Your best hack for cooking Christmas lunch

[Birdbuggerup]

I’ll be honest, I’m having a bit of a panic. I’m hosting lunch this year. Only for 6 but I’ve only done a couple of roasts so I’m worried about timings.
Bird is a frozen turkey crown and I’ve got all the usual trimmings.

Any tips for what can be prepped / cooked in advance? I’ve got a decent sized oven, air fryer, slow cooker and (I think) a warming section in the over.

I don’t care how out there the advice, how can I make my life easier?!
thanks in advance

Serve canapés rather than starters as can be prepped ahead (or bought) so no one is absolutely starving then ply the adults with Xmas cocktails/ drink and a game on the table to keep people amused. Everyone will be happy and think it’s the best dinner ever whether it is or not (an elderly relative told me this many moons ago …. And it works. It takes the pressure of you as people are entertained and not asking frequently how long until lunch. Keep alcohol flowing

@AntiquePancakes yes it works well. Boil potatoes as usual, roast for approx 40 mins. Leave in roasting tray overnight in cool place, covered by tea towel. Cook approx 30 mins

Less mess, as saucepans are washed already. And, shorter cooking time makes timings a bit easier on the day

Turkey can stand for up to an hour if it's covered with foil and has a clean towel over it. Gives you time to get the oven really hot for roast potatoes.

On that note, I used to do the Nigella/Mary Berry trick of roasting the night before then re-heating. The potatoes turned out beautifully crisp. But these last few years I've par boiled the potatoes, roughed them up, put them on a baking tray then open froze them. They're now all in a tupperware box waiting to be added to the hot fat on Christmas day. They always turn out really fluffy and lovely and crispy outside. Saves so much time and hassle buying bags of potatoes and peeling them when you're already up to your ears in veg.

Similarly with stuffing. I made it last weekend and it's in the freezer. It'll be defrosted in the fridge then popped in the oven.

My sister makes her own red cabbage, that gets frozen too. I remember watching a Delia Smith Christmas when she showed her freezer in the shed. Stocked up with mince pies, red cabbage, par boiled veg.

Mind you we live on pot luck meals this week so I get enough space in the freezer for everything. But it does make Christmas day itself easier and I only go into the kitchen to switch oven or hob on rather than doing all the preparation.

Oh and use foil roasting trays. Less washing up.

@LondonJax if you freeze the potatoes, do you cook from frozen? And how long for?

@Birdbuggerup turkeys take several days to defrost. Is yours out of freezer already?

I cook the turkey on Christmas Eve. It saves time and stress on the day and frees up the oven.

It also gives me the chance to carve some of it and thoroughly check it on Xmas Eve . I had a nightmare one year, it seemed cooked, juices running clear etc, but when I carved into it, it definitely wasn't!

Don’t time everything to finish at the same time. You need a couple of minutes to butter and salt/ finish things off. Warm the serving dishes and everything will stay at serving temp.

I start cooking my turkey when I get up. I am picking up my turkey tomorrow so it doesn’t need to take up space in the fridge at all. I prep it the night before and then it goes straight in the oven first thing. I can then spend the morning prepping veg while basting the turkey at regular intervals.
Christmas Eve - clean oven and set table. Maybe a bit of baking if I feel like it.
We eat when dinner it is ready usually around 4-5pm. In the past we used to have big family Christmases with inlaws, MIL insisted on 1pm sit down. She isn’t the best cook, overcooked watery veg and dry meat with lifeless gravy. DH was delighted when she decided that she was getting too old to do full Christmas dinner anymore.
I love cooking a full spread, and have, over the years perfected the timing. It does take practice. Don’t worry if you forget anything or something goes wrong. Just leave it in the kitchen no one will know.

Veg that is best prepared the day before - sprouts ( then steam them over other veg on Xmas day)
and of course braised red cabbage is better cooked the day before and the warmed up.

A good tip for roast potatoes is to boil them until they are almost cooked then drain and leave to cool to get rid of the moisture. Then roast. They cook quicker than par boiling and crisper up better.

Yes, cook from frozen and for the same length of time. Just make sure the fat is hot and cook until golden.

Extra crunchy freeze-ahead roast potatoes recipe | Sainsbury`s Magazine (sainsburysmagazine.co.uk)

Freeze Ahead Roast Potatoes - My Fussy Eater | Easy Family Recipes

Prep all you can the day before.
Write a list of things to be cooked.
Plan oven space and hob use.
Write a timetable so you know what and when.
Set a device (like Alexa) to give you every reminder - so you’re not clock watching.
Ban everyone else from the kitchen for the last half hour!

@Askforwisdom ah yes. I like mine to make a little 'clink' sound when they drop onto the plate 😂

I’m worried OP is currently defrosting the turkey under a hairdryer 😅

Rest the turkey for at least 1 hour after cooking! Makes a world of difference.

Always rest your meat before serving. This also gives time to cook other items in the oven

Cripes, I just do everything on the day, I’m cooking for 6 too.

I’ve just made my red cabbage (Mary Berry), stuffing (Jane Grigson) and bread sauce (Nigella), all now in the fridge. Tomorrow I’ll do Yorkshire puddings, cumin roasted carrots, peel the potatoes, and write my big timings plan.

The goal is turkey out of the oven and resting asap (we discovered one year when it was done to perfection miles earlier than planned that a turkey will stay hot and delicious hours in advance so now I get it out of the way early), then it’s all about perfect roast potatoes (Nigella) in one very hot oven and phenomenal gravy done low and slow on the hob – all the prepped dishes will reheat/bake/whatever in the other more normal temperature oven, along with chipolatas. Then some bastard hob vegetables by request of various fuckers. If it weren’t for the sprouts, broccoli and boring old carrot coins, the day itself I’d only need to do turkey, potatoes and gravy – everything else is just reheating.

Thanks to this thread for sending me to Jamie Oliver’s make-ahead gravy and Mary Berry’s double roasted potatoes – too late to do the gravy this year (I was nodding along to the ingredients list til I got to the casual “10 chicken wings”) and I won’t do the potatoes without a trial run, but maybe next year I can achieve Christmas nirvana and only cook the turkey on the day; everything else will be made ahead. At which point I suppose I might as well go back to M&S/Waitrose/Cook or join you microwave Tupperware Christmas weirdos.

Let my husband do it 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

I do a lot in advance, too.

Turkey will be cooked tomorrow- it's fine if you gently warm it up the next day in gravy. Remains moist. Peel all veg and leave them in water. I will also make my braised red cabbage tomorrow and the stuffing will go in the turkey. Both warm up perfectly well.

There is too many of us and not enough oven space to do it all on the day unless I want to get up super early and have a lot of extra stress.

The Yorkshires will be made Xmas morning then warmed in the oven at the end.

If warm plates and serving dishes is something you want, the easiest way is to pop them into the dishwasher on the shortest cycle and keep the door closed until you need them.

I'm sure @U2 knows what they're doing, but for the benefit of less experienced cooks, poultry needs to be cooked / reheated to hot temperature, to reduce risk of Salmonella. So, reheating long and slow is fine, but it does need to be hot, not just warm