Help a non British person with British Xmas dinner?

[RiceRiceBaby16]

My AIBU I guess can be- am I being unreasonable to think a non Brit can pull off cooking a British Xmas dinner? but really posting here for traffic...

I know everyone's busy but please HELP if you have a moment. Yes Google exists but I trust MN more😂

Having guests over tomorrow afternoon and my main aim is to cook / prepare as much as I can tonight when my 1 year old is asleep. I won't manage it all tomorrow with him awake. My main questions...

Out of these dishes, which ones can be cooked today and heated tomorrow and they won't taste awful??...

Turkey crown
Mac n Cheese (not traditional Xmas dinner I know)
Roasted veggies (carrots, lsprouts)
Stuffing
Cauliflower cheese
Roast potatoes (perhaps par boil today to roast tomorrow? Or will that turn out shit?)

lastly... any tips on cooking the turkey crown so it isn't dry? Never cooked turkey before in my life...

Any advice appreciated...Merry Christmas to all ❤️❤️🎄

Boil sprouts rather than roast? Or boil and then roast? What about the carrots? You can tell I'm new to this haha

Well personally I've had my sprouts on since Thursday so while they won't really be properly cooked in time, if you get them on now they'll at least be edible...

The one thing you should either buy or make today is gravy. I am totally fine making my own the rest of the year, but there's just too much going on at Christmas to be faffing with gravy.

All veg can be peeled and prepped tonight.

The main thing is to work out timings and write them down. Plan to take the turkey out, wrap it and rest it as above - and that's when you get potatoes and other trimmings in the oven. They won't crisp unless the oven is hotter than the turkey temp.

If you want a fancy table, set it tonight and it's one less thing to worry about tomorrow.

But mostly chill. I still have fond memories of my first Christmas dinner when I didn't do any of the above, me and my housemates ate everything as it became ready and called it a Christmas buffet....

😂😂 I'm looking forward to all the posts from tomorrow about being starved at Christmas Dinner by mil. Every year we get the traditional 'my mil gave me one tiny piece of meat & one piece each of all the veg while piling the plates of the others'! I love reading those posts. Good luck op and don't forget to post how dinner went including any dramas!

We steam our sprouts, I know its fashionable to try to disguise the flavour with all sorts of stuff but I actually like sprouts.

I also cant stand sweet veg so we dont have parsnips or do anything fancy with honey or carrots.

And yes to buying pre made, everyting coming in little tins just to pop in the oven, perfect

Just realised that the sprout thing is a joke? 😂

@FlamingJingleBells I'll make sure to post an update!

OP, I fry my sprouts with a bit of bacon and butter. I don't usually par boil them first. I do however cut them in half. You'll have to cut the bottoms off and peel outer leaves unless you've bought the ready prepared ones!

I'd sit down and work out your timings. Work out how long the turkey will cook for. Get it out a good 45-60mins before you plan on eating. Then put the potatoes in to roast and the different sides depending on how long each takes to cook. I usually write it all down and tick off! And I cook roasts regularly but Xmas is the big one and I don't want to forget anything! Good luck

Its no joke. Sprouts are serious business and really should be put on in November, with a cross cut in the base to absorb even more liquid

What you want is brown sludgy grey brussels.

To add to this, provably no time but DB and SIL were going on about how easy and how much nicer it was to make cranberry sauce from cranberries. (It is!)

Turkey with bacon slices makes it so much moister.

bread sauce is nice too. Pigs in blankets. Red cabbage.

the bread sauce, cabbage and cranberry sauce you can do today/tonight.

@RiceRiceBaby16 thank you very much

Definitely parboil your potatoes today. Once I started doing that it made Christmas day so much easier. They have time to dry out so are actually better.
We roast our sprouts with the carrots & parsnips, saves on pans.

Sounds great! I'm sitting here with a notebook writing down all the ideas as my DS naps 😀 did the shopping 8am this morning

A roast’s easy OP. This is something for future roasts for you as I don’t cook Turkey myself. Put chicken in a large roasting dish in the oven for half hour, longer if it’s a larger chicken. Although you can do this with pork or beef too. Lift chicken out of dish & put potatoes, & veg in the bottom of the dish, put chicken back on top of the veg, potatoes round the edges. Season well with salt, pepper, & herbs. After another half hour baste, & add the stuffing. I usually do this with a small chicken or piece of meat in an hour & half. Use meat juices for gravy & add granules or an oxo, this can be microwaved in 1 minute, stir well so no lumps. It’s a roast with no fuss. Don’t prep veg … ahead as fresh is best.

I did this one year and they went black, what do you do once you've par boiled them?

You need pigs in blankets, cranberry sauce and bread sauce to make it a proper Christmas Dinner, rather than just a Sunday roast. The sauces are available in tubs in the supermarket if making your own is a step too far. Pigs in blankets are the best bit!!

Plus non food, but Christmas crackers are also a requirement 😁

It's a bit of a last minute thought but yes, you can pull off a traditional British dinner but why not throw in a few extra dishes from your home country too? I really enjoy getting to try something different. You could always put that out as a 'serve yourself' option so people can try or not try.

The veg doesnt go crispy if you do that. The worst thing for potatoes is crowding in the pan

I was watching Mary Berry the other day and she said to completely roast your potatoes the day before and then just reheat on xmas day. Will see if I can find the recipe. Bit like triple cooked chips I guess

I've cooked chicken and joint of meat in the slow cooker on low before. It gently braises the meat and it becomes very moist. I then transfer to the oven for last 20 mins to crisp up. This will free up your oven for the veg & is a bit quicker.

www.maryberry.co.uk/recipes/christmas/roast-potatoes

I'm even roasting my potatoes now, then they can just get chucked in the oven to heat/crisp up tomorrow without having to mess about turning them etc.

Personally I do everything ahead of time except the turkey and the pigs in blankets which I do on the day.

I watched that and though 'no Mary'.

Wrong, just plain wrong. They will taste like the potatoes you get in cheaper restaurants when they try that.

Really?! You’ve never seen an American movie or tv programme?

It’s even called that on lots of British menus now too.

How many are you cooking for? How big is your oven?

I don't think mac n cheese or roasted veg have a place at a traditional turkey roast personally. I'm not convinced about cauliflower cheese either.

We are down to five so it's easy peasy.

1 stuffed and prepped turkey crown (cook in a bag - never done that before). Serves 6-8. 20 pigs, 6 stuffing things with a bit of bacon round them

Roast potatoes and parsnips
Chantenay Carrots
Sprouts with chestnuts (bought ready for microwave)
Braised red cabbage (bought ready for microwave)

Bought poultry gravy and bread sauce
Small jar of cranberry

Method:

10am - put in turkey crown
11.50 - brown crown
12.10 - remove crown from oven and cover with foil and two teatowels.

At about 11 peel and par boil spuds in salted water, add parsnips once bubbling for 5 minutes. Also at 11 put a good glug of rape oil in a baking tray and put in the oven. Once par boiled drain spuds and snip and give a shake in the pan - put on a v low heat for two mins to dry them then put into the sizzling oil making sure they are coated on all sides. Put in the oven.

Top and tail chantenay Carrots - pop into dish just big enough for them. 1 dsp of water, pinch of salt, large pinch of sugar, knob of butter - seal.tightly with foil and pop at the bottom.of the oven.

Get ready serving dishes. (Fill gravy boat and sauce dishes with boiling water) Pop gravy into a pan, heat through bread sauce and put in a lidded dish.

At 12 turn oven down and move spuds near the bottom. Put in pigs and stuffing at the top. Plates and serving bowls in the middle.

At 12.30 take out plates and serving dishes - empty hot water from gravy boat and sauce dishes. Put a light under gravy - bread sauce into serving dish.

Blast sprouts and transfer sprouts and Carrots to serving dish.

At 12.45 call people to table.

Ask someone to put plates on table
Pop spuds into a serving bowl and back in the oven.

Slice turkey and stuffing onto platter - get someone to take through.

Pour gravy into boat - get some one to take through. Get out spuds - have taken through with bread sauce.

Turn oven up to high to brown pigs and extra stuffing

Red cabbage into microwave - turn into dish. Take through

Sprouts and Carrots- 90 second blast in microwave.

Cranberry - bung in gravy pan with juice of a clementine or satsuma - warm it through and serve.

Tip pigs and stuffing into warm dish and take through.

You could do the sprouts/Carrots, pigs and stuffing the day before and microwave - I find it makes for a lot of things that need microwaving at the last minute so would only do if feeding 8-10 nowadays. Always set the table the night before.

Hopefully by the time you sit down someone will have helped people to turkey and vegetables to get things underway and wine will have been poured plus drinks for the children.

Crackers - finish serving and tuck in.

If you’ve never made it before I would drop this from your menu and focus on the other items.