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The key to not getting overwhelmed with Christmas lunch or dinner , is in preparing everything in time. Do not be catched by the bull. Go shopping calmly, prepare the ingredients with care and cook your star dish enjoying the moment, always having a margin of error to plot a worthy option B if things go wrong.
Anything can happen, even to the best cooks, that's why what better than to anticipate and cook the day before and go to bed calm knowing that everything is going smoothly?
So that you get your Christmas Eve dinner ready and you just have to dedicate yourself to enjoying your guests, we have asked four great chefs: Joseph Luke , executive chef of the Westin Palace Hotel, and Juan Aceituno , owner and cook of Dama Juana, in Jaén, the three-course recipes that can be cooked the day before. And, finally, the Jesús Sánchez fig cake, from El Cenador de Amós, our last three Michelin stars, and one of the specialties of Alex Cordobés, whose cheesecake is all the rage in the capital , which adds a sweet (and slightly nostalgic) touch to the menu.
A starter (although you have more recipes to inspire you), a main and a dessert that sound as good as Stuffed crab, deer Wellington and grandma's dessert . They are all thought for six people.
Nécora by Luque
THE CHRISTMAS STARTER: NÉCORA STUFFED WITH WINTER TUBERS (JOSÉ LUQUE, EXECUTIVE CHEF OF THE WESTIN PALACE HOTEL, MADRID)
Ingredients:
- 6 units of cooked crab
- 350 grams of potato
- 100 grams of carrot
- 100 gr of cooked shrimp
- 75 gr of homemade mayonnaise with EVOO
- Young shoots to decorate
- ½ spring onion
- ¼ bunch chives
- A splash of dry sherry
For the potatoes:
Cook the potato with skin and carrot, peel and grate.
For the crabs:
We clean the crabs reserving the shell and the part of its interiors. We remove all the meat that we can from the interiors and from the legs. Poach the white part of the spring onion in EVOO, add all the meat from the crabs, sprinkle with the Sherry and let the alcohol evaporate. We booked.
For the filling:
Mix the potato, the carrot, the crab meat and the minced prawn with a handful of minced fresh chives together with the mayonnaise until a syrupy mixture remains. Fill the shells of the crabs and decorate with the sprouts and green onion.
Wellington deer tenderloin. Lady Joan
THE MAIN: WELLINGTON DEER WITH CUMBERLAND SAUCE (JUAN ACEITUNO, DAMA JUANA)
Ingredients:
- 1kg of venison loin
- 1 pot of green mustard herbs
- 6 mushrooms
- 200 grams of ham
- 2 spring onions
- 150 grams of butter
- Salt
- Pepper
- Sufficient amount of puff pastry
- Yolk
- 300 gr pancetta cured in orza
Ingredients for the sauce:
- deer bones
- Vegetables (onion, carrot, tomato, leek and garlic)
- Red wine
- Onion jam
- Ginger
- raspberries
We clean the venison loin, season with salt and pepper on all sides in a frying pan with olive oil. Once marked, it is smeared with herb mustard and set aside for two hours.
In a saucepan add the butter and poach the onion, the mushroom and the ham, all finely chopped.
We cut the thinly sliced bacon and we have on the table. Add half of the previous preparation, once cooled, over it, and roll up the venison loin with the bacon on the outside.
We reserve for 4 hours in the cold. After, we roll the venison loin in puff pastry , taking care that everything is perfectly closed, paint with egg yolk and bake at 200 degrees for 15 minutes.
We recommend giving a 4 minute rest before serving.
Preparation of the sauce:
We roast bones and vegetables , we add a liter of red wine and reduce until it does not smell of alcohol. We cover with water and we cook for 6 hours . Once this time has elapsed, we strain and reduce the obtained result to a third, to then add the rest of the ingredients to our liking (not forgetting the salt and pepper).
Fig cake by Jesús Sánchez, El Cenador de Amós
THE CHRISTMAS DESSERT: CANDIED FIG CAKE BY JESÚS SÁNCHEZ, EL CENADOR DE AMOS, CANTABRIA
Ingredients:
- 145 grams of dried fig
- 255 grams of sugar
- 150 grams of cream cheese type Philadelphia
- 375 grams of whipping cream
- 2 sheets of gelatin, 35 grams of butter
- 75 grams of crushed Maria biscuit
- 8 whole shelled walnuts
- a removable baking mold of 20 cm.
Elaboration:
We put the soaked dried figs , well covered with water, the day before. Drain and cook in a saucepan with the sugar for about 70 minutes, over low heat. We crush and reserve.
To the crushed biscuit, we add the melted butter and mix well to obtain a paste that we place in the bottom of the mold. Bake at 180 degrees for about 7 minutes . We remove and let cool.
We take 300 grams of fig jam and we heat it to incorporate two sheets of gelatin previously soaked and let it return to room temperature.
Beat the jam with the cheese, and add the semi-whipped cream at the end (it should not be at the final point of whipping). We obtain a very light cream.
Fill the cake mold with the biscuit bottom with this cream and take it to the cold. Once cold, unmold the cake and spread the rest of the fig jam that we had left over from the initial preparation on its surface.
We complete with some nuts on the surface.
We can use fresh fig, making candied figs with them and proceeding in the same way. We can also accompany our cake with some candied figs.
Grandma's cake by Álex Cordobés
THE CHRISTMAS DESSERT II (AND A TRIBUTE TO ALL OUR GRANDPARENTS): TRIFLE CAKE RECIPE FROM GRANDMOTHER (ALEX CORDOBÉS)
Ingredients:
- Cake (homemade or purchased)
- Crème Anglaise or 600g Milk or 150g Cream
- 100g sugar
- Vermouth
- 1L of gelatin
- Fruit (strawberries/raspberries/cocktail)
Ingredients for the cake base:
- Strawberry jam
- 150g egg yolk
- 1 vanilla pod
- 1 liter of cream
- 100-150g icing sugar
Cut the biscuit into 2x2x2cm cubes approximately, we cut them in half and impregnate them in strawberry jam.
We choose a good brand and follow the manufacturer's instructions to make at least one liter of fruit jelly .
For the English cream:
Boil the milk and cream with the vanilla pod and let stand for five minutes. Meanwhile, we whiten the yolks and the sugar. Add the milk to the yolks and then pour the entire content into a saucepan.
Cook over low heat until reaching 85/90 degrees (before it boils), let cool to room temperature and then put it in the fridge for about an hour.
For the whipped cream:
Add half of the cold cream to a bowl (preferably metal and cold) and whip it with a manual or electric whisk. Add the icing sugar and cream as it takes on texture.
For the assembly:
Line the base of the container with the sponge cake with the jam ; Add a splash of vermouth (generous) and half of the gelatin and leave to cool for an hour in the fridge.
Add the crème anglaise and let cool for 30 minutes, then add the fruit and the remaining gelatin and chill again for about an hour and decorate with cream.
Note: the order of the layers can be changed or removed/added as desired; but always keeping in mind to put the heaviest on the bottom or use the gelled gelatin to give consistency.