Christmas & Christmas Dinner!!

[strimmer_13]

Wake up, sloe gin, make a fresh curry, sloe gin, nibbles and party food, really big sloe gin followed by music and playing with the boy. 

Basically get drunk and play with lego and toy cars

[Longstrider]

If you're not used to dealing with geese, and you want to cook one you've shot, make sure there's room in the oven for something edible as well as the goose (which is likely to be as tough as old boots.) Even the dog struggled with some of the last one I got.

Mrs and I eat so much 'shot stuff' throughout the year that we'll be having something different for a change, in the way of a ruddy gurt rib-eye each. They're in the freezer ready. Mine goes 22 to 24 oz. The Mem-Sahib gets a much smaller one, and the dog gets what she can't manage of that There won't be anything left of mine.

[JohnfromUK]

It will be turkey; as far as I remember it has been turkey for every Christmas (this will be the 60th Christmas).  Fortunately I like turkey.  Last year was in my house, as we had 14 people (all relatives) to the meal and mine is the only table in the local family to seat that number comfortably.  Bearing in mind I live alone, cooking for 14 (I did most of it) comes as a shock - and one only exceeded by the washing up for 14!

This year we are a much smaller party and so will be at my sisters, which is a short walk, so I can have a drink without restriction.

[Jbob]

Turkey again this year, with either beef or lamb (depending on which surfaces first in the  freezer).

Me and Mrs Jbob will be hosting this year much like last yr and the year before and the year........ 🤔 you get the picture lol. Its not so bad as it means we get to drink while the others who have to drive cant lol. Ill be making the pavlova while Mrs Jbob ..........does everything else. In my defence I will be doing all the veg prep so in my mind its an even spread of work load. Oh and this year my sister in law will be bringing her partner who's a chef. If he says one word he can sit out doors (edge of bodmin is a bit chilly on the 25th Dec)

[Tancho]

I like a trip to the Melton Mowbray Christmas poultry auction, but normally get carried away and end up with turkey twice the size we need, a goose and a couple of ducks!

[Zapp]

Turkey for us, we all love it.

I buy a basted bird and then additionaly put butter under the skin, sausage meat stuffing at the neck end and bard the whole thing with thick streaky bacon.  Always incredibly juicy and tender.

[Scully]

Turkey for me too. Usually a big crown from a local supplier. Fabulous bird, lasts us for days and is excellent on Boxing day with chips and pickles. 👍

[Alex C]

I detest Christmas dinner with a passion. All the fuss and stress means that no one really get to enjoy any of it. If there is the slightest problem, it get blown out of all proportion and arguments ensue. Every year without fail I end up sat there at 6pm wishing I could just go home.

I thought this year was going to be different. I thought we were at home, just me , the Mrs and my two kids. We were going to have pork pies and snacks and nibbles all day. Basically wanted to just suit ourselves. Since found out the wife's parents have played the 'Your Grandma could be dead next year' card so now we all have to traipse round there. I dread it every year.

 

Bloody hate Christmas day , but boxing day I get out shooting with the Boy and my dog, Love it !!

[Dougy]

27 minutes ago, Alex C said:

I detest Christmas dinner with a passion. All the fuss and stress means that no one really get to enjoy any of it. If there is the slightest problem, it get blown out of all proportion and arguments ensue. Every year without fail I end up sat there at 6pm wishing I could just go home.

Exact;y why we go out for dinner, Mrs dougy aint too good with the saucepans and oven. Its safer for us to go out. 

 

 

 

[Lloyd90]

10 hours ago, yod dropper said:

If you are lucky enough to have the money to spend get a proper goose not an economy version. They are simply delicious.

What would you recommend? 

[timmytree]

I'm currently toying with the idea of having Xmas dinner on Exmoor at a little beauty spot called Lanacre Bridge.

Have a good walk first, then heat up a curry in the back of the car followed by a paddle in the river. If it's mild I may go as far as a swim.

Then home for a few tots of Green Ore and an early night.

[Dougy]

1 hour ago, Lloyd90 said:

What would you recommend? 

Not Canadian geese. We used to sell Embden big white ones if I remember. 

Cook on a trivett to enable the fat to run off, save it for your roasties. 

[marsh man]

3 hours ago, Alex C said:

I detest Christmas dinner with a passion. All the fuss and stress means that no one really get to enjoy any of it. If there is the slightest problem, it get blown out of all proportion and arguments ensue. Every year without fail I end up sat there at 6pm wishing I could just go home.

I thought this year was going to be different. I thought we were at home, just me , the Mrs and my two kids. We were going to have pork pies and snacks and nibbles all day. Basically wanted to just suit ourselves. Since found out the wife's parents have played the 'Your Grandma could be dead next year' card so now we all have to traipse round there. I dread it every year.

 

Bloody hate Christmas day , but boxing day I get out shooting with the Boy and my dog, Love it !!

On Christmas day I tend to go with the flow of the tide , we have only been out to dinner once in the last 40 / 50 years so you can see we don't make a habit of it , for dinner we might have a slightly dearer bit of meat than we usually have and my dog also have a mini Christmas dinner , when I say dinner we never have it now till around 3 pm , after dinner I take the dog out down the marsh to see if any duck are going on some marshes I don't often visit , If I see a few then I know where I will end up later on Boxing day .

Throughout my married life I have always reserved Boxing day as my day out , my wife can go round her friends or family or they can come to mine , this routine work a treat and the household is in perfect , well nearly , perfect harmony .  

[39TDS]

Started rearing my own geese about 6 years ago. Ate first one at Christmas dinner and me and other half both looked out of the window at the others in the field and said "well they won't be seeing Easter".

Missus comment is that the trouble with pet geese is that they are so yummy.

A recent convert to goose for Christmas but won't be going back to having turkey. Haven't found them over greasy but strikes me as a meat best served warm rather than cold next day (never been any left to find out)

[SpringDon]

23 hours ago, walshie said:

Reported for using the C word in November. 

Then you will pleased to know that I worked my first day at the Christmas tree farm yesterday. And yes, we did sell a few domestics amongst the commercials.

 

changed to goose about 20years ago. Never changed since. Never shot my own though.

[yod dropper]

11 hours ago, Lloyd90 said:

What would you recommend? 

 I'd say you're likely to want one from a butcher or direct from the farm. The last one we had was a few years ago and that was £80 so price will be a good guide.  At the other end of the scale are the Aldi type birds where you get what you pay for. However, we all have to live within our means.

Years back I worked on a farm that did about 2000 Turkeys as a sideline and they went through the proper process being hand plucked and hanging for quite a while. They were perhaps three times the price of supermarket birds but three times the flavour. I think I'm right in saying the method of getting the feathers off has a bearing on the end flavour as it affects how long they can hang for. Sure somebody on here will work in the industry and know for sure. I know geese don't lend themselves to the same intensive production techniques as turkeys but how they are grown and processed will still make a difference. 

Just checked a farm we've had from before and a 5-7kg bird is £14.67 kg.

[JohnfromUK]

3 minutes ago, yod dropper said:

Years back I worked on a farm that did about 2000 Turkeys as a sideline and they went through the proper process being hand plucked and hanging for quite a while. They were perhaps three times the price of supermarket birds but three times the flavour. I think I'm right in saying the method of getting the feathers off has a bearing on the end flavour as it affects how long they can hang for.

When I was a boy, my parents kept about a dozen turkeys for Christmas for us, the farm staff and a very few close friends.  They were caught up, killed by breaking the neck in a humane killer (not trivial tasks for a large turkey) and plucked immediately - then hung for a few days feet up, neck down.  I believe this may be done to drain the blood to the head/neck area.  WE had a plucking 'party' which the recipients all assisted with and my mother did mince pies and mulled wine.

Then a few days later, usually about a day before Christmas eve, the ladies got together and did all of the drawing and cleaning - and all of the unwanted was burned in the house boiler (days of solid fuel)!

I remember one turkey we had was so big, my mother had to cut off the legs to get it to go in the AgA oven. 

[Dougy]

When i was butchering i would pick a nice set of fore ribs and have them hanging in the fridge from mid November. So would be around 6-7 weeks old. A whole dry cured gammon, whole leg of pork and the biggest Cockerel. 

Plenty for the street. 

[mossy835]

had enough of turkey this year goose.

[marsh man]

With this being a shooting forum I am surprised nobody have said Venison , Various game and a 3/4 bird roast , having said that , my wife is not keen on game so that will be off the menu .

Do anyone have tame Rabbit for Christmas dinner nowadays ? , when I was a youngster a lot of the villages had a tame Rabbit for Christmas dinner , I can still remember them hanging up upside down with a stick across the belly after it had been gutted to let it dry out , after Christmas we used to go round the houses and ask them if they had any Rabbit skins they didn't want , the ones we collected were taken to the rag and bone man who would buy them for a few pence along with any newspapers and rags we had .

Someone mentioned in a previous post about cutting the legs off a big Turkey to get it in the oven , well the little terrace house where I was born only had a smallish gas oven , one year we acquired a large turkey , even if we had cut the legs off it still wouldn't had gone half way in , all was not lost as the village baker ended up putting it in one of his ovens and another crisis was all sorted.

I wonder if any bakers would do that nowadays........ I have my doubts .

[amateur]

I have been cooking the Christmas dinner each year since I was 14, and apart for the occasional foray into capon, duck and rib of beef, it has been goose, usually. 

It is succulent, tasty and doesn't hang around like a turkey.

 

[yod dropper]

5 minutes ago, marsh man said:

when I was a youngster a lot of the villages had a tame Rabbit for Christmas dinner

Rabbit pie for Christmas breakfast was a regular.

[marsh man]

3 minutes ago, yod dropper said:

Rabbit pie for Christmas breakfast was a regular.

Cant ever remember Rabbit pie , although that's not to say we didn't have it , there was eight in our family and my sisters wasn't that keen on Rabbit , that might be because they would feed them in the hutch all the year round and this time of the year my dad would tell them they had escaped after he left the catch off the hook , we had pies and my mum would call them meat and vegetable , which they were , but no one ever knew what sort of meat it was 

[mickyh]

Put a House Brick in the oven with the Goose. Roast them both for about 8 hours. When they are done put the Goose in the Bin and eat the brick.

I won't shoot another Goose because they have all been terrible 3 in 3 years (Canada's).

Farmed might be better as people are saying.

Turkey Crown is the best value- No waste at all.

 

[Hamster]

25 minutes ago, mickyh said:

Put a House Brick in the oven with the Goose. Roast them both for about 8 hours. When they are done put the Goose in the Bin and eat the brick.

I won't shoot another Goose because they have all been terrible 3 in 3 years (Canada's).

Farmed might be better as people are saying.

Turkey Crown is the best value- No waste at all.

 

Mate of mine gave me a couple last year one of which I carefully plucked and lovingly cooked in the oven only to have to eat a brick instead ✌️ but I had resorted to skinning the other one as plucking is very time consuming. I packed the breast meat in the freezer together with some olive oil and rosemary, when the time came to try it I made sure to give them a good pounding to tenderise it (it doesn't matter how hard you flatten it, it'll still bounce back to nearly the same shape once cooked) and simply cooked them medium steak fashion in a very hot skillet then a ten minute rest and have to say we both thought it rather good, I wouldn't say on a par with good steak but you'll finish the plate.