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Sarah Cooks: Christmas Eve Dinner
Christmas

Christmas Eve Dinner

12/25/2010 06:50:00 PM

Christmas Pudding

Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope you're all having a fabulous day.  We had a Christmas feast last night, and I've spent today just relaxing and watching junk TV.  (Although I did make waffles for lunch, with the new waffle iron that my dad got me for Christmas, hehe!)  I also got the new Karen Martini and Bill Granger books, so there will be lots of cooking coming up in the new year!


A Christmas Eve Dinner for 4
Baked Ham
Grilled Lobster with Garlic Butter Sauce
Macaroni Cheese
Petits Pois à la Française

Christmas Pudding


You'll see that last night's dinner was pretty much my standard pre-Christmas ham dinner, minus the spiced peaches I usually have.  No reason for me omitting them, I just forgot!

Sandra received this beautiful organic ham from her work (they received chocolates and cherries too - jealous!), which formed the base of our meal.
5.3 kg organic ham from Donati's
Of course, being 5.3 kilos, it was way too much for 4 of us, so we sliced off what we wanted to eat and heated the slices in the oven.  Not as resplendent as a huge glazed ham, but the remaining ham lasts longer if you don't heat and let it cool again.  So speaking of which - any ideas for what to do with the leftover ham? Apart from sandwiches, of course.
Slices of Ham
Apart from the lack of spiced peaches, it wasn't quite a standard dinner, because we also had - say what?! - lobster tails!  Oooh... pretty!

Shiny lobster tails
Earlier that day, I went to Rendinas Butchery to pick up our Boxing Day turkey, and saw these gorgeous lobster tails in the window.  The nice lady at the shop told me they were $100 a kilo - OMG - and that each of them weighed about 400g, so I thought I'd give them a miss.  But when I came home and told Dad about the lobster tails - from the pictures I think you can guess how this story ends - he went up to the butcher and splashed out on some lobster tails. YAY!  It was about $120 for three, so definitely a once-a-year treat!

I'd never cooked lobster before, but after some googling I cooked them like this:

I sliced through the middle of the soft shell underneath the tails, flicked them open and cut them off.
Preparing the lobsters
Then I stuck a couple of skewers lengthwise through each of the tails (to prevent them from curling), and boiled them until the shells were red and the flesh was opaque.
Boiling lobsters

Boiled lobsters

While all that lobster and ham was cooking, we made some French style peas...
Peas
... and Mac and Cheese! Mmm... pure comfort food.
Mac & Cheese
It's not a celebration without Champagne!
Champagne!
Ta-dah!
Dinner!
You can see a small bowl of sauce under the lobster - that's just a mixture of melted butter, garlic and parsley.  However, when we sliced into the lobster we saw that it wasn't cooked all the way through (oops!).  So while we were eating, I sliced the lobster tails in half, basted them with that garlic butter sauce, and grilled them. The smell was divine!

Grilling!

Grilled and buttered
So delicious.

For dessert, we dug into that Christmas pudding I made at The Langham's Pudding Making Class.  I'd steamed it for 2 hours, and served it with custard.

Mmm... custard

The pudding was very different from my normal Roux Brothers' Christmas pudding.  The Langham's was very light and cakey, with a low proportion of fruit to dough.  We all liked it (I think my folks loved it!) but I found myself craving a traditional rich and fruity, boozy and suet-filled Christmas pudding.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!

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8 comments

  1. Merry Christmas, missy! Your eve dinner looks amazing!!!

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  2. With leftover ham I must at least once have ham patties (like fish patties with finely chopped ham) served with parsley sauce, eggs benedict, and ham steaks on the barbecue served with a pineapple ring (as that is what my late dad used to do!)

    Ham sandwiches with ham used instead of bread also goes down well ;-)

    Happy Eating!

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  3. Lobsters and mac and cheese? Darnit, I wish my family had gone to your place for Christmas Eve dinner. Instead, we went to a restaurant where I, my mum, and grandma all ordered the tuna "rare", and were served brick-like overcooked hunks of flavourless protein.

    Sigh.

    Your food looks vastly more magnificent!

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  4. Celeste - Thank-you! And Merry Christmas to you too. :D

    Ms Fifikins - Mmm good idea! I vaguely recall Nigella serving parsley sauce with ham in HTE, must double check my old HTE blog lol!

    Hannah - Eek, overcooked tuna is such a disappointment! I hope your Christmas feasting was better than your Christmas eve! Lobster and mac and cheese is SO fabulous. I read a recipe once for mac and cheese with lobster in it. Way decadent.

    xox Sarah

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  5. Merry Christmas lovely :)

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  6. Merry Christmas!!
    Beautiful feast! (Trivia: Bollinger is James Bond's choice of Champagne.)
    L. xoxo

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  7. I cant believe how much that lobster costs. I almost bought a 5oz tail for 5.99US. It was frozen though and not from US waters so I passed. Im glad you enjoyed it. It looks delish.

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  8. Penny - Thank-you! Hope you had a great one. :)

    Lisa - Yay! I love Bollinger too.

    Randi - Yeah I nearly had a heart attack when I heard the price of the lobster tails, lol. I think they're more expensive in Australia in general, but I'm pretty sure they also jack up the prices before Christmas. I've since seen lobster tails for $70/kg, so 30% cheaper!

    xox Sarah

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