If you’re responsible for cooking Christmas dinner this year, the pressure is on.
Understandably, you’ll want this traditional festive feast – the major eating event of the year – to be special for all the family. While you may have your timings and ingredients all planned out, there are a few unexpected twists, such as oven faults, which could easily ruin your big day.
But with so much to prepare and so little time, don’t get caught out by making these common mistakes. To help you avoid tragedy, here are a list of things to keep on top of.
Read on to ensure that your Christmas truly is the most wonderful time of the year.
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Oven is too small
While it may not seem like it, it is still possible to cook the perfect Christmas dinner in a small oven… it will just require a lot of extra planning.
The best plan of action is to simply cook the turkey, or other meat,before everything else and then remove this from the oven and wrap it in foil to keep it warm.
This will free up space for the other parts of the meal, such as veggies and Yorkshire puddings, making for the perfect dinner.
If the turkey itself won’t fit in the oven,fear not, as this has a simple fix too. All you need to do is remove the legs and cook them the night before, or first thing in the morning which will greatly decrease the size of the bird. Still won’t fit? Don’t panic, you can then cut off the breasts and roast them alongside the wings.
Overcrowded kitchen
When youhave cluttered worktops and barely any space to move around, this leaves more chance of things going wrong when preparing your meal.
This could be something small, such as dropping food, or something more serious such as burning yourself when trying to create space to put things down.
Before you begin preparing Christmas dinner, make sure everything is tidy and you have enough space to set everything down and plate it up when it comes out of the oven.
This will greatly reduce the chance of any accidents, and make the whole experience much less stressful, meaning you can enjoy Christmas dinner just as much as everyone else.
Oven not working
One of the worst Christmas dinner nightmares is spending extravagant amounts of money on food and beginning the preparation, only to be let down at the last minute due to your oven not heating.
This can be avoided by ensuring that you check your oven well in advance, to make sure it is all working correctly. Therefore, if you discover that your oven is not working properly, you can arrange oven repairs in plenty of time before the big day comes around and avoid a Christmas dinner disaster.
Soggy potatoes
If your spuds are coming out soggy, this can be a sign of thatthere is too much steam being produced in your oven.
To avoid this common problem, make sure that all your roast potatoes are well spaced out on a baking tray and not touching each other. You can evenuse two trays if you need to.
A good tip to get them extra crispy, it to try par-boiling them first beforeputting them in the oven at around 200 degrees.
There you have it, a few simple tips and tricks for a perfect Christmas dinner. All that is left after that, is to eat and be merry!