Bila Orang Tak Selalu Blog, Blog!

I had pictures from last Christmas sitting in my hard disk for the longest time ever, and every time I was reminded of them, I told myself I was going to what was due of me for the longest time- and yet always found a reason to delay it further. Now, almost 25th July, a good 7 months after Christmas 2007, I finally convinced myself I had no other reason to laze off and got my butt to start typing away about the most gorgeous Christmas meal I've ever had- Christmas in France was amazing, if only I knew and understood half of what I was eating!!! ;) And of course, it was too long ago that I didn't have the conscience to photograph those wondrous salmon medallions and red berry sauced poultry...aahhh.
Lol, anyhow, this time, Christmas was at Uncle Brian's and Auntie Laila's and they were THE BEST PEOPLE to spend Christmas with if you want a true true traditional meal. And I am talking about Christmas puddings, cakes, roasted vegetables, bread sauce and apple ciders. (Well they had proper liquor, ones I can't get my hands on- but no worries! the rest of the meal made up for it!!)
So on the first day, when Nadia and I arrived at the Redstone House (Auntie Laila and Uncle Brian's place in Ashford near Canterbury), we were greeted with delightful little things called mince pies. For newbies like me, mincemeat, in this sense, are not at all beef! The mincemeat fillings of mince pies are actually a mix of dried fruits and spices (wiki definition: mincemeat). These little tarts are soft, crumbly short-crusted pies, powdered with icing sugar.


Here's a quick recipe: Delia's Christmas Mince Pies ;)

Make up the pastry by sifting the flour and salt into a mixing bowl and rubbing the fats into it until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. Then add just enough cold water to mix to a dough that leaves the bowl clean. Leave the pastry to rest in a polythene bag in the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes, then roll half of it out as thinly as possible and cut it into two dozen 3 inch (7.5 cm) rounds, gathering up the scraps and re-rolling. Then do the same with the other half of the pastry, this time using the 2½ inch (6 cm) cutter.

Now grease the patty tins lightly and line them with the larger rounds. Fill these with mincemeat to the level of the edges of the pastry. Dampen the edges of the smaller rounds of pastry with water and press them lightly into position to form lids, sealing the edges. Brush each one with milk and make three snips in the tops with a pair of scissors. Bake near the top of the oven for 25-30 minutes until light golden brown. Cool on a wire tray and sprinkle with icing sugar. When cool, store in an airtight container.

This recipe is taken from Delia Smith’s Christmas.

Auntie Laila had the most amazing kitchen ever, small but just nice and comfortable to prepare a cottage feast. What I love most is the fact that it is situated RIGHT in front of the main door to the house, ie: You enter the house and face the kitchen glass-paned door! It only shows how the kitchen is the most important and also welcoming room in the house- a prospect I absolutely adore!


For example, I love this ancient (but still bright, shiny and well-oiled) weighing machine that we used to weigh up ingredients to make a Pavlova (or Meringue). It was my first time making Pavlova, so I was excited! She chose to make Brown Sugar Pavlova, a basic nevertheless able to give you the traditional old cottage-ish flavour, and then decorate it lushly with nectarines and fruits. (Uncle Brian was happily sent off to Sainsbury's many times to get stocks of fresh berries and breakfast things for this!)



So we were off to making my first Pavlova! Of course, carefully not to taint the fragile egg white batter with water, we used the food processor to do the beating of the brown sugar and egg white.


We then had to use good old hand muscles to beat them carefully as to avoid the batter to fall. The battle was between Auntie Laila, me and Nadia (to see who would last longest), and the experienced and still awfully strong Auntie Laila won!


The beautiful, beautiful batter turn out good and we popped it in the oven to bake it, while we went off for more minced pies and cafe latte~!


More on the day BEFORE christmas and wonderful memories in the kitchen in Part 2 ;)