What is your favorite holiday food?

[Krummhorn]

That time of the year is here when we start baking special dishes or deserts. When the dinner bell rings, what would you like to see on the table?

My choices:
- Honey Baked Spiral-cut Ham
- Ravioli's and Meatballs
- Chicken Parmigiana (I make this from scratch, btw)

[Corno Dolce]

Mmmm, mmmmmmm Krummhorn,

I do believe...I salivate just thinking about it.

My favorite? Hooboy, thats a toughie - lets see now: Gravlax(Salmon rubbed in limesalt) with honey and dill mustard sauce, served with dill stewed potatoes, Tropical Fruitsalad w/ lettuce, mango, papaya, starfruit, durian, breadfruit, macadamia nuts, and pine nuts. All served with a Piesporter Riesling from the Moselle River Valley.

Cheers,

Corno Dolce

[rojo]

I enjoy all the Yuletide desserts (some of you already knew that) such as Christmas log, Christmas sugar cookies and Nanaimo bars. Anyone else familiar with Nanaimo bars?

[Corno Dolce]

Hi Ms. RoJo,

Do you like the Mint Custard variety of the Nanaimo bar? Its my absolute fav.

Cheers,

Corno Dolce

[Sybarite]

I don't do turkey at Christmas – there's only two of us anyway, plus I don't rate it particularly highly – so I attempt to concoct a new menu each year, which does tend to mean that I don't really have favourites as such.

Thus far, I've planned a starter, which will be pan-fried scallops and black pudding with apple purée. And we might have venison, as done a couple of years ago, with a chocolate sauce.

Dessert will probably be poached pears or crème brûlée.

[Krummhorn]

. . . Anyone else familiar with Nanaimo bars?

Hi Rojo,
I had to look that one up ... Think I gained 4 pounds just looking at the picture Looks absolutely scrumptious

[methodistgirl]

Since I live where I do, I like country ham because it's very salty like
passudo ham. For the holidays, I like turkey, christmas cookies especially
the german ones, plenty of pepperment kisses, plenty of chocolates,
and macroni and cheese casserole. I don't really care for the macroni
and cheese you get from a box. It tastes like cardboard to me. I like
the kind where you take chedder cheese,american cheese, and swiss
where it is baked with some chedder on the top bubbling from the sides.
Yum! I also like some of the brittish or german dishes too. So that is
what I like for christmas dinner and plenty of company. Last year I
set all alone in my apartment with the blues. I hope I don't this year
with the weather being good for the fishes instead of going out for a
walk.
judy tooley

[Krummhorn]

. . . pan-fried scallops and black pudding with apple purée. And we might have venison, as done a couple of years ago, with a chocolate sauce.

Dessert will probably be poached pears or crème brûlée.

Sybarite,

Are these dishes somewhat of a traditional English fare or common to the UK, or perhaps one of your specialty recipe's ? They sound scrumptious.

[musicalis]

On week-end, my family and myself like chinese (or asian) food nems, shopsui, phô ...
J-P

[Sybarite]

Sybarite,

Are these dishes somewhat of a traditional English fare or common to the UK, or perhaps one of your specialty recipe's ? They sound scrumptious.

Thank you, Krummhorn.

Not really traditional dishes: the starter is based on a dish I've seen detailed a couple of times for scallops and chorizo, but the other half isn't fond of hard sausages, so I decided to change it to black pudding and add an apple purée. All those ingredients are native to the UK, so I suppose in that sense it is traditional.

Venison is certainly traditional – the chocolate sauce is a Gordon Ramsey thing that I've done before; the idea comes from the Aztecs and Incas who used chocolate as a savoury flavouring (it has to be at least 70% cocoa solids – quite bitter).

Poached pears are pretty traditionally English (possibly originally French, but because of the mongrel nature of the UK, we have so many influences in our cooking), while the creme Catalana is a Catalan equivalent of crème brûlée where, in essence, the custard is flavoured with orange.

Recent tradition in the UK has seen roast turkey as the main Christmas Day meal – usually with roast potatoes, carrots, sprouts (which very few people actually like – although I do), stuffing, pork sausages (sometimes called 'pigs in blankets', if they've been wrapped in bacon and then pastry), with gravy and possibly cranberry jelly (if you're really sophisticated ).

This is followed by Christmas pudding and custard. All of which is designed to make you feel thoroughly stuffed and incapable of moving from in front of the telly during the Queen's speech and then the millionth screening of The Great Escape. The remaining turkey can be recycled in sandwiches that night – and for days afterward in a variety of dishes (including turkey curry and turkey croquettes and turkey pasta), if the bird is big enough and depending on the number of people around – and how much the cook really wants to bore them to culinary death.

This is all really quite a recent development – at one time there would have been a lot more game used – possibly venison, roast boar, goose. And unfortunately, most turkeys in the UK tend to be very bland and quite dry.

As I mentioned earlier, there is only me and my other half (plus three moggies), and neither of us enjoy the turkey route – plus it would be a ridiculously large bird for two, even allowing titbits for the pride. I've often done duck, but in the last few years I've tried to branch out a bit further. We had wild boar last year and venison the year before that.