be coaxed into wonderful harmony. In fact, I have not just one, but two, sets of proof.
Exhibit 1: Christmas 2006
Bored of the same old same old, the Catto family hire an apartment in San Sebastián, a picturesque little city on the north coast of Spain where my sister has been working for several months. On Christmas Eve, we discover a marvellous delicatessen and food emporium - the place to buy food it turns out - and stock up on festive goodies. A selection of Spanish cured meats and a deeply perfumed melon to start; a guinea fowl for main; regional patisserie for dessert.
On the big day itself, we go for a stroll on the beach. The ice cold air, sharp light and bright blue skies shock and innervate. Back at the apartment, dinner takes a record-breaking hour and a half to prepare. And would have taken even less if it weren't for the limited array of kitchen utensils and equipment - standard rental apartment fare. Unlike every other Christmas I can recall, there is no split into kitchen drones and living room revellers. Everyone mucks in. Spirits are high and a sense of togetherness pervades. Further bolstered by a good few vinos, after-dinner high jinks culminate in my sister dressing up in a self-fashioned lettuce drainer and scarf burqa and a three-foot planter on her head. We laugh so hard it hurts.
Exhibit 2: Christmas 2007
We want to repeat the leisurely, family-centred experience of the previous year, while reintroducing a measure of tradition. The solution? A pared down menu where most of the items can be made in advance, leaving as little as possible to be done on the day. Soup instead of our usual salad starter - too much last minute finicking about. A side of Galloway beef instead of a bird. Hurrah! No tweezing and singeing recalcitrant feathers, boiling down innards for stock, stuffing the cavity and sewing up its bum. Roast potatoes are swapped for celeriac purée - forget the headache of cooking two items at different temperatures in a single oven. We can't face entirely forgoing our beloved clootie dumpling, the Scottish equivalent of Christmas pudding but milder tasting and steamed in a 'cloot' (Scottish for 'cloth'). Made six weeks in advance for the flavours to meld and mature, reheating takes 2-3 hours with constant attention to prevent it from boiling dry. It's reserved for Boxing Day and in its place we have trifle topped with syllabub rather than cream. A tokenistic concession to lightness.
After our Buck's Fizz breakfast - a long held family tradition - nobody knows quite what to do with themselves. Everything that can be done has been done. Relaxing at such an early stage in the proceedings is so uncustomary that we need time to adjust. After a while spent chatting idly, we go for a walk in the local botanic gardens. Afterwards, everybody has loads of time to get their glad rags on, make themselves look pretty and do any last minute gift wrapping. There is an obligatory 25 minutes of chaos prior to serving the main course, ensuring everything is ready at the same time and plating up. But that is the only stressful period of the entire day. We smugly conclude that we've nailed the perfect Crimbo.
Flaming the clootie
Praying at its alter
Christmas 2008
Dad develops an annoying case of festive amnesia and announces that 'Christmas isn't Christmas without prawn cocktail, then scotch broth, a bird and all the trimmings, rounded off with a choice of clootie dumpling or trifle.' Wherever has he got these ideas? We only ever have three courses and there are no options. You get what you're given. Mum and I desperately try to persuade him that he didn't feel this way last year. Or the year before. Alas, to no avail. Having had a domineering mother, I'm summarily informed that he won't put up with being told what to do by a bossy daughter. He decides to take Christmas day dinner under his wing and confidently states that he'll take care of everything; us ladies can sit back and relax. This strikes me as a somewhat risky strategy given that his culinary coordination starts and ends with Sunday breakfast. But the matter is clearly closed.
My sister gives birth to her first child a week earlier and spends the day wandering about in her goonie, breastfeeding for 3-5 hour intervals. Adam, her partner, hangs at the ready, changing nappies and to-ing and fro-ing on instruction. Weirdly, Dad is largely absent; if not in body, then in willingness to participate. With no forward preparations (apart from a gargantuan trifle on my part, and even that isn't finished), Mum and I spend a marathon five hours in his minute galley kitchen. I resent every minute of it and don't even like what's on the menu. I make a personal vow to never, ever repeat the experience.
Christmas 2009
Delicate negotiations began about a month ago, location being the first item up for discussion. Portugal is mooted, but gets ruled out early on as everybody is broke. We settle on Dad's place again - the flat that he rents, on a beautiful castle estate, in order to be close to his work. Better than the joint parental residence in Inverness as we can have more room by renting the adjoining holiday apartment. We can hardly contain our excitement at the prospect of a baby-paraphernalia, soiled-nappy free zone.
Thoughts turn to the menu. Mum reports that Dad has offered to do the cooking. A Greek Kleftiko. Really special, but not remotely Christmassy. Amazingly, she proposes that we leave him to it! Now she has festive amnesia. I gently remind her of last year's debacle and suggest that accepting may be slightly irresponsible. Secretly, I am wondering if she is out of her mind.
We toss some menu ideas around, based on the 2007 fuss-free yet traditional principles, and decide on:
Ruminating on how best to present our fait accompli to the family patriarch, Mum is hit with an inspiration. A Xmas choice: if he doesn't fancy our three-course exercise in simplicity and subtlety, that's fine, we'll do our thing next door and he can stay home with Kleftiko for one. Getting your own way - it's all in the presentation.
Ps the mousse is a nice idea, but I suspect it'll remain just that.
Reader Comments (4)
Hi, well, now i know what's on the menu. Pooey. Had thought i would wait till the day to know. Nevermind. Looks absolutley spiffing and delightful.
You never mentioned that my sieve on face and scarf was supposed to represent a woman in a Burka. Excuse me anyone who believes this is not PC. Poetic and comedic license allowed PLEASE!
Well, it's lonely on the hilltop the day. Had a wee bawl to myself. Felix and i wandered to the shop and i bought some Heinz tomato soup, ambrosia rice pudding, 2 white breakfast rolls and a quart o tunnocks wafers or seems that way - 8 in a pack. I ate 5 on the way up the road. Oh, i forgot, Batchelor's chicken noodles to boot. Ate the lot over the course of the day, brings back fond home-school lunch memories. Dipped my buttered roll into the sweet and tasty soup - yum yum. Even let Felix have noodles and rice pudding for tea - the social'll be onto me - all that sugar and salt. Felt like/needed a day off.
Much love to ya sissy wissy woo woo
Finka
hey sonnda,
you seem like the sort of girl who would know....my lovely neighbour brought me a giant clootie dumpling for our annual fireworks night, we were overloaded by cake so I shoved it in the freezer, have I ruined it? can it be saved? and if so what do I do with it and how is it best eaten. someone told me i should eat it with cheese?
I love your foodie blog, keep it up. angharadx
Hey Angharad
You have a lovely neighbour indeed! And the good news is your clootie can be saved after all.
To bring it back to life, first defrost fully and then reheat by boiling in a pan for 2-3 hours. Some shenanigans involved here:
1) Put a dinner plate in the bottom of the pan for the clootie to sit on.
2) Add water and bring to the boil before adding the dumpling.
3) Keep on a simmer for 2-3 hours. Less than that and won't be hot through, more and will be soggy, anything in between is more about having leeway for serving up, ie whenever you can be arsed in that hour! Or water has reduced sufficiently - see below.
4) Water should never come more than half way up otherwise it'll be soggy - easy when you're topping up but bit harder to judge when you 1st add the dumpling to the pan. Just tip some out if it comes more than half way up.
5) Hang the tied bit of cloth over the side of the pan.
6) Check regularly throughout cooking time to ensure pan doesn't boil dry - believe me, an unqualified disaster for both clootie and pan!
7) The water level must never go lower than the bottom inch or so of the clootie; I tend to let the last addition go to that level before removing from the pan. Again, helps to avoid the soggs.
8) Let cool for a few minutes before unwrapping. Leave only as long as required to be able to handle the cloth without it burning you. Longer and the skin will stick to the cloth - another minor disaster as skinless clootie just aint the same.
9) Peel the cloth away very carefully to keep as much skin as possible on the dumpling. You'll lose most of the top, but it's possible to keep the sides almost fully intact if the cloth is removed whilst it's hot enough, See the piccie above to see an almost perfectly full-skinned one.
10) Cut slices as you need and serve warm with cream (single or double pouring) or vanilla ice-cream. Some people have brandy butter but since clootie is full of suet, I find that toooo much.
11) After that 1st serving, it can only be reheated in the micro. Plate/bowl up and cover with cling for perfect results.
12) Is great fried with ye olde English breakfast. Might sound strange, but think fruit pudding. Is really not that different!
Sit back and ENJOY.
Thanks for your bloggy visit and compliments. Lovely to hear from you and hope to see you back.
Have a wonderful Crimbo
Sx
wowsers!
thankyou for your help, I will let you know how we get on. We are properly snowed in so it may well be christmas dinner.
angharadx