What are some family recipes you prepare during Christmas Time?

12 comments

1. One of my favorite Christmas recipes from my mom is also one of the simplest.

   Take thick pork ribs. Brown them in butter in a pot. Add salt and pepper to taste.

   Add a deciliter of water and 5-10 prunes and boil on low temperature until they are super tender. Add more water if needed.

2. Policical arguments with distant relatives with a side of Olivier Salad

3. My mum makes a pâté en croûte of various fish, namely pike and salmon. There’s aspique between the farce and the crust. Served with cumberland sauce and a side of raiponce salad (*valerianella locusta*, small, roundish leaves).

   This all sounds very fancy in French. To us it’s just a *Fischpastete mit Sulz und Cumberlandsauce.* Still, it’s very laborious to make and incredibly tasty.

4. My mother used to make a game pie every year.

   (These are savoury meat pies, made with seasonal meats such as venison, pheasant and partridge. They’d be left to set and served cold, normally with a glass of port.)

5. I make “Vanocka” for the whole family and most of friends every year, I have my grandma’s recipe taht I’ve tweaked a bit. Usually every family makes theirs but people just queue for mine, lol. Last year I’ve made 20. I make it every Sunday of December and most family members always comment on awaiting it impatiently.

   Vanocka is a soft sweet pastry, like a sweet white bread, that you eat with jam or just plain with a cup of tea. If anyone’s interested I’ll translate my recipe and add it here.

   Also my hus nads family has an amazing secret gingerbread recipe which I’ve just been given a year ago. I love making them, because theyre sweet and soft and so flavourful.

6. I usually only prepare deveiled eggs (huevos rellenos). They are kinda my Christmas specialty xD. Sometimes I prepare Spanish potato omelette.

   Both my parents prepare most of the dishes though.

7. I think the one most unusual thing my family (or mother rather) puts on the Christmas table is a shrimp omelette. I don’t know the exact recipe but it’s essentially shrimp in a milk/cream roux between two layers of omelette. It’s not until recently that I’ve learned that it actually has some traditional merit, it’s just that I haven’t seen anyone else put it on the table during Christmas.

8. I nearly always make lasagne for Christmas… either for the 25th,or the day before or after.

   This has been a family tradition for several generations, although it’s not particularly unusual in Italy! Many others also eat lasagne at Christmas time.

   However here in Sicily our traditional ‘pasta al forno’..small rings of pasta cooked in a meat ragu…is more popular.

9. I’ll be making a moskovische tulband for the first time this Christmas. A soft bundt cake that’s like biting in a sweet fluffy cloud smeared with butter.

   My mother made it since I can remember and her mother before her. I’ll be using the same recipe (even though it contains margarine) to the letter. There’s a specific market salesman that provides the flower. He’s getting old. I hope he finds a successor.

10. Dried forest mushroom soup is a popular dish on the Christmas table. My grandma used sauerkraut juice to make the soup sour, it’s delicious and that’s the way my family always has it at Christmas. I’ve never seen this recipe used at anybody else’s house.

11. The full course for a proper Catalan Christmas and Saint Esteve’s (St. Stephan, on the 26th) lunches (not dinner!) would be as follows:

    On Christmas, [Escudella](https://www.capgros.com/uploads/s1/10/76/94/7/escudella.jpeg) and [Tall rodó](https://filesedc.com/uploads/82/2013/12/1200/tall-rodo-amb-rovellons.jpg) are served, among sweets [such as neules](https://www.viaempresa.cat/uploads/s1/20/63/24/55/les-neules-so-n-un-dolc-ti-picament-catala-per-nadal.jpeg), [nougat](https://www.vicens.com/cdnassets//imageProduct/0151005_l.jpg) and other dishes. Then, in Saint Esteve, [Carn d’Olla](https://img-global.cpcdn.com/recipes/recipes_46269_v1393353365_receta_foto_00046269/1200x630cq70/photo.jpg) (which was used to make the Escudella) and [Canelons](https://ametllerorigen.cat/media/catalog/product/cache/4/image/1500×1282/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/c/a/canelons_st_esteve.jpg) made with the leftovers of the Tall rodó are served.

    And I make approximately 0 of these dishes. It’s such a shame because my family had its own recipes, but they’re incredibly time consuming. One of these days, for sure.

12. We have recipes. I don’t know them, because the people who do know have so far refused to tell me.

    We have a dish that basically consists of slow cooked pears, with red wine, cloves, cinnamon and some other things (it’s quite common in the Netherlands), but I still don’t know how my mother makes it, and I really want to know because the ones she makes are so much better than the ones you can buy in a store. It could very well come down to the kind of pears she uses though, we have a peartree that’s at least 50 years old, so that may be it.