Help me find a new meat free(ish) Christmas Eve tradition?

[Springisintheairohyeah]

It was always a tradition in our house to have a joint of ham on Christmas eve. Used to love the process of boiling, glazing it and studding it with cloves. Always felt special, and just served with baby jacket potatoes and home made coleslaw on the side.

For complicated reasons re family dietary preferences, things that are now off the cards are

• No to all farmed meat (so no pork, chicken, beef, duck etc)
• No dairy (so cheese is out, although there are decent non dairy subs for milk/cream/creme fraiche/butter and yoghurt, so those could still be included and would just use substitutes).
• Fish and shellfish okay.
• Game like venison/pheasant is okay (although I think Pheasant is too much like turkey to be having on Christmas Eve).

Has anyone got any suggestions of something lovely I could make that would tick the boxes of

• not being too much like Christmas dinner
• tasty and a bit special (so not something we would have every day)
• comforting but not so filling that it puts you off your Christmas dinner the next day
• not involving lots of complex ingredients and hours of fiddly prep

I love to cook and I don't mind at all the idea of making something different, would live to try out some lovely new veggie or fish recipes, but I think I'm so stuck in the rut of ham on Christmas eve I can't think beyond meat and potatoes for this one.

I had thought of just swapping out the ham for a piece of salmon, but it just doesn't seem as special. I also previously tried a "fake" ham joint from Sainsbury's - was horrible, more like a cheap sausage than a joint of ham, so a meat sub is not on the cards.

Salmon in puff pastry with herbs, spinach, etc
Balsamic glazed salmon on a bed of garlicky wilted spinach
Jambalaya with shrimp
Seared scallops with a buttery garlic sauce and gnocchi
Spaghetti with mussels and white beans in a garlicky tomato sauce
Risotto with asparagus and shrimp
Cioppino seafood stew (nicer than it sounds)
Christmas baked salmon -
www.recipetineats.com/christmas-baked-salmon/

Old fashioned fish and chips. Either homecooked or from a takeaway. Generally a crowd pleaser and is nice and informal in contrast to Christmas dinner.

I used to do a salmon risotto on Christmas Eve. It was an oven baked one so no standing for ages at the hob. That was a crowd pleaser. Haven’t done it for a few years as was giving it a break so can’t remember where the recipe was from but I’m sure there’s plenty out there. Otherwise, Taming Twins has lots of fab recipe ideas on her website.

Vegan nachos
Seafood/fish tacos

I'm doing fish pie on Xmas Eve, and something else for me (I'm vegetarian).

If I wasn't going to do fish pie I'd do a big veggie spinach lasagne plus salad and garlic bread.

Goan fish/prawn curry. You can get a curry kit for this from tastesmiths.

A luxury fish pie is always nice, with big prawns, smoked haddock etc, though it would depend on the quality of the dairy free white sauce...

I cooked a lovely venison stew the other day that might work - slow cooked so lovely and rich and tender but not too faffy to prepare, and not something you get every day.

Or moules marinere? Mussels are actually really easy to do at home and very quick to cook.

What could feel really like a treat is a big pile of king prawns and seared scallops served with garlic butter (or dairy-free substitute), or buy some lovely fresh truffle, you'd only need a tiny bit, and serve it freshly grated over some fresh pasta?

We did Rudolph Pie a couple of years. A Nigella recipe (Feast I think) which is essentially a shepherd's pie made with venison mince. Quite rich. DC thought it was funny. You would need to sub the dairy items and there might be some pancetta or pork mince in there that you would need to leave out or substitute (eg with extra venison mince.

You could also do some form of fish pie. I don't particular like the standard fish pie with eggs and (generally watery) white sauce (and based on a recent thread about over-rated food I am not alone), but there are some good alternatives, e.g Nigella's Blakean fish pie (sorry for second Nigella plug)

So you have a choice of pies along with some salads or veg. Pies can be made in advance.

I get that it is ridiculously expensive (other shops do approximations of the same thing), but this is our Christmas Eve dinner for the past few years. Pricey, but very good, and fairly light!

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/caramelised-onion-squash-spinach-pithivier is this too fiddly? It's lovely.

Venison Wellington or bourgignon?

Partridge is a lovely non gamey game. Wild duck is in season.

Chesnut rolls ( like sausage rolls but no meat) are lovely but a bit fiddly. Can’t be made and frozen in advance. From a vegetarian Christmas published years ago

Venison casserole

A salmon is light and tasty for Xmas Eve. You could have with a salad and crusty bread.

This is a very simple recipe but it looks impressive - just leave out the parmesan from the filling - you don't need it https://www.wellplated.com/salmon-wellington/#wprm-recipe-container-48095

We always have scallops in their shells with garlic butter, skinny fries, asparagus and aioli for Christmas Eve which is simple but feels special.

Or Jamie Oliver did a baked pumpkin vegetarian dish on his recent Christmas programe that I'm sure you could use dairy substitutes for. Essentially a whole pumpkin with the end "lid" cut off and seeds scooped out to make a bowl. Roasted then filled with a creamy leek sauce and topped with breadcrumbs mixed with herbs and chopped nuts and baked again to cook everything together. It looked fab and a real centerpiece but simple enough to execute.

I do a shepherd's supper on Christmas Eve. We get the fairy lights out, turn off the room lights and have an indoor picnic with Middle Eastern food: nice warm bread, hummus, olives, cheese (can leave it out/sub), grapes, figs, quince jelly, crudités etc. It's supposed to remind us of the shepherds on the hillside in the nativity story and is just a nice evening.

We usually have kedgeree on Christmas Eve - with smoked haddock, smoked salmon, and prawns. Not too spicy, and different from the whole Christmas food thing. Highly recommended!

I'd go with the salmon idea.

We have fish pie. In your situation I’d have salmon en croute or kedgeree. I also like the seafood platter idea as posted up thread.

A curried kedgeree with smoked haddock is very tasty, quick and easy too.
You just add some curry powder when frying the onions. Garnish with parsley, coriander or chopped spring onions.

Poach the smoked haddock in water for a few minutes and then use that water for the kedgeree, with a dish or chicken stock cube added.

The two vegetarian (but easily veganised) favourite Christmassy recipes in this household are

• Chestnut and Red Wine Pate En Croute (Rose Elliot) https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2005/dec/17/features.weekend4
• Christingle Pie (Pieminister) https://pieminister.co.uk/christingle-all-the-way/ - Elmlea Plant is a really good cream substitute

Seafood platter: a heap of shell fish including prawns, oysters, mussels, scallops, hot smoked salmon and fresh poached salmon. Lobster if you really must.

Lemon. Tabasco and a chilled bottle of dry white wine. Enjoy.

Oh wow, thanks for all the brilliant suggestions. I don't know why I couldn't think of anything because these all sound brilliant. I now have the opposite problem - too many possibilities haha.

Fish pie used to be one of my favourites and I haven't had it for years, so that's up there for the top spot, probably either going to be that, moules marienere or one of the salmon en croute ideas.

I will be ear marking some of the other suggestions for over the Christmas holidays though!

Our tradition is a Chinese every Christmas Eve. Is can’t remember a year in 27 years that we hadn’t had one 🫶

Paella! Celebratory, scaleable, and nothing like Christmas dinner. I’ve done it for Boxing Day a few times.