It's all HUMBUG I tell you HUMBUG!

A Christmas Carol

"You may be a bit of undigested beef, a blob of mustard, a crumb of cheese. Yes. There's more gravy than of grave about you."

Christmas dinner

During the run up to the whole holiday season often the most even tempered of us sometimes morph into Alan Rickman’s gloriously over the top Sheriff of Nottingham from Robin Hood. “And cancel Christmas!” I want to yell when I see the length of the queue into the supermarket car park on the day before Christmas Eve. Shopping for the Christmas siege or possibly just an invasion of potentially hostile relatives brings out the worst in us all.

Luckily for Bob in A Christmas Carol a reformed Scrooge saves the Cratchit’s from the horror that is Christmas food shopping. Buying the largest turkey in the butcher’s window he begins his transformation from miserly humbug to kindly benefactor. I wouldn’t suggest you buy the largest bird you can find but do follow Scrooge’s example and share your Christmas meal with lots of people. You will need them to help you eat the cold turkey sandwiches if nothing else.

Mise en scene

Turkey

Potatoes for roasting peeled and quartered

Parsnips peeled and quartered

Salt

Pepper

Vegetable oil, dripping or goose fat

Carrots peeled and cut into batons or rings

Brussels sprouts

stuffing

Gravy

Accompaniments to the meal (bread sauce, cranberry sauce, cocktail sausages and bacon rolls)

It’s all in the edit

1. Peel, chop and prepare your vegetables first. Keep them in cold water to prevent discolouration.
2. Put the oven on to heat.
3. Read the label on the turkey as almost all supermarkets put oven temperatures and timings on their packaging these days. If you have bought your bird from a butcher ask their advice on cooking it. I use 20 minutes per pound (450g) plus an extra 20 minutes.
4. Get a piece of paper and work out your timings. It is not complicated but get organised because Christmas merriment and the odd sherry might addle your thoughts later. Write down the cooking time of the turkey and add 20 minutes resting time. This is the turkey cooking time altogether. Work out when you want to eat and see when the turkey must go in to the oven.
5. Potatoes and parsnips take 50 minutes to 1 hour to roast and need to be par boiled first so will take about 1 hour 20 minutes from preparation to serving.
6. When ready put the turkey in the oven having seasoned it well with salt and pepper, you can massage it with butter and shove a lemon into its nether regions if you like. Stuffing is always better cooked on a separate dish.
7. At the correct time put the potatoes on to boil and also put a large roasting tin containing the fat or oil in the oven. There should be enough fat to cover the bottom of the tin. Once the potatoes come to the boil simmer for 5 minutes and then drain well.
8. Shake the potatoes but not the parsnips in the colander, this will get rid of the excess water (and also will roughen the edges to give you crispy spuds. Take the tray from the oven tip in the potatoes and parsnips and return to the oven as quickly as possible. You don’t want the oil or fat to cool. You can cook the spuds and parsnips together or apart it just depends on how big your oven is and how many pans you have.
9. Consult your list and pop the sausages and bacon rolls in the oven when needed too. At this time put a rasher or several of bacon over the turkey breast and legs to prevent them from over cooking. This makes an excellent cooks perk too.
10. Brussels sprouts need just a little cooking time and like the carrots only need 6 or 7 minutes to cook.
11. Once the turkey is cooked and out of the oven resting use a little of the fat from the pan, flour and some good red wine to make gravy. Delegate the making of the bread sauce and the lid removal from the jar of cranberry sauce.
12. Serve and wash down with wine and good company.
13. Zap the Christmas pudding in the microwave. Not very Dickensian but a damn site more practical and much less steamy than boiling for several hours. Watch out for ghosts at the window.