Just an old-fashioned Christmas

So what are you having for noche buena? Always, ham (usually, a leg of Chinese ham bought from Chinatown) or lechon and a noodle (for long life — or is it long Christmas?) or pasta dish, among others, would grace our Christmas table. Those meaty treats were something to look forward to until I turned semi-vegetarian and avoided pork as much as I could.

Is it possible to have a festive Christmas without ham or lechon? Yes! Why not have roast turkey for a good old-fashioned Christmas? My mom tells me that my lolo used to make the best roast turkey, with stuffing and all, she’s ever tasted.

Don’t know how to do it at home? Well, take a few tips straight from the expert’s mouth: English chef Mervyn Whitfield (yeah, yeah, yeah, he was former chef and good friend to the Beatles!) who owns and runs the popular Piccolo Mondo on Aguirre Ave., BF Homes, Parañaque. While the legendary group from Liverpool has stopped making hit records, chef Mervyn is still making hit entrees in his kitchen like, yes, his roast turkey with holiday pudding to match.

First, a slice of history: Eating turkey probably dates as far back as the medieval period (around the 14th-15th century) when there were no refrigerators and killed birds were just hung.

Having been brought up eating turkey for Christmas, roasting a perfect turkey is nothing new to chef Mervyn. Want to roast a perfect turkey? Here’s how, says chef Mervyn: If the turkey is frozen, it should be thawed for at least 24 hours or more, depending on the weight of the bird. Cooking turkey that has not been thawed properly could pose a risk to your health.

If the bird is freshly killed, it should be hung to relax the bird. Traditionally, the turkey is stuffed with bread, apples, walnuts, raisins and lots of herbs. Roasting it in the oven takes anywhere from three to six hours, depending ont he size of the turkey. Normally, one should allow 20 minutes per pound and an extra 20 minutes for the browning. The secret to a good turkey lies in the basting. Baste it with butter and cook it, breast down, on a pan.

Since it’s the breast meat that tends to get dried out, this method will allow the turkey to be cooked with the juice passing through the breast and into the pan. Again, depending on how big the bird is, it must be basted in its own juices every hour or so to keep it really moist. During the last 20 minutes of the cooking, take the aluminum foil off so the turkey would brown nicely and keep on basting it. Now, you can take it out of the oven and enjoy your roast turkey with the whole family!

Back in England, chef Mervyn recounts that roast turkey is usually servedwith roast potatoes, a mixture of vegetables, chestnut puree, stuffing, cranberry sauce and giblet gravy. One variation to the stuffing is bread stuffing, made purely of bread and blended into a rich mixture of cream, milk and nutmeg.

The nice thing about turkey is you can enjoy it long after the holidays. There are many delicious ways to enjoy leftover turkey. For one thing, you can make yourself a nice turkey sandwich: Put some turkey meat, some lettuce and mustard on wholemeal bread. For another, you can make a flavorful turkey soup: Boil the turkey bones with some vegetables like celery sticks and carrots.

Then strain and puree. You can even add pasta to the soup to make it more filling. You can also make a delicious turkey pie, much like chicken a la king, with cream sauce and cheese. Then, too, you can make some kind of a quiche lorraine out of your leftover turkey. Truly, turkey is a versatile bird and nothing goes to waste.

No time to do your own roast turkey? You can always order one direct from chef Mervyn’s ever-busy kitchen at Piccolo Mondo. A nice, moist turkey costs P425 per kilo or P2,800 for a whole turkey. Traditionally prepared, the turkey comes with herbed stuffing made of bread, walnuts, raisins and fresh herbs. An order also comes complete with gravy and cranberry sauce.

Of course, don’t forget to leave some room in your tummy for chef Mervyn’s dessert: Decadent plum pudding! A traditional English Christmas is never complete without this rich, sinful pudding. According to chef Mervyn, the Christmas pudding tradition originated from the idea of gathering all the fruits of summer such as gooseberries, plums, blackberries and raspberries. Come autumn, they would be dried, pickled, preserved for jams or turned into pudding.

This pudding is served on Christmas day to the family, flambeed with brandy. Inside the sweet treat is a little surprise. It is said that the mother usually inserts a silver sixpence wrapped in grease-proof paper into the pudding. Whoever gets the slice with the silver sixpence is blessed with good luck. Today, this so-called lucky charm can still be found inside the Christmas pudding. But of course, the silver sixpence has been replaced by a newly minted coin.

And what’s Christmas without the omnipresent fruitcake? Chef Mervyn offers an 800-gram "richer fruitcake" for only P500, good for six to seven persons.

So what do the Beatles eat on Christmas day? According to their former chef, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringgo Starr feast on roast turkey, pudding and mince pie. Ringgo would also yield to a decadent slice of Christmas log cake (Swiss sponge roll cake filled with jam and cream and resembling a log in shape). More, John could not resist anything with lamb, Paul went crazy over cod and halibut while George just loved vegetarian curry.

Roast turkey and pudding, anyone? Who knows, chef Mervyn may even belt out a couple of Beatles songs for you!

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Piccolo Mondo is located at 102 Aguirre Ave., BF Homes, Parañaque. Call 807-9775.