I must say I wasn't too impressed with the pallid "standard" bacon I got at the Vic Market; I must look for a better brand and supplier!

Prior to watching the program, I hadn't planned on making stuffing, but the sage-covered roll of stuffing that Gordon made looked totally delicious. (And I'm obsessed with sage right now!)



The bacon blanket is removed from the turkey and cooked up with the pan juices for gravy.  All that bacon, the herbed butter drippings and the onion/lemon/garlic from the turkey cavity, make the most amazing pan juices!

Look at all that tasty goodness!

Gordon's recipe asks for cider in the gravy; I used beer (which I also used to baste the turkey).  There weren't a lot of pan juices, but they were very intense, and could take quite a bit of stock/beer to make it up to a decent amount.  This was easily the best gravy I have ever made - so tasty and deeply savoury.  Lovely stuff!

The roast potatoes were based on Nigella's perfect roast potatoes, but made with olive oil as I'd run out of goosefat (oops!).  I also took a tip from Jamie Oliver's Family Christmas program (do we see a theme here...?) and squished down the potatoes with a potato masher halfway through cooking to increase the crispy surface area.  I also added garlic cloves and rosemary leaves for extra aromatic deliciousness.




Here are the sides: roast potatoes, chargrilled broccolini and red cabbage.

Carved pieces of turkey

Stuffing with gravy

Below is my plate.  You can (just) see a lone bread dumpling on the top-left side of the plate.  As there were only four of us eating we didn't make the bread dumplings from scratch, but just boiled up some individual dumplings from a packet.  (Labelled as Semmelknödel in delis or continental stores).


Haha, I love how the broccolini is at the bottom of the plate, trying to separate me from all the unhealthy food behind it!!

Phew - I was sooo full!  We took a little break after all that food to open presents.  Yay!!  (I got some great foodie gifts this year, and have posted pics on my Facebook page.)

Dessert was Christmas pudding, of course.  This year I tried my hand at Nigella's Ultimate Christmas Pudding, full of lusciously moist prunes and redolent with Pedro Ximénez sherry.  I made up the batter and did the first steaming a month ago, and simply steamed it again for 3 hours before we ate it.  (I actually doubled the recipe, and have 2 extra puddings at home. One has been frozen for next year, and I'm excited to be having the other one this week when we have friends over for a casual dinner. Yay for pudding!)


I served it with Nigella's iced rum sauce (from How to Eat), replacing the rum with more Pedro Ximénez.  I love this stuff, more so than brandy butter!  It tastes like a kind of smooth, rich sherry ice-cream.  Gorgeous.