Creative Ideas For Your Xmas Food Platter

Here at Taylor’s Butchers, we have a dedicated catering team and so we love this time of year as it means getting even more creative in the kitchen. Christmas dinner is loved by many, as pigs in blankets, roasties and chicken and turkey roasts are indulged. However, there’s also plenty of room for more creative and festive food ideas! To give you a good idea of what sort of things you can try and cook up this year, we’ve covered some different ideas for you below.

Festive Beef Tenderloin

For your dinner table centrepiece, beef can work wonders for giving that wow factor for your friends and family. Specifically, beef tenderloin with either a peppercorn or horseradish sauce, decorated with splashes of coloured peppercorns. If this tickles your fancy for your Christmas eve or boxing day platter, you’ll need:

• Pink, green and black peppercorns.
• Rosemary
• Honey
• Beef tenderloin of your choice.
• Salt
• Honey

 

The tenderloin requires at least half an hour to cook in a 220 celsius preheated oven, and cooked for a little more depending on your cooking preference. For your sauce, we recommend a peppercorn or horseradish based sauce. The horseradish sauce requires a process to make it into a creamy syrup. You should first begin by making a reduction of butter and cream, with the horseradish stirred through at the end. Decorate your tenderloin with those peppercorns to give it that festive finish, and pour your sauce to your heart’s content. If you need some beef for this dish, we have meat delivery service to make things easy.

Glazed Ham

We’re passionate about pork for both our catering and online butchers services, especially with the flavour options it allows at Christmas time. Your typical pork joint on boxing day is glazed with honey, however, you can try something new this year… Pork can be salty, which is why it’s always a good idea to balance it out with some sweetness. And so, this year why not try some citrus fruits like orange and even pineapple to change it up? The contrast of the citrusy flavours to the saltiness makes for a tantalizing experience for your taste buds! What you’ll need to create this wonderful dish is:

• Ham on the bone.
• An orange
• A pineapple
• Some brown sugar.

 

You’ll need a preheated oven at 190 degrees celsius. For the ham, make sure to score as much as possible on all sides, in a roasting pan with your oranges and pineapples. Place the ham in the oven and let it slowly cook for around 1 hours and 30 minutes. Whilst your ham is cooking away, save the leftover juices in your pan and make use of this as a glaze by adding your brown sugar. You’ll want to glaze this over your ham around half way through cooking time.

Christmas Sausage Rolls

 

Sausage rolls are always a delightful addition to any buffet or platter, but they especially are around Christmas time! Often people are easily scared off when it comes to the idea of baking, but sausage rolls are one of the easiest foods to bake up. To spice up sausage rolls for that festive touch, you’ll need:

• Runny honey of your choice.
• Sausagemeat.
• Wholegrain mustard.
• White onions.
• Sage leaves
• Puff pastry, either handmade or shop bought ready rolled.
• Eggs for glazing

 

Finely chop your onions and sage, add these to your sausagemeat with the wholegrain mustard in a bowl and mix and mash well (you can use a blender here if you have one). This will be the filling of your sausage rolls! To prepare your pastry, you should lightly dust a clean work surface with flour, roll out your pastry and dust with flour. Make sure the pastry doesn’t split as you repeat the process. Split the pastry into two rectangle shapes for your sausagemeat, place the sausagemeat inside and fold the pastry over. Glaze the pastry with your egg and bake for 30 mins at 180 degrees celsius. Voila!

Optimal Cooking Times For Turkeys

Now, we understand some people prefer the traditional route when it comes to cooking for Christmas. Because of this, we’ve provided some of the most optimal cooking times for full turkeys and turkey crowns.

Full Turkeys

For a Full Turkey heat your oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Start the cooking process with it covered in foil, then remove the foil 45 mins before cooking time is up to brown the skin.

For different sizes:

4-5kg – cook 2¼ to 2½ hours

5-6kg – cook 2½ to 3 hours

6-7kg – cook 3 hours to 3½ hours

7-8kg – cook 3½ to 4 hours

8-9kg – cook 4 to 4¼ hours

9-10kg – cook 4¼ to 4½ hours

Turkey Crowns

Heat oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5. Smear butter all over the turkey crown and season all over with salt and pepper and seasoning of your choice. Put in a roasting tin, skin-side up, and roast for 70 mins plus 20 mins for every extra kg, or until the internal temperature reaches 65-70C.

A Word of Advice

Get creative with your Christmas food! Christmas is a wonderful time of the year to spend time with friends and family, and just as importantly to indulge in delicious food. The above are only a few ideas for what you can do in the kitchen, but there are still lots of ideas you can try out there.

If you need a hand with sourcing your festive delights, we’re online butchers so we’ve got you covered. Check out our range of festive bakes, hampers, pork pies and sweet mince pies here.