Christmas lunch in my family is about as traditional as it comes, and is pretty much the same every year no matter who’s house we’re at (including at least three monumental rows about things that happened years ago). Everyone chips in, too, even the kids – well, they’ve got to earn their dinner somehow. Rather than shooing them off to watch cartoons while the adults do all the work, we make sure they’re hands-on in the kitchen alongside us, especially with the annual yule log. Not only is this a valuable life lesson, it also helps develop and strengthen our family culture. The children get to share in that sense of pride at a job well done, too, and everyone feels a part of the occasion. And isn’t that what Christmas is all about?
Red chicory with Cashel Blue, honey and walnuts
Nibbles and canapes are Christmas essentials, but they don’t need to be fiddly or time-consuming. As with so many things in the kitchen, the best course of action is often just to keep things simple.
Prep 5 min
Cook 10 min
Makes 12-18 canapes
About 12 shelled walnuts
2 heads red chicory
100g Cashel Blue, or other creamy blue cheese
2 tbsp honey
Celery leaves, or flat-leaf parsley, to garnish
Heat the oven to 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6, then toast the walnuts in a baking tray for three minutes. Reove, leave to cool a little, then roughly chop.
Cut the root off the end of each chicory, and separate the leaves. You want one leaf per canape, and sometimes they can be on the big side, so, for neatness’ sake, you may want to trim the leaves so they’re all roughly the same size. Well, it is Christmas, isn’t it?
Arrange the chicory leaves cupped side up on a platter or wooden board, then crumble the cheese evenly between them. Scatter over the chopped walnuts, drizzle over the honey, then garnish with a few celery leaves and serve.
Caramelised swede and honey soup (AKA Christmas Day soup)
My sisters and I usually start planning Christmas from about August, and one summer I asked my sister Sarah what she was making that year. She responded: “Christmas Day soup, obviously!” I was intrigued as to what this magical soup might be, but she looked at me oddly: “Anna, it’s your soup. You made it years ago, and your niece says it isn’t Christmas Day dinner without it.” It’s my turn to host this year, and this will 100% be on the menu.
Prep 15 min
Cook 50 min
Serves 4
1 medium swede (about 500g)
2 tbsp vegetable oil, or other neutral oil
3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
40g honey, or to taste
500ml milk
100ml double cream
20g hazelnuts, chopped, to garnish
10g poppy seeds, to garnish
10g black sesame seeds, to garnish
Sea salt
1 heaped tbsp room-temperature butter
½ small bunch each flat-leaf parsley and chives, chopped
Peel the swede, then chop it into roughly even 5cm chunks. Heat a large pot, add the oil, then fry the swede, stirring often, for about five minutes, or until it’s golden brown all over. Add the garlic, cook, stirring for a minute, then add the honey and stir until it bubbles and starts to go golden brown.
Add 500ml just-boiled water, simmer for 10 minutes, then pour in the milk and cream, and bring slowly to a boil. Turn down the heat to a simmer and cook for about 15 minutes, until you can squash the swede with the back of a spoon.
Meanwhile, heat the oven to 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6. Put the nuts and seeds on an oven tray, roast for four minutes, then remove, roughly chop and leave to cool.
It’s now time to blend the soup – you want it to be as smooth as possible, so a jug blender is your best bet. Once the soup is pureed, taste it for salt and the sweetness of the honey, and adjust as required. Pour the soup back in the pan and reheat to a bare simmer.
To serve, rub the room-temperature butter over the base of four soup bowls, and sweep it up the sides with a pastry brush or thumb. Sprinkle the toasted nuts and seeds into the bowls and add a scattering of parsley and chives. Pour the hot soup into a big jug and pour into the bowls at the table.
Turkey wellington
Build this the day before you want to cook it, so on the day the only job is to pop it in the oven. If you’re not a turkey fan, some sausagemeat sandwiched between two chicken breasts is a good alternative, though it might need an extra five to 10 minutes in the oven.
Prep 20 min
Brine 2 hr
Marinate Overnight
Rest 1 hr+
Cook 1 hr 30 min
Serves 4
For the mushroom mix
60g butter
2 shallots, peeled and finely diced
5 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
200g chestnut mushrooms (use a mixture, if possible), chopped
400g tinned butter beans, drained and crushed
1 tbsp chopped fresh tarragon
1-2 dashes soy sauce, to taste, or salt
For the wellington
Salt and black pepper
400g piece turkey breast (about 11cm long x 8cm wide)
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
A few thyme sprigs, leaves picked
3 tbsp vegetable oil, or duck fat for extra flavour
2-4 cooked pancakes, homemade or shop-bought
2 320g rolls puff pastry
Plain flour, to dust
2 egg yolks, beaten, for sealing and glazing
The day before you want to build the wellington, give the turkey breast a quick brine. Make a 5% salt:water solution in a big pot, drop in the turkey, making sure it’s completely submerged, and leave for two hours.
Drain the turkey and pat it dry with kitchen paper. Put the garlic, lemon zest and thyme in a medium non-reactive dish or tray, then put in the turkey breast and rub all over to coat. Cover and pop in the fridge overnight.
The next day, get the mushroom mix made as early as you can, because you want it fully cooked and dry. Melt the butter in a large frying pan on a low heat, then gently saute the shallots for about five minutes, until soft but not coloured. Add the garlic, cook for a minute or two, until it no longer smells raw, then add the mushrooms and a pinch of salt, and cook low and slow, stirring occasionally, for about 25 minutes, until all the moisture has gone from the pan. Take off the heat, leave to cool, then stir in the crushed butter beans and tarragon, and season with soy sauce to taste.
Heat the oil or duck fat in a large frying pan on a medium-high heat, then sear the turkey breast, turning often, for a couple of minutes on each side, until nice and golden all over, and set aside.
Arrange the pancakes in an overlapping line on a chopping board, then spread the mushroom and butter bean mix all over the top. You’re going to roll everything up a bit like a big burrito, so, depending on the size of your turkey breast, you may not need all four pancakes. Lay the browned turkey on top of the mushroom mixture, then roll up in the pancakes so it’s fully enclosed. Wrap in clingfilm and put in the fridge for 40 minutes, to rest and firm up.
Lay out one sheet of the puff pastry on a well-floured worktop. Unwrap and discard the clingfilm around the pancake-wrapped turkey, lay it in the centre of the pastry, then cut the pastry to leave a 3-4cm exposed border all around the turkey; save the offcuts. Brush the exposed pastry with egg glaze, then lay the second sheet of pastry on top of the turkey and use floured hands to slide it down and tuck it in neatly between the turkey and the pastry base. Roll to wrap up completely, then press all around the joins, ideally with the back of a floured fork, to seal. Neatly trim away any excess pastry, then re-roll all the pastry offcuts and cut out pretty little Christmas designs to stick on top of the wellington (another job for the kids). Egg wash the outside of the wellington, transfer it to a greased and lined oven tray, and put in the fridge to rest and firm up.
Heat the oven to 210C (190C fan)/410F/gas 6½. Bake the wellington for 45-50 minutes, keeping an eye on the colour of the pastry; if it starts browning too much too soon, turn down the oven accordingly. The wellington is ready when the centre of the turkey reaches 65C, so, if need be, cover it loosely with foil and keep roasting until it hits that core temperature. Remove and leave to rest for 10 minutes, by which time the centre of turkey should have reached 70C.
To serve, I usually just cut the wellington into four large, showstopping slices.
Red wine gravy
This is definitely something you could make ahead of time and freeze. Defrost in the fridge overnight, then gently reheat and bring to a boil just before serving. This gravy is vegan up to the point when you add the meat juices, so it’s very useful when you’ve got a whole crowd to keep happy. As a side note, if I ever handed my family a red wine gravy without mushrooms and onions in it, I’d be frogmarched out of the house.
Prep 10 min
Cook 30 min
Serves 4-6
2-3 tbsp vegetable oil
2 onions, peeled and chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
2 large glasses red wine (about 500ml)
1 vegetable stock cube
3-4 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves picked
2 tbsp plain flour
200g chestnut mushrooms, cut into quarters
Salt and black pepper, to taste
Put two tablespoons of oil in a frying pan on a medium heat, add the onions and saute, stirring often, for about 10 minutes, until golden brown. Add the garlic and fry for a couple of minutes more. Pour in the red wine, then leave to bubble and reduce by two-thirds.
Meanwhile, dissolve the vegetable stock cube in 800ml boiling water. Add the stock and thyme to the onion mix and bring to a boil.
In a small bowl or cup, mix the flour with two tablespoons of water to make a paste, then stir this into the gravy to thicken. Don’t add any salt just yet: when you add the meat juices later, they might already be salty, so always wait until you’ve added them before adjusting the seasoning of the gravy. Blitz the gravy until smooth, then leave to cool, (at this stage, if you’re making it ahead, freeze in a suitable container).
Just before serving, slowly reheat the gravy to a gentle boil. Meanwhile, heat a little oil in a frying pan, then add the mushrooms and fry on a high heat, stirring, for about five minutes, until nicely browned all over. Stir the fried mushrooms into the blitzed gravy, then set aside enough of it for the non-meat eaters at the table. Pour any resting juices from the meat into the meat-eaters’ gravy, then taste and adjust the seasoning, and serve hot.
Cranberry relish
Listen, this sounds as if it’s so easy that it can’t be that good, but it is.
Prep 10 min
Cook 20 min
Serves 4-6
2 banana shallots, peeled and finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
200g dried cranberries, roughly chopped
1 pinch sugar
1 pinch salt
2-3 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves picked, to serve
Put the shallots, garlic and dried cranberries in a pan, add 200ml water, bring to a boil, then leave to simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add a pinch each of sugar and salt to taste, leave to cool and it’s ready; I like to stir in some fresh thyme leaves at the end. Decant into a bowl and serve at room temperature.
Sprout and hispi cabbage slaw
This is simplicity itself, and even better on Boxing Day in an epic sandwich with leftover turkey and ham.
Prep 15 min
Serves 4
1 tbsp honey
50ml white-wine vinegar
200g large brussels sprouts (the biggest you can find, ideally), very finely sliced or grated
½ head hispi cabbage (about 250g), very thinly sliced
50ml olive oil
½ tsp sea salt
Finely grated zest of ½ orange
1 tsp caraway seeds, or cumin seeds, or chilli flakes or finely sliced fresh red chilli
1 tsp pink peppercorns, crushed
Mix the honey and vinegar in a small cup, until smooth. Put everything else in a big bowl and toss to mix – the salt will start to break down the cabbage and sprouts, giving them a lovely, just-wilted texture. Drain off any liquid from the bottom of the bowl, then pour over the honey dressing to taste, toss again to coat and serve.
Yule log
The kids love this at Christmas, so I usually make the chocolate swiss roll and icing ahead of time, then leave them to design it themselves without any adults breathing down their necks. They never disappoint.
Prep 10 min
Cook 40 min
Serves 4
250g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
500g icing sugar
85g cocoa powder, plus extra to finish
45g room-temperature milk
4 eggs
100g caster sugar
65g self-raising flour
1 pinch salt
I like to make the butter cream first, so that when I’m ready to roll, I don’t have to rush it. In a medium bowl, beat the butter and half the icing sugar until light and fluffy, then add the rest of the icing sugar, 40g of the cocoa and the room-temperature milk and stir very well to combine.
Now for the sponge. Grease and line a lipped baking tray, and heat the oven to 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6. Put the eggs and caster sugar in a bowl, and beat vigorously until very well combined. Sift in the flour, salt and the remaining 45g cocoa powder, and fold in gently but thoroughly.
Scrape the batter into the lined tray, spread it out evenly with a spatula and bake for nine minutes, until risen, evenly baked and a skewer poked into the centre comes out clean. Remove, leave to cool slightly, then turn out on to a large sheet of greaseproof paper and leave to cool a little more. While it’s still just warm, roll the sponge into the classic swiss roll shape, then, once it has cooled almost to room temperature, unravel it, spread it all over with the butter cream, then roll up again carefully.
Keep any leftover butter cream for decorating the top – we like to spread some on the log and drag a fork through it to recreate that traditional bark effect. I like to serve this topped with a nice dusting of extra cocoa powder, too.
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Anna Haugh is chef/patron of Myrtle, London SW1, and co-presenter of MasterChef on BBC One
