No matter where you live in the world, if you celebrate Christmas, you know it’s “eating season”. Every culture has their own traditional eats and treats, and every family their own way of celebrating through food. Having spent 5 years in the UK, and 3 of them with an English boyfriend, I’ve had my fair share of different Christmas experiences. But in the end I do love coming home to the Australian Christmas, with it’s openness to new ideas, and it’s blend of old and new traditions. As opposed to the UK, there is no right or wrong way of doing Christmas lunch. Some Aussie families do the traditional turkey roast, some do ham, and some seafood. This year we did a bit of everything.
The Ham.
My Mum has always done a Christmas ham. I suppose this has been the one constant over the years. The bloody thing is massive, and the best part is that you can keep eating it all week! Mum generally buys the leg, and bakes it herself. Here is the recipe:
Total: 2 hours, 30 minutes
- 1 cooked, bone-in half ham (about 7 to 8 lbs.)
- 15 whole cloves
- 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
Preheat oven to 325°. Cut off the tough, leatherlike skin from ham (if it has it; some hams will not), and score the fat in a crosshatch pattern. Stud ham all over with cloves, put in a large roasting pan, and loosely tent with foil. Bake until a thermometer inserted in center of thickest part (not touching the bone) registers 135°, about 20 minutes per lb. or 2 to 2 1/2 hours total, basting occasionally with any accumulated juices.
While ham is baking, make the glaze: In a medium bowl, combine brown sugar, maple syrup, and mustard. Whisk until smooth. When ham has about 40 minutes left to bake (internal temperature will be 120° to 125°), brush generously on all sides with glaze. Continue baking until ham reaches 135° and glaze is well browned.
The Seafood
Eating fresh seafood is probably one of the few intrinsically Australian things to do at Christmas. I don’t really remember when it came about, but somewhere in my childhood (probably after one too many 40° Christmas Days) a lot of Aussies ditched the turkey roast cos it was just too damned hot. But Christmas is still a special occasion, and what’s more special than a truckload of fresh prawns, oysters, crab and lobster? Nothing, that’s what. I’m salivating a little now just thinking about it!
This year, in addition to the fresh, cold seafood (which is amazing just as it is) I thought I would do something different. Dad and I went to the fish shop at Gouger St Market, in Adelaide, hoping to get some fresh crab, but the only fresh stuff they had was in the shell. They had a bunch of frozen Western Australian Blue Swimmer crab in packets though. So, although not ideal, I thought buying it pre-shelled would save me a lot of prep time. And a lot of money too, since the shell stuff was being sold by the kilo, which is a lot of money to spend of shell I wasn’t going to use!
I left the crab in the fridge overnight to defrost, and on Christmas morning I used it to make one of my favourite appetisers:
French Style Crab Lettuce Boats
- 200 – 400 grams Fresh (or Frozen) Crab Meat
- Sour Cream
- Dijon Mustard
- Chives
- Baby Cos Lettuce (or any small leaf that can make boats)
- Olive oil (or we used lobster oil)
After you have collected all the ingredients, the whole thing is fairly simple. Cook your crab in a large pan, with just a little oil and some salt and pepper. Mum had some lobster oil, so we used that instead of olive oil. It’s a good idea to do small amounts at a time, so you can make sue it is all cooked properly. Leave it to cool for a while and then just mix the crab with a couple of spoons of sour cream, and dijon mustard. Add your cream and mustard slowly, bit by bit, according to taste. It will make the crab quite rich, so you don’t want to add too much. You also don’t want to make it too wet. Chop your chives and stir those through. Separate your mix into two serving bowls, so you can keep one fresh in the fridge for later (or in case you don’t need it, you can use it the next day for crab cakes). Sprinkle some chives onto the top of the crab mix for decoration. Chop up your lettuce leaves into little boats and place on a platter or plate. Then serve your crab mix and lettuce, allowing guests to spoon the mix into their own lettuce boats.
The Potatoes
This is the one thing I really learned from my British Christmases. The perfect roast potato. Every year there are loads of Christmas cooking shows on in the UK, and every one of them teaches you how to make the perfect roastie. Here is how I do mine:
- Potatoes
- Goose Fat (or we used duck fat this year)
- Salt
And that’s it! Not a lot to it, but it’s all in the method. First, obviously peel and chop your potatoes. Try and keep them an even size, so they cook at the same rate. If you have a lot you may want to keep the peeled ones in a bowl of water to stop them browning. Remember to use a good roasting potato. King Edward, Maris Piper and Desiree are all great.
Put on a big pot of water to boil. Pre heat your oven, I like it hot (about 200-220° to start with). Put a little bit of the goose fat in a big roasting tray to melt and get super hot. Put your potatoes into the boiling water and leave for about 10 mins or so. The edges of the potatoes should be soft, but not cooked through in the centre. If you have one, get a metal strainer and drain the potatoes through that. Then toss them around a lot, to scuff up all the soft edges. The scuffed bits are where the fat will soak in and make the potatoes crispy and delicious. Once scuffed, put them back in the pot and stir some more of the goose fat through, covering the potatoes. Then pour them into the roasting tray, and leave for about 20 mins before checking them, turning them or adjusting the heat.
After the first 20 mins, keep an eye on your potatoes. Don’t just leave them. You will know they’re done by the colour. You will want to bring them out every now and again (not too often though) to turn them over, and make sure there is lots of fat covering them. The longer you leave them, the crispier they will get. But just watch the heat, and the time you leave them unattended. You don’t want to burn them!
Then just salt them, plate them and serve them with Christmas dinner, and watch the hordes scramble for them. They are always a winner.
The Salads
It is usually good to have a couple of salads to go with the ham and seafood, and everyone seems to have a favourite one they make. My Mum has an Asian salad she makes at every opportunity at the moment, but I’m a big fan of a more Greek style salad with pumpkin, pine nuts and herbs. Here is the recipe:
Pumpkin and Fetta Salad
- 1/2 pumpkin
- rocket
- baby spinach
- flat leaf parsley
- fresh mint
- soft creamy fetta
- pine nuts
- lemon
- olive oil
- dijon mustard
Cut the pumpkin into small cubes, drizzle with olive oil and pop them in the oven to roast. Toss the spinach, rocket, and herbs all together in a salad bowl. Scatter a handful of pine nuts in a dry fying pan to toast for a couple of minutes, but not too long. As soon as they get some colour, take them off. Chop up the fetta into small cubes and toss through the salad leaves. Check on the pumpkin. It really only takes about ten minutes. Once the pumpkin is soft, it is cooked (although you can leave it longer to get that roasting colour on the edges, if you want). Toss the pumpkin through the salad, and then throw in the pine nuts.
For the dressing, you can mix olive oil, lemon juice, dijon mustard and a bit of salt and pepper. Or you could just use your favourite oil based dressing if you don’t have time. Italian dressing works fine.
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Of course, then there was Christmas pudding (with custard, and brandy sauce) and my Mum made a lovely pavlova (I will put the recipe up another day). Then there was cheese, coffee, lots of wine, and our annual Trivial Pursuit match, which my Dad and I won!
So what do your family do for Christmas? Is it traditional? Or do you do something interesting, or different?
Lady and the Fork 
