Christmas Lunch 2009

With just three of us for Christmas lunch, it seemed silly to eat something as large as a turkey so we opted for chicken instead.  Thinking it would be easy to find, we didn’t order one which meant Stephen scouring the supermarket shelves on Christmas Eve.  He eventually tracked this down in Waitrose which meant we didn’t have to eat fishfingers for lunch.

Having watched a variety of celebrity chefs discussing the merits of different fats in their Christmas shows, we opted for goose fat to roast the potatoes in.  We used this last year and didn’t detect a discernible difference, this year’s potatoes though were probably the best we’ve ever cooked: creamy, fluffy insides with thick, crunchy coats that were perfect for soaking up gravy.

Since our chicken was giblet-free, we used some chicken legs as a base for the gravy.  Roasted in the oven with a selection of vegetables, this made for a brilliantly rich and deep gravy.  Bread sauce made with brown bread instead of white looked a little odd but had a great flavour.

And lastly, the vegetables.  Cauliflower which was supposed to be covered in a cheese sauce and baked but got forgotten about until it was too late.  Carrots for colour on the plate, Brussels sprouts sauteed with shallots and bacon and savoy cabbage with shallot.  This would have made a perfectly acceptable meal in itself such was the variety of flavour but instead provided a fine accompaniment to the meat and potatoes.

There was Christmas pudding later on but we forgot to photograph that.   The pudding was left over from last year and was even better this time.