by Ed Balls
For the home cook on Christmas Day, there are two vital tasks above all: getting everything cooked in the right order in big enough quantities on time; and not getting too drunk too early to finish the job. So, first drink in hand, while the kids play with their new toys and the adults go for a pre-dinner walk, I get down to business.
Yvette always wants a traditional roast turkey, but only on Christmas Day and perhaps the day after, which makes buying a big turkey extravagant and wasteful. I’ve settled on cooking both a goose and a turkey crown (which the butcher is never happy about, probably because it’s harder for him to sell the legs). But it means it doesn’t linger around for days. There is, of course, no room in the oven for both turkey and goose, and the first year I let the cooked goose rest for a full three hours while the turkey cooked, which wasn’t ideal. But we now have a big, covered kettle BBQ which is good for slow goose cooking as it’s much easier to manage the enormous quantities of fat that run off.
One extra advantage of combining turkey and goose is that, while the goose delivers the stuffing the turkey provides the gravy, ideally with some cranberry sauce on the side. I did cook a combination of turkey and beef one year, but that meant two different types of gravy on the plate at the same time, which Yvette said was much too confusing, and a little distressing for the ‘fussy eaters’ in the family when the two gravies started to merge. Incidentally, I know that my son – and my dad for that matter – get very irked at the suggestion that they are fussy eaters, when as far as they’re concerned, their eating preferences are the opposite of fussy: they know what they like and don’t want any unexpected ingredients. What they don’t understand is that this is precisely the cook’s nightmare when having to make a meal – at least one with any flavour in it – for a large group.
As for vegetables, it’s traditional to cook lots of different types and to get all fancy – bacon with the brussels sprouts, maple syrup with parsnips, carrots in orange and so on – but I think the vegetables are there to compliment the meat and not be a distraction. Sometimes I bow to pressure and tart up the parsnips. But, frankly, I think it just messes things up and detracts from the roast potatoes, especially if you are using some of the goose fat to make them even more tasty. After the main course, we douse the Christmas pudding – mixed and pre-steamed every year in late November – in brandy and allow a slightly out-of-control fire to blaze in our kitchen for a minute or two. Yvette insists on custard with it; I prefer cream or brandy butter, which I traditionally forget until the last minute and whisk up in a hurry as the pudding blazes away.
Finally it’s time to collapse in front of the TV. In the spirit of continuity with judicious innovation, our Christmas TV rituals have evolved somewhat. These days we don’t watch all of Where Eagles Dare, just the final bus-ride escape to check if they all make it out alive, and Richard Burton’s explanation on the plane to see if I follow it all this time. Instead we like a bit of Christmas post-war nostalgia – White Christmas or Some Like It Hot. As the afternoon turns to evening, we’ll watch the Strictly Christmas special and Yvette and the kids will watch Doctor Who – usually my chance for a quick snooze before I get the Christmas tea ready. Then the arguments begin about the evening’s entertainment – some demanding more TV and films; others a game, preferably charades. It all depends on where we are and which family is in the majority, and after twenty years as a combined family, it’s good that we still have a few unresolved and rolling disputes, with all voices counting equally, except, of course, in the kitchen.
The Christmas of 2020 was hard for everyone, precisely because there were so few voices around the table compared to normal, and one in particular that I miss most of all. The last time my mum came to our house was back in 2017, the Christmas before she went into her care home. We bought a large piece of plywood to lay across our kitchen table and draped over it many metres of John Lewis’ best Christmassy material to pass as a tablecloth. We squeezed twenty-four of us around that improvised table, on chairs, benches and deckchairs from the garden. I cooked a smoked salmon mousse, twenty-four individual cheese soufflés, and then roast goose and a turkey crown with all the vegetables, followed by Christmas pudding with a choice of custard or cream.
Even though it was a very different menu from the Christmas lunches she cooked when I was young, my mum tucked in approvingly and heartily – her appetite being the one thing she has never lost. And after dinner, because Mum was with us, there was no dispute about the entertainment. We began roaring out the hymns and songs we all know off by heart, with my mum beaming away as she sang along. I hadn’t seen her looking so happy for a very long time.
GOOSE WITH PRUNES & BRANDY
Serves 8
My favourite Christmas goose recipe is adapted from a famous Delia Smith creation, with apple, prune and sausage stuffing. Delia suggests soaking the prunes in Armagnac, which feels like a terrible waste, and cooking two types of stuffing, which feels like too much hard work; so I do one stuffing and use ordinary brandy, which does just as well and can double up in the Christmas pudding and brandy butter too.
INGREDIENTS
1 large goose, with excess fat cut off and scooped out
Salt and pepper
FOR THE PRUNES IN BRANDY
150g dried prunes
100ml brandy
50g caster sugar
FOR THE SAUSAGE AND APPLE STUFFING
6 large Bramley cooking apples
350g sausage meat
1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
50g freshly made white breadcrumbs
250g dried prunes, chopped
3 tbsp brandy
½ tsp ground cloves
½ tsp ground mace
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground black pepper
METHOD
For the prunes in brandy, put the prunes in a saucepan with the sugar and just enough water to cover them. Simmer for 15 minutes and then drain, pour over the brandy and leave them to soak.
For the stuffing, mix all the ingredients together and leave for an hour to mingle.
Preheat the oven – or kettle BBQ – to 220°C/425°F/gas mark 7.
Put the stuffing in the neck end and main body of the goose. You will need metal skewers or sharp cocktail sticks to pierce and hold down the flaps and keep the stuffing in place – the more the better, as you don’t want the stuffing spilling out.
Season the goose with salt and pepper and put into a big baking tray. If using a BBQ, I would put it in a big disposable tin foil tray. You may need to remove the goose to pour off some of the fat during cooking, so do work out how you will be able to do that in advance while things are still cool.
Cook the goose for half an hour and then reduce the heat down to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4 – or lower if you want go slower. Cook a 5kg goose for a further three hours, subtracting or adding 30 minutes for each kilo difference. Rest the goose for a good half an hour before removing the stuffing and then carving carefully.
CHRISTMAS PUDDING
Serves 8
Over the years I’ve tried a range of seasonal starters on Christmas Day, all with the common aim that it should be fancy and flavourful, but light rather than heavy. I tried a chestnut risotto, but it was much too filling. A turkey and ham tureen looked fabulous but was a bit dull and anticipated the main course too much. My current favourite starter combination is Mary Berry’s recipe for a sumptuous salmon and asparagus terrine; followed by individual soufflés, either cheese or crab.
The terrine can be made days before kept in the fridge and cut into thick slices an hour before serving. You can also prepare the components of the soufflés in advance. I find that the time it takes to eat the soufflé is also precisely the time it takes to cook the Yorkshire puddings, making sure they come fresh out of the oven for the main course.
I make individual cheese soufflés if my dad is coming and wants something plain; crab and Gruyère soufflés if not. I know people panic about soufflés, but I’ve always
found them easy and reliable. You can get most of the work done well in advance, even the day before, just leaving the final whisking of the egg whites until the last minute.
As for the Christmas pudding, mixing the ingredients in late November and dropping 20p pieces wrapped in tin foil into the batter is the moment I know Christmas is just round the corner. After much experimentation, scouring the BBC Food website in search of inspiration, I’ve finally settled on my favourite pudding recipe – not dark and heavy like a Christmas cake, but light, moist and spongy. Rich but not overwhelming. It’s just a pity everyone’s always too full to eat it.
INGREDIENTS
140g sultanas
175g raisins
50g dried figs, chopped
60g dried apricots, chopped
80g glace cherries, halved
100ml brandy
50g ginger in syrup, chopped, and 1 tbsp of the syrup
1 large apple, grated
1 large orange, juice and zest
3 eggs
125g shredded suet, beef or vegetarian
180g soft brown sugar
125g fresh breadcrumbs
90g self-raising flour
1 tsp mixed spice
3 20p pieces, wrapped in foil if you like
METHOD
Soak the dried fruit in the brandy overnight.
Mix the ginger, syrup, apple, orange juice and zest. Beat the eggs and add them to the suet, sugar, breadcrumbs, flour and spice. Stir in the fruit and brandy and mix very well – the whole family can join in.
Grease a heatproof 1 ½ litre bowl. I use glass but plastic is also fine. If you don’t have a lid, then find a small plate which fits. Pour the mixture into the bowl and drop in the 20p pieces.
Cut a circle of baking paper, using the lid or plate, and lay over the top of the pudding mixture. Place the lid or plate on top and wrap everything tightly together with a few layers of tin foil.
Steam the pudding in bolling water for 3 ½ hours. You will need a large pot with a lid. Make sure you put something in the bottom of the pot to stand the bowl on – I use an old ramekin.
Once the pudding has cooled, remove the foil, lid and baking paper. Wrap tightly with cling film and put aside to rest until Christmas.
On Christmas Day, remove the cling film, wrap securely with tin foil and steam for another 3 ½ hours. Flame with brandy and serve with custard, cream or brandy butter.
Conclusion MY LIFE ON A PLATE
I normally get my instructions from our kids by text these days. A few days before the two students are due home from university, the messages arrive like clockwork. ‘Can u pk me up Saturday Noon. Rst chicken Sunday.’ I admit I slightly object to being the family taxi driver – I’m sure, when I was their age, I just got the train. But I don’t say anything. Because the pre-order for Sunday lunch makes my heart sing. They’re coming home.
I so wish I could properly tell my mum how much her teaching has made a difference to my life; and that I realise now she taught me something much more important than recipes. With my dad, she showed me how mealtimes can support and nurture family appetites in a way that goes way beyond food. When I was a kid, the main appeal of Sunday lunch was the food itself. But today I hugely value our family being together for Sunday dinner, eating, talking and laughing. And I know now how much that makes me my parents’ son. The world has changed so much, and society’s expectations of parenting are hugely different; and yet in both small and significant ways, so many of us still turn out like our mums and dads.
When I started a family of my own, cooking straight away became one of the most important and constant things about being a dad to our three kids. Sunday dinner is our most sacred family meal of the week, the one no one is allowed to skip, the meal our two older kids at university are always keen to come back for. These days we always have a little more gravy than we need, but I still always keep a close eye on the gravy boat. And Yvette says anyone turning up late for Sunday dinner is the one thing that’s guaranteed to make me grumpy.
I’m proud I’ve been able to carry on into a new generation the lessons I learned from my parents. And I’m glad that I grew up at a time when that was possible. It might not have been if I’d been part of my dad’s generation, and certainly wouldn’t have been expected. Back then, men were often professional chefs, but rarely home cooks, and they played much less of a role in bringing up the children than fathers do today. Every change we’ve had on that front has been for the better, and I’m so grateful that it was my age group – and my kids – that got to enjoy the benefits.
Looking back, I can see that most of my most formative experiences and memories growing up revolved around food. And I know that doesn’t make me special or unusual. On Best Home Cook, it was striking how much, for all of us contestants, family was the driving force behind the food we love to cook. When Shobna, Rachel and I talked about our mothers, now all challenged by dementia or other illness, we saw how much we were doing this show as a homage to them, our culinary inspirations. Karim, Desiree, Tom and Ferne talked passionately about the recipes they had learned from theirs mothers. Ruth cooked her showcase ham, egg and chips the way her dad would want and expect, with a pineapple ring on top. Ed was clearly burdened by the powerful culinary influence of his mother-in-law, Gareth bubblingly excited to cook for his husband. For all the very different traditions and cultures and cuisines that we each brought to the studio, the power of good food to bring people together, and allow us to demonstrate the pride we felt in our families and communities was a common bond between us all.
Despite my very English upbringing, my parents’ experiences abroad in the 1960s introduced a range of different culinary influences into our home and affected my cooking from the outset. During my adult life, I’ve been lucky enough to travel to every continent – and invariably returned with new dishes to imitate and new cookbooks to help me, bringing a very international feel to what I cook. That has all happened over fifty years when the range of ingredients in our shops and the choice of restaurants in our high streets has also changed beyond recognition. And, of course, that transformation is not confined to food. From the TV stars we watch, the football players we support, the neighbours on our street, the colleagues we work with, and the NHS staff who look after us, our country has become so much more diverse since I was born, with people and cultural influences from around the world touching all our lives every day.
For me, the Britain we live in today is exciting and enriching and – at our best and when we choose – hugely and happily united around our common joys, our treasured institutions, and our shared sources of pride. And I believe a major part of that is the way we embrace different people and cultures and cuisines and make them our own. After all, who would want to return to a Britain without Bruno Tonioli, Jurgen Klopp or Nando’s – let alone a pot of tea. How dull that would be. How un-British that would feel.
What I cook at home intertwines with these global influences every day. But so many of the tasty, fiery international dishes I cook start from the base recipes my mum taught me – I just added the chilli and spice. Like so much of what my family enjoys doing together today, it’s been inherited and adapted from the home I grew up in, and the way my parents raised me. Roast dinners on Sunday, choral music on the radio, pillowcases at Christmas, supporting Norwich at Carrow Road, throwing raw eggs over the house on Easter Sunday, watching the Saturday night British Legion Remembrance Service from the Royal Albert Hall, laughing at Eurovision, singing along to the Last Night of the Proms.
My upbringing is where my identity begins and, as my parents returned to live in Norwich, as I researched the stories of my Norfolk ancestors for television, and as I reflected on my more recent family history for this book, I’ve become more conscious than ever of the roots and traditions that have shaped my life, and more grateful than ever to my mum and dad for passing those on to me. I see my parents in myself so much now, right down to the face that looks back at me in the mirror,
but above everything – my cooking, my music, my football, my politics and my values – I see it in my feelings towards my own children, and the depths of love, hope and pride they inspire in me as I watch them go out into the world.
We all want our children to have a better future, to see the world, have amazing new experiences and, above all, to be happy. I want all that for my children, but I also want them to be proud, as I am, of where they come from. To cherish the traditions I inherited and nurtured and passed on to them. To appreciate the struggles and contributions of those who came before, and to seize their opportunities to write new and exciting chapters in that family history. I have tried hard to pass on to them the recipes and traditions which have shaped my life and the lives of those who came before me. I have done so in the full knowledge that some of these recipes and traditions will change, some will be ditched and new ones will be added too.
Most of all, I hope our kids will keep coming home. And that in their coming decades, laughter, appetite, debate and celebration will be interlaced and intertwined with shepherd’s pie, lasagne and roast beef.
ROAST CHICKEN WITH LEMON & CORIANDER
Serves 6
Our Week 3 challenge on Best Home Cook was to make a Sunday roast dinner. I had thought I would do roast beef and Yorkshire puddings, but Yvette and the kids were clear – it had to be my roast chicken with lemon and coriander, which they regard as more of a personal specialty of mine. I was nervous about cooking for Mary Berry – who wouldn’t be? – but this week I thought I was on safe ground. I’d done this roast chicken so many times before and it always tasted good. And, for an extra flourish, I would also do Yorkshire puddings, as I did every week at home.