Christmas Eve dinner

What will you make for dinner on Xmas eve?

Does anyone here make a Feast of the Seven Fishes?
I’m thinking about making some of the traditional 12 Ukrainian meatless dishes this year.
https://www.claudiascookbook.com/2011/01/03/ukrainian-christmas/

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I participate and help on the prep for the Fish Dinner for Xmas Eve that we do at my in-laws house. The order changes around a bit but here are the usual suspects:

  • Antipasto - no fish here
  • Salted cod salad
  • Raw Oysters
  • Raw Clams
  • Clams Casino
  • Shrimp 2 ways (Scampi and Fried)
  • Fried Smelts or Calamari
  • Roasted Eels
  • Whole Lobsters
  • Pasta with Lobster Sauce

The only picture I have from 10 years of this dinner. I’ll try to be better this year:

I would love to know how your meatless dinner goes!!!

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Your dinner sounds amazing

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To start - potted shrimps,

Followed by - beef stew with port, Guiness & pickled walnuts (a Delia Smith recipe), red cabbage, baked potato

To finish - Compota de Nochebuena (Maria Jose Sevilla recipe)

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Lovely, @Harters. I had beef rouladen

and red cabbage last night. Perfect winter food.

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I will say it is an enormous pain in the ass on timing. Now that I have a toddler, I’m not interested in this being a 12 hour ordeal. Wrangling this group isn’t easy and I wrangle people for projects as my job! But it is always delicious!

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Equally lovely. That beef rouladen looks like what I’d know as “beef olives” - a thinnish slice of meat wrapped round a stuffing of some sort and braised. They are, I think, very traditional in British cuisine and, certainly, Mum used to make them.

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I use to do the seven fishes however not being a big seafood person myself, once my mother passed I didn’t continue the tradition. This year because we went out to dinner for the first time on Thanksgiving I really missed my stuffing so I’m doing a Thanksgiving type dinner on Christmas Eve. Turkey, ham, roast beef, stuffing sweet potato and mashed etc.

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Sounds delish

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Unorthodox here. Christmas Eve = standing rib roast, Yorkshire, potatoes, some kind of green veg

and craquembouche, a multigenerational project. I make and split the chou, three grand-kids fill with cream, son glues it together to create the “tree”. His spinning the caramel is a time of glee as the kids try to snatch bits of web. I try to keep as much as possible off the floor!

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I’m going to take a look to see what goes in the Beef Olives.
I love rouladen and involtini. And other rolled meats. :slight_smile:

Edit: I see the Jamie Oliver, Nigella and several Scottish recipes online. I’m going to take a look at some of my English cookbooks at home.

Fun, caramel is extremely hot and make sure the kids have thick enough glove to protect.

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looks fantastic, and delicious. Nice presentation

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Thanks, and indeed!

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Two words: prime rib

I’ll make sure to snap pics.

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We are breaking with tradition and celebrating at a restaurant, Brazilian food, this year. Christmas day, we all have plans to walk off that meal!

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Newark?

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@Phoenikia,

My maternal and paternal grandparents, and my mom and dad every December 24th. My paternal side of my family and my husband are Italian and the maternal Spanish.

Each year, the shellfish, celaphoids, seafood and finned fish are a bit different. Some are traditional Mediterranean of this season.

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We always go out Christmas Eve and have our big homecooked meal Christmas Day.

Spent last Christmas Eve at Barnacle Bill’s (for our NJ readers) and we enjoyed not only the food as usual but the festive atmosphere. So we will repeat this year.

However, this year we are doing Chinese takeout on Christmas Day to save ourselves the stress. We have a small group anyway. It’s easier on my mom and my grandma who is 91 LOVES Chinese food. My BF could live on it. At first I thought it would be sacrilegious because we always cooked on Christmas (ranging from a stuffed pork roast to ham to roasted chicken/turkey, etc over the years), but I must say I am relieved!

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Five of us for Christmas Eve this year. A small charcuterie and a spicy fish stew with garlic bread
and maybe rice.
A Bûche de Noël for dessert. Champagne and spritzers to drink

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