CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

BRUNCH

NIBBLES, CANAPÉS AND DRINKS

STARTERS, PLATTERS AND BOARDS

MAINS

CHRISTMAS EVE

CHRISTMAS DAY

BOXING DAY

NEW YEAR’S EVE

SIDES, SAUCES AND LEFTOVERS

SWEET THINGS AND PUDDINGS

INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

HOW TO USE THIS EBOOK

Select one of the chapters from the main contents list and you will be taken to a list of all the recipes covered in that chapter.

Alternatively, jump to the index to browse recipes by ingredient.

Look out for linked text (which is in blue) throughout the ebook that you can select to help you navigate between related recipes.

You can double tap images and tables to increase their size. To return to the original view, just tap the cross in the top left-hand corner of the screen.

Introduction

Many years ago, when I first started the Ginger Pig, an old butcher said to me: ‘Some customers you see once a week, some you see once a month, some you only see at high days and holidays, but at Christmas you see them all – and all at the same time!’ Christmas is the busiest period in the Ginger Pig’s year, and planning for the next festive season starts the moment the current one is over. Which was more popular, turkey or goose? Did beef outdo pork? And, most importantly, how many pigs in blankets did we make? (I think we are up to about 35,000, all made by hand.) We have been extremely lucky in our journey over the past 20 years. Right at the beginning I met a wonderful family, the Botterills, who farm on the borders of Lincolnshire and Leicestershire. I think my first order was for 35 turkeys and 12 geese, but now the numbers are nearer 2,000 turkeys and 1,200 geese, not to mention ducks and proper free-range chickens.

We really hope that this book of Christmas recipes offers a few tips on making Christmas cooking easier, and maybe recommends some alternatives – after all, Christmas is not just about poultry. Macaroni cheese works really well on Christmas Eve, or a slightly more adventurous melanzane parmigiana, both of which you can make in advance and then enjoy with pre-Christmas cocktails. After the big day, families and friends get together and parties are thrown, so we have included a few ideas for breakfasts, lunches and dinners for the days between Christmas and the New Year (together with a bit of advice on alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks). For New Year’s Eve itself, we have ideas for a formal dinner or a more relaxed get-together.

The meals people cook over the Christmas period are probably the most notable of the year, so it is important to us that we help our customers buy the right things – both for their own pockets and for the dishes they’re going to make. We try, for example, to encourage people to buy a whole chicken instead of two chicken breasts, as it often doesn’t cost that much more and will make many more meals. Traditional skills, like making stocks and using up leftovers, are vital today, with so many people feeling the financial pinch and also having a better understanding of how important it is to use the whole animal from a sustainability point of view. This really matters to us at Christmas – we don’t want people spending lots of money on a big turkey only for them to have no idea how to use up the rest of it afterwards, which is why we’ve dedicated a whole section of this book to Christmas leftovers.

If you’re already a customer at the Ginger Pig, you will know that our philosophy is about championing small producers, British farming and rare breeds. That ethos extends to how we do our own Christmases too – we want to make careful choices about all the ingredients we buy, and about making the most out of them. We hope this book helps you to do that too, while having a very happy, and very delicious, Christmas and New Year.

Tim Wilson

Essential Christmas cooking kit

1 A pan and meat thermometer – for ensuring meat is cooked through properly, to check whether jams and jellies have reached setting point and that oil is hot enough (but not too hot) for deep-frying.

2 A fat-separating jug – to remove fat from rillettes, stocks and roasting tins, when you want to keep the wonderful cooking juices for gravies and sauces.

3 Big saucepans with lids – Christmas often means a crowd and while you can do your spuds in two pans, it’s more fuel and space efficient to do them all in one.

4 Big roasting tins – choose deep metal tins that will hold a whole bird, joint or porchetta and can catch their fat and roasting juices.

5 Heat mats – get more than you think you need. You’re going to have a lot of pans on the go, and you’ll need somewhere to put them.

6 Trivet for roasting joints – to keep meat raised up out of the fat and to allow hot air to get underneath it and cook evenly.

7 Sharp knives – if you’ve got a good chef’s knife, keep it sharp (and keep it out of the dishwasher and stored somewhere it won’t bash into other blades and get chipped or blunted). If you don’t have one, pop it on your Christmas list.

8 A Victorinox tomato knife – this is the knife of choice for all the Ginger Pig chefs. Small, sharp and lightly serrated, it’s a workhorse of a kitchen knife.

9 A skimmer, slider or slotted spoon – for lifting things out of fat or liquid.

10 Really good tongs – maybe even two pairs. For plating up, for fishing out, for arranging.

11 Good oven gloves – no one wants burned fingers for Christmas.

12 A great apron – something you won’t mind wearing for most of Christmas Day (we sell rather nice ones as it happens…).

13 A proper gravy boat – When you’ve gone to the effort of making a gorgeous gravy, it’s a shame to park it on the table in a Pyrex jug.

Christmas cooking timings

In advance

3 months ahead or more: Make mincemeat, chutneys, piccalilli and cranberry or redcurrant sauces.

1–2 months ahead: Book online deliveries and stock up on wine, beers and spirits. Make the Christmas cake and/or Christmas Pudding. Decide what you want to cook and order the meat.

1–2 weeks ahead: Ice the Christmas cake; make and freeze mince pies; prepare and freeze pigs in blankets and stuffing. Make and freeze gravy, or stock with which to make gravy. Check that you have all the kit you need (see here) plus plates, glasses, cutlery, table linen and candles.

2–3 days before: Take the bird out to defrost. Make the brandy butter.

The day before

Cut any garlands or branches for table decorations. Ensure anything that needs defrosting is doing so. If you’re making the goose, cook the legs today. Bake the ham. Peel and parboil the potatoes for roasting tomorrow. Prep the vegetables, put them in a bowl of water with a squeeze of lemon to prevent them from browning and store in the fridge. Work out approximate cooking times for the meat (re-weigh it with stuffing tomorrow). Make stuffing if you haven’t already. Make accompaniments like horseradish sauce and bread sauce.

On the day

Draft your timetable by working backwards from when you want to eat – allow yourself at least half an hour’s grace. You’ll need to calculate your own exact timings, based on the recipes you’re planning to cook, but here are our tips:

In the morning

If you haven’t done so already, peel and parboil the potatoes for roasting, and prep other sides. Put wines or wine alternatives in the fridge to chill.

At least an hour before you want to start cooking

Remove the meat from the fridge to come up to room temperature. Add any stuffing and calculate the exact cooking time. If you’re making a dish like our Festive Roast Porchetta, allow extra time to prepare the meat and take it out 90 minutes before you want to start cooking it.

An hour before serving

Tell someone else to set the table. (Have a glass of wine.) Prep the starter.

Roast potatoes need about an hour, often at a higher temperature than the meat. If you have two ovens, that’s no problem, but if not, get them started now and then crank up the heat as soon as the meat is out of the oven and resting. If your bird or joint is large, it may want up to an hour of resting.

Start cooking the vegetable sides and any vegetarian mains. (Almost every Christmas side can be warmed back up if it’s ready too soon.) Warm up any pre-made sauces and bring other sauces up to room temperature.

30 minutes before serving

Get the pigs in blankets, Yorkshire puddings and anything else that takes half an hour to cook into the oven. They’ll be ready just before you sit down for the starter but will happily keep warm in the cooling oven until needed.

20 minutes before serving

Pop the Christmas pudding on to steam. If you’re using our recipe, it will need an hour from now until it’s ready.

Warm all the serving dishes, gravy jug and plates. If you don’t have space in the oven, put the plates in a washing-up bowl filled with hot water and pour boiling water into the bowls and jug to warm them up. Set out heat mats so that you’ve got somewhere to put everything once it’s out of the oven. Check any drinks that need it are chilled and any red wines that need it are opened.

After the meal

Our only hard-and-fast rule for Christmas is that the cook is absolutely and completely exempt from doing the washing up.

Table decor

We like to keep our Christmas table as organic-looking as possible. Tim isn’t a fan of crackers or tinsel and Rebecca can’t stand glitter; we try to steer clear of decorations that are made of plastic or can’t be recycled. And just because it’s Christmas, your colour palette doesn’t have to feature bright red and green. More muted, subtle combinations can also look festive (although we have seen riots of pattern that look fabulous, too). Colour combinations we like include dark green, cranberry red and dark purple; gold and white; silver and white; pastels with brass or gold; wine colours or jewel tones.

Layering fabrics is very effective – try using a tablecloth with a runner and napkins, all in complementing tones.

Forage for things that are plentiful at this time of year – pinecones and evergreens are everywhere.

Dried clementines are festive and seasonal – if making your own, slices are easier to dry, but whole ones look particularly dramatic. Set them in scallop shells, if you have some.

Use parcel tags as place cards – they look very pretty tied to foraged sprigs, particularly if you use a white pen to write the names on them.

Make cardboard or paper stars, or paper chains, using any old paper you have to hand – it’s both a great activity for children and a good way to recycle.

If you want to have crackers, look for sustainable cracker kits: instead of plastic trinkets, you could give your guests flower or vegetable seeds.

Christmas wine

Tim buys wine from Thorman Hunt, a family-owned wine importer he first discovered some years ago when he was trying to track down a very specific, slightly obscure bottle of French red. They champion small independent growers everywhere from France to Lebanon and the USA, many of whom they’ve been working with for decades, and you’ll find their wines in neighbourhood wine merchants all over the UK. There is no one better to advise on Christmas wine buying than Emma Hunt, and she has a recommendation for every chapter in this book.

‘In terms of wine pairings, start by considering the array of flavours in your Christmas dinner – the roasted vegetables, the creamy bread sauce, the umami of the meat – and how your wine selection can help to enhance these dishes,’ says Emma. ‘Whether you want to complement the food with an equally decadent wine or prefer to contrast it with a refreshing style that can cut through the richness is your call and where the fun begins. Many merchants host wine-tasting events during the festive season, so you can try before you buy. Our ethos is very similar to that of the Ginger Pig: just as buying from independent food producers is important for the food and farming industries, the same is true of the wine trade, too. When considering your wine choices for the festive season, in the same way that a cook will want to begin with great produce, so too should the sommelier. Ask your local wine merchant to help you find wines that have been produced in the best way possible, with a focus on organic and sustainable vineyard practices – you want wines made with great grapes, with as little as possible in the way of herbicides and insecticides. These wines really showcase the grapes and their terroirs.’

Brunch

Celebrate with a glass of English bubbles – try Furleigh Estate Classic Cuvée. Husband-and-wife team Rebecca Hansford and Ian Edwards left London to buy back Rebecca’s family farm and convert it into a vineyard. Similarly, Crémant is always a fantastic alternative to Champagne (it’s made in the same way but in other regions of France and sometimes with different grapes, too), offering high quality at a great price. Fortnum’s has a stunning, refreshing own-label Crémant from Alsace.

Nibbles, Canapés and Drinks

Gin (or non-alcoholic spirit) & Tonic. Salcombe Gin is fantastic in a G&T and the company offers an alcohol-free alternative, too: First Light & Tonic.

Starters, Platters and Boards

To compare or to contrast? It’s up to you to decide. To complement the indulgent dishes with a similarly rich white, think classic Pouilly-Fuissé or lesser-known Lebanese whites such as Massaya Blanc, grown on the foothills of Mount Lebanon. Otherwise, you could cut through the decadence with a fresher option, such as a crisp rosé.

Christmas Eve

Look to the Rhône for Christmas Eve – red with the red-meat dishes, white with the white dishes. Reds from the Rhône are very food friendly. You can’t go wrong with a top Châteauneuf-du-Pape, but Rasteau, Lirac or Gigondas make great nearby alternatives. The Rhône whites are textured and will complement the cheesy, creamy fish and vegetarian options.

Christmas Day

With the huge variety of foods on the Christmas dinner table, when choosing the wine go for a food-friendly, crowd-pleasing favourite. Try a Sangiovese, like a Rosso di Montalcino, whose earthy flavours will go well with the roast veg. For a more unusual but equally delicious pairing, head to the Roussillon, where Wendy Wilson, winemaker at Le Soula, produces a fresh, savoury and refined orange wine, beautifully fragrant with an almost marmalade-y orange peel flavour.

Boxing Day

A bit like a good curry, doesn’t the Christmas Day feast somehow taste even better the following day? Crete’s lesser-known Dafni grape makes for an ideal Boxing Day wine. The wonderful notes of bay leaf and rosemary of this unique grape variety perfectly complement the cold cuts.

New Year’s Eve

Some traditions just can’t be messed around with. As the festive season draws to a close and a new year dawns, raise a toast with a glass of grower Champagne – that is to say, Champagne made and bottled by the estate where the grapes were grown.

Sweet Things and Puddings

Opt for France’s answer to Portugal’s port with a glass of Maury – essentially, Christmas pudding in a glass.