The issues of Christmas cookery.
If like me – you think Delia Smith’s Christmas is your bible – you may find you need to make one or two changes to your usual Christmas cooking. I still insist of cooking a proper UK style Christmas dinner – rather than the more traditional Kiwi Ham – but that’s just a taste thing. The problem comes with stuffing, turkeys and gravy.
I can now get decent sausage meat from my amazing butchers, who use a UK seasoning in their sausages – so I’m not overpowered by the addition of ginger. Chestnuts are not in season – but thankfully you can get vacuum packed tins of whole chestnuts. (Try Deli’s or Moore Wilsons). However, as far as I can see – if you want to make Delia’s Giblet Gravy – you are stuffed.
Over the past few years I have fought to get fresh turkeys at Christmas, and finally gave up because I just cant be arsed to deal with the snotty comments from shop staff anymore. So this year I have a frozen 1.4kg Turkey Breast. But no giblets. In fact – none of the fresh turkeys had giblets either. So I thought I would wander round a few butchers while doing my last minute shopping, and ask if I could get some separately.
Oh Dear.
What I learned – is that they don’t actually know what giblets are. Now fair enough – I wouldn’t use them for anything (I think that Offal has no place on a plate of food I am actually going to eat) – except it’s the recipe for Delia’s Gravy, and its actually very nice. Not that I’m bad at making gravy without them but hey – this is the way I like to make dinner. So just in case I do need some stock (I usually have enough juices from roasting meat so that I don’t need it) – ive made some chicken stock form left over carcasses of roast chickens.
You also of course have to watch out for the fact that most Turkeys sold here are in fact not 100 turkey – they are injected with brine to make them more moist. As I’ve never roasted a turkey yet that came out dry – and I refuse to eat meat that is stuffed full of sugar – I think this is a travesty. Avoid Tegal chickens and turkey if you too think that there is no need to inject meat with all sorts of guff in order for it to taste edible.
This year – we have also had to make our own Christmas chocolates – because Dorothy’s in Wellington has closed down. They used to sell Sugar Free Chocolates (we cant eat sugar in this house), and that’s very rare indeed. We can get bars of the stuff from Schoc, but although they do fabulous chocolates – none of them are sugar free. So we spent large sums of money on some of the bars, and spent yesterday merrily making truffles with it (Using Delia’s Recipe modifies to take the sugar out).
And I can heartily recommend that you get a tin of Schoc’s Cocoa Powder. I’ve just made a low carb (also Gluten free) chocolate cake out of it (with Splenda and ground almonds instead of sugar and flour), and its come out the richest, chocolatiest cake I’ve ever made. I’m about to use it to make the chocolate custard to add to the cake (Nigella’s Black Forest Trifle – modified). It’s better than Green and Blacks – and that is saying something.
Right – now off to clean the pool – its a glorius day out there, and the pool says its 26 degrees – so we may be going for a dip later.
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2 Comments on The issues of Christmas cookery.
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julian on
Sat, 29th May 2010 4:06 pm
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Avalon on
Sat, 29th May 2010 9:08 pm
buy a crozier’s turkey. you get the giblets with it.their turkeys are free range and infinitely better than tegel etc. they are frozen because they have to be killed in the winter.
Thank You Julian – ill look out for those this year. Had a look at the website: looks great – specifically says they aren’t injected or bleached:
http://www.croziersturkeys.co.nz/about/the-difference/
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