Christmas Dinner disasters anyone?

[itsmeagain76]

Hi all
First year cooking Christmas dinner at home for a number of people, it went well thankfully.
My only 'disaster' as such was the 'get ahead' gravy recipe by Jamie Oliver which was awful. Anyone else use it? There's so much effort (I did it on Christmas Eve), roasting chicken wings and celery, onions, carrots, herbs, etc, then frying off on the hob with flour and water, straining it several times etc. For a start it had absolutely NO colour and looked and smelled like chicken soup. The next day when I got it out of the fridge it had congealed and I had to reheat it, re-sieve it and add more sherry, then it ended up far too thin and watery. To be fair it tasted ok, just looked very unappetising and pale.
On the other hand, Jamie Oliver's roast potato recipe was absolutely fabulous and a resounding success!

Any disasters anyone?
Any tips for better gravy?

The first time I made proper gravy for Christmas my mum's reaction was "Your gravy is very pale."
Yeah, hours of hard work and that's what she says. Well mother, not all gravy is supposed to have the colour and consistency of coal tar! Beef gravy browning does not go with every meat and poultry gravy is supposed to be pale brown.
It was: -
One potato and one carrot finely diced and put under the turkey.
When the turkey was out of the oven I chopped and fried an onion then added a spoonful of flour.
Mix together all the meat juices, carrot, potato and fried onion and put in a blender.
Simmer on the hob.
Add spices to taste. Very easy.
When dh and I went home that evening my mum went to some effort to make sure I took the tub with "my" gravy in it. The following day she served cold turkey with... beef gravy made from gravy browning.
It was rank.

@ForTheLoveOfCatFood

Easy gravy = Bisto all the way red one regardless of the meat

Also loved Jamie’s roast potato recipe. Slight disaster here when dishing up the floor got a portion of veg

I do this too! My DH exclaimed the other day while make turkey & stuffing sandwiches that we had no gravy. I knew I'd just bought a big red tub so was baffled. Turned out for the first time ever he wanted proper turkey gravy and the red Bisto just wouldn't do the job. Had to make sure I got some in for yesterday just for him.

I use the juices from the turkey (taking all the fat out with one of those special jugs from Lakeland) and the water from the veg, along with a stock cube. Put it all into a pan, boil up then add some cornflour you've mixed with water to thicken it.

DH did dinner yesterday, I've got some pretty bad burns from earlier this week (half of my hand is covered in blisters)
So anywho I explained at length how to make yorkshires as he's never done it.
Instead he used baking paper so he could leave the oil put and cooked the yorkshire mix in a cool cake tin.
It was a weird cake which none of us were brave enough to try.

Had my dad over, were his support bubble.
He pulled the shelf in my downstairs wc off the wall, and broke my toilet bowl, candle, and just left it. Half of the fucking wall is hanging off.
Apparently the shelf just fell on him. He was attacked.

Everything was perfect apart from the sprouts which I managed to burn by not putting enough water in the steamer. I was gutted because I love sprouts.

I’ve been down the Jamie Oliver gravy route before but this year we had Asda’s extra special Turkey gravy granules with the turkey juices added and it was lovely.

I would say don't make the gravy yourself unless you're very confident about cooking all the other elements of the meal. It's just not worth it, and there are plenty of 'finest' or similar tubs of ready made gravy you can buy.

If you do make gravy, this is the recipe I use. Three ingredients and done (four if you are fancy & use gravy browning). I use Marigold bouillon powder for the stock - I've tried making the stock myself and I haven't managed to make anything nicer!

www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/traditionalgravy_1283

My organic free range chicken, collected on the Weds from my local butcher, and immediately refrigerated, was found to be green and slimy on Christmas Day.

Fortunately I found a small roasting joint of beef in the freezer so situation saved.

We're having roast chicken, sourced elsewhere of course, on New Year's Eve instead.

Best gravy tip I can give is meat juices including the fat, veg water and GRAVY GRANULES! Yum

MrsDThomas
Bottom of tray are chopped celery, carrots and onions quartered. Put the turkey on a rack. Then use the stock to make the gravy. Just the jelly not the runny fat. Add a splash of port, gravy browning and thicken with cornflour. Just like my nan and mum made it

Sorry - so just mix the jelly with the port, gravy browning and then thicken with cornflower?

PS - make your own gravy!

Roast your joint on celery carrots and onions - leave skin on onions and slice them v thickly and it colours the juices nicely - then while the meat is resting, add a splash of wine to the roasting tin, scraping up all the brown tasty bits and amalgamating them in the liquid. Turn heat up and stir. Job done.

The addition of flour or cornflour dulls the flavour in my opinion. I like my gravy unthickened. Ghastly childhood memories of bisto gravy and dried up Paxo stuffing served with leathery slices of chicken and bucket,odds of stress. Bleurgh.

Bucketloads, nay swimming pools, of stress...

@StoneofDestiny

MrsDThomas
Bottom of tray are chopped celery, carrots and onions quartered. Put the turkey on a rack. Then use the stock to make the gravy. Just the jelly not the runny fat. Add a splash of port, gravy browning and thicken with cornflour. Just like my nan and mum made it

Sorry - so just mix the jelly with the port, gravy browning and then thicken with cornflower?

Yes, with the veg stock. Forgot to add that part! Really easy.

Gravy made from boiling chicken wings is meant to congeal! You shouldn't have watered it down, just heat slowly and it will turn back to liquid!

I'm an ok cook. Thought everything was under control when I took the Turkey out to rest and realised that I hadn't put my braised cabbage on 2 hours earlier! To be fair it turned out ok, lesson learnt that it doesn't take as long as you think!

@ForTheLoveOfCatFood I'd normally agree but the turkey bisto granules are nice!

Since when was gravy difficult to make?
How are people making their gravy??
I just get the roasting tray on the hob, add water, and maybe some stock... And stir and stir and get all the bits off the bottom off the pan, add the cornflour by making a slurry in a small bowl, add it to the gravy and simmer until thickened.

Sometimes strain it at the end if there's lots of bits from the fond in it.

@RosaBaby2

Best gravy tip I can give is meat juices including the fat, veg water and GRAVY GRANULES! Yum

I did this and it worked well.

My gravy was good!
Got a turkey crown for the first time. No giblets so chopped off the bit of backbone and simmered that with carrot, onion and bayleaves.
Turkey is roasted on lemon and herbs. When that's resting put 'giblet' stock in pan, scrape all the stuck bits of the bottom and simmer on a low heat while the turket rests. Sieve and eat

I used Jamie's get ahead gravy recipe a few years back and it was FOUL. But, I remade it without the star anise and it was just fine.

Par boiled the potatoes for way to long, tipped then into the foil tray with oil and they turned into mash which didn’t cook lol.

Thanks for your tips, keep them coming!
I didn't use the star anise either!

Everyone keeps talking about scraping off the 'bits' from the bottom of the tray. I think this might have been part of my problem. I had no bits!
The recipe said to roast the wings for an hour which I did but they looked quite anaemic when I took them out. I'm guessing that's why the gravy had no colour. I think next time I will roast them for much longer then do them on the hob in the tray for much longer too.

Another vote for Jamie's vegan gravy. Although it never thickens enough for me so had to add some corn flour at the end. But very tasty and even had done left over to freeze

@00100001

Since when was gravy difficult to make? How are people making their gravy?? I just get the roasting tray on the hob, add water, and maybe some stock... And stir and stir and get all the bits off the bottom off the pan, add the cornflour by making a slurry in a small bowl, add it to the gravy and simmer until thickened.

Sometimes strain it at the end if there's lots of bits from the fond in it.

But when you're cooking lots of other bits and trying to be with your family and/or guests, who wants to stand at the job stirring gravy?

I didn't read that you needed to defrost the pavlova for seven hours before eating and so first tried to serve it frozen solid and then had to resort to the vienetta I had stashed away int eh back off the freezer (which was the right of sophistication when I was growing up!) but luckily no one cared as everyone was very full. I now have a freezer full of desserts (i already had decided not to serve the sticky toffee pudding or one made brandy tart as they were too much after such a big meal) DSS spends a lot of time longingly in front of the freezer without directly enquiring about when they might come out ....

Marks ready made gravy was lovely.