Merrrry Grrrrrrrsmas and a Roasted Sunday

Merry Grrrrrssmas and a Roasted Sunday.

Gritting cold today as the British weather suddenly decided to serve us some frozen rain for our Christmas dinner. Its snowing on and off and tonight it actually did settle. White Christmas it is.

My Christmas cards had been done and dusted and delivered by my trusty hand, as the Royal Mail had been sort of the grumpy reindeer for the last year. Postal strikes since last October has affected the flow of mail and everything else in the country, not that snail mail is my main form of Mayday but when you are waiting for a visa stamping invitation letter, I guess it would be a top priority to check if the British Postal Force have really gone on coup.

Going rogue seems to be the order of the day, as the Daily Mail Headlines reads Brit Airways Strike. Sigh. Double sigh. I say the recession is the Grinch who Stole Christmas. But nonetheless, it would keep 1 million Brit travellers grounded home. What’s so bad about that? Aside from the fact that it would mean wrecking long before laid out plans of meeting up with Santa on the sunny beaches of Thailand sipping an Iced Chai and nibbing on a cold Som Tam Salad?

Pub’s been prepping up for a couple of Christmas parties. Office is off season as the restaurant we’ve been working on finally open its doors. And the Takeaway is on a downtime too as people opt to have a proper night out. So my December life is pleasantly laid back. But a Culinary Circus.

I have received my first Christmas pudding on the first few days of this month, a tiny little sugar oasis. And we’ve been serving up turkey roasts in lieu of chicken every Sunday at the pub. I work in the kitchen of the pub every Sunday, and boy do I love it. The regulars don’t mind that their Sunday All British Roasts were handled, plated and served by a black haired 5-foot of a pure-pedigreed Asian. Lily, my boss do all the roasts and sauces anyways so it is still technically Brit. I plate up and do everything. Prolly the unofficial Sous Chef (I wonder if that would be too ambitious). But most of the time, Lily trust me enough not to pour Mang Tomas Filipino Ketchup on her roast and decides to leave me on my own on the kitchen. She taught me how to do the roast potatoes which is heavenly with its texture and flavour but the recipe is trade secret so I reckon blogging about it would not be a good idea. Nonetheless, I look after the cooking of the roast potatoes and make sure that they come out in their best complexion and seasoned well. I discovered that if you occasionally checks the pan and cleans up the fallen off crumbles as you roast along, the potatoes would cook better and it would prevent the uneven burning as some of the granules tend to arson its way and stick to your potatoes. Yorkshire pudding is best to be roasted upside down, and broccoli should only be cooked on boiling water to retain its color, simple fundamentals I hold dear to.

Gravy is best done with the roast drippings, and a proper stock which should be slowly simmered through all morning. I did have some butchering lessons too as Lily rattles on about topside fillet and pork loin cuts every Sunday.

Dessert is my favourite. I love plating lily’s homemade bread and butter pudding and apple and blueberry crumble, half-drowning it in custard and adding a touch of mint leaf garnish. I think our roasts and dinner are rustic. It’s the sort of thing that you eat by a fireplace. And good thing, we do have one.

I’ll try to sneak in some pictures next week. I will be making my own first roast at home on Sunday as well as some sweet potatoes and all trimmings. And I will start to cook a healthier interpretation of all the food I could find in our pub menu. Wish me luck. Loads of it. P.S. Santa: Could you please turn off your air conditioning for awhile, cos its snowing frantically here. Everybody could use a bit of a warmin up. Thanks :)