Delia Smith - live webchat, Friday, 25 November 2011, 1-2pm

[RachelMumsnet]

We're delighted and honoured at MNHQ that Delia, the grande dame of British cookery, is joining us on 25 November, from 1-2pm for a live webchat. Delia's first Christmas book, Delia Smith's Christmas has been the cookery bible since it's publication in 1994 when the shops ran out of cranberries and Delia became known as the Cranberry Queen. In 2009, Delia's Happy Christmas hit the shelves with over 100 new recipes and an invaluable hour-by-hour countdown to the last 36 hours before Christmas dinner is served.

The party season is about to kick off and Delia's kindly allowed us to reproduce her own mulled wine recipe and her non-alcoholic version for designated drivers.

Delia's Classic Christmas Cake box is currently flying off Waitrose shelves. So ahead of Delia's webchat, we're having our very own bake-off: five MNHQ-ers are making the cake and Delia is going to sample a morsel of each. Find out what she thinks and send in your own questions on Christmas cookery to Delia on Friday 25 November at 1pm. If you're unable to join us on the day, send a question in advance to this thread.

@sfxmum

Hello Delia welcome

I love your Christmas recipes but so far I have not tried to make them as mother in law is the Christmas book, soon however I am likely to take on that job, it is nice to know something reliable will be there to help me

question - what skills do you consider essential in the kitchen, thinking things like making a roux or such like, to arm a new cook on the way to competence?
TIA

Acquiring cooking skills only needs practice, and my own instructions should be sufficient for any basic skill in the kitchen. I feel if anyone following fails it?s my fault, because I haven?t explained it properly. Good luck!

Xmas cake and a nice crumbly Wensleydale is fab - must get some in soon.

@Checkmate

Thank you for coming Delia.

I want to thank you for the Cheese and Parsnip Roulade recipe. My mother started making this for me in my teens when I became a vegetarian, and nearly twenty years on, I now make 2, as all the meat eaters like to have a slice too. Its absolutely delicious and the flavour is the defining one of Christmas for me. (I now put a handful of cranberries into the stuffing mix as they look so festive when its rolled up.)

My question is; Do you manage to get to Church on Christmas day, and if so, how do you fit it in with all the cooking? We're trying to teach our children the real significance of Christmas, but haven't yet made it to Church with them on the actual day, as we get so bogged down in cooking and putting batteries in new toys. Midnight mass on Christmas Eve is not an option while they are so young.

Yes, I do manage to go to Church, but it's all done like clockwork, and we always have a 7kg turkey, so it goes into the oven at around 7 or 7:30am, so I'm able to go 8am mass whilst it's still in the oven. I had to give up on midnight, because I was too tired to cook the next day!

Do you have any suggestions for a non-traditional Christmas dinner (eat fish not meat / poultry) & a pud for our fussy non-cake loving dd (sure she can't be mine!)

Thank you & like so many others here love your work - (why are you not a dame???)

Hello Delia!

I have just made my Christmas cake today and bought a tin of black treacle, as the recipe required some. I have no idea what else to use the remaining treacle for- any festive ideas?

@jepa

Hi Delia Yet another huge fan here. I bought the Complete Cookery Course back in the early 90's and haven't look back. I'm on my second copy :) I've made your Christmas Cake for years, hope you don't mind but I add Cointreau instead of Brandy, happened one year when we had run out of Brandy but did have Cointreau. In fact my Christmas Cake has quite a reputation I made it for a party once and for months afterwards had women coming upto me in the street and asking what my secret was. I did, I promise, send them your way! Anyway to my question, my friend soaks her fruit for a week when making her Christmas cake as opposed to me who soaks overnight. Do you think it makes a difference the longer the fruit is soaked ? Thank you so much for coming to Mumsnet.

I have two Christmas cakes in my book. One is creole cake, in which you soak the fruit for a week and the other is classic Christmas cake, where you soak the fruits overnight. They're both equally good I think, so what I do is alternate them and make one one year, and one the next year!

The Waitrose cake pack we’ve done this year has pre-soaked all the fruits, which is helpful for busy people!

It will just be the 4 of us for Christmas this year - 2 adults, a 5 yr old and a 3 yr old. I'm not sure how to make the Christmas food special.
I'm guessing a turkey would be too big for us so not sure what to have - totally open to ideas on this.
If I do go for a bird I want something free range but don't want to leave it last minute. Can a buy a nice fresh one now and just freeze it - do I have to do anything particular to it?

I'm another one with a crumbling copy of the Complete Cookery Course - my bible for so many recipes!

My question is, have your tastes changed over the years? It always amuses my husband and I how little garlic/spices you recommend using in your recipes in that book (ie one clove of garlic for a dish to serve 4-6). Would you add more if you were writing the recipes now?

@MumblingAndBloodyRagDoll

Beef! I thought of a question that I really think you can help with! How on earth do I cook roast beef so that it's not like a leathery old shoe? Is there a way or some trick of roasting a joint of beef really nicely please? Mine are always sad affairs.

Someone once said that God sent good meat, and the Devil sent cooks. But I believe the opposite! I think nowadays it's going to get harder and harder to find a good piece of beef, and what's happening is lesser joints are being sold as roasting joints.

I would recommend you invest in sirloin, or a two-rib piece on the bone from a reliable butcher or supplier so you know it's well-hung. I think all the instructions are on my website for you to follow, but once you've got a really good piece of beef, you'll never look back!

Sorry I'm late! laptop playing silly buggers again!

Hi Delia,

needless to say am huge fan.

Tried to ask you a question on radio 4 last year when you were on, but ran out of time. Second time I lucky I hope! What main dish could you recommend to go with rice that isn't chilli or curry that children would eat?

Thank you
xx

Hello Delia,

I am a huge fan of your recipes as they are the ones I turn to again and again.

I would like your advice please on what to cook on Boxing day (evening). there will be 6 adults. I won't have any time on the day as we will be out most of the day, so I would like something either quick and easy in the evening or that can be made in advance and frozen then defrosted. What do you suggest for a special meal that will be a change after turkey and all the trimmings the day before?

Thank you.

Oh how weird. I have just made your parsnips with parmesan and frozen them for Christmas Day, and had some parsnips over so was thinking of making the roulade, but wasn't sure exactly what you would serve it with?

I have your original Delia Smith Christmas from 1990, which is now a bit battered and scuffed with sticky treacle fingers - is it still in print to buy another copy? I don't think you've been surpassed by any of these current fancy cooking lot - long may you continue.

@AlfalfaMum

What would be your top recommendation for vegetarian Christmas dinner?

Also, I have to thank you for your gorgeous Spinach and Four Cheese Lasagne recipe - it's been one of our favourite dinners for years now :)

My favourite vegetarian recipe for Christmas is something called Cheese and Parsnip roulade. It has a sage and onion stuffing, and is served with bread sauce. So if others are eating turkey, it's all in the same vein.

It's been really popular since I published my first Christmas book 20 years ago.

Good afternoon Delia

Dp introduced me to your recipes when we met over 3 years ago and I'm now as hooked as him. We have all your books (I think?) the one we use most funnily enough is One is Fun!! I've passed on recipes from this and many single friends have bought it on our recommendation. We double the recipes. Are there any plans for another One is fun 2? Or even Couples cooking? Cooking for 2? Apologies if there is one out there.

Good luck for your footy team btw

DELIA, you've fed my family for yonks. Thank you.

Please advise about "feeding" your Christmas cake. How much? How often? I'd like to do it lots. Can I overdo it? I suspect I overcooked the cake (marginally).

Thanks and happy Christmas!

@grovel

DELIA, you've fed my family for yonks. Thank you.

Please advise about "feeding" your Christmas cake. How much? How often? I'd like to do it lots. Can I overdo it? I suspect I overcooked the cake (marginally).

Thanks and happy Christmas!

It's great fun feeding the cake. I like to use Armagnac but cognac or brandy will do. Take a toothpick and make holes all over the surface of the cake and then add about a tablespoon of booze and let it seep into the holes you've made. Then next time you feed the cake maybe a week later, do the same on the underside and the next week go back to the top and so on. There are three weeks now until Christmas so you may want to go shorter intervals than a week, but just get as much as you can.

Will skip pleasantries (other than thank you so much for providing FOOLPROOF recipes...unlike some other chefs)
So....what would be your choice for your last ever meal???

@ManCrushedToDeathByALift

Hello Delia

I have always wanted to ask you this question!

I use your Complete Cookery Course all the time. BUT however many times I make pastry without baking it blind, as you advise, it ends up an unmitigated disaster. Do you really make pastry like this or do you actually bake it blind like the rest of us?

Thanks!

Yes, I do make it for baking blind, absolutely as in the cookery course. But I think where people go wrong is, they probably stretch the pastry too much, and don't allow enough up round the edges of the tin,. to allow for shrinkage. However, I have now discovered a completely different way to do this.
This involves lining a tin with pastry, again not stretching it too much, and pricking the base then pop it into a polythene bag and freeze it. Then, have your oven pre-heated with a baking sheet pre-heating as well. Then just pour the filling into the tart, and cook it without pre-baking the pastry and you'll find that it will cook perfectly.

Hi Delia!

As my parents are getting older they talk about Christmas when they were children and the treats they used to have such as saveloys on Christmas eve. I'd love to give them a Christmas like they remember so thanks to your guidance have been busy with a cake and pudding. Are there any traditional festive treats that might not be so fashionable now that I could create for them?

Many thanks for everything!

@BecauseImWorthIt

I am another one with a copy of The Complete Cookery Course which is falling to bits!

I have noticed in the past that you have been slagged off by other 'celebrity' chefs - Worral-Thompson being one who comes to mind, who couldn't understand why you needed to explain to people how to boil an egg.

I'm not asking you slag off any other chefs oh please do, but who do you feel writes the best recipes, by which I mean recipes that work as reliably as yours do?

Thank you!

I rarely use recipes from other books, because I?m always wanting to create things myself. But my favourite cook, and this is the important word ? COOK, not chef ? is Simon Hopkinson, because he knows about real cooking as opposed to what chefs do.

@valiumpoptarts

Hello Delia, Another one with falling apart and food stained cookery books here Just wondered, do you have an emergency Friday night meal plan at all or do you just get fed up with the whole thing and just get a kebab like I do? (Can't really imagine that you kave a donner but it would make me feel better...)

Love all these books falling apart. We have a good Indian curry shop locally, who deliver, so it?s heaven and no washing up .

@Champagnesupernova

Someone here has burned tinned sweetcorn Delia, what have your worst disasters been??

My oven broke down on Christmas Eve! But luckily, we have a spare oven in what used to be the garage, for when we were filming. So although I had to run back and forth in the rain, I did get my turkey cooked on time!

Hi Delia,

Do you plan out al your meals before shopping or get creative depending on what you have bought?

I think of you every time I feed my Christmas cake, I aspire to have a spare room to keep them under the bed like on your TV programme!

@Wordsonapage

Hello Delia

Do you regret the "Where are you ..come on then let's be having you" ?

Love all these books falling apart. We have a good Indian curry shop locally, who deliver, so it?s heaven and no washing up .