Christmas, planned by Edesia
Every dish ready, and your nights free.
Pick your Christmas menu. Edesia plans every dish across the days before, shares the oven and the hob between them, keeps the nights for sleep, and tells you what to do and when.
Your menu
Tap a dish to leave it out or put it back.
Friday 25 December
Take out everything for the turkey and the stuffing.
Take the turkey (5 kg) out of the fridge. Pull the neck and the bag of giblets out of the cavity and keep them for the gravy stock. Pat the bird dry inside and out with kitchen paper and leave it, covered, at room temperature for 1 hour, so it roasts evenly.
Chop 2 onions finely.
Melt 20 g butter in a frying pan on medium-low heat and soften the chopped onions in it for 10 minutes, without letting them colour. Tip them into a large bowl and let them cool.
Chop 15 leaves of sage finely.
Cut the crusts off 120 g white bread and blitz it into fine crumbs in a food processor, or grate it on the coarse side of a grater.
Add 500 g pork sausage meat, the breadcrumbs, the sage, 1 egg, 1 tsp salt and ½ tsp black pepper to the cooled onion and mix well with your hands. Grease a baking dish of about 20 × 25 cm with 5 g butter, press the stuffing in evenly and rough up the top with a fork.
Weigh the turkey (5 kg) and work out its time: 20 minutes per kg plus 90 minutes, so 3 hours 10 minutes for a 5 kg bird. Put 1 onion, halved, 1 lemon, halved, and 4 sprigs of thyme into the cavity. Sit the bird breast up in a large roasting tin, rub 75 g butter all over the breast and legs, and season it with 1½ tsp salt and ½ tsp black pepper. Lay 8 slices of streaky bacon across the breast, slightly overlapping.
Heat the oven to 190 °C (170 °C fan).
Cover the turkey loosely with foil and roast it for its full time, basting it with the juices in the tin every 45 minutes. Take the foil off for the last 45 minutes, so the skin turns deep golden and the bacon crisps: for a 5 kg bird, 2 hours 25 minutes under foil, then 45 minutes without. Then push a skewer into the thickest part of the thigh: the juices must run clear, with no pink, or a thermometer must read at least 75 °C there. If not, give it 15 minutes more and check again.
Take out everything for the mince pies.
Cut 130 g butter, straight from the fridge, into small cubes. Rub it into 230 g plain flour, 25 g icing sugar and 1 pinch of salt with your fingertips, lifting the mixture as you go, until it looks like fine breadcrumbs. A food processor does it in a few pulses.
Beat 1 egg yolk with 2 tbsp water, pour it in and stir with a table knife until the dough starts to clump. Gather it into a ball with your hands, adding a few drops more water only if it will not come together, and flatten it into a disc. Work it as little as you can.
Wrap the dough and chill it for 30 minutes, so it rolls easily and does not shrink in the oven.
Take out everything for the roast potatoes.
Peel 2 kg potatoes and cut them into even chunks the size of a small egg: halve medium potatoes and quarter big ones. Keep them in a bowl of cold water until they go into the pan.
Tip 250 g mincemeat into a bowl and stir it well, with 1 tbsp brandy and 1 tsp orange zest if you like: they freshen a bought jar.
Dust the worktop with 2 tbsp flour and roll out two thirds of the pastry to 3 mm thick. Cut 12 rounds with a 7.5 cm fluted cutter and ease them into a 12-hole bun tin, pressing them gently into the holes.
Take out everything for the pigs in blankets.
Spoon 250 g mincemeat into the cases, about 20 g, a heaped teaspoon, in each, level with the rim and no higher, or it boils over.
Drain the potatoes, put them in a large pan, cover them with 4 l cold water, add 1 tbsp salt and bring them to the boil on high heat.
Lay 12 slices of streaky bacon on a board and run the back of a knife along each one, pressing down, until it is about a third longer and thinner. Thin bacon wraps snugly and crisps all over.
Take out everything for the sprouts.
Roll out the rest of the pastry with the trimmings and cut 12 stars, or 12 rounds of 6 cm. Lay them on the filling (press the edges of rounds onto the cases and cut a small slit in each), then brush the tops lightly with 1 tbsp milk.
Once the turkey is out of the oven, turn it up to 220 °C (200 °C fan).
Turn the heat down to medium and boil them for 8 minutes, until the outside is soft but the middle still firm.
Wind a slice of bacon round each of the 12 chipolatas in a spiral from end to end, overlapping it a little. Brush a baking tray with 1 tsp oil and lay them on it a little apart, the loose ends underneath, then grind over ¼ tsp black pepper.
Trim the bases of 750 g Brussels sprouts and pull off any loose or yellow outer leaves. Halve the big ones, so they are all about the same size. There is no need to cut a cross in the base.
Lift the turkey onto a warm board or platter, letting the juices in its cavity run back into the tin, and keep the tin with all its juices for the gravy. Cover the bird with foil and a couple of tea towels and let it rest for at least 45 minutes and up to 1 hour 30 minutes: it stays hot, its juices settle, and the oven is free for the stuffing and the potatoes.
Bake them for 12 to 15 minutes, until the pastry is pale golden and the filling bubbles at the edges.
Drain the potatoes in a colander and leave them to steam dry for 3 minutes. Tip them back into the empty pan, put the lid on and shake it hard a few times, so their edges turn rough and floury. If they must wait more than 30 minutes for the oven, let them cool and keep them in the fridge, uncovered.
Take out everything for the gravy.
If you are using them, break or cut 180 g cooked chestnuts in half.
Put 150 g goose fat in a large, sturdy roasting tin and heat it in the oven for 10 minutes, until it is smoking hot. Take the tin out and carefully tip the potatoes into the fat: they should sizzle. Turn them with a spoon so each one is coated, spread them out in one layer with space between them, and roast them for 30 minutes. Turn them over and roast them for 20 to 25 minutes more, until they are deep golden and crisp all over.
Roast them for 15 minutes, then turn them over with tongs and brush them with 1 tbsp honey, if you like. Roast them for 10 to 12 minutes more, until the bacon is crisp and deep golden and the sausages are cooked through. If the rest of the dinner is not ready, keep them warm under loose foil.
Tilt the roasting tin the turkey came out of and spoon off the clear fat, leaving about 3 tablespoons of it with the dark juices and the sticky bits. Set the tin on the hob over medium heat, across two rings if it is large, sprinkle in 3 tbsp plain flour and stir it into the fat and juices with a wooden spoon or a whisk. Let it cook for 2 minutes, stirring, until it is a smooth, light brown paste.
Heat 1 l giblet or chicken stock in a pan on medium heat until it is hot.
Bring 3 l water to the boil in a large pan on high heat and add 1 tbsp salt.
Turn the heat up to medium-high, pour in 150 ml dry white wine and let it bubble for 2 minutes, scraping every brown bit off the bottom of the tin, until it has reduced by half.
Whisk in the hot stock (1 l) a ladle at a time at first, so no lumps form, then pour in the rest. If the tin is awkward on the hob, pour everything into a saucepan now. Let it simmer on medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring now and then.
Tip the sprouts (750 g) into the boiling water, keep it on high heat and cook them for 4 minutes, until a knife goes in with a little resistance. Drain them well and leave them in the colander for a few minutes to steam dry.
Put 150 g smoked bacon lardons in a large, cold frying pan without any fat and fry on medium heat, stirring now and then, for about 8 minutes, until golden and their fat has run.
Bake the stuffing for 30 to 35 minutes, beside the roast potatoes if you are making them, until it is browned and crisp on top and cooked through, with no pink in the middle.
Leave them in the tin for 5 minutes, then ease them out with a round-bladed knife onto a wire rack. Let them cool for at least 10 minutes more: the filling is scalding.
Pour in the juices that have run out of the resting turkey, taste, and season with salt and black pepper. Strain the gravy through a sieve into a hot jug, pressing on the bits.
Add 25 g butter to the bacon in the pan and turn the heat up to medium-high. Add the sprouts and the chestnuts (180 g), if using, and fry for about 5 minutes, tossing now and then, until the sprouts are browned in patches and the chestnuts are hot through.
Lift off the bacon and keep it warm. Take the onion and lemon out of the cavity and throw them away. Carve: cut off the legs, slice the meat off the thighs and leave the drumsticks whole, then slice the breast thinly, first one side, then the other.
Dust them with 1 tbsp icing sugar through a small sieve and serve warm or cold, with brandy butter, cream or custard.
Serve it very hot, and keep the rest in a pan on the lowest heat for second helpings.
Season with ½ tsp black pepper, taste and add a little salt only if it needs it: the bacon may have done the job. Tip it into a warm dish and serve at once.
Pile them into a warm dish and serve them hot beside the roast, or on their own with mustard or cranberry sauce.
Lift them out of the fat with a slotted spoon into a hot dish, scatter over 1 tsp flaky sea salt and serve them straight away: they lose their crunch if they wait.
Serve the turkey on a warm platter with the stuffing, cut into squares, and the crisp bacon, with roast potatoes and plenty of hot gravy.
At the table
A real plan from Edesia's planner and its own recipes, for one cook who sleeps from 23:00 to 07:00. In Edesia it is planned for your recipes, your table and your kitchen.
Plan your Christmas in Edesia