Christmas is for families (+recipes)

Kasey and Karena Bird. Photo / Doug Sherring

Many hands make light work in a Maketu Christmas.

Christmas is without a doubt our favourite time of the year. All our family descend on Maketu, travelling from overseas and all around New Zealand. We have celebrated Christmas the same way since we were born. We all wake up on the 25th and get ready in our Christmas outfits then head up to the house our grandparents built and wait for everybody to arrive (although we are usually last). We let our younger cousins open a few of their presents to keep them occupied while our aunties put the croissants in the oven. We pop the bubbly and toast the past year and celebrate all of us being together. After that it's present time, where the nominated gift distributor hands out the gifts to everyone. Then, of course, it's the main event, Christmas lunch. We all head back to our houses and start preparing our dishes. Once they are ready we head back up "the top" and enjoy our Christmas feast. We are so happy to be able to share some of our favourite Christmas dishes with you.

Every year we have smoked salmon. It is one of our favourite Christmas treats. It is so easy to smoke your own salmon and it means you can add any flavours you like. We smoked ours with manuka chips but you can use any other flavour or even tea and rice. It's delicious served with a wedge of lime and a fresh leafy salad.

It wouldn't be Christmas without a nice juicy slice of ham. Our mum's secret tip is once you have removed the skin from the ham, place the skin under the ham while it cooks. This makes it stay super moist.

We have come up with a cool glaze that's pretty Kiwi, and tastes yum. Reduce L&P with peppercorns, mustard seeds and a bay leaf until it becomes syrupy. It has a yummy balance of sweet and savoury.

Ambrosia is non-negotiable at our place. It's our Cousin Billie's signature dish. We have mixed it up a little and added some crunchy bits of meringue to the mix, so it's kind of a cross between an ambrosia and an Eton mess. We top them off with strawberries that have been tossed in some beautiful Heilala vanilla syrup to make them extra special.

We hope you enjoy these recipes and have a safe and merry Christmas.

Karena's ultimate Christmas present
My ultimate Christmas present would be a personal assistant so he or she could answer all of my emails and make sure I had all of my meetings entered into my calendar properly. It would also be great to have someone who would head back into town if/when I forget an ingredient at the supermarket.

Kasey's ultimate Christmas present
My ultimate Christmas present would be if someone bought me an around-the-world ticket so I could visit all of my favourite culinary destinations and hopefully persuade some of the chefs to let me into their kitchens for some on-site learning.

Recipes

Photos / Doug Sherring

Ambrosia Eaton Mess

Serves 4

2 tbsp Heilala vanilla syrup
1 punnet strawberries (5 sliced for presentation, the rest diced)
500ml cream
500ml strawberry yoghurt
½ cup mini marshmallows
6 mini meringues, broken into small pieces (reserve one for garnish)

1 Mix together the vanilla syrup and the strawberries and set aside in the fridge. Whip the cream into soft peaks. Fold through the yoghurt and mix through the chopped strawberries, marshmallows and meringues.
2 To plate, use 4 serving glasses and lay the sliced strawberries in the bottom of each glass. Spoon the mix into the glasses and top with some more diced strawberries and a sprinkle of meringue.

Side of Smoked Salmon

Serves 4

1 side salmon
1 cup sugar
½ cup salt
½ cup Manuka wood chips
½ cup rice

1 Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Mix together the sugar and the salt. Pack this mix on to the salmon and brine for at least 4 hours or overnight.
2 Wash off the brine with water and pat dry with a paper towel. Place the salmon on a raised rack that fits into a roasting tray.
3 Put the wood chips and rice in a dry pan and heat on high until the chips start smoking. Place the chips on an oven tray and place on the lowest shelf in your oven. Place the salmon on the roasting tray in the middle of the oven and bake for 35 minutes or until just cooked through.

The salmon is great eaten hot or cold.

L&P Glazed Ham

Serves 6-8

1 large ham
1 tbsp cloves
750ml L&P
5 peppercorns
½ tsp mustard seeds
1 bay leaf
2 tbsp wholegrain mustard

1 Pre heat oven to 170C. Use your fingers to separate the skin of the ham, leaving the fat on the ham. On the roasting tray in which you will cook the ham, place the skin in the bottom of the dish, cut side up.
2 Score the fat of the ham lightly - through the fat but not down to the meat - on a diagonal at 3cm intervals, then cut back the opposite way to create squares. Push the cloves into the ham, into the spaces where you have cut the fat. Place ham in the roasting tray.
3 In a pot, add the L&P, peppercorns, mustard seeds and bay leaf. Heat on a high and reduce by until the L&P is syrupy. Cool the syrup slightly and mix in the wholegrain mustard.
4 Cover the ham in the mixture and reserve some to glaze
while cooking. Pour about ¼ cup of water into the bottom of the roasting tray. Cook
the ham in the oven for 1¼ hours and glaze with the sauce every 20 minutes. Rest until the ham cools slightly and then carve.