Episode 2 Trish Deseine's Christmas Dishes

I'm Trish Deseine, and over the years I've cooked

a lot of Christmas dinners.

From the full French belle famille feast for 20,

to five-course sit-down dinners for 60,

to cosy Christmas days with my children,

and in a lot of strange kitchens as guest cook.

Now, I'm back in Northern Ireland cooking some fantastic local produce

and, I hope, taking the pressure off you a little.

So, here's to a happy and relaxed festive season

and welcome to Trish Deseine's Christmas Dishes.

So, the big day has finally arrived.

There's a mountain of cooking still to be done inside

and many ghosts of Christmas past looking over your shoulder.

But don't panic, come on in and join me for a feast of ideas,

short cuts and some gorgeous local food.

Coming up... Three versatile vegetable dishes,

a novel take on turkey,

my signature chocolate cake,

a red fruit trifle with boozy cream,

but for now, let's focus on the first course.

Now, for Christmas Day starter

I'm going to make a recipe that's really,

pretty much got cult status now and I'm not going to change the taste,

I'm just going to bump up the flavour

and use local produce, of course.

So, it's prawn cocktail and we're going to make it with

Portavogie prawns, Portavogie langoustines.

And in the base we start off with little gem lettuce,

this is local stuff.

Keeping a couple of outer leaves for decoration in the glass.

So, in a nice wide, deep glass, pop in the little gem.

And I like to mix it with a little bit of cucumber, too.

And one of the leaves down the side just to make it look pretty.

And for our prawn cocktail I'm going to make real mayonnaise.

And you shouldn't worry about making this, and it's a brilliant thing

to have in your cooking repertoire. So, dead easy.

One egg yolk, little bit of mustard,

about half the volume of the egg yolk.

And then just mix this together lightly.

And the crucial bit is the first bit of oil, so just a tiny,

little bit and whisk well.

There, you see it's beginning to thicken up already.

That's all there is to it. You just need to go gently at the beginning.

After that, just glug it in.

And now I'm going to turn the mayonnaise into Marie Rose sauce

with the other ingredients.

First of all, very important, tomato ketchup.

Now, don't mess about and make your own ketchup, really,

we want a taste of this one, you know which one it is.

Stir through until it turns coral pink.

And then I'm going to loosen it up with some lemon juice,

a little bit of Tabasco...

..and just a touch of cognac.

And the sauce is ready.

For our cocktail, we're going to use local langoustines or prawns.

These are absolutely beautiful ones from Portavogie

and really do try to use local

because they're all disappearing and being sold off to France

and we've got to save them for ourselves.

So, the way to cook them, very easy.

Big, big pot of water, they need loads of space, just like pasta.

You put some salt in it and some pepper,

bring it to a nice rolling boil.

Throw the langoustines in and as soon as the water re-boils,

pull them out, so that's only about two minutes,

and that way they're just nicely poached.

Then, to peel them, cool them down and just...

..pull that bit off.

Just peel here...

And when you get to the last couple of rings, just squeeze...

..and pull them out.

And now to assemble cocktail.

And just stir the sauce through the prawns.

And then just spoon it into the glass.

Finish with a little bit of paprika...

..and garnish with a cooked prawn.

And there you have it, a Christmas classic.

We eat a million turkeys in Northern Ireland every year

and half of those at Christmas.

Jonathan, you've been farming turkeys for 25 years.

What is it you like about this life?

Well, Trish, you get up in the morning and come out

and open the door to the free-range tunnel there and let the turkeys out

and you see them running down the field after you, just enjoying

the countryside and enjoying nature.

And how many turkeys do you produce a year?

This year we have 650 turkeys for Christmas.

We would sell about half of our turkeys here from the farm gate

and then the rest of them are sold through select independent butchers.

And what's so special about a free-range turkey?

Well, our turkey is popular in that it's different

from any of the other turkeys on the island of Ireland.

We bring our turkeys in so early on

that we hatch them at natural season, week 22.

We then take them up to full maturity.

We feed them a different diet,

the lard oats that we grow on the farm as well.

By Christmas, half of their diet is oats and our whole process

is what we think makes the difference to our turkeys.

For Christmas, we walk them from the polytunnel

through into another shed right beside our processing house

where they're all hand plucked and hand finished

and then we hang that bird in the fridge to get it mature.

It used to be that it was hung behind the pantry door a week before Christmas,

well, we do the same for you, we'll hang it in our fridge

to let the meat mature, the flavour to develop

and just to give you the perfect Christmas turkey.

This big bird can cause major trauma at Christmas, but no need to panic.

Your local butcher is always there for advice.

So, Stephen, at Christmas, are turkey and ham still the most popular meats?

Yes, turkey and ham have always been the bestselling option

at Christmas time, simply for value for money.

We still sell between about 300 and 400 turkeys.

And if you're not having turkey, what else could you have?

A lot of people are going for goose now.

Then it'll be followed by duck.

And then some of the smaller birds such as pheasant, partridge...

..or the quail.

For a family of four on a budget, what'd you recommend?

I'm still very fond of turkey on the bone.

A lot of people now are buying turkey crown...

..and there is a bit of a mix-up there

when people are ordering turkey crown

because turkey crown to me

is a turkey, two turkey fillets, that's still on the bone,

whereas most people are wanting to buy

a turkey crown now actually boneless.

And a golden turkey crown is on my menu,

served with jewelled jumbo couscous,

cauliflower and saffron mash and crispy filo.

So, it's still a pretty hefty bit of turkey.

I'm just going to heat some oil in here and in here.

And just brown this...

..on the top.

While the turkey browns,

to the casserole dish add some chopped onions

and some saffron, which gives the most wonderful flavour and colour.

Then, some nice, gentle spices,

so this is just cinnamon and a little bit of nutmeg

and a little spot of salt.

Transfer the browned turkey to the casserole.

It smells gorgeous already!

Add enough water to keep the bird moist, about 250ml, and cover.

So, bring the water up to a simmer and then just pop it in the oven for

about three or four hours.

It's really pretty forgiving,

so you could do it on a higher oven for maybe two,

two-and-a-quarter hours, or turn it right down.

We cooked one at a very low oven overnight, for example,

and then you've got nothing to do on Christmas morning.

So, the turkey's cooked.

There's only about 25 minutes before you've got to serve up and the

wonderful thing about this recipe is that that's all it takes,

just 25 minutes of prep

and then everything's on the table at the same time.

This is filo pastry

and we're just going to crisp it up in the oven.

So, just brush it with butter, give it a nice colour...

..and taste, of course.

And just cut this in half.

And then just kind of...

give them a little bit of shape.

Gives a little bit more interest, more nooks and crannies.

And they just get popped on there...

and then into the oven for just a couple of minutes.

Now, another accompaniment is this very simple mash.

It's potato and cauliflower.

Cauliflower's terribly trendy at the moment.

And all we're going to do with this is mash it up.

One of my favourite past times.

And then to serve, just kind of spoon,

smooth through a little bit of butter with saffron,

that gives it, again, a gorgeous taste

and the most beautiful colour.

And the mix of the cauliflower and potato is quite interesting,

makes it a little bit earthier.

Spoon this butter in, which you can still see the strands of saffron.

Mix that through.

Little bit of salt.

Little bit of pepper...

And it's ready to go if you're ready,

or you can heat it up in the wonderful microwave.

I'll pick up the filo.

These are nice and golden

and the wonderful thing about them

is that you can serve them hot,

warm or cold, so you don't have to worry about them.

So, here's our turkey crown, lovely and golden,

aromatic, and then there's just some garnishes to do on the other dishes.

So, we have jumbo couscous here, again,

something that's very easy to heat up in the microwave

and I'm just going to put some almonds and some pomegranate on it.

That gives it a bit of crunch

and then the pomegranate seeds are little

pops of fruitiness and the most gorgeous colour.

And as a nod to a Moroccan dish called a pastilla,

which is a pigeon pie covered in crispy filo pastry

and it has icing sugar dusted on it,

I'm going to dust this filo pastry and I've put a tiny

little bit of silver edible glitter in as well,

just for fun as it's Christmas.

And there you have it, a lovely alternative to Christmas dinner.

Alternative or traditional, you'll need vegetables,

so I'm off to meet market gardener David Love Cameron.

So, David, we're here in your beautiful organic walled garden in Helen's Bay.

Can you tell me a little about how you got into making this place?

Well, I guess I just really loved to cook and grow my own veg,

which led to a career in horticulture

working for Raymond Blanc in his heritage garden in Le Manoir Auat-Saisonis,

and then for Richard Corrigan in his lovely vegetable garden in County Cavan.

So, after a while doing that,

this wonderful project came up here in Helen's Bay and that's how I find

myself growing veg for the local restaurants in Belfast.

Could you tell me a little about the history of this place?

Yes, well, it's a Victorian walled garden that would have provided choice

fruit and vegetables for the Craigdarragh estate right through the 19th century,

early 20th-century.

It remained pretty unproductive after the Second World War

and now I've transformed it into this modern market garden.

What sort of varieties do you grow here?

I'm growing a range of kitchen garden varieties,

really, with an emphasis on heritage.

Beetroots, kales, growing a wonderful old

Gortahork cabbage from Donegal,

which is a giant cabbage.

And who do you supply?

I supply the best restaurants and kitchens in

Belfast, like Ox and Deanes,

James Street South and lots of other little local bistros as well.

Why do you think organic gardening is taking off so well?

Well, I think it's all about health and nutrition and, for me,

the environment, but mostly for flavour.

What have you got that's ready and interesting for Christmas?

Well, I've got all the staples like carrots and leeks and cabbage

and lots of different types of kales,

different colours and forms,

but also really interesting and spicy leaves

like mizuna, mibuna, tatsoi - oriental leaves like that.

And they just really lift a really wintry dish.

Where can I buy the vegetables?

Well, you can come and visit me at the garden and I'll make you up a

lovely box but I'm also at Comber's Farmers' Market,

first Thursday of every month.

Inspired by gorgeous local vegetables,

I'm off back to the kitchen.

I'm going to show you three vegetable accompaniments

that are really simple, easy and don't require precise timing.

A creamy potato gratin, a tomato clafoutis, delicious hot or cold,

and sprouts with bacon and chestnuts.

Start by adding some steamed sprouts to some sizzling chopped bacon.

And there's no need for fancy sprout prep.

Just halve them before steaming.

A little bit of butter.

Well, a little bit!

A little bit of pepper, you don't need any salt as the bacon is lovely and salty already.

And when those start to be nice and crispy and brown,

crumble in the chestnuts.

These are ready cooked and roasted.

You can cook them from scratch

but don't give yourself that to do at Christmas, too.

And just stir them all together and let them fry up a little bit more.

I think they're ready.

The next two vegetable dishes are tomato clafoutis

and gratin dauphinoise,

two French dishes but really extremely easy,

nothing fancy about them

and they're good little dishes to have because if they're leftovers

they work as an extra sort of light meal,

a light lunch or supper.

The first one is this, tomato clafoutis.

I've just roasted the tomatoes in a little bit of olive oil, some salt,

pepper and a tiny sprinkling of sugar and put them in a very low oven for

about two or three hours.

So, I'm going to make up the batter.

Four eggs and one egg yolk.

Just whisk that up.

Mix that with 400ml of single cream mixed with 300ml of milk.

And then two tablespoons of flour sifted in.

150g of Parmesan.

A little salt and pepper.

Whisk together.

And then that gets poured over the tomatoes.

And that goes into the oven at 150 for about 35 minutes.

Here's how to make a gratin dauphinoise, lovely, decadent,

creamy potato dish, perfect for Christmas.

Into a buttered gratin dish rubbed with a garlic clove

I place layers of finely sliced potatoes.

Little sprinkling of salt,

just a little bit because we're going to lift up the layers,

and a tiny bit of nutmeg.

And then just keep going.

So, I've built up the layers,

now all I need to do is pour in the cream and milk

and top with a little cheese.

And into the oven at 180 for about 40 minutes.

Three versatile vegetable dishes for the festive season.

So, you want to go traditional for your Christmas dinner,

but your granny won't let go of her recipe for the Christmas pudding.

Have no fear, Simon Dougan cooks 12,000 Christmas puddings every year,

so if anyone knows how to make them, it's him.

And when he's not making Christmas pudding,

he's heading up his award-winning family business, Yellow Door.

So first of all, we take our sultanas.

Get those straight in the bowl.

-And some cherries and just whack them in.

-And lemon peel as well?

Yeah, the mixed peel, the lemon and orange.

It's pretty straightforward, we just lash everything in and let it soak in the alcohol.

So, we've got our spices, we've got our cinnamon, nutmeg and some mixed spice as well.

About half a teaspoon of each.

This is what I think gives it a lot of moisture in the pudding,

it keeps it very... light and airy,

so we're using our PGI Bramley apples from County Armagh

-and I'm just going to dice them up.

-And you don't need to peel it?

I don't bother, just whack it in.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, best part. And we just push that in.

So, that's pretty much all our sort of dry stuff.

Now, for the good stuff.

So, I don't use brandy, I use whisky,

because we are in Ireland, obviously, so a good slug.

And some good old local stout.

So, put a good bit of that in.

And a lot of the sugar and all the spice will blend in

and that'll be absorbed by that fruit.

So, you leave that for three months?

Three months, yeah. You put it in a bucket or a container,

just tightly wrap it and just put it away

and you'll always remember it is because you'll be able to smell it.

So, that's the base of the butter,

which is a rich brown sugar butter.

Then we've got some flour with raising agent.

Now, we also use crumbs, so it also makes it very, very light,

so you'll noticed here I've got some vanilla sponge but I also put a wee

-bit of chocolate sponge in as well.

-Right, OK.

-So, we have...

So that'll give you an extra layer of flavour in there.

And it's all brought together with the eggs, and that's how we do it.

OK, and then we just add the rest of our cake crumbs.

And now we just add our soaked fruit.

-So, no suet?

-No suet in this one, no.

It's just butter, and butter's great.

So, as you can see, that's quite a wet mix but it'll be perfect when it

goes in and into the steamer.

So we're just going to put that straight into our mould now.

And we fill it up about probably about three quarters.

So, that's it. We just simply put the lid on,

make sure it's completely sealed.

Steam for four hours.

-Four hours, yeah.

-And it can't go in the microwave, no?

I would prefer to cook it traditionally.

A little bit of whisky.

-Beautiful.

-Oh, do you smell that now?

It's lovely, it's gorgeous, yeah.

And just to finish off we've got some sweet mascarpone cream.

You could definitely have a good plateful of that after the turkey.

-You could, yeah, yeah. Well you probably could have one of those each, Trish!

-I'll go for it.

It's hard to avoid those bottomless tins and 50 sorts of selection boxes,

but this year why not look for local?

Go for pure, simple flavour, perfect for sharing, made with love.

So, I'm popping into St George's Market, Belfast.

Joy, your chocolates are absolutely delicious.

How do you get them that good?

I think it's a combination of flavours - chocolate, spices and nuts.

I do reductions,

fruit purees - and it all adds to the texture of the chocolate and flavour.

I do a lot of research in the market, ask people to give the feedback.

They like it. They very quickly let you know.

What would be your best sellers here in St George's?

Best sellers would be the salted caramel.

It seems to be a trend at the moment and everyone loves the salted caramel.

What have you got specially for Christmas time?

Christmas, I would say orange is always lovely,

very rich at Christmas time and the port and stilton as well.

It's a love or hate one.

That's really good.

It's hard to avoid the plum pudding on Christmas Day

but I always think it looks a bit sad sitting there alone.

It's a time for abundance and generosity, so think dessert buffet,

trolley, sideboard, chocolate trifle, and give everyone a choice.

I'm topping my dessert trolley with a boozy syllabub trifle

with red fruits and my glazed chocolate cake.

This is probably what I will call my signature dish and it's the easiest,

most luscious chocolate cake ever.

One bowl, but good ingredients,

and only takes 20 minutes maximum in the oven.

So, melt equal quantities of dark chocolate and butter, 200g of each.

I put it in the microwave. If you don't have a microwave or

don't want to use it, you can put it on a bain-marie.

So, it's melted and as you can see it's beautifully glossy

and now in go the other ingredients.

So, 200g of sugar.

You can go a little less on the sugar.

Maybe cut it down to 150 or 180.

And just stir that in.

It's really a great recipe.

Something you can do with the kids really easily, too.

And then one by one, five eggs.

Three eggs.

And just break the egg up into the chocolate mixture.

Don't get too much air in there.

You want this cake to be really dense and intense.

All it is, really, is a cooked mousse.

And then suddenly with the fifth egg

it starts to look like a cake batter.

Nicely mixed through,

not too much air in there and then into a silicon mould.

Give it a little smooth out.

I'm using a silicon mould because, again,

the cake is very rich and dense

and not easy to take out of a conventional

cake tin, but if you do use a conventional one,

make sure that you grease and flour and line it well.

And there we are, and that goes in the oven for 18 to 20 minutes.

For the glaze, melt 200g of chocolate with 100g of butter

and four tablespoons of water, in the microwave if you wish.

And just ease it over the edges...

..to fall down deliciously.

Once the glaze is set, you're ready to decorate.

You could leave it like this of course, nice and plain,

or just put some gold leaf or silver leaf on it,

but I've gone to town a little bit for Christmas and made some of these

lovely rose petals.

Just buy a packet of organic rose petals from the supermarket.

And all these are are just brushed with a little egg white,

sprinkled with a bit of caster sugar and then dried and left overnight,

so it's another thing you can do with the kids at Christmas.

Then, lay the crystallised petals on the cake

with some plain petals for contrast.

It might not look super professional but I know underneath it is

absolutely delicious.

So, that's my signature glazed chocolate cake.

Now, let's deal with the trifle.

This is going to be the base of my syllabub, almost a trifle.

And I've mixed fresh and frozen fruit here and really frozen fruit is the

best quality and very often it's been frozen when the fruit is at the

height of its ripeness, so make the most of it,

it's very handy at Christmas.

And also there's a little bit of orange peel in here for a little citrus-y tang.

And tip into a saucepan.

And just heat those up, they'll start releasing their juice almost immediately.

And a little bit of sugar...

just to start them off, and then you can taste that later on.

It looks beautiful already.

I'm not going to stir too much

because I want the fruit to hold its shape

slightly at the bottom of my trifle.

For the topping, whisk together double cream,

mascarpone and sugar, to taste.

Add the zest and juice of half a lemon.

And then...

a glug of sherry.

You can use cognac or rum in here as well, or whisky.

Fold that in, and with the poached red fruits and some decorations,

you're ready to assemble the trifle.

Some people might not call it a trifle because I'm not putting trifle sponges

or any kind of biscuit in the middle.

I don't think it adds anything to texture or the taste.

Unlike this beautiful, boozy cream.

A beautiful, billowy layer of cream on top of that lovely ruby fruit.

I'm ready for the decorations.

Some toasted flaked almonds and a few silver balls,

as these are compulsory at Christmas.

And then just to top it off with ultimate decadence,

some golden glace cherries with a tiny bit of gold leaf on top.

And there you have it, a glorious, glittering syllabub, almost trifle,

Christmas dessert.

It's all done, I hope they like it.

Time for me to get a head start.

DOORBELL RINGS

Hello.

I find Christmas very stressful.

Our Christmas dinner is really very traditional.

My grandmother made the best Christmas pudding ever

and my mother has never been able to replicate it!

Well, the sprouts for me were a complete winner.

I absolutely loved them.

Loved the gratin potato.

I loved the trifle without the sponge.

I loved the cherries and I thought

they went really well with chocolate.

I hope I'll make your Christmas a little less stressful.

Please try some of the recipes - try them all!

January can be a cold month, so eat well,

support your local farmers and producers

and have a safe and happy Christmas.