nigella christmas

vixtress

has anyone tried this?
a friend from work swears by it. i have bought the ingredients to make for xmas day but i'm still not convinced.
what do you think?

Paige

Give it a go. You have the ingredients. I thought it looked delish - I will be trying it next year as I have already made and frozen my stuffing. Very organised this year for a change. Please report back and trell us how it went.
Good luck
Paige X
PS - I am currently making Nigellas quick choc mousse and rocky roads for a load of friends coming over tomorrow.

pigpen

I'd do a trial run.. make up a batch using half the ingredients and tast eit.. if it is rank you have time to shop for a different recipe.

competitionscafe

There is an article here where they tested the Xmas dinner recipes of 4 celeb chefs (Nigella, Jamie, Gordon, Delia) and they didn't seem to keen on it (or the rest of the Nigella Xmas dinner recipes apart from the turkey and spuds).
"The gingerbread stuffing is moist and tastes good – if you like bacon-flavoured cake. Did I mention how sweet it is?"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/3703415/Christmas-with-Nigella-Lawson.html

julieq

I was watching Nigella this week, and my opinion is that it's not great food. What she was doing was shovelling loads and loads of nice sounding and evocative ingredients together in a lump, not constructing harmonious combinations. It seemed more to do with comfort and lifestyle than eatable food. I'm sure it would taste OK, but it seemed overelaborate to me.

Actually that allows me to get on a slight hobby horse, which is that often at Christmas people feel induced to wildly overelaborate. So that instead of just making normal gravy, they're adding all sorts of stuff into it, wine, port, sherry and so on, they cook 19 types of vegetables and complicated starters, and so on. I think that puts you under a lot of pressure, and it makes the food even richer and more indigestible than it needs to be. That is I think what lies behind the Nigella approach, it's about feeding that need to be elaborate rather than feeding your friends and family.

competitionscafe

According to this almost all the recipes are already in an earlier book (Feast):
"Turning back to the book, I wonder why I bothered to buy it, since all the Christmas recipes (bar the odd stuffing) already appear in her last-but-one tome, Feast. "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/3703415/Christmas-with-Nigella-Lawson.html

According to this "Jamie Oliver is outselling Nigella Lawson by two to one" a reversal of last year (when Nigella express outsold Jamie at Home). Depressingly the biggest selling cookbook of 2008 is still Delia's How to Cheat at Cooking.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/3834747/Jamie-Oliver-outsells-Nigella-Lawson-in-Christmas-book-wars.html

For what it's worth I think that Sarah Raven's Christmas cookbook is much better than the offerings from the 'celeb chefs' who seem to totally dominate the cookbook market, but then she doesn't have the benefit of a half an hour 'free advert' on prime time TV every week for several weeks. :rolleyes:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sarah-Ravens-Complete-Christmas-Raven/dp/0747595100/

competitionscafe

I think quite a few chefs are guilty of over egging the pudding - if I have a nice quality turkey or goose I want it to taste of turkey or goose not gingerbread or whatever. And I agree you don't need to shove port and cranberries into everything just because it's Xmas.

My problem with the Nigella Xmas was the massive amounts of sugar and butter used - each to their own but that girdle buster thing and the pavlova with about 4 inches of meringue made me feel a bit ill just looking at them! I do like some of her sweet recipes - Chocolate Guiness Cake and Lemon Drizzle Cake are both gorgeous and always get loads of compliments when I make them but sometimes I wonder if she is sponsored by Tate and Lyle and Lurpack.

vixtress

well, i bit the bullet and have made it :eek:
i do think it may have been a mistake but we'll see. i think i will freeze it in 2 parts and just do half on xmas day.
has anyone tried it and actually liked it?

Pink.

vixtress wrote: »

well, i bit the bullet and have made it :eek:
i do think it may have been a mistake but we'll see. i think i will freeze it in 2 parts and just do half on xmas day.
has anyone tried it and actually liked it?

I think recovering spendaholic is going to give it a go this weekend too. I'll add your thread to the main Nigella's Christmas thread later to keep the replies together.

Pink

thriftlady_2

julieq wrote: »

Actually that allows me to get on a slight hobby horse, which is that often at Christmas people feel induced to wildly overelaborate. So that instead of just making normal gravy, they're adding all sorts of stuff into it, wine, port, sherry and so on, they cook 19 types of vegetables and complicated starters, and so on. I think that puts you under a lot of pressure, and it makes the food even richer and more indigestible than it needs to be. That is I think what lies behind the Nigella approach, it's about feeding that need to be elaborate rather than feeding your friends and family.

Oh I couldn't agree more and have said something similar before on this board. I feel it is a reaction to the fact that we, as an affluent nation even with the current financial climate, are in a constant state of 'feast'. This means when a real feast time comes along we have to literally overegg the pudding in order for it to stand out from the year-round bounty of food and drink. I'm trying (not very sucessfully) to serve plain and simple meals in these few days before Christmas so that we can appreciate our roast turkey to the full.