This board exists primarily for the use of Black Mumsnetters. Others are welcome to post but please be respectful.
This board exists primarily for the use of Black Mumsnetters. Others are welcome to post but please be respectful.
Black Mumsnetters
Food at Christmas
2020inhindsight · 27/09/2020 16:32
Last year I tried to make Black Cake but my oven failed me and it wasn't very good, so I've got a new oven now and I'm going to attempt it again this year. I need to learn how to make Sorrel properly too!!. What West Indian food spells Christmas for you? and can you make it ?
skippy67 · 27/09/2020 19:44
Sorrel and fruit cake. The fruit must have been soaking in rum or wine for at least 6 months. And yes I can make both.
DeegeeDee · 27/09/2020 21:26
Sorrel spells Christmas and my Mom makes a bottle for all her children. Then we have to have fish so I get loads on but it's just me who eats it. Face/bothered.
PonDeReplay · 28/09/2020 19:58
Sorrel! I buy the dried stuff and make bottles of it in the run up to Christmas. We always leave a glass of sorrel out for Santa here :-)
2020inhindsight · 29/09/2020 21:42
My fruit has been soaking for a while....smells gorgeous!!.
maggiethecat · 06/10/2020 12:53
I make my fruit cake in November so that I can soak (feed) it with rum/wine for a few weeks before xmas and once it's made I start to feel in the spirit 
I've tweaked my recipe over many years and am anal about recording the results so that I can improve the following year. In January, after clearing away xmas stuff I prepare fruit and soak them in rum/wine for following xmas so that, as mum would say, my cake is mellow (sure she didn't intend then pun!).
Sorrel too but DH usually takes charge of that.
Definitely 2 must haves to evoke a Jamaican xmas!
maggiethecat · 06/10/2020 12:57
Of course you don't need such a long soak of the fruit but if you can do it now then do it.
EchoCardioGran · 06/10/2020 13:10
I've got my fruit on a deep soak. Been going a couple of weeks now since the recipe got posted in the food section. Really looking forward to making it, fingers crossed no one is poisoned!
What do you have for your main meal? We are just turkey and trimmings people, but I'd like to do something with a bit of a twist.
maggiethecat · 06/10/2020 13:52
Gungo peas for rice and peas is very typical. We don't have anything special, not even turkey, probably because xmas is just our immediate family. The staple for us is a big roast chicken and roast potatoes and some kind of spin on sprouts, roasted them last year. We then add whatever we fancy eg fish, salads
If we were hosting we'd go full on carnivore, Jamaican style - curry goat, and oxtail.
maggiethecat · 06/10/2020 13:56
Echo, don't know if your recipe includes this but just a tip for your fruit. While they're soaking I add some spice to them - nutmeg, cinammon sticks, orange zest so they absorb all of those warm flavours.
EchoCardioGran · 06/10/2020 15:12
Great tip to add the spices thanks, will do that, not in the recipe I had maggie. That makes sense.
Phoenix21 · 07/10/2020 03:51
Sorrel 😋😋
My gran used to set her Xmas fruit to soak at Easter. All year she’d top up, checking the brandy first of course .
I need to start bringing more WI culture into my home for the sprogs sake.
Where can I get dried sorrel (will defo start leaving it for Santa!)
EchoCardioGran · 07/10/2020 10:51
maggiethecat · 07/10/2020 11:43
Phoenix - sorrel is also known as hibiscus and you can search online for that too. I checked Echo's link and it seems that's unavailable at the moment. Here's another onewww.<a class="break-all" href="//amazon.co.uk/Whole-Buy-Foods-Online-Ltd/dp/B00581KPGU/ref=sr_1_11?dchild=1&s=grocery&keywords=hibiscus%20flower&qid=1602067012&sr=1-11&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21" rel="nofollow noindex" target="_blank">https://amazon.co.uk/Whole-Buy-Foods-Online-Ltd/dp/B00581KPGU/ref=sr_1_11?dchild=1&keywords=hibiscus%20flower&qid=1602067012&s=grocery&sr=1-11&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21
Alternatively, if you live near any west indian/asian shops pop in to see if you can find it there as they may be better on price (the one in the link works out to £6.36/500g incl pp)
Denzelstowel · 15/10/2020 13:29
Great thread! Praying We can all still get together for Xmas
We will be having a mix of African / English and Caribbean. Between Xmas and new year I will be dreaming of spinach stew / fish / roast potatoes yam/ plantain rice & beans and sobolo /sorrel. Pigs in blankets and your Yorkshire pudding within gravy . We don't really eat turkey - but will have some chicken a real mish-mash !
maggiethecat · 05/12/2020 00:33
How's the christmas cake going? For some reason I'm a bit late, just did mine today but it's beginning to look a lot like christmas.....
DeegeeDee · 12/12/2020 13:40
Tell us how it goes Maggie, have you done extra alcohol to compensate?
I am sorry not to see my family this year as too far away but am getting a parcel of Sorrel so that will make up for some of it. 
maggiethecat · 12/12/2020 13:54
DeegeeDee - no extra alcohol as fruits have been soaking in rum/wine for almost a year. Did 4 cakes so that I can send some for family but it just means that the cake doesn't have as much time to mature.
katy1213 · 12/12/2020 20:30
This makes turkey and pigs in blankets sound very boring!
Is sorrel the same as hibiscus tea? (I think of a sorrel as a green spinach-y herb for stuffing salmon!)
DeegeeDee · 12/12/2020 22:00
Hibiscus I seem to remember rather than the green sorrel used in cooking. Will have to look it up as never worked out the lineage. Always room for pigs in blanket here but keep the turkey.
maggiethecat · 12/12/2020 23:36
Dee - Haven’t done the sorrel yet (that’s Dh’s privilege).
Sorrel and cake - that’s essential Christmas in this house. Will figure the Christmas meal later
DeegeeDee · 18/12/2020 18:14
Look Maggie! Sorrel and cake arrived today. Am being good and waiting til I get the fish on Tuesday then am going to go wild. 
not sad, stuffed face.
JayDot500 · 18/12/2020 19:17
Sorrel is hibiscus?!?!?! I have dried hibiscus flowers at home, omg I could make that this Christmas I miss sorrel so much! 😯😯
maggiethecat · 18/12/2020 23:39
DeegeeDee - You’ve had cake and sorrel sent and getting fish sent too?! 😋
Nice to have caring family.
Dh is ‘drawing’ sorrel tonight so the house is smelling like Christmas. I’m making mince pies tomorrow and will have a go at egg nog.
JayDot500 - yep, dried hibiscus is sorrel. Dh uses a 250g pack to make a ‘big’ pot
JayDot500 · 18/12/2020 23:51
@maggiethecat I could cry! I'd read that dried hibiscus flowers helped with blood pressure issues (I had post natal hypertension) so I bought two massive packs. There was a reason why I drank it and felt nostalgic. Tastes so good, even though it was missing all the other 'sorrel' seasonings. And yes, it is very 'spicy', very Christmassy! What. A. Revelation! Thank you! 😄
My kids gon learn about Sorrel!
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.