FLOWER POT KITCHEN: PERFECT CHRISTMAS DINNER WITH TIMING GUIDES

27 Dec 2017

PERFECT CHRISTMAS DINNER WITH TIMING GUIDES

Easiest Ever Christmas Day Turkey Step by Step Timmings

What a wonderful day and what a wonderful meal that brings everyone who celebrates Christmas the whole world over together all on this day sharing great food and creating more family memories making this day quite magical indeed. There is no need to be shackled to the kitchen cooker all day, you can easily navigate your cooking times around a slow roasting long resting turkey that means you can serve a most moist perfect turkey with all the trimmings and have still spent your day with everyone too.

Easiest Ever Christmas Cooking Guide Below...

Prep ahead time 30 minutes / On the day oven cooking time 4 hrs / 1 hr hands on/off for the trimmings

Ingredients

(Serves 8)

1 8kg / 19lbs high animal welfare bronze turkey

10 mins per lb cooking time + 11/2 hrs resting time

(lots for left overs)

2 packs butter

1 set of giblets

(for the gravy)

Serve with all the usual trimmings

Cooking The Perfect Turkey

The night before Christmas take your turkey and carefully using the back of a spoon or your hand lift the skin away from the meat, be extra careful not to tear the skin, slice the butter in to half inch thick slices and place the slices of butter under the skin all over the turkey breasts. Keep in the fridge until ready to cook.

Christmas morning bring the turkey out of the fridge for a couple of hours before ready to start cooking to come up to room temperature, this lowers the cooking time and encourages a juicy turkey. Pre heat your oven to 200 C, place the turkey in a deep roasting tin and place in the oven in covered for 30 minutes to brown off the skin, once browned cover the turkey well in foil, turn the oven down to 150 C and leave the turkey to cook for the remainder of the cooking time, around 3 hours in total. Once your turkey has reached 65 C remove from the oven and leave covered to rest.

That's it turkey done!

The Christmas Dinner Cooking Schedule

Serving Dinner at 4pm

10am Turkey out to come up to room temperature

11am Pre heat oven 200 C

11.30am Turkey in to brown off for 30 minutes

12pm Turn oven down to 150 C, Cover turkey in foil

2.30pm TURKEY OUT leave covered to rest

2.30pm Par boil potatoes 15 minutes only, drain and fluff up

3pm Roast potatoes tossed in goose fat in to oven

3.30pm Pigs in blankets in to roast

3.30pm Sausage meat stuffing balls in to bake

3.40pm Brussels sprouts on to boil

3.45pm Pour of turkey resting juices add to gravy stock bring to simmer

3.55pm Carve turkey, serve up platters of roast potatoes, sausages, stuffing and sprouts, mugs of gravy.

Check list

Turkey, Roast Potatoes, Pigs in Blankets, Stuffing, Sprouts, Gravy

THE MOST AWESOME GRAVY

Christmas Eve Prep Ahead

1 knob of butter

1 dash of olive oil

1 onion chopped

2 carrots chopped

2 sticks celery chopped

Turkey giblets

2 bay leaves

10 black peppercorns

200ml dry white wine

2 ltrs water

In a large pan melt the butter and olive oil together, soften the onion, carrot and celery then add the giblets, bay and peppercorns and cook for 10 minutes then add the wine and reduce by half. Add 2 litres of water and simmer for an hour or so until the stock has reduced by half. You should be left with approx 1000ml. This is your base for the most awesome gravy.

On the day pour off all the resting juices from the turkey pan, leave to settle and remove most of the top fat layer, add to your prepped ahead gravy stock above, place in a saucepan and bring to a simmer reducing to thicken, if you want a thicker gravy whisk in some equally smushed together flour and butter roux to thicken, check for seasoning and serve.

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LIFE MY PASSION

Welcome to my daily life of cooking, one winters day many years ago my family and I were all inspired by a back to back rainy day of River Cottage this got us to stop talking about and start actually doing, suddenly three weeks later eight vegetable beds were dug, greenhouse erected and our first vegetables were propagating, this was the start to raising and growing our own food, our fabulous son Oscar changed our path in life which lead us to sell our small thriving restaurant of 10 yrs and to start our new life (Terrifying!) a life of the self sufficient in touch with nature and seasons, taking a step back and looking forward to a slower change of pace and making the most of every moment.

My passion for cooking was stronger than ever and having time at home with Oscar I found I had a new direction and I was no longer striving for perfection, I was suddenly very passionate for the enjoyment of the other side of food, something I had not realised, being the Chef/Cook and every other duty of your own small restaurant made me see that I never actually took time to cook what I wanted!

So there I was muddy boots and hands digging deep in more than one sense and I found myself transported back in time to where everyone grew some of their own food, it is a wonderful world with a real sense of achievement and loss, Slugs Snails and Caterpillars! But thats another story! Childhood memories of summers when I lived with my grand parents reminded me of so much that I had learnt about the make do and mend generation that I had forgotten.

Now as a family we love our free wild food days where we gather what nature has provided, have gone from being mini mini garden urban small holders, who did raised pigs at home because we could not wait to find land and supporting ourselves from our garden to now owning a very small farm that allows us to grow more vegetables for the whole of our family and neighbours, raise our own gorgeous Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, (Sausages!) and pets! Dorset Down sheep, chickens for eggs and pet goats! Suddenly having large quantities of produce started to wake up the Cook in me!

The Cook was awake that part of me that wants to cook for the masses and I found myself setting up Flowerpot Kitchen, a Farmers Market Stall, I wanted to use our honest raised meats and make old fashioned pork pies, rabbit pies and game pies from the local game keeper along with old fashioned techniques and the best hot water crust pastry. This in turn grew to a small cottage industry from home weekly supplying three farm shops and a deli along with also attending three farmers markets A few years later there came a time when my son Oscar's health changed and it was an easy decision to stop.

I still hold the occasional pop up 40 seater restaurant or gourmet lunch which we do for local charities for the love of sharing food and to remind that Cook in me why I love our go slower self sufficient life!

So here I am sitting amoung the vegetables watching the chickens loving that every season nature teaches me something new and that nature is in charge! She has taught me to just go with it and grow. Give it a try from a tray of salad on your windowsill to a few tomato plants it all counts.