Christmas Dinner

[Drevpile]

I'm hosting this year, and wondering if any of you guys have any top tips, secret recipie type things or [family]/traditional courses that you include in your line up - like i'm doing borsch and pickled herrings (polish blood) before the main... and i'm thinking of trying a wasabi butter sauce for the sprouts...!?

[Herr Lipp]

what's traditional about wasabi?!

erm I dont have many suggestions, we usually have prawn cocktail or soup for starters. Dinner has all the usual suspects including some pigs in blankets using chipolatas and streaky bacon.

dont make the gravy too strong I would say, and try not to overcook the turkey.

[Drevpile]

The Wasabi butter was meant to fall under "[secret recipe] type things" - obviously my grammar & lexicon didn't match my intent! :(

[rogaine]

we don't do christmas dinner, we do christmas brunch.. Eggs Bennedict w/hollandaise sauce mmmm.. :drool:

[Daysleeper]

No tips from me.

I usually spend christmas dinner with my mum, sisters, one of my aunts, and the cousins I like. This is either at my mums house or my aunts house. it is at my aunts house this year. During the day other family members will pop by.

I guess that we have the usual, but we also have a pasta course, which I prefer to the turkey, as turkey is too dry for me.

[Cheryl K]

We have stuffed ham (a corned ham stuffed with kale, cabbage, red pepper, and other spices), potato salad, green beans, peas, gingerbread, various cookies (this year we're having oatmeal and lemon), and my dad makes homemade lemonade.

[El Loto]

Mustard and honey glazed carrots
Roasted parsnips are essential
Home made gravy

[Static Split Screen]

about the only thing i really enjoyed at christmas dinner were the honey roasted/fried parsnips.

[Drevpile]

well,

it all went well,

apart from i burnt some stuffing...

oh well

[gangsta puffin]

our christmas dinner was freakin fabulous. lasagna, eggplant parmesan, sausage and peppers, meatballs, broccoli rabe, salad, bread. dessert was cannoli, rum cake, and cookies.

xmas eve dinner was even better.

i'm totally sick of eating now :D

[Herr Lipp]

no turkey? fucking jew commie pinko!

[gangsta puffin]

i've never had turkey on christmas.
remember, us yanks just did the whole turkey thing a month before christmas. doing it again would be boring. it's not as standard for us as it is for you brits... i mean i guess some people have it, but it's not a set tradition.
observe: cheryl and cat didn't do turkey either.

[Herr Lipp]

I see. All is forgiven.

So are you an Italian or something? What are cannolies? I heard them mentioned on the Sopranos :O

[gangsta puffin]

haha yes i'm guido.

cannoli are pastry shell things filled with sweet marscapone cheese, usually mixed with little chocolate chips.

[Herr Lipp]

cheese and chocolate?! nightmares??? they look much nicer than they sound though.

[gangsta puffin]

nightmares?? why?

it's very sweet, smooth, creamy cheese, usually with a little cinnamon too... it's not like salty sharp cheese or something heh. you've had cheesecake, no? it's better than that...

it's ok, i know food isn't the english's strong point D:
that's one down side of not frequenting england anymore, i was always guaranteed to lose 5lbs per week i was there.

[Herr Lipp]

cheese and chocolate are both rumoured to give you nightmares seperately.

Food is alright here, shaddappayaface! It's down to earth food! Fried to perfection! Italians think all their food is the bees knees because they're pissed on red wine all day.

[ElectricMayhem]

From what I hear they've got some AWESOME curry places in England... but I guess curry doesn't exactly qualify as english cuisine. Italy totally owns the UK as far as food is concerned. Italy is probably the best country in the world for food & recipes, me thinks. But that's just my humble opinion...

[gangsta puffin]

oh yeah indian food in england is phenomenal. i didn't like indian until i had it there, because i never had good indian here.

but jesus, i even had bad pizza in england. pizza's hard to screw up; you might have pizza that's not great, but for it to actually taste bad is near impossible.

desserts/pastries/sweet things in england are awesome too.

[Herr Lipp]

yes I once heard that England has better cakes and sweets (i.e not confectionery) than France/Italy etc. It's mains just let it down. But to be honest I cant handle the fancy pants shit, a shepherds pie, bangers and mash, fish and chips or a nice curry will do me!

Mayhem: the most popular curry here, Tikka Massala, was invented here by British Asians :O

p.s. canada and america dont even have their own foods, ya bums! its all stolen from europe.

[El Loto]

The best Indian I ever had was in Boston MA.

[Herr Lipp]

scotland doesnt have very good indians.

plus you always bumlove Boston, so you're not impartial. Partial?

[gangsta puffin]

p.s. canada and america dont even have their own foods, ya bums! its all stolen from europe.

erm, false. and that's just a silly thing to say in general, since obviously the majority of our population comes from european immigrants, so we're going to have a lot of their food.

there's a lot of things i found out you guys don't eat, which i found odd... like things pumpkin based. we love us some pumpkin. corn is native to north america. peanut butter. there's plenty of foods that are very much north american.

[Herr Lipp]

smashing pumpkins ha ha.

i have nothing else to add. other than I am going to eat a Great British Braeburn apple and then off to sleep. Ta Ta!

[El Loto]

There is a nice Nepalese in Scaberdeen.

[Herr Lipp]

A few weeks ago I was craving a battered cheeseburger. Yum!

[Daysleeper]

There are great Indian restaurants and take-aways in every part of England thanks to our wonderfully lax boarders :yes: I went to a great restaurant in Oxford recently...but I think Birmingham has the leetest!!! :cool:

[gangsta puffin]

A few weeks ago I was craving a battered cheeseburger. Yum!

what is that??

[Herr Lipp]

basically you just get a quarter pounder, put some of that american processed plastic cheese on it, and lower it all into the frying batter. Exactly the same process as battering cod, haddock etc. You're left with a ridiculousy unhealthy burger, but it gives you a headrush when you eat it. The meat and the cheese is perfectly intact inside the batter coating.

apparently battered mars bars are quite popular too, but thats one step beyond my tastes. crazy scots.

[Herr Lipp]

There are great Indian restaurants and take-aways in every part of England thanks to our wonderfully lax boarders :yes: I went to a great restaurant in Oxford recently...but I think Birmingham has the leetest!!! :cool:

probably, or Bradford. there are a number of standard high-street curry houses in Medway, but one place, the Shozna, is a cut above. It's chefs have won national awards, and it's really modern but not flashy. Great service too, and complimentary hot towels, oranges and after eights at the end of the meal! Going to try a new dish soon. Rogen Josh is about as hot as I can handle. What do you normally get?

[gangsta puffin]

basically you just get a quarter pounder, put some of that american processed plastic cheese on it, and lower it all into the frying batter. Exactly the same process as battering cod, haddock etc. You're left with a ridiculousy unhealthy burger, but it gives you a headrush when you eat it. The meat and the cheese is perfectly intact inside the batter coating.

apparently battered mars bars are quite popular too, but thats one step beyond my tastes. crazy scots.

the burger sounds disgusting, but the mars bar would be exquisite. things like that made their way over here but the only 'fried sweet' i've tried is a fried oreo, and it's fucking heaven. the batter they're dipped in is sweetish though, not the kind you'd fry fish in. it's funnel cake batter, if you know what that is.

[Herr Lipp]

i'm the opposite. but that makes sense I suppose, those cannoli's sound alien to me. you know where you are with meat!!

[Daysleeper]

probably, or Bradford. there are a number of standard high-street curry houses in Medway, but one place, the Shozna, is a cut above. It's chefs have won national awards, and it's really modern but not flashy. Great service too, and complimentary hot towels, oranges and after eights at the end of the meal! Going to try a new dish soon. Rogen Josh is about as hot as I can handle. What do you normally get?

Yeah, I'm pretty certain you can find AT LEAST one good curry house in every town or city...god bless england :(

Chris Tarrant got arrested in a Nottingham curry house last year :D

[Herr Lipp]

oh that was an excellent story. he threw a cutlery knife at someone didnt he, lol.

[ElectricMayhem]

Herr Lip: I didn't know that tikki masala was invented in england. That's cool, tikki masala is one of my faves.

I didn't mean to sound like I was saying that the english can't cook or anything (which is kind of how it looks when I look back on it). I like the pub food and I love english beer. I'm just sayin that Italy has the most amazing food ever, who doesn't love italian food? I mean come on, they have pasta in their corner! cannolis are great.

I'm totally craving lamb curry right now. A deep fried cheeseburger sounds like an instant heart attack. Ditto for the mars bar, probably be tasty though...

Canada and america do have alot of their own foods, but yeah neither really has it's own sort of distinctive cuisine like the uk or germany or italy. Except say, Cajun food or southwestern food and fast food. And you can blame america for frozen tv dinners. lol

The 'new world' as a whole though, has contributed alot to the culinary world. Almost surprisingly so. Like chocolate, vanilla, tomatos, potatos, corn, green beens and peppers are all indigenous to the americas. Neat, eh? I learned that watching the food network lol. Turkey's all ours too. Yum.

I heard in the news a few weeks ago that chef Gordon Ramsey almost got his genitals burned off while cooking in the nude. Serves him right lol. Not a smart thing to do.

[Herr Lipp]

I just like the fact that in America (probably Canada too) you can get masses of food for just a few dollars. I have really got into Subway's recently. I'm sure there are independent deli's that do nicer subs than Subway.

That's a good point about the new world ingredients. Coffee is only from the South America's too I think.

Gordon Ramsay is a bit of a nob! But I like him though, he talks straight to people. Do you have "Kitchen Nightmares" over there? It's better than Hell's Kitchen. When I see the American version of Hell's Kitchen I feel sorry for the contestants, out of nowhere Ramsay just starts effing and blinding ha.

[ElectricMayhem]

The problem with masses of food for relatively cheap prices is that you get fat. lol. Another problem I find is that so much of north america is so unbelievably, rediculously homogenized. Everywhere you go it seems like all the restaurants are all the same ones, and all the malls have all the same stores. It's kind of depressing in a way... There's no escaping all the walmarts and mcdonalds. I spent a summer in the yukon, even there they have all the walmarts and tim hortons and burger king and whatever else. That was slightly surreal, because I expected it to be such a totally different place and in a big way it was like I never left home. The 'artificial' scenery was all the same. Is europe the same way?

I find that quiznos is a bit better than subway. Mr sub is definately worse than subway, but those are both big chains too.

Coffee from south america too? Really? I didn't know that. I thought that it was from africa or something. That's neat! I thought of a few other things from here: Naniamo bars & butter tarts from canada. Americans invented soft drinks and cocktails and mixed drinks. I heard somewhere that shooters were invented in alberta. Fusion cuisine mostly came out of north america too. Which makes sense, given all the immigration and cultural diversity.

I agree that Ramsey is a nob. That's why hearing that he almost burned off his own nob made me laugh. lol. It's like "in your face Gordie!" lol. Yep, I've seen kitchen nightmares. There was a brief period where the only tv I was watching was just the food network lol. I think he has like 3 shows on the food network. So does Giada DeLaurentis and Michael Smith. I'm sad that Susar Lee doesn't have his own show, it would be cool if he did. I'd watch it.

[Herr Lipp]

Europe is getting more and more like that. Especially Britain. But it's not hard to venture out of the big cities and find some old fashioned cafes, greasy spoons and restaurants.

You ever been out of Canada?

[ElectricMayhem]

I've been to the states a bunch of times. But I've never crossed the pond. I would like to visit europe at some point. To Edinburgh & London in the UK. France & the Netherlands are all also on the 'places I want to go before I die' list. Australia too. I'll have to get a passport first, of course, that's something I've been procrastinating for years and years. lol.

It's true what you said about there always being little local restaurants and such. It just weirds me out that all those big chains are everywhere, you know?

[Daysleeper]

Europe is getting more and more like that. Especially Britain. But it's not hard to venture out of the big cities and find some old fashioned cafes, greasy spoons and restaurants.

You ever been out of Canada?

I love a good cafe...seriously! :yes:

There are still some great ones here...one 30 seconds from my house in fact!

Edit: But I know what you mean fras, they are a dying breed. Too many bistro type things are opening though.

[Herr Lipp]

cafe's always seem to have better tasting food than you make at home! well not all of them, but the good cafes!

mayhem: yeah it is a shame that sole traders get forced out (same with supermarkets and pushing out butchers, grocers etc) but you cant argue with their prices. at least we have these petty issues to contend with and not like the Bubonic Plague and Viking raids like days of old.

[ElectricMayhem]

And then the Vikings actually do invade & bring the plague with them... Everyone will say "damn, remember the days when we used to sit around and bitch about restaurant chains? Those were the days..."