Your Christmas Dinner

Southland Times, Issue 21578, 16 December 1931, Page 12

Your Christmas Dinner

There are so many traditional dishes connected with Christmas fare, that the following should be seasonable recipes for your Christmas dinner: — Curled Celery. Remove the stones from the olives, taking care not to break them. Fill the cavities with some pimento pulp, well seasoned and moistened with a little oil and vinegar. Stuffed Olives. Well wash a head of celery, remove the outside leaves, and break the centre into sticks. Cut these down finely leaving an inch or two uncut at f the end, place in a bowl of cold water and they will curl up ready for serving. Roast Turkey: Have the turkey drawn and prepared for table, then wipe inside and out with a cloth wrung out of hot water. Place folds of cloth on the breast and beat with a rolling pin to flatten it and make it look plump. Dip the legs in boiling water for a minute or two, and remove the outer skin. Fill the breast with stuffing and sew or skewer it down. Cover the breast with greased paper or fat bacon, put the turkey

in a baking tin, spread it with dripping, and place in a hot oven for 15 minutes, then gradually lessen the heat and finish cooking. Baste frequently, and when it is nearly finished uncover the breast and dredge with flour, adding a little butter to brown it. The usual time to allow is 12 minutes for each pound and 12 minutes over.

Oyster Stuffing: Cook two pints of oysters for ten minutes in their own liquor. Melt four tablespoonfuls of butter in a frying pan and add the same quantity of flour. Add the chopped oysters, J pint of their liquor, and stir until very thick, add enough seasoned breadcrumbs to make the consistency for stuffing. Boiled Ham:

Soak the ham in two or three waters for twenty-four hours. Put in a large saucepan with enough water to cover, to which have been added three cups of cider, a sprig of thyme, a blade of mace, a few cloves, two bay leaves, and a little paprika. Let it come to the boil slowly, skim carefully, and then simmer gently, allowing 25 minutes to the pound for a new ham, and 28 minutes for an old. When cooked let it remain in the water until cold (if it is to be served cold), then remove the skin carefully, remove as much grease as possible with a cloth, and cover fat with fine baked breadcrumbs. Bread Sauce:

Peel a small onion and stick two cloves into it. Put it into a saucepan with a pint of milk and bring slowly to the boil, adding four ounces of breadcrumbs. Let it cook slowly at the side of the stove until the sauce thickens and breadcrumbs become soft. Then remove the onion, add good seasonings and an ounce of butter, make the sauce very hot and serve. If too thick add a little more milk.

Plum Pudding: lib suet, lib flour, lib breadcrumbs, 11b currants, lib sultanas, lib raisins, 41b apples, 41b figs, 2oz almonds, Alb sugar, 41b mixed peel, 4 a nutmeg, 4 teaspoonful allspice, i teaspoonful cinnamon, 4 teaspoonful ginger, 4 teaspoonful salt, juice of a lemon, juice of an orange, S eggs, 1 gill brandy.

Mix all the ingredients together a week before cooking, the flour, suet and dried fruit first, then the breadcrumbs, sugar, spices and orange and lemon juice, and lastly the eggs and brandy, and then mix all together, stirring very vigorously. If too stiff add a little milk. The puddings should be boiled very slowly, and each pudding requires six to eight hours’ slow boiling, and longer if they are steamer. Brandy Sauce:

Put a gill of water and breakfastcupful of sugar in a saucepan and cook until it begins to darken. Remove from the fire and add two teaspoonfulb of lemon juice and a gill of brandy. Pour carefully over the pudding just before serving and put a match to the brandy before bringing to the table, so that it is flaming when brought in. Minco Pics:

Make the pastry, and if of the flaky variety, allow 11 ounces of lard to a pound of flour, a pinch of salt and a squeeze of lemon juice. Mix with milk or cold water. Mincemeat:

lib beef suet, 11b chopped apples, lib currants, 4oz raisins, 4oz sultanas, lib of brown sugar, 4 oranges, 2 lemons, 4 teaspoonful powdered mace, 4 teaspoonful allspice, 1 gill brandy.

Clean the currants and sultanas, chop the raisins, chop the suet, grate the rind of one lemon and one orange on to the sugar, and mix all the dry ingredients together, then stirring in the orange and lemon juice and brandy. Mix all together very well, leave in a covered basin for 24 hours, stir well again and put into jars. Ginger Cream: Boil half a pint of milk with an ounce of sugar, let it cool slightly, then pour on to a beaten egg. Place in a double saucepan and stir until it thickens. Then remove from the fire. Melt half an ounce of gelatine in a gill of ginger syrup, add carefully to the custard, and stir until it begins to set. Then add 4oz of chopped crystallized ginger and a gill of whipped cream and pour into a mould that has been rinsed out with cold water.