Hi everyone! Can you believe it's less than a week until Christmas? I hope everyone's enjoying the festive season, and I'm super-excited to see what everyone's got planned for the big day! I've got a few big Christmas meals coming up (well, three actually!) for family and friends over the next week or so, which I'll be blogging just as soon as I can.  But for today, I'd like to share with you the most epic pre-Christmas meal I enjoyed at my friend Adrian's house last week. Adrian, (different from Food-Rehab Adrian, but just as nice), has previously worked as a chef in London and Paris, and last weekend cooked an amazing Christmas meal for 14 lucky guests. There were two geese, a ham, two gravies, stuffing, four separate side dishes and an insane amount of brandy butter. Woah! Let's take a look:

The Table

Geese - 2 roast geese with Cumberland sausage / prune / armagnac stuffing

Cherry Gravy - I loved the sweet cherries against the dark goose meat

Glazed ham served with pineapple gravy

Potato salad - whole boiled unpeeled potatoes with mayonnaise, grated hard boiled eggs, crisp bacon pieces, chives, onions

Greens - asparagus, peas and broad beans cooked in stock

Red cabbage

Roast vegetables - Goose-fat roasted carrots and parsnips with chestnuts

My gift from the Christmas cracker - cute measuring spoons!

There was so much delicious food, and I was so full! But of course I was powerless in the face of dessert...

Flambéed Christmas Cake

Brandy Butter. Ahem.

Vanillekipferl - My contribution to the evening

Vanillekipferl and brandy butter - a surprisingly good combination

A fixed part of my pre-Christmas repertoire is a roast goose. It's so exotic for us Aussies, and I love the crispy skin, not to mention the amazing roast potatoes you can make with the goosefat. I've made goose stuffed with sauerkraut, with mashed potatoes, and this year I tried it with a mushroom stuffing from my Culinaria Germany book.


A Pre-Christmas Goose Feast for 5

Roast Goose with Baked Apples (How to Eat)
Mushroom Stuffing (Culinaria Germany)
Roast Potatoes
Red Cabbage
Frangipane Mince Pies (How to be a Domestic Goddess)

I ordered my goose from John Cesters' Poultry in Prahran Market - ridiculously expensive, but it's only once a year. Last time, the geese were prepared; the head removed and the neck stored within the cavity, leaving the goose nice, neat-looking, and ready to roast. This year, however, the head and neck were still attached. It wasn't a big deal for me to chop the neck off, but at over $30 a kilo, I'd expect a bit more pre-preparation.

After beheading the goose, I did the usual hot water + fan crispy skin trick, and got on with the accompaniments.

First, the gravy. Fry the neck in a pan, add veggies, marsala, calvados and chicken stock, and simmer...

Mushroom stuffing - sliced mushrooms, bacon, parsley, paprika, pecans, egg, breadcrumbs...

I then stuffed the goose, and shoved it in the oven. While that was going on, I parboiled the potatoes for roast potatoes and finished the gravy. For some reason though, the gravy tasted feral - too sweet and with a weird aftertaste. Too much marsala and celery perhaps? Whatever, I turfed it.

Once the goose is out of the oven, you can roast the potatoes. They do take an hour to cook, but the goose stays scaldingly hot under a tent of foil. I love goosefat roast potatoes, and they're even tastier with freshly rendered goosefat. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Nigella's recipe is the best.

Mmm... crispy...

The other accompaniments, the red cabbage and baked apples, are pretty simple. Just score the apples and bake for 45 minutes, and heat the red cabbage (from a jar) on the stove. Without any gravy, the soft apple and red cabbage provided delicious sauciness.

The meat was tender and flavourful, but I was a bit disconcerted by the amount of feathers (hair?) still stuck in the skin. What's up with that?

More roast potato shots...
So crispy...
So fluffy!

Goose is great to eat, but awkward to carve, as it is so bony. We just hacked it apart roughly, with a knife at first, and with our hands once we gave that up. It's not something my family should be eating in civilised company, hehe.

Oh, and on a side note, that mushroom stuffing was so disappointing! I have no idea why - all the ingredients seemed promising, but combined it just tasted muddy and weird. I'm sticking to plain sauerkraut or mashed potatoes from now on. Apart from that, though, the meal was lovely!

And, a Christmas necessity for me, mince pies for dessert! I made these myself, with a spoon of almond frangipane on top of the fruit mince. More detail to come in an upcoming post.

Merry Christmas everybody! Hope you all have a great day tomorrow!