Sunday 25th December 2022
Rather than going out for Christmas lunch, we decided to have a relaxing day at home (or rather our apartment in Silkari Suites, which is our temporary home for the next week!)
The cooking facilities are ok but fairly limited – just an oven with two ring hob, and two sets of cutlery, two plates, two bowls, two wine glasses etc. So we’ll need to wash up between each course, plus we’ll have time to plan some of our New Zealand travels (we’ve literally booked our flights from Sydney to Aukland and nothing else so far)
We start the day with the saucisson, tapenade, and red sparkling wine we bought at the French farmers market the other day. To be honest the saucisson was a bit disappointing. It wasn’t unpleasant, but didn’t taste like genuine French saucisson. The tapenade, however, was amazing – especially with the freshly baked baguette we had with it.
Our next dish was very simple, some grilled halloumi.
We then had a bit of a gap while I made the Choux pastry for our dessert. The kitchen doesn’t have weighing scales or a wooden spoon, so there’s a risk it won’t turn out at all (we’ve got some Toblerone and Sicilian biscuits we bought from the Christmas market if all else fails!)
Our next course was confit chicken wings (which I cooked and deboned yesterday) with scallops and bacon garlic croutons. It was a relatively simple dish to finish off. I just had to make the croutons from some of the baguette we’d cooked earlier, then pan fry the chicken wings and scallops to crisp up and caramelise. I’d made a stock yesterday using the bones from the chicken wings, and this formed the base of the sauce, along with a splash of Australian tawny which is reduced and cooked down this morning. We paired this course with a glass of the white wine we’d also bought at the French farmers market.
We then relaxed for a couple of hours, then washed up and prepared the veggies for our main course. Our main course consisted of individual fillet beef wellingtons, Yorkshire pudding (which we’d bought some cheap pie ramekins to make!), roast potatoes, carrot and parsnip mash, and mixed vegetables. I was very pleased with how it came out, especially considering the size of the kitchen!
We were feeling very full after the beef wellingtons, so again had a couple of hours or so to just chill out. I then made the chocolate sauce for the profiteroles while Pete whipped the cream.
By now it was evening, and we had a WhatsApp call with my family before going to bed. It felt odd not to be spending Christmas with them, especially as they’re actually in our home back in the UK (my parents are temporarily living there while we’re away, as they’ve recently sold their house and their new one should complete around the time we return from our travels)
Emma and Pete’s Asian Adventure 