Jess Murphy of Kai Galway
People expect me to do weird and wacky flavours at Christmas but I keep it hardcore traditional. I’m still scarred from that era in the 90s when everyone back in New Zealand was cooking things like apricot chicken in the slow cooker. I avoid any kind of fruit material with the bird.
I like cranberry sauce to be separate, turkey from the Friendly Farmer, ham from Andarl Farm, three different types of spud, cheesy cauliflower and I’ll always blackmail Aran [McMahon, from Cafe Rua] to drop me off one of his amazing and massive sherry trifles, which I share out with the neighbours.
Anyone from Kai who doesn’t have a place to go, the ‘orphans’ without a ‘home’ come to the dinner.
Stuffing is hardcore traditional, sage, onion and bread stuffing. Dried fresh white bread, the stuff that kills swans, blitzed into crumbs, then I add fresh sage and fried onions. I avoid garlic, but add loads of white pepper, and about ten egg yolks and a little bit of cream to that and steam it separately in a loaf tin in a bain marie, because no one has time to wait 10 million years for the turkey to cook, to overcook or to undercook, while also worrying how the stuffing is doing inside.
The stuffing comes out almost sponge-like and you can slice it when it’s cold, which is great for the next day’s sandwiches.
Lewis Barker
Terre, Castlemartyr, Co Cork
Lewis Barker of Terre
My wife is still back in Singapore where I was working before I came to Cork as she has to see out her own contract, so I’ll be running back to Leeds to see my mum but spending Christmas with my wife’s family in Cheshire.
It will be special because I haven’t seen my new born son for three months — to be honest, if he was any older, I wouldn’t have taken on this job but who remembers back to when they were six months old. Anyway, we’ve wanted to leave Singapore for a while and I needed to do this to set the grounds for our move back, so this will be a very special Christmas!
Stuffing will be traditional with my wife’s family but this recipe is for a whole fancy confit onion with chestnut and black truffle stuffing, a ‘festive farce’ [farce, from the French, ‘to stuff’]. You take roasted chicken livers [140g], diced roasted chestnuts [60g], diced roasted foie gras [55g], finely chopped fresh black truffle [20g], finely diced confit onion [20g], picked fresh thyme leaves [5g], minced skinless chicken leg [85g], mushroom duxelle [20g], fine salt [5g] and black pepper [2g].
Bind all the chilled ingredients together until fully mixed and incorporated and leave it sit in the fridge for 12 hours to allow the flavours to permeate. It can either be rolled into a ballotine or piped under the skin of a chicken before roasting but probably best to go for the ballotine option when serving it with turkey, otherwise it would overcook.
Lily Ramirez-Foran
Picado Mexican, Dublin
Lily Ramirez-Foran of Picado Mexican
Traditionally, we do a stuffed leg of pork, pierna machada, for Christmas in my family. It is very traditional for a lot of Mexicans. Some people do tamales, some eat turkey. We might do stuffed turkey for New Year’s but for as long as I can remember in my family we have had pierna machada.
You chop separate bowls of dried prunes, raw garlic, raw pancetta and olives into tiny pieces. Then you get a skewer and ‘drill’ holes all over the meaty part of the leg, working the hole to expand it a bit to get in the different stuffings, but not too big that it can’t be sealed with a clove. Force in the tiny pieces, one after another, taking turns. It’s a lot work, but there’s a lot of hands, it’s almost like a ritual.
Then you put it on a big roasting tray and make an adobo [sauce] with Guajillo chillis, which are bright and fruity and very flavoursome, only a tiny bit of heat, almost like the way Eastern Europeans use paprika. We blend it with garlic, orange juice, cumin and salt, make the paste and rub it all over the outside without knocking off the cloves.
Then we add really good quality cider to the tin — which is a paveras, a deep roasting tin with a lid for cooking turkeys — or you could cover it with a double layer of tin foil, and roast it very slowly over a long period of time, about an hour per kg, at about 160-170˚C, taking off the lid or foil for the last half hour.
The gravy is probably a 1960s recipe, a tin of cream of mushroom soup, the really crappy Campbell’s one. Blend it with the juices from the pan and dried prunes, cook it in the pot and a thick black gravy. When you carve the leg of pork, the meat is almost bejewelled with all the different stuffing ingredients.
I would serve that with a pasta with maybe asparagus cream, you don’t want anything taking over the flavour of the meat.
My traditions have changed fully now that I am living with an Irish family in Ireland. It can take two days to make the pork so we’ll be having a traditional Irish Christmas with [husband] Alan’s family because our retail business is mental right up to Christmas Eve — so we’ll have turkey, Brussels sprouts, sausage and bread stuffing and it’s all lovely for me because it is so different. I do Mexican Christmas on New Year’s Eve.
JP McMahon
Aniar, Galway
JP McMahon of Anair
Forget the sage and onion. This is Christmas turned sideways. Think sourdough crumb or soda bread toasted in seaweed butter, with smoked mussels and apple, a gentle whisper of fermented cabbage, and if you have it, a little touch of spruce.
Yes, the resinous bite of spruce! Irish chestnuts from Westmeath make an appearance but only to remind you of what you thought stuffing used to be. It’s Ireland on a December plate, wild, woodsy, and defiantly untraditional.
A stuffing from Aniar for those who’d rather be surprised than sentimental. Though I won’t be allowed to make this at home. We’re full Irish in the house, turkey, ham and regular Irish stuffing.
But I live in hope for the rest of you.
Virginia O’Gara
My Goodness Foods, Cork
Virginia O’Gara of My Goodness Foods
In Texas where I grew up, you’d always have a blend of traditional American and Mexican food all year round. At Christmas, you’d always have some tamales —we are surrounded by so much corn in Texas — and my favourite Christmas tradition, which started in Austin, is to make avocado margaritas, with avocado, lime juice, Cointreau, simple syrup, coriander and tequila, it’s bright, green and delicious, an almost healthy alcoholic breakfast.
For dinner, we’ll have a shiitake-almond nut loaf, with smoked hibiscus flowers and shiitake mushroom gravy, and, with that, jalapeno cheese cornbread stuffing. It’s what we used to put into our vegan survival kit. It’s real Tex-Mex comfort food.
We bake a cornbread with corn massa (corn meal), a few days ahead to leave it dry out. Then we make a broth of shallots, celery, carrots, garlic, lots of vegan butter, and a handful of jalapenos, depending on your tolerance, for spice and acidity. Put in some veg bouillon, let it cook down, lots of salt and pepper — sage is crucial, a bit of rosemary, some thyme — let it all simmer down and then throw in jalapenos and jalapeno vinegar — the brine from a jalapeno jar — for acidity.
Once the broth is cooled down, we throw in our [My Goodness Food] vegan nacho cheese and set the oven to 175˚C. Cube the cornbread and put it in a baking pan and pour the broth, up to a litre, over the cornbread, mix it all up until it is saturated, cover and bake for 30 minutes and then remove the cover, mix it around and bake it again until crispy on the outside but the nacho cheese on the inside is all soft and chewy, about ten or 15 minutes.
Dining and Cooking