I’m dreaming of a green Christmas… The table is full of vegetables in various forms. Vegetable roasting becomes the centerpiece. Prepared in a brilliant way that we don’t even miss the turkey or roast beef. This year we are thinking of at least one of the Christmas dinners of those sweet little animals that are allowed to walk around in the meadow.
We secretly long for the old days where they cooked extensively for days in a row. A shrimp cocktail, puff pastry stew, a well-stuffed turkey and a turban and a lady blanche. Dust off a yellowed cookbook and go back to the 70’s. Cliché is okay.
Oh no! Some people are going to have a hard time during Christmas dinner, because we are going to drink more consciously this year. We start with an alcohol-free cocktail and also serve low-alcoholic drinks. Instead of serving the boring bottles of wine, we are happy to serve a pairing juice, tea or kombucha during dinner. Santé!
We imagine ourselves in a cute English cottage or in a Scottish country house with self-shot antlers on the wall. Perhaps it is because of the approaching Brexit, but we long for British traditions with a giant Turkey, fat gravy, roast potatoes, pigs-in-blankets, cranberry sauce and Yorkshire pudding, dressed in Scottish checks, a Christmas pull the cracker apart and put a little crown on our heads.
No Dutch dish this Christmas, but we are unashamedly traveling all over the world. From Burmese cuisine to that of the Maori, from the Middle East to Korea. We combine different ingredients with exotic flavors. The more unknown the better. Dare to experiment. Feel free to serve your Brussels sprouts with an Indian curry mix and rub your duckling nicely with Chinese Five-Spices.
No Christmas stress! Simply hire a top chef who will take over your kitchen for an evening and turn your dining room into a star business. This way you have all the attention for your friends and family, while you finally eat Christmas for once. And you can stay at the table until you fall asleep: even the dishes are done for you.
What could be better than a table full of bowls with Indonesian dishes? Spice sambal telor, pisang goreng, rendang, sateh kambing. The good thing is that you can prepare all this well in advance, so that you can enjoy Netflix during the holidays instead of cooking all day. The Indo kitchen is totally hot. Or should we say pedis?
Forget about the boring charcuterie. This year, shellfish sausages, octopus salami and swordfish ham will shine under the Christmas tree. Pickled fish, fermented fish or aging seafood. We are releasing the ancient meat techniques on marine animals, thanks to this originally Australian trend that adds some color to the party table.
Are important this year in the party decoration. White with a blue glow, ice and snow. The inspiration for this obviously comes from the North Pole and we also see it on our plates and especially in the desserts. What do you think of snowy eggs (ile flottante) and snowy chocolate cake? Icing and frosting are the key words for the party desserts.
O Christmas tree. O Christmas tree. It’s not really sustainable, such a temporary tree in the house, so to give us a little less guilt, we give it a second life! We make a pine syrup and use the needles to season our vinaigrette or a piece of meat or to perfume sugar with which we sprinkle cakes. You can also make a nice tea that you can also use to season sauces.
This article was a culinary collaboration with FavorFlav.com
The dinnerware on the photos are available at Fleur de Lys in the Beethovenstraat.
