![Dev's tandoori turkey] Spiced turkey puts a whole new spin on the traditional Christmas feast. Image: The Cook's Tale](/resources/images/18661142.jpg?type=mds-article-962)
Think our county’s foodie experts put their collective feet up come Christmas time? Think again! They do know how to make lives easier for themselves when it comes to cooking a festive feast though.
Katy Newton is founder of Wasted Kitchen, a commercial business making delicious takeaways, ferments and deli salad boxes from surplus food, supplied by companies such as Macknade in Faversham. A finalist in this year’s BBC Food & Farming Awards, Wasted Kitchen also shares skills to help people build their kitchen confidence and nutritional knowledge – look out on the website for its Eat The Seasons weekly updates, where Katy and her team will be sharing Christmas tips and recipes as we head into December.
‘My top tip is to have a list! We always have a full traditional Christmas Dinner at our house for at least 10 and it comes with all the trimmings. So not only does having a list help me avoid wastage, it keeps me sane over a very busy time at work and home – I know what I need to get, that I've got enough of what I need and that everything’s sorted.
My list always allows for flexibility - including the “drop-in” teas and dinners that always occur over Christmas when everyone’s socialising - and I do this by ensuring we’ve got cheeses, pickles, salads and krauts that I know will get eaten or that we can use later on. At Wasted Kitchen, we make a Christmas Sprout Kraut and Kent Cucumber Pickles, both of which go beautifully with cold meats and winter salads, like my remoulade. Sharper flavours and raw vegetables in salads contrast so well with the richness of other Christmas food.
wastedkitchen.co.uk
Katy’s Celeriac Remoulade
Says Katy: ‘This is my favourite salad. We used to have it France but could never get it at home - so it had to be on our list when we started making salads. And it turns out it's popular here, too!’
Ingredients (makes 500g)
250g grated raw celeriac - to prep celeriac, slice the rooty bottom off and peel the rest of the celeriac. We keep the skin for stock and soups.
75g crème fraîche - we get ours from Hinxden Farm Dairy in Cranbrook – it’s delicious
75g plain yoghurt – again, we use Hinxden
75g good mayonnaise
35g grain mustard
35g Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper
Handful of fresh parsley or chopped chives if you've got them
Method
Prep your celeriac and put it in a large bowl (that will take all the other ingredients and gives you plenty of space to stir!)
Combine all your other ingredients except the salt, pepper and herbs in another bowl
Pour the dressing mix onto the celeriac and turn gently to combine
Season to taste, add herbs if you've got them/ want to
That's it!
This will keep in the fridge for five days. Perfect to make a couple of days before Christmas. Worth noting: if you’re using crème fraiche and yoghurt that is non-homogenised (like that from local dairies) there can be a bit of separation after a couple of days. Just turn the salad with a spoon or fork to re-combine.
Stefano Cuomo is the sixth generation of his family to lead Macknade, Kent’s leading food hall, based just outside Faversham.
‘Christmas has always been about tradition for me - traditions passed down, chopped, changed, developed and shared. The secular focus is the 25th and the great British turkey feast, with our turkey slow-grown, free-range and of course from Kent. Christmas for me, though, really kicks in with the cold, creeping evenings of December and steadily builds and builds to a frenzied climax on Christmas Eve, when, buzzing on espresso-and-mince-pie-fuelled adrenaline, we shut up shop for a handful of days, kick back and relax.
True to our Southern Italian, ‘Catholic’ roots, supper on Christmas eve is a fishy affair that takes the same shape year on year – essentially, someone will be sent out to see what is available and we take it from there. By 6pm a bottle of white wine will be open in the kitchen while ingredients are prepared for the feast ahead, windows steamed up by pans bubbling on the stove top.
Come Christmas Day, we’ll have all the traditional trimmings with our turkey, plus a Christmas pudding, but for those who want something lighter there’s panettone – ours is baked for Macknade by the Vergani family, in the heart of Milan, the home of traditional panettone. Should there be any leftovers, our trifle recipe is a great way to use them up.
macknade.com
Panettone trifle with boozy cherries
You may want to make individually or in one serving dish, but we’ve given measurements per person, so you can scale up depending on how many guests you’ve got.
Ingredients
1 x 500g Macknade panettone
1 jar Wooden Spoon preserved cherries in kirsch (12 per serving)
100ml double cream, per serving
1/4 tsp icing sugar, per serving
1/2 tbsp natural yoghurt, per serving
Handful of chopped pistachios, per serving
Method
Spoon about 6 cherries per serving in the bottom of your serving dishes.
Slice the panettone, and tear pieces to cover the cherries, making sure to keep the crusts away from the edges for best visual effect.
Spoon enough of the kirsch from the cherry jar over the trifle to just soak the panettone layer, and top with another 6 or so cherries. Cover and chill for at least 4 hours, but preferably overnight.
Add the icing sugar to the double cream and whip until the cream is just a little looser than you’d want to top the trifle.
Add the yogurt and carefully fold it into the cream with a metal spoon or spatula. Be careful not to over mix it, because the yoghurt will thicken the cream.
Spoon the cream over the top of the trifles and finish each with a scattering of chopped pistachios.
Along with his partner Rafael Lopez , Ben is chef-proprietor at acclaimed restaurant, Quince in Westgate-on-sea. His wife Portia heads up the restaurant’s front-of-house team.
‘Christmas Day is busy at our end with me, my wife Portia and our children aged from nine-19 plus any other visiting family around the table. We tend to go for a late lunch, starting around 3pm and I’ll do as much prep as I can the night before – it really is possible to pre-roast all your veg, so you just have to put it through the oven the next day to heat it up and of course dishes like red cabbage taste all the better for being made in advance. Being ahead of the game means I can relax on Christmas Day – preferably with several glasses of Buck’s fizz!
'Last year we had lamb shoulder as the main event, I might do beef this year – but there’ll be turkey, too, even if it’s just a crown, so that there’s something for sandwiches and leftovers on Boxing Day. As well as the traditional Christmas pud, by popular demand there’s something chocolatey on offer, plus a lighter, more fruity pudding – possibly with lemon. And a cheese board is very important - it means there’s always something delicious to tuck into with minimal effort – I’ll be sure to include Ellie’s goat cheese, Bowyer’s brie and Kingcott Blue, all from Kent, on mine.'
quincewestgate.co.uk
Creamed chard
Says Ben, ‘We serve this with any roast and it’s my absolute favourite!’
Ingredients for 4
2tbsp golden rapeseed oil
600g chard, washed and roughly chopped
150ml double cream
100g ancient Ashmore cheddar
1/4 whole nutmeg, ideally freshly grated (or a teaspoon if it’s already grated in a jar)
Method
Over a medium heat flame, heat the oil and then add all of the chard.
Continue to stir chard until it’s completely wilted and any water that comes out of it has evaporated
Now add all the cream and grate in the 1/4 nutmeg.
Simmer gently for 10mins
Using a parmesan grater, grate in all the cheddar.
Serve straight away, or reheat on the day with a dash of water.
Who better than chef of Kent Life’s winning fine dining restaurant of the year award, than to bring us this fabulous turkey recipe?
thecookstale.co.uk
Ingredients
1 small turkey ( approximately 2.5- 3kgs)
4 tablespoons of salt
200 ml lemon juice
500 ml water
200g melted butter
Tandoori marinade
200 ml of vegetable oil
2 tablespoons of turmeric powder
1 tablespoon of red chilli powder
100 grams of ginger paste
50 grams of garlic paste
2 tablespoons of green chilli paste
25 ml of lemon juice
2 tablespoons of chat masala
100 ml of Greek yoghurt
2 tablespoons of fenugreek leaves
25 ml of mustard oil
Method
Take the skin off the whole turkey. Score the breast with a sharp knife.
Make a bath of salt, lemon juice and water. Marinade the turkey in this bath for one hour.
Make the tandoori marinade by blending all the ingredients together.
Take the turkey out of its water bath, dry it off, then rub it thoroughly with the tandoori marinade and leave to rest for two to four hours.
Heat the oven to 120 c and slow-roast the turkey for around 8 hours.
Baste with melted butter every three hours. Collect the juices on the roasting tray and use them to make a delicious Indian inspired masala gravy. Rest for 15-20 minutes and serve.
A cheesy, fishy feast
Lucia Stuart of Wild Kitchen likes to make this simple, luxurious dish at home over Christmas thewildkitchen.net
Steamed Mussels with Melted Camembert
Ingredients for 4
900g scrubbed mussels
250g camembert cheese in its round wooden box – Le Rustique, for instance
Method
Heat a large, solid pan with a lid on top of the stove until it’s steaming hot.
Add the mussels until the pan is half full.
Remove any wrapping from the camembert, then place it, back in its wooden box, on top of the mussels. Put the lid on the pan and allow to steam cook.
The mussels will open (do not attempt to eat any that fail to do so!),and the cheese will melt after four to eight minutes. You’ll notice a lot of mussel stock left in the pan. Save to use in a future risotto!
Serve mussels with the melted cheese in its box, plus freshly made bread to which you’ve added freshly cut or dried seaweed and some foraged dock seeds.
