Christmas lunch by Jochen and Jolanda

We had a fantastic christmas lunch with secret santa delivering presents for everyone.
On the menu was: Turkey with gravy and cranberry sauce, pommes dauphinoise, blanched vegetables, stuffing and mince pies for dessert.

Pommes dauphinoise (potatoe gratin)

Ingredients: Potatoes, Milk, Onions, Garlic, Butter, Cheese, Thyme, Rosemary, Salt, Pepper, Nutmeg. 
Cut the potatoes in thin slices, dice half a onion, and fry until glassy. Add spices and garlic, salt and pepper, then add potatoes, cover with milk, add a tablespoon of butter and bring to boil. Let it simmer until potatoes are soft and almost done.
Put everything into a dish and cover with cheese.
Put into oven at around 200 °C and bake until the cheese is golden brown and the potatoes are soft.

Vegetables:

Carrots, Brocoli, Cauwliflower (whatever vegies are handy really), Small onion, Sugar, Honey, Thyme.
Bring water to boil, add some sugar and cook the vegetables for 10 minutes.
Drain the vegetables and let them dry off.
Chop the onion and add to some olive oil in a pot, fry with thyme until slightly brown, add a tablespoon of honey and mix, let the sugar caramelize a little, add vegetables and stir well.

Turkey:
Buy large pieces of turkey  ready to roast from the supermarket (Sainsburys, M&S, Tescos) and cook according to the instructions (sorry, it is a lot less fancy than you expected probably. I'll attempt to make a proper turkey next time)

Cranberry Sauce:
I cup sugar (200g), 1 cup water (250ml), 4 cups frozen or fresh cranberries (12oz). Put everything in a saucepan together, bring to boil, then simmer on low heat for 10 minutes until cranberries get soft. Simmer a little more. Then add spices or raisins or blueberries, whatever strikes your fancy. I put orange peel, cinnamon and nutmeg in mine.

Onion and sage stuffing:
4 large onions, 10 sage  leaves (or more if you want more taste), 300g breadcrumbs, 40g butter, salt and pepper to taste, 1 egg.
Bring a large pot of water to boil. Peel the onions and boil whole for about 10-15 minutes. The less you boil them, the stonger your stuffing will be in "onion taste". Just before you take them out, add the sage leaves to blanche them quickly.  Take out the onions and sage leaves, cool down with cold water and cut into fine pieces. In a bowl, combine the cut onion and sage leaves, breadcrumbs, butter (melted) and egg. This should give you a "stuffing-like" texture. Now fill into a oven dish and bake at 180°C until you think it smells and looks good.

Mince pies:
225g cold butter (diced) , 350g plain flour, 100g golden caster sugar, 280g mincemeat, 1 small egg (beaten), pecan nuts (coarsly chopped), icing sugar to dust.
In a bowl, combine butter, flour and sugar and work into a smooth dough. Roll out onto a floured surface and cut out circles in a size that line your mince pie tray (use a glass or so). Grease the tray, line the inside of the moulds with your dough circles. Fill these with the mincemeat combined with pecan nuts. Either add another smaller dough circle to close the top of the mince pies, or cut out stars and put them on top, or just leave them open. Beat the egg and brush the top of the mince pie with it. Bake for at 180°C for 10-15 min or until golden brown.