Is My Christmas Menu Ok?

[Hour]

Just wanting some inspo really. Any constructive criticism would be appreciated.

I will be doing:

appetisers (husband does these)
brie and cranberry bites
smoked salmon and fake caviar blinis
pear and melon or a chicken caeser salad skewer

main
Chicken ballotine (basically a roulade with stuffing)
brussel sprouts with bacon bits
honey roasted rainbow carrots
roast potaoes
roast parsnips
cabbage
pigs in blanket
gravy

pudding
homemade Yule log
Christmas pudding (bought)
Panne cotta (teen son will make)

posh coffee and homemade minced pies in the evening

I would do a cheeseboard but I’d rather serve it on Boxing Day with leftovers as in my experience my lot don’t eat it.

I'm from Liverpool but yorkies are a must

Cheese with a roast dinner ???

Cauliflower cheese gets served with roasts in loads of decent pubs so I'm allowing it. Gavel.

Still not allowing mash though :-)

Yes, always cauli cheese with a Roast in this house as 2 of our lot are vegetarian.

Doesn't the gravy make it go soggy?

Yes, definitively yes to cheese with a roast dinner.

My advice, don't make runny cheese sauce. I want a solid slab of cauliflower cheese with extra cheese and a sprinkle of cayenne papper on top.

I don't think that yorkshire pudding has to be with beef only but it looks good enough without to me.

I’m in the YWBO camp and I’d dare to suggest the same for cauliflower cheese!

Your menu sounds wonderful and is just missing bread sauce and chestnuts. I’d have a citrus panna cotta too and fruit skewers in the starter, no chicken needed.

Sounds delicious, why is the cavier fake?

You've just named three things I never have on any roast.

Mmmmm cauliflower cheese.

You don't say how many people this is for?

It's definitely plenty if it's just the 4 of you. May need a little more if it's 24 of you!!

can I come please?

Looks great. We like bread sauce and cranberry sauce and leave out parsnips and cabbage, as we have them on Boxing Day.

I'm from South West England, have lived innthe SE and London and everyone I know has Yorkshires with a roast, especially as part of the 'all the trimmings' for a Christmas dinner! My Welsh friends do too - maybe it's a Scottish thing not to?!

Well, it's making my spaghetti bolognese and tiramisu look paltry in comparison.
On the plus side, mines already prepared and I'll have far less washing up.
Enjoy.

Cauliflower cheese is fine, just make it a coating cheese sauce and not a pouring cheese sauce and then keep the gravy away from it.
The filler in a traditional Christmas dinner is the bread sauce, not yorkies. Besides which, who has enough space in the oven to do yorkies? I've got a 4-cavity range cooker and don't have room for yorkies.
But if you're not bothered about tradition then you can have anything you like!

Also Scottish and had never realised people had Yorkshire puddings on Christmas Dinner so you might be correct there...

People have what they like....I wouldn't touch pigs in blankets with someone else's bargepole.

Yummy, what time shall I arrive and do I need to bring a chair? I will arrive with plenty of wine and some cheese for your Boxing Day buffet.

Presume it's lumpfish or keta, rather than sturgeon roe, which is about 20 times the price.

It sounds lovely and the main thing that matters is that you and your family are having all the things you really enjoy.

Being from Ireland our menus are so different from what you posted and people recommending, we don't really do things like sausages in blankets, Yorkshire's, bread sauce. I did try the Brussels with bacon last year and nearly vomited them out, just ruined my dinner, prefer them plain boiled in the ham water.

I do not believe there is any meal that would not be improved with the addition of a Yorkshire pudding.

I would be very sad not to get one with my Christmas dinner.

id also miss cauliflower cheese, red cabbage, bread sauce and possibly a bit of zing with the veg but t still sounds very nice

Sounds delicious. My only change would be to have steamed sprouts. I don’t like pancetta or whatnot added to them but I know lots of people do.

I was born in SW England and we never had Yorkshire puddings with anything other than beef, and certainly not with chicken.

So it’s not ‘just a Scottish thing’.

I think your menu looks lovely, OP, but as said, I’d remove the chicken from the starter.