In December 1995, Nigella Lawson opened her inaugural British Vogue column with some refreshingly sensible advice for the home cook at Christmas. “There is nothing worse than going out for Christmas lunch and finding someone’s done something interesting,” she began. “I don’t want pheasant Marengo or lobster medallions in Armagnac sauce; I want turkey, Brussels sprouts with chestnuts, bread sauce, roast potatoes, dense, aromatic, herby stuffing, and a great pink roast ham, parsley-smothered or spiked with mustard, too. Goose, if you insist, but—and ignore the sneers of the food-fashion victims—I prefer turkey.” And while, in typical Nigella fashion, she offered up a recipe for the Christmas Queen of Puddings, she also counseled a degree of restraint when hosting:
“When you’re having people for proper dinner over Christmas, sometimes it’s good just to ignore the culinary conventions of the season. No one wants to eat a lot, since there’s too much food in the normal course of events, but the difficulty is, there isn’t much to do apart from eat. I think the answer is to stagger the food: in other words, give enough to eat to make dinner feel like dinner, but not so much in each course that everyone’s slumped, stuffed, over the table afterwards. You almost want to have two starters and a pudding. The food has to interest palates jaded by overindulgence and yet be comforting, too. The easiest thing to do is to settle on a menu and stick to it, even if it means you will end up eating the same dinner more than once yourself: in food, as in life, it is better to be bored than to bore.”
Nearly 30 years later, her advice remains as sound as ever—as do her suggestions for the best ways to use up Christmas leftovers. Find her tips, below.
Just as it is a mistake to get experimental with Christmas food itself, so I think it is misguided to be adventurous with the leftovers. Don’t go in for turkey curry, turkey fricassée, or devilled turkey; turkey is turkey is turkey, and is much better eaten cold and as it is. It is fabulous with whole roasted garlic cloves and shallots. Blanch them for three minutes first to make the peeling easier, and then put them in a roasting pan in a low to moderate oven – shallots for about 30 to 40 minutes, garlic cloves for about 20 – with some goose fat or olive oil.
A good, juicy, knife-sharp salsa will spruce up cold turkey, and also seems to go particularly well with cold ham: chop a mango with some red onion, fresh coriander, and spritz with lime juice. For comfort rather than zing, make a bubble and squeak with the cold, and otherwise unappetising, Brussels sprouts. Even without the turkey, this makes a wonderful Boxing Day supper: mash some potatoes, chop up or briefly process the sprouts and mix the two together; fry some chopped onions in a nonstick frying pan—preferably, again, in goose fat—then add the potato and sprout mixture, form into a cake and cook for about 10 minutes a side. Eat with or without chopped bacon, with or without an egg (poached or boiled) on top.
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