Christmas was a bit of a write-off due to my having caught a yucky cold from work, but I did manage some food prep. Christmas day lunch was fairly simple, mainly cold meats, prawns and salads. Anyway, here was the spread:

  • Ham and salami: Norton St grocers in Leichhardt (Sydney) was NOT the place to be on Saturday 23rd Dec 2006. They should have actually stopped people coming into the store (like they did in Myers on the Boxing Day Sale yesterday) it was stupidly crowded at 9am. I got my ticket for the deli counter and went off and bought my wrapping paper at the newsagents and some meat, dropped it off in my car and came back with plenty of time.
  • Prawns: Somehow I managed to find prawns that weren’t imported or farmed, they were even a completely different colour to the farmed stuff (pale pink as opposed to a lurid orange). We first went to the fish markets and there was nothing labelled “ocean” so went home in despair, mainly for my Abyssinian Simby who LOVES them. In the end I found them in the fish shop in Market town (Leichhardt) which has the most bizarre fit out, the counters are all about 5 and a half foot high so you have to get on your tippy toes (I’m short) to order or pay. Very strange. Made up some lime aioli with eggs from the organic market in Rozelle.
  • Tomato and basil salad with buffalo mozzarella instead of the usual cow stuff, so tasty (even with my snuffy nose blocking half of my ability to taste). This was also purchased from Norton St grocer at huge cost. I didn’t check how much it was before I ordered so was rather shocked to find two, albeit large, balls of the stuff turned out to be over $16 (which wouldn’t have been surprising if I knew the stuff was $50/kilo). Oh well, now I know what it tastes like. The tomatoes were from the organic market but they weren’t organic
  • Beetroot and lettuce salad: I had to check up on the chickens at my community garden on Christmas morning so I picked up a few organic lettuce leaves and herbs, anyway, this was arranged on an old but pretty Italian pottery plate we have and then I put a previously prepared beetroot salad in vinaigrette on top. It was very pretty, the randiant but deep maroon of the beets, green of the leaves and the midnight blue of the plate.
  • Smoked Salmon bits: don’t know what to call this, got little strips of smoked salmon and put blobs of this fresh goats curd (tastes a bit like cream cheese but fresher and goatier… could substitute though) with bits of roasted tomatoes, topped it with a sprig of flat leaf parsley and wrapped them into little rolls. Most tasting!
  • Christmas pudding: From the Newcastle pudding lady who makes one of the nicest puddings that you can buy. It’s been a couple of years at least since I’ve made my own, I used to have the perfect recipe but I’ve lost it (ah sorrow) and the last attempts at a replacement were sorely lacking. We all have our particular tastes and I like mine both rich and mild which is a hard balance to get perfectly right. The Newcastle pudding lady comes pretty damn close though. My day bought it at the beginning of the month and had actually eaten HALF of it before Christmas day and then blamed it on my mother. Incredible! Fortunately, he got the large one so there was still plenty.
  • Various fruit from the organic fruit market at Rozelle.
  • Some french chocolate (Delfin?) which came in the wonderful combination of dark chocolate and lemongrass. They also had lavender but I didn’t get that.

I made some gingerbread and shortbread as presents from the latest Jamie (how I cook?) cookbook. I’ll post the recipe later.

For boxing day, we ate leftovers and dinner was Saltimbocca: I used this recipe from Serge Dansereau as a starting point. Got some thin slices of veal from AC Butchers in Leichhardt (any European/good butcher will do them for you - can ask for veal for schnitzel too) and pound them until they are v. thin (Serge suggests 1/8th of an inch). Crush some garlic and mix with salt, rub this into one side of the meat, cover with 3-5 sage leaves and then press 2-3 fine slices of proscuitto on top so the sage is completely covered. If you have toothpicks you can use them to secure the proscuitto/sage to the veal but I couldn’t find any so I just fried them anyway… if you press the proscuitto on to the veal hard enough, it just sticks. They only need a couple of minutes on each side if your veal is thin enough and then they are ready to serve. The proscuitto sort of welds itself into the veal so it becomes one tasty little parcel.

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