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00:00Locally sourced ingredients to make your Christmas magical.
00:04M&S Food, proud sponsors of Christmas with Mark Moriarty.
00:11Christmas is magical.
00:14But let's be honest, it can also be a little bit stressful.
00:20So this year, I want to help you take the pressure off while still making it unforgettable.
00:30Okay, it's time for the most important meal of the year.
00:33Now, I get it. A lot of people want to keep it stress-free at this time of year.
00:38But hear me out in this one.
00:39I'm proposing an alternative Christmas menu.
00:42The recipes are still simple, they're still delicious, and they're really easy to put together.
00:46It's going to freshen up your menu and create something that everyone will be talking about.
00:51First up, we're starting with Scallops Pill Pill on toast.
00:55Buttery, garlicky, with a gentle chilli kick.
00:57Then, it's the slowly roasted strip loin of beef, complete with a restaurant quality sauce,
01:03beef dripping roast potatoes, creamy cauliflower and cheese gratin,
01:07and a fresh and punchy sprout and celeriac remoulade.
01:10Much better than turkey.
01:11And finally, we'll end on something warm and soft,
01:14with that all-important cold custard and the perfect luxurious finish.
01:19Trust me, you're going to want to try some of these.
01:27Now, this year's Christmas starter, I'm going to serve scallops.
01:30This is the perfect time of year and season to get the biggest, juiciest scallops available.
01:35Now, they are a little bit more expensive, but it is Christmas, so I want to treat the family this time.
01:39What I'm going to do is I'm going to remove the roe or the orange part of the scallop.
01:43Now, you can, if you want, just fry them off with that on.
01:46Some people love it.
01:46But I want to go a little bit more restaurant-y with this year's menu, so I'm going to take them off.
01:51Now, once they're all cleaned up, you can do this in advance of Christmas Day.
01:55I'm going to get rid of the roe, and then I just need to wash my hands.
02:00Now, for our scallops, I'm just using a little bit of bread, which I always have left around the house.
02:05So, this is sourdough that I would have bought about two or three days ago,
02:09and it's just not quite as good as it was.
02:11We're going to bring it back to life, essentially.
02:12So, just take a good, thick slice off, cut it in half,
02:17and then we're just going to get some olive oil on there and cook it on our chargrill.
02:22You can use a toaster if you want, but I just think you get a bit more flavour from this
02:26that goes really well with the roe scallops.
02:28So, the olive oil, just drizzle on top.
02:32Let it soak into that bread.
02:34So, I'm not really straying away from the traditional Christmas starter,
02:38smoked salmon on brown bread.
02:39We've just upgraded the ingredients with lovely sourdough and those beautiful scallops.
02:45I'm toasting the bread using a smoking hot griddle pan,
02:48so I can get lovely deep char marks.
02:51You actually want that burnt sort of edge.
02:54There's a really nice flavour to the bread.
02:55So, we want the same on the other side, then we can get cracking with the scallops.
02:59Now, for the scallops, these are done pil-pil style, so very sort of Spanish.
03:04You might have had them on holidays, your prawns and your bubbling sort of garlic and chilli butter.
03:08What I'm going to do is I'm going to use garlic cloves, flat-leaf parsley, and one whole red chilli.
03:15And all we're going to do is we're going to slice it up,
03:17and as the scallops cook, we'll add it in and it will create a sauce around the scallops.
03:21Now, once I have my parsley, my garlic, and my chilli sliced, we just have to cook the scallops.
03:34So, we're looking for medium heat.
03:36They only take two or three minutes to cook.
03:38We're going to get them nice and golden brown.
03:40At this point, I go in with a little bit of sea salt, my garlic, and as well as that garlic, in with our chilli.
03:46Have a look at this. I'm going to flip them over.
03:50There's nothing better than seeing those golden brown, crusty roasted scallops.
03:56And at this point, they're pretty much done.
03:58So, I take it off the heat, put it on our wooden board here,
04:01and that oil is lovely and flavoured with that garlic and chilli.
04:05Finish it off with some lemon zest and juice, and a flat-leaf parsley.
04:09And then it's time to play-doh.
04:16That does look very, very good.
04:18I suppose it is traditional.
04:21It's still seafood on bread, but we've upgraded it with prime ingredients.
04:24It's generous, it's delicious, and it is Christmas after all.
04:28OK, I'm going to let you in on a little secret.
04:42I'm not the biggest fan in the world of turkey.
04:45What I do love is some slow-roast beef with a glossy sauce and all the trimmings.
04:50And I think I can win you over, too.
04:52So, the first thing you need is a really high-quality piece of meat.
05:00So, this is strip loin.
05:02This has got a beautiful fat cap all along the top and on the sides.
05:05That's going to keep the meat really moist inside when we cook it.
05:08The fat is hard to tap as well.
05:10There's a bit of firmness in it.
05:12That shows you that it's been dry-aged, and that fat is going to be full of flavour.
05:15And lastly, you can see the marbling through that meat.
05:17That's going to melt out as it cooks and give us that beautiful beef flavour.
05:20Now, while it's very, very good as it is, I am going to marinate it very, very quickly.
05:26For the marinade, I'm using six or seven cloves of garlic, a good handful of thyme, olive oil, and some black pepper.
05:33Just blend it together into a loose paste.
05:35Then pour the marinade all over the strip loin and use your hands to rub it in.
05:40We're going to put the beef in on the fat side down in a cold pan.
05:44And why we want to do that is we're going to do what we call rendering the beef.
05:48So what we do is we cook it really gently over a low heat with our marinade, and we melt that fat cap down.
05:55That fat's still going to be used.
05:56We're going to add it to our roast potatoes.
05:58And we're also going to use it when we make our sauce.
06:00And then we just put it on a medium heat.
06:02Quickly wash the hands.
06:06So while this is now melting down, I'm going to season it with salt.
06:09And we're using the salt to create that crust on the outside.
06:15So as the fat starts to melt out of the beef, what we do is we just drain off any excess.
06:21And I'll keep all that rendered beef fat with the beautiful herbs through it.
06:24We can use that for lots of things, including the roast potatoes, in a bit.
06:28Okay, so it takes about ten minutes.
06:30And the skin has gone really crispy and golden brown on top.
06:33So what I do is I turn the heat up at this point, and we're going to flip it over and brown it on all sides.
06:39So all we're doing at this point is we're sealing it, getting it smoking hot, caramelized on the outside as quickly as possible.
06:46And the smell in the room when you start doing this is phenomenal.
06:51Much better than turkey.
06:52So now at this point, let's get a baking tray with a wire rack in there.
06:58I'm going to put my beef in there with the fat side facing up.
07:02I'll get rid of all my excess fat in here.
07:06And any of those blackened thyme and garlic bits you can leave behind.
07:11Then back to our beef.
07:13We're going to cook this in a really low oven at 120 degrees.
07:16And it's going to take about an hour and a half for a piece of meat this size to cook medium the whole way through.
07:22But this is the trick from the restaurant kitchen.
07:24Do yourself a favor and just buy yourself one of these meat thermometers.
07:28I can tell you all sorts of times and feelings, but the only way to truly tell where your meat is at is with the temperature in the middle.
07:34So I stick the probe into the thickest part of the meat, push it down through the skin.
07:38So that currently is at 21 degrees Celsius.
07:42And I want to bring it up to 46 degrees.
07:45It doesn't matter what meat you're cooking this Christmas.
07:47This will give you perfect results every time.
07:52Now as a chef, this is the question I get asked the most.
08:03How do you make that restaurant quality sauce?
08:06I'm going to show you how.
08:07So this is the same pan we cooked the beef off.
08:09I've just taken some of the little black roasted thyme bits out because they can be quite bitter.
08:13What we're going to do is we're going to caramelise some off-cuts of beef and some veg.
08:17And this is going to be the basis of flavour for our restaurant quality jus.
08:21A little bit fancier and packed full of flavour.
08:22Now I have some diced stewing beef and I want to get as much colour as possible on it.
08:29While that browns off in the pan, I need to dice up a carrot and two onions.
08:33Turn the beef and as it starts to colour on the other side, get in with the veg.
08:38At this point, I add a few knobs of butter just to help it along until everything is golden brown.
08:43And once it's done its job, I want to strain off any excess oil.
08:48So there's a few more steps to this in making your traditional gravy.
08:51But these are the details that make restaurant quality sauce.
08:55Our dry veg and beef can go back into our pan.
08:59Now we keep the heat nice and high.
09:02So now we're going to add a generous quantity of red wine and let it reduce by half.
09:07That is the sound you want to hear.
09:08While the red wine is reducing, get in there with your wooden spoon
09:15and scrape any of those crispy bits from the base of the pan, including the caramelised pieces of beef.
09:21That's all beautiful flavour which adds to our finished sauce.
09:25Once that's reduced down by half, I'm adding some rich beef stock.
09:29And I'm going in with about two litres of it.
09:32And the better the quality of the stock, the better the flavour of the sauce will be.
09:35A little trick as well for people at home.
09:39At this point, I'm just going to add a little teaspoon of corn flour.
09:44So what that's going to do is as it reduces down, it's going to help thicken our sauce slightly
09:49so we get that beautiful velvety texture that you'll know from the restaurant.
09:53So that just goes in.
09:56And as the sauce cooks away, that will melt in and it will improve our texture at the end.
10:00So once the stock and all the mix comes to the boil, turn it right down to a simmer.
10:07We're going to let it tick away for about an hour, extract all the flavour from our veg and beef
10:11and then it'll be ready to reduce.
10:13M&S Food, proud sponsor is of Christmas with Mark Moriarty.
10:30M&S Food, proud sponsor is of Christmas with Mark Moriarty.
10:34Now, no Christmas dinner would be complete without perfect roast potatoes.
10:46To make them that, they need three key things.
10:49Rooster potatoes, salty water.
10:51Because we're cooking beef this Christmas, beef dripping as the fat.
10:56Season the water generously with salt and simmer the potatoes for 10 minutes until they're just soft.
11:01At this point, strain the potatoes and place them on a wire rack to dry.
11:07Now, a lot of traditional recipes will ask for you to heat the fat up in the oven
11:11and then get the potatoes in there.
11:12But it can be quite dangerous at times, so I skip that step.
11:16I'm going to go straight in here with the cold beef dripping.
11:18I'm going to add the potatoes on top.
11:20But I'm going to cook them at a higher temperature.
11:22And that higher temperature is going to mean that no matter what,
11:24we're going to have crispy roast potatoes.
11:27And then I also have a little bit of this beef dripping,
11:30which is what we rendered out of the strip loin at the very beginning.
11:34Once that's in, just carefully get your potatoes in on top,
11:38and then it's ready for the oven.
11:40I roast these for about an hour at 220 degrees Celsius,
11:43turning every 10 minutes or so,
11:44so they get crispy and golden brown on all sides.
11:48Now, for our next side dish, this is pure comfort food.
11:51And another one of the classics.
11:53Cheesy cauliflower gratin.
11:55Again, it's easy.
11:56It can be made in advance,
11:57and all you're doing is putting it in the oven on the big day.
12:00First up, we need to peel our cauliflower
12:02and cut it into the right size.
12:06And we need to break the cauliflower down into thumb-sized pieces.
12:09That way, we can mix them with our cheese sauce
12:12and put it into the oven raw,
12:14and it'll cook and be perfectly soft the whole way through.
12:18Now for the sauce.
12:20So this is a really simple sauce.
12:22It's basically your traditional white sauce.
12:24So we're going to add butter and flour to a pan.
12:27We're going to spit it with some milk until it thickens,
12:29and then we're going to season it with lots of grated cheese
12:31and lots of flavor.
12:34So we're looking for roughly equal quantities of butter to flour,
12:37and then we just need to cook that out over a high heat.
12:41So once the flour and the butter's in there,
12:46we are going to heat it up and get our whisk in there.
12:53And just cook it out for about a minute,
12:55cook out that flour.
12:56So we're going in with about 300 ml of milk.
12:59The flour will react with the liquid.
13:02It'll start to thicken,
13:03and it'll give us a pasty texture to the sauce.
13:06So you could add some cheddar cheese
13:07or some parmesan in here at this point,
13:09but the real winner for me is Comté cheese.
13:12It's got a serious depth of flavor,
13:14a serious seasoning,
13:15and it goes beautifully with cauliflower.
13:17Now you can see there's a lot of cheese in here,
13:19but as I always say,
13:21if you want big flavors,
13:22you need to use big quantities.
13:27Mix that through,
13:28and the residual heat will melt the cheese.
13:31Season with salt,
13:32add some lemon zest and juice,
13:34and a heaped teaspoon of Dijon mustard.
13:39Get the cauliflower coated in that sauce,
13:42and then stack it high in an ovenproof dish.
13:45I'm just topping it with a few panko breadcrumbs
13:47for extra color and texture.
13:50You can have it prepared a day,
13:52even two days in advance.
13:53All you have to do is take it out of the fridge before
13:55and let it come to room temperature,
13:57and then it's ready for the oven.
13:58This is a recipe you can scale up or down,
14:00depending on how many people you're feeding,
14:01but you'll be surprised.
14:03This amount will feed about six people,
14:04because it's really rich.
14:14Now, while that's cooking away
14:15and the potatoes are on the go,
14:17we're going to come back
14:18to our restaurant-quality sauce.
14:20You can see it's simmered down nicely.
14:22So what's happened
14:23is all the beef and veg that we've roasted off,
14:26all the flavor from that
14:27has been extracted into the liquid.
14:29So it's essentially done its job.
14:31The beef is soft to touch.
14:33So what I'm going to do
14:34is I'm going to strain off all that.
14:36Now, once all the veg and meat is out of that,
14:39what we do
14:40is we put this on full blast of heat.
14:44So right up.
14:45What's going to happen is
14:45we're going to reduce it.
14:47So what happens is
14:47the water and the liquid will evaporate,
14:50the flavor will concentrate,
14:51and you'll end up with that restaurant-quality sauce.
14:54But to finish it off,
14:55what we're going to do
14:55is we're going to take
14:56the last of our rendered beef fat from earlier,
14:58and we're just going to add
15:00a few little teaspoons of that fat in there,
15:04a little grind of black pepper,
15:08and just a touch of salt.
15:10And the difference that's going to make
15:12to the beef flavor of the sauce
15:14should be phenomenal.
15:19Oh.
15:20And it just brings it alive.
15:22It's that little finishing move
15:23that turns good food into great food.
15:26And that is our restaurant-quality beef shoe.
15:28I can make that a day or two in advance,
15:30have it in the fridge ready to go,
15:31and all you have to do
15:32is warm it up on the big day.
15:35So a lot of this year's dishes are quite rich.
15:39So to finish off,
15:39I'm going to make a salad using Brussels sprouts.
15:41They're not everyone's cup of tea,
15:43but try this.
15:43We're going to make a remoulade with celeriac.
15:45There's capers in there,
15:46there's lemon, there's mustard.
15:48It's quite vibrant,
15:49and it'll cut through the richness
15:50of all the dishes.
15:56Peel the celeriac,
15:57then cut it into pieces
15:58and grate it up.
16:00We want this to be quite fine.
16:04Then finely shred the Brussels sprouts
16:06with a knife.
16:07Get them into a bowl
16:08with the grated celeriac.
16:10Finely chop some fresh dill and parsley.
16:12Take a few tablespoons of capers
16:14and roughly chop them.
16:15We want to keep a bit of texture here.
16:18Go in with the zest and juice of a lemon,
16:20season with salt and pepper,
16:22and then add in some whole grain mustard.
16:26And to finish off,
16:27two good tablespoons of pre-made mayonnaise.
16:31Mix it together,
16:32and it's ready to serve up.
16:38So then the taste test.
16:43Delicious.
16:44Particularly with the capers,
16:45the dill,
16:46and that whole grain mustard.
16:47Packs a punch,
16:48it's going to cut through
16:48all that richness.
16:50That's ready to go.
16:50I think it's time to do a quick clean down,
16:52and then start thinking about
16:52bringing this together.
16:53look at that.
17:18Look at that.
17:19caramelised on the outside with that beautiful rendered fat,
17:23and medium from edge to edge,
17:25thanks to our meat thermometer.
17:26Now that is a Christmas dinner.
17:28After all that rich and savoury food,
17:43I like to finish with a dessert that's a little bit lighter.
17:46It still has the traditional Christmas flavours,
17:48and it's still delicious.
17:50Now like most desserts,
17:57it is an exact science.
17:59So what we're going to do here,
18:00is we're going to weigh it out to the gram.
18:02So the first thing I'm going to go in with,
18:04340 grams of soft butter.
18:07Then into our butter,
18:08220 grams of caster sugar.
18:10next 100 grams of golden syrup,
18:15two tablespoons of coarse marmalade,
18:18and the zest of an orange and zest of a lemon.
18:24Now what I do, is whisk it up until it's pale and golden in colour.
18:27Once that's combined,
18:34go in with 340 grams of self-raising flour and six eggs,
18:39and gently whisk that together.
18:44Then I add the mixture to some Darryol moulds,
18:46which I've just lined with some softened butter.
18:49So I get them about three quarters full,
18:52give them a quick tap,
18:54just so it levels out,
18:55and then line them all up.
18:57And for my custard,
19:06first thing I need to do,
19:08is separate my eggs.
19:10I need four egg yolks.
19:12Basically what happens here,
19:14is the egg yolks cook out in the warm cream,
19:18and as they do that,
19:19they thicken.
19:20And that's what gives us the beautiful rich texture to our custard.
19:23Then on top of our egg yolks,
19:2560 grams of cast sugar.
19:29And then because it's Christmas,
19:31we're going to treat ourselves.
19:32We're going to use fresh vanilla pods,
19:34to scent this custard.
19:36And the first thing we need to do,
19:38is take the seeds out.
19:40So I just press it down,
19:42using my knife,
19:43run it through the middle of the pod,
19:46and in there you'll find the hidden seeds.
19:48I turn my knife,
19:50scrape away from me,
19:53pulling all the seeds from the inside of the pod.
19:55Make sure you get every single black seed from that,
19:58and then we just scrape it into our egg yolks.
20:01Once the seeds are in on top of our egg yolks and our sugar,
20:05hold on to our pods.
20:07It's going to infuse the cream,
20:09making sure we get every last piece of flavour out of these.
20:16So for four egg yolks,
20:18I'm warming up 250 ml of cream.
20:20So it's hot enough to dissolve the sugar when we mix it together.
20:24Mix the egg yolks with the sugar and vanilla.
20:26Pour the warm cream into the egg yolk mixture,
20:29and mix it until all the sugar has dissolved.
20:32Get that back into the pot and cook it on a medium heat for a few minutes,
20:36stirring constantly.
20:38It should take it enough to coat the back of the spoon.
20:41Then it's ready to cool.
20:42Get the mix into a glass bowl,
20:44cover it with parchment paper to prevent it forming a skin,
20:47and place it in the fridge.
20:49The secret to this recipe is everything is prepared for the big day.
20:53It's as simple as taking a basic home steamer,
20:57throwing them in,
20:58you can use both layers if you want,
21:00and then the lid goes on,
21:0330-minute timer, they'll be cooked the whole way through.
21:05And what steaming does is it's going to make them soft from edge to edge.
21:08It's a traditional recipe with classic Christmas labourers added,
21:11and it is absolutely delicious.
21:17Have a look at that.
21:19Steam has done its job.
21:21They've risen up above the level of the mould,
21:24and then just to make sure they're cooked through,
21:27I just get a skewer or tongs,
21:30press it down, count to three,
21:32and it comes away cleanly.
21:34So I know the sponge has cooked the whole way through.
21:36So what I'll do at that point
21:38is carefully take out my moulds,
21:42and I'm just going to let them rest there for two or three minutes,
21:44just so they come down a little bit.
21:46So our custard has been chilling in the fridge,
21:50so it's nice and cold,
21:52and when it cools down,
21:53it gets even thicker and even more luxurious.
21:56So all that's left to do is plate up,
21:59and the best thing about this dessert
22:01is really cold, rich custard,
22:05and really warm pudding.
22:07I get a sharp knife, just trim the top off,
22:12just to make it a little bit chef-y,
22:14and then using my hands,
22:16just give it a little bit of a shake,
22:18just to release it,
22:20and there we have our beautiful steamed pudding.
22:24Soft from edge to edge,
22:26a little bit of steam coming up on top,
22:28ready to serve.
22:30Look at that.
22:31All that's left to do with this one is taste it.
22:35This is really simple cooking,
22:39but it should be absolutely delicious.
22:50I love a steamed pudding.
22:52You don't see them around that often anymore,
22:54but they are classic cookery, done properly.
22:58Soft sponge the whole way through,
23:00marmalade, citrus, all those Christmas flavours,
23:03and that homemade vanilla custard
23:05just brings us to the next level.
23:07Delicious.
23:13So I've got my good shirt on,
23:14the hard work is done,
23:15and this looks pretty good to me.
23:18We kick things off
23:19with that scallops pil-pil on toast,
23:21followed by the slowly roasted strip line of beef
23:23with rich restaurant-style jus,
23:25beef-dripping roast potatoes,
23:27creamy cauliflower and cheese gratin,
23:29and that fresh and punchy,
23:31sprouted celeriac remoulade.
23:32And to finish,
23:33a steamed marmalade pudding
23:34with that all-important cold custard.
23:36I hope you take a little bit of inspiration from today,
23:39even if you only use a couple of the ideas
23:41in your own menu.
23:42Best of luck with cooking on the big day,
23:44and have a very Merry Christmas.
23:46For all the recipes from tonight's show,
23:48visit rt.ie forward slash food.
24:16Locally sourced ingredients to make your Christmas magical.
24:23M&S Food.
24:25Proud sponsors of Christmas with Mark Moriarty.
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