English Christmas Dinner

We spent a bit of time this summer with friends in Lancashire, England. And call me crazy, but I love English food.

It’s so easy to be vegetarian in England. I don’t know if it’s because of the punk movement, Morrissey, mad cow disease, or general enlightenment, but I can walk into any Marks & Spencer food stall and gaze upon a sea of packages marked clearly with a green V. Seriously, delicious: grain salads with butternut squash and goat cheese, or tomato and mozzarella en croute, or portabello mushroom pappardelle.

I knew we’d be having Christmas dinner with my family, who tend to flake out on things like ceremonies and rituals and traditions. To stop the holiday being a huge disappointment for me, I decided to throw a pre-emptive Christmas dinner party for Richard and me. I made a mushroom Wellington, Yorkshire puddings, roasted Brussels sprouts with chestnuts, roasted parsnips and carrots, and roasted potatoes. For dessert, a Bûche de Noël with meringue mushrooms.

Here’s the mushroom Wellington.

And here’s the table set with everything:

And the Bûche:

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The Day Before:

• Put your box of puff pastry in the fridge to thaw.
• Make your meringue mushrooms, if you’re planning to use them. I used this method and they were easy.
• Roast your chestnuts (about 6 oz) in the oven. I’ve never found a good technique for this where you don’t end up with raw fingers from trying to peel the skins off, but I did try this video tutorial last time and the results were marginally better.

 

Bûche de Noël

• To make the cake, I used Martha’s recipe, because I don’t have time for experimenting.
• I then filled it with whipped cream mixed with a bit of confectioner’s sugar and cocoa powder—just to taste. It’s so much easier, lighter, and less fussy than the chestnut cream recommended in the recipe above.
• I rolled it, wrapped it in plastic wrap, and chilled it in the fridge for a few hours.
• I then made a double boiler by putting a metal bowl over a pot of simmering water. I added 12 oz of good chocolate chips to the bowl, a bit of cream, and a bit of instant espresso. To make a ganache you generally add equal parts cream and chocolate, but in this case I just added the cream till I achieved the consistency I wanted, which was fairly thick. I then spread the ganache over the chilled cake and raked a fork through it to resemble bark. I trimmed off each end of the log on a diagonal and sprinkled powdered sugar over it all to look like snow.

 

Roast Potatoes with Rosemary

This method is truly life-changing. You have to try it. It’s murder trying to clean the pan afterwards, but it’s worth it. (You can line the pan with foil to avoid getting out the Brillo pads.)

• Turn the oven up to 450°F.
• Preheat the roasting pan in the oven for 10 minutes. Do not add the potatoes yet!
• Pull the pan out of the oven and add your new potatoes tossed with olive oil, preferably size C yellow ones. These are also sometimes called chats.
• Put them in the 450° oven for about 30 minutes.
• Use this opportunity to finely chop about 2 sprigs of rosemary, or however much you like.
• Take the pan out, flip the potatoes over, and squash them slightly with the back of a metal spoon. You don’t want them smashed, just slightly rounded.
• Add sea salt, freshly cracked black pepper, and rosemary, and put the pan back in the oven for at least 20 minutes.
• When you take them out the potatoes will be lovely and creamy on the inside (with no butter!) and crispy on the outside.

 

Parsnips and Carrots with a Honey-Balsamic Glaze

(do these at the same time as the Brussels sprouts)

• Preheat oven to 400°F.
• Peel 1 lb of carrots and 1 lb of parsnips and cut into sticks.
• Toss carrots and parsnips with olive oil to coat and spread over a foil-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle generously with sea salt.
• Roast until tender and ever-so-slightly charred, about 20 minutes.
• Toss warm carrots with a sauce made of 1 1/2 Tbsp butter, 1 1/2 Tbsp honey, and 1 tsp balsamic vinegar.

 

Brussels Sprouts with Chestnuts

• Preheat oven to 400°F.
• Cut the horrible bottoms off your sprouts (about 2 lbs but this is flexible), then cut in half and toss with a little bit of olive oil.
• Place cut-side-down on a foil-lined baking sheet and sprinkle generously with sea salt.
• Roast for about 18 minutes, until tender and just starting to brown a bit.
• Melt about 2 Tbsp butter in a large sauté pan.
• Roughly chop chestnuts (one or two handfuls, or about 6 oz) and add to the skillet. Sauté until you start to see a tiny bit of browning.
• Add 2 fluid ounces of sherry, then add the Brussels sprouts, and cook until the sherry has reduced and everything is nicely combined.

 

Mushroom Wellington

• Dice an onion and sauté in a couple of tablespoons of butter till caramelized. Salt to taste.
• Add a package of sliced mushrooms (about 10 oz), a bit more salt, and sauté till nicely browned. They’ll give off their liquid, then that will evaporate, and then they’ll start looking good.
• Add a few sprigs of chopped thyme (don’t use the stems), a couple of splashes of sherry, and a couple of splashes of cream. You could also try a different wine, or balsamic vinegar, but the sherry is more English.
• Put the mushroom mixture in the fridge to cool off a bit so you don’t melt the puff pastry. Leave it for about 20 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 400°F.
• Roll out one sheet of puff pastry on a lightly floured surface. Pile the mushrooms on one side of the pastry and fold the other over. Then cut and crimp to your heart’s delight. I added a few holly leaves I cut out of the leftover puff pastry sheet.
• Brush with an egg beaten with a tablespoon of water.
• Pop in the oven and bake till golden brown and warmed through, about 20-30 minutes. You just want to watch it a bit.

 

Vegetarian Yorkshire Puddings

(no beef drippings!)

•  Preheat the oven to 450°F.
• Lightly oil the cups of a 12-hole non-stick muffin pan. Place in the oven to heat up.
• To make the batter, mix 1 c of all-purpose flour and 4 large eggs.
• Add 200 mL of milk (a little more than 3/4 c) and whisk until lump-free.
• Season with salt and pepper.
• Remove the muffin tin from the oven and fill each cup with batter.
• Bake in the oven, undisturbed, for 20-25 minutes, when the puddings have puffed up and browned.
• Serve immediately!

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