BRENT PIN­HEIRO
brent.pin­heiro@guardian.co.tt

We all know that noth­ing beats a Tri­ni Christ­mas, a fact that has been im­mor­talised in Su­san Daniel-Maicoo’s "Tri­ni Christ­mas is d best" parang. [Side­bar: I hope she and the Venezue­lan mis­ter from Mar­gari­ta are some­where liv­ing their best life.]

Any­way, Christ­mas is lit­er­al­ly right around the cor­ner so, if you’re look­ing for some ideas on how to up­grade Christ­mas lunch, I've got you!

I spoke to sev­er­al pros for this piece and here’s what they had to say.

Sweet­en your sor­rel with sim­ple syrup

Photo: Baiwadi Assing | EatAhFood.com

Sor­rel is syn­ony­mous with Christ­mas... point, blank, pe­ri­od! But in­stead of boil­ing the sor­rel and adding sug­ar af­ter­wards, Chef Ben of Quan Kep's Pork Shed says you should use sim­ple syrup in­stead to sweet­en your sor­rel. It's su­per easy too, here's how to do it:

Step 1: Bring equal parts wa­ter and sug­ar to a rolling boil. 

Step 2: Add spices - think or­ange peel, a cou­ple of pieces of star anise, and a ta­ble­spoon of grat­ed gin­ger along with your reg­u­lar cin­na­mon and cloves. 

Step 3: Wait for a few min­utes un­til it be­comes 'thick' and then take it off the heat. 

Step 4: Strain and mix in­to the boiled sor­rel. Add some An­gos­tu­ra bit­ters and serve chilled.

PRO TIP: Want to amp up the flavour and colour? Use black sor­rel in­stead of red sor­rel.

Make your own Gin­ger beer... lit­er­al­ly.

Photo: Baiwadi Assing | EatAhFood.com

Stick­ing with the sim­ple syrup theme for just a lit­tle bit longer, here’s one for gin­ger beer. Bai­wa­di Ass­ing, con­tent cre­ator at eatah­foodtt.com (and self-pro­claimed bay leaf & roucou am­bas­sador) shared a neat trick for mak­ing a flavour­ful gin­ger beer us­ing sim­ple syrup. Here's how:

Step 1: Bring equal parts wa­ter and white sug­ar along with some grat­ed gin­ger (about a 2-inch piece is fine but feel free to ad­just the amount of gin­ger based on your lik­ing) up to a rolling boil. 

Step 2: Once the sug­ar crys­tals have dis­solved, turn off the heat and let it cool. 

Step 3: Strain and add about a shot glass of the syrup to any cold beer you have on hand and, voila... gin­ger beer! 

The great thing is that you can use non-al­co­holic beer for this recipe to make it fam­i­ly friend­ly or, mix it with club so­da for gin­ger ale. If you need vi­su­als for this,

PRO TIP: Bai­wa­di says you should feel free to ex­per­i­ment with oth­er flavour com­bos – a com­bi­na­tion of black sor­rel, clove, cin­na­mon and gin­ger boiled in the syrup and then added to beer makes for a wicked sor­rel shandy.  

Brine your Turkey

Photo by Monstera from Pexels

Full dis­clo­sure: I’m a veg­e­tar­i­an so I won’t be try­ing this one, but turkey is a good al­ter­na­tive to pork. It does have a rep­u­ta­tion for be­ing dry though, so to avoid that Chef Ben says you should brine your bird for at least 24 hours. This en­sures it is suc­cu­lent and flavour­ful when roast­ed, #dry­turkeyNOTH­ING.

Here's a guide for a 10-12lb bird:

Step 1: Bring 3 cups wa­ter to a boil, and then add 3/4 cup sug­ar and 1/4 cup salt. Go crazy with aro­mat­ics - gar­lic, onion, cit­rus, and rose­mary make a nice mix. Throw in a cou­ple of bay leaves, two sticks of cin­na­mon, and thank her lat­er. 

Step 2: Once boil­ing, re­move from the stove and add four more cups of wa­ter. 

Step 3: Sub­merge the bird in the liq­uid and re­frig­er­ate overnight, or two days if pos­si­ble. 

Step 4: When you’re ready to roast, re­move from the brine and pat dry. Sea­son with ad­di­tion­al spices and put lit­tle pieces of but­ter un­der the skin. 

Step 5: Roast at 350°F (180°C) un­til the in­ter­nal tem­per­a­ture reads 165°F (74°C), then re­move from the oven and al­low to rest for at least 20-30 mins be­fore carv­ing.

PRO TIP: To­tal cook­ing time de­pends on the size of the bird. Small­er birds will cook faster so, al­low for about 12 min­utes per pound for an un­stuffed turkey. If the tem­per­a­ture is too high, the pro­teins in the meat start to tight­en, squeez­ing out mois­ture and leav­ing the meat dri­er.

Glaze that Ham

Photo courtesy Ben QK

When Mar­cia Mi­ran­da sang "bring dong d ha" '... did you feel that? Good, be­cause ham is life! There's just some­thing about the smell of ham bak­ing with pineap­ple and cloves that screams Christ­mas.  

Some peo­ple tend to just un­wrap their hams, stick some cloves in, and put it to bake. Those peo­ple, dear read­er, are what we call sav­ages. Don’t be like them... up­grade your ham life with some glaze! It adds sweet­ness to the al­ready savoury ham. Mak­ing a glaze is su­per easy too! Here’s how Chef Ben does it:  

Step 1: Com­bine 1/2 cup of hon­ey with 1 tea­spoon of cin­na­mon, 1/4 cup of brown sug­ar, and 1/4 cup of or­ange juice. 

Step 2: Heat on the stove un­til the sug­ar melts and every­thing is com­bined.

Step 3: Dur­ing the last 30 mins of bak­ing your ham, re­move the foil and brush on the glaze every 10 min­utes. That’s three glaz­ings!

Step 4: When the ham is done, hit it one more time with the re­main­ing glaze. Let it sit for about 15 min­utes to al­low the juices to re­dis­trib­ute. Don’t cut in­to the ham while it’s hot!

PRO TIP: If you want a crispy crust, turn the oven to the broil set­ting in the last 3-5 mins of cook­ing time to get a dark out­er lay­er while keep­ing the meat in­side juicy.

Think fishy thoughts!

With ham, chick­en, and turkey (to a less­er ex­tent) avail­able every­where you turn, it’s easy to for­get fish is an op­tion. But, Chef At­ta­la Ma­haraj, own­er of Sails Restau­rant and Pub and the Salty Dog Restau­rant says stuffed whole fish can make a great ad­di­tion to spread. It may look in­tim­i­dat­ing, but with the help of your lo­cal fish­er­folk, you’ll be bak­ing up an In­sta­gram-wor­thy mas­ter­piece in no time. Chef At­ta­la says the trick to great seafood is sim­plic­i­ty so, here's how to make a sim­ple roast fish:

Step 1: Look for a fresh whole fish suit­able for bak­ing e.g., snap­per and grouper, and ask your fish ven­dor to debone it for you. You want your fish to be around 5lbs – if it’s too small it will dry out, but if it’s too large then it doesn’t cook even­ly. 

Step 2: Sea­son your fish. There is no need to over-sea­son here – fresh green sea­son­ing (chadon beni, chive and pars­ley), gar­lic, gin­ger, salt and black pep­per are the ba­sics that work well with and el­e­vate al­most all types of seafood.

Step 3: Pre­pare your stuff­ing sep­a­rate­ly – this can range from mixed veg­eta­bles such as ochroes, toma­toes, onions, sweet pep­pers, etc. to a med­ley of chopped seafood such as shrimp, crab­meat and fish. Stuff your fish gen­er­ous­ly, in­clud­ing lit­tle cubes of but­ter.

Step 4: Cov­er with alu­mini­um foil and bake for 45 mins at 350°F (180°C). Then, re­move the foil and con­tin­ue bak­ing for an ad­di­tion­al 10 mins. 

Step 5: When fin­ished, re­move and gar­nish gen­er­ous­ly with melt­ed but­ter, lemon wedges, chopped pars­ley, and dill. Serve to a cho­rus of oooohs and ah­h­hhs. 

PRO TIP: There are two pop­u­lar ways to pre­pare fish for stuff­ing - but­ter­flied and ca­noe. But­ter­flied means lay­ing the fish on its side, while the ca­noe al­lows the fish to sit on its bel­ly and be stuffed (like a ca­noe).

Be safe, avoid hav­ing large gath­er­ings and please don’t put the COVID in Christ­mas. You’ll end up on Un­cle Ter­ry’s naughty list!