We are having an early Christmas lunch this year as some of us will be overseas on holidays on Christmas Day.
We were up bright and early today – there is so much to do before lunch at noon! First stop – Sammies Girl Fresh Seafood Market. The one advantage of having an early Christmas lunch means we will avoid the crowds at Sammies – no long queue in the hot sun!
I got some fresh Tasmanian oysters and some medium sized cooked prawns. (Seafood is a “must have” for Christmas lunch in Australia). That’s 2 dishes I don’t need to cook! Saw some fresh sand crab meat so decided to make a starter with the sand crab.
Gin Cocktail
The only other thing I needed help with is coming up with a cocktail. I have already placed some raspberry and mint in the ice cube tray to make pretty ice cubes. Here’s where I delegate this important task to my dear son. He did a great job with a gin based cocktail. Very nice indeed!
Chilli Sand Crab with Angel Hair
I used the recipe for Singapore chilli crab to create the sauce and poured it over the fresh sand crab meat and cooked angel hair. A tad spicy hot for me but all agreed it was delicious! You can find the recipe for the Singapore crab chilli sauce here.
Fresh Oysters & Prawns
No preparation is required except to keep them nice and cold in the fridge with plenty of ice. Served with prawn cocktail sauce, sweet chilli sauce and lemon, garlic & dill dressing.
Roast Turkey, Spicy Potato, and Bean & Roast Vegetable Salad
From previous experiences with roast turkey, a whole turkey is really too big for just the 4 of us and I don’t really want to have leftovers. So I decided on roasting only the hind quarter. I used the recipe for roast chicken with lemon, garlic & rosemary and that worked well in that it did not turn out to be tough and leathery. It’s actually quite tasty, especially the skin. You can find the recipe for roast chicken with garlic, lemon & rosemary here.
Potatoes ware par boiled and then fried with garlic, ginger, curry powder, salt & black pepper and added to the roasting pan. This turned out to be really tasty.
I also added a whole bunch of vegetables to the roasting pan – zuchini, yellow & red peppers, yellow squash and tomatoes together with some garlic and onion. The green beans were blanched and stirred into the salad. The juices from the roasting turkey imparted a lot of flavour to the vegetables. I will definitely cook this again (perhaps with roast chicken).
Mango with Coconut Glutinous Rice
As mango is in season and we have had a number of really sweet and flavoursome mangoes, I thought I would marry them with coconut glutinous rice (a Thai dessert). I cooked the glutinous rice with coconut milk – would have been fine if served warm however I put it in the fridge and it sort of dried up a little. I would make this differently the next time – cooking the rice separately and drizzling coconut milk on top would give a softer texture.
Fruit Cake
I made an extra boozy fruit cake and topped it with pecan nuts. Very happy with the result. You can find the fruit cake recipe here.
Here’s wishing everyone a very merry Christmas & happy cooking !
Now, what shall I cook for next Christmas????
