Create a holiday feast to remember with Martha Stewart's best traditional Christmas dinner recipes! From perfectly roasted beef to succulent duck, these timeless mains are paired with classic, old-world side dishes.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Traditional Christmas dinners can be roast beef, roast goose, or baked ham.
00:04But let's try something different. I love roasted duckling,
00:08and it's especially good if you marinate the duckling first.
00:12To make the marinade, and this is kind of an oriental-flavored marinade,
00:16for three ducks, you'll need two tablespoons of garlic
00:22and one tablespoon of fresh ginger. Add two tablespoons of hot sesame oil,
00:29two tablespoons of honey, a half a cup of soy sauce,
00:33and I like to use the black soy sauce. It gives a nicer glaze.
00:38A half a cup of white wine. Choose a nice dry variety.
00:41And a quarter of a cup of hoisin sauce. Mix it all together, and your marinade is done.
00:50I like to marinate the birds in Pyrex glass dishes.
00:54If you don't have those stainless steel bowls, we'll do.
00:58Just pour the marinade. This is enough for three ducks.
01:03Pour the marinade over the bird. Let a little bit get into the cavity.
01:10And marinate it covered with saran wrap in your refrigerator for at least 24 hours,
01:17and preferably up to two and a half days.
01:20I marinated these ducks for two and a half days. See what a nice brown color they get.
01:25Pour out all the excess marinade,
01:30and put it on a parchment-covered board.
01:32This keeps your work surface from getting too messy.
01:36And I've made a stuffing, a very simple stuffing,
01:39of just chopped celery, three stalks of chopped celery,
01:42sliced oranges, and one Granny Smith apple.
01:47And just, this is for three ducks, don't forget.
01:50Stuff some of this stuffing in the cavity.
01:52You can sprinkle the cavity, too, with a little bit of salt and freshly ground black pepper.
01:59Maybe about a half a teaspoon of each.
02:02And if you can, with your fingertips,
02:06just loosen the skin on the breast a little bit from the meat.
02:10Just loosen that. Push your fingers in there.
02:12And insert under the skin a few sprigs of fresh thyme.
02:17This is fresh thyme right out of the garden.
02:19Insert additional sprigs of fresh thyme right in the cavity.
02:23And a whole lot of parsley, Italian parsley or this curly parsley will do.
02:32And to truss, tuck under the neck flap and the wings,
02:39and use a double piece of thin cotton twine.
02:44Start at the neck, come up over the wings,
02:48come up over the wings, over the drumsticks,
02:52catch the ends of the drumsticks with the string,
02:55and pull tight, tying the string securely.
03:02You get a nice, tightly trussed bird this way,
03:06and one that won't spread out and roast unevenly in a hot 400 degree oven.
03:12Before roasting, prick the entire underside of the bird with a very sharp fork.
03:18This makes all the excess fat drip out.
03:21This carving fork works really well.
03:24Place it on a rack in a foil-lined roasting pan.
03:28I like to use a shallow pan about two or three inches deep.
03:31And pour in a little bit of boiling water, about a half an inch.
03:36This keeps splattering to a minimum.
03:37Place the roaster pan in a preheated 400 degree oven,
03:42and roast for about an hour and a half.
03:49Ah, this duck looks perfectly roasted.
03:54Brown and crispy.
03:57You should count on a half a duckling per person.
04:00I'm having eight guests for dinner,
04:01and I think I'll cook five ducks because I want to make sure I have enough space for them.
04:07And I want to make sure that everybody has plenty to eat.
04:12Christmas is not a time to skimp on calories,
04:14and our dessert is not a dieter's delight.
04:18A croquembouche, a French confection, meaning crunch in the mouth.
04:22Depending on the size of your finished croquembouche,
04:25you'll need anywhere from 50 to 150 or more dessert-sized pate a choux puffs.
04:30Fill them with creme patissiere, mocha cream, blackberry or raspberry curd,
04:36and vanilla-flavored whipped cream.
04:38When all the puffs are filled, it's time to assemble the creme puff mountain.
04:44To keep the croquembouche from falling down, you have to stick it together.
04:48And I use a caramel syrup or a melted sugar.
04:51Two cups of sugar, two-thirds of a cup of cold water,
04:57two tablespoons of white corn syrup.
05:00I like to use this heavy unlined copper sugar pot for melting my sugar,
05:04but any good metal pot will do.
05:07And a few drops of lemon to prevent crystallization.
05:14Never stir this mixture, only swirl it.
05:17Stirring it may cause lumping and more crystallization.
05:21Put it on the stove on a medium flame,
05:26and keep swirling it until the sugar is completely melted.
05:31After four to eight minutes of boiling like this,
05:33the syrup will be a light amber color,
05:35which is what we want to stick the puffs together.
05:38And just immerse it quickly into a bowl of ice water.
05:43Don't let any water get in the pot.
05:45This just cools it off a little bit.
05:47The syrup is very, very hot, and you do not want to burn yourself.
05:53Be very careful.
05:56Put your pot on a separate board so that it won't burn your counter,
06:00and immediately start dipping your puffs, just the bottoms,
06:04and forming your croquembouche.
06:07I use an aluminum foil covered round of cardboard.
06:16Try to start with big puffs for the bottom.
06:21So choose the largest ones for the bottom.
06:26And then carefully form your whole tree.
06:31Continue stacking the puffs like this.
06:39When you've topped the mountain with the last puff,
06:42you're ready to spin the sugar.
06:45This caramel is not quite ready,
06:47as you can see that no strands are really forming yet.
06:52And this funny little instrument is really a balloon whisk like this one,
06:56cut off with wire clippers.
06:59That way you can get lots of strands of sugar at the same time.
07:07As this melted sugar hits the cool air,
07:10they form this extraordinary cobweb of golden threads.
07:18The sugar has to be exactly the right temperature,
07:22not too hot and not too cold to pull like this.
07:26So if you find that it's getting too stiff,
07:28you can put it on the heat for a second longer,
07:33or cool it in a bowl of ice water if you must.
07:38You can stack the cream puffs in advance,
07:40but you have to wait until right before the guests arrive to spin the sugar.
07:49There you have it,
07:50a cream puff mountain encased in a spiderweb of spun sugar.
07:56A croquembouche.
07:58Yorkshire pudding is a basic savory batter
08:01that puffs up magically when it cooks in the oven,
08:04and it's a natural accompaniment to prime rib.
08:07Together they make the quintessential Christmas dinner.
08:10And Yorkshire pudding is really simple to make.
08:12It tastes best if you bake it with the pan drippings from the beef
08:17right in the same roasting pan in which you've roasted the meat and deglazed the gravy.
08:22So make this batter a day in advance
08:24and chill it very, very well in the refrigerator.
08:27And I'll show you how simple it is to make the batter.
08:31You add about a quarter of a cup of the roasting fat
08:35from the prime rib into the bottom of the pan.
08:38Your oven has been preheated to 425 degrees,
08:42and you coat the whole bottom of the pan and the sides with the fat
08:46and place it in the oven.
08:48You want the pan so hot,
08:50and you want the batter really cold.
08:53Make sure the Yorkshire pudding goes in about 20 to 30 minutes
08:58before the actual serving time.
09:01You want to serve it immediately out of the oven.
09:03So now in a big bowl, I'm going to show you how to make that batter.
09:07Place two cups of flour,
09:17two cups of all-purpose, unbleached flour,
09:20unbleached flour,
09:22one teaspoon of salt,
09:24and I'm going to sift the salt and the flour together.
09:29I always like to use a great big sieve like this.
09:33Now make a well in the middle of the flour
09:39and break your six eggs that are at room temperature
09:43into your well of flour.
09:47And you have two and a half cups of milk
09:50already measured out.
09:53Now with a whisk,
09:55beat those six eggs into the flour,
09:59making a very thick, pasty mixture.
10:04Notice I'm using a large whisk
10:07and incorporating all the flour.
10:10And now gradually add the milk,
10:12first about a half a cup,
10:17and slowly incorporate the milk into the batter.
10:20And I'm beating it until it's pretty smooth.
10:27And as you add the milk and it gets thinner and thinner,
10:29it's easier to incorporate the milk into the batter.
10:34Whisk it up nice and smooth.
10:37Cover it with plastic wrap
10:39and put it in the refrigerator overnight.
10:43Well, here's our ice-cold batter that was made yesterday.
10:49Just whisk it up so that you make sure it's smooth.
10:54And we're ready to get the hot pan out of the oven.
10:58Now it's been in here about five minutes.
11:02Oh, you can see that it's smoking and very, very hot.
11:08Immediately pour the batter into the hot fat
11:13and get it right back in the oven.
11:15This is a big pan,
11:16and the batter is thin in the bottom of the pan,
11:19so it's going to take about 20 minutes.
11:22Well, now I'd like to show you how to carve a prime rib.
11:26Here's the meat. It's rested.
11:28The juices have redistributed throughout the cut of beef,
11:32and we have to get rid of the bones and slice the meat.
11:37Now, just take the beef off the pan.
11:42Off the pan.
11:44And I'm using a carving board
11:46that has a little bit of a moat around it
11:49so that the juices will fall into the moat
11:51and then into a deeper receptacle over here.
11:54It's a great board for carving,
11:56and you don't lose all the good juices.
11:59With a little pair of scissors,
12:02cut the strings that have tied the beef together
12:06and remove them.
12:08What we want to do after we remove the strings
12:12is to take out these bones.
12:16This is a new knife that Henkels just sent me.
12:17It's a TwinStar knife, and it's just amazing.
12:20It's so sharp, and they say it never has to be sharpened.
12:23So start top or bottom and carve right under the bones.
12:32We want to leave as much meat on the roast as possible.
12:37There.
12:38And now I like to turn the meat back over this way.
12:44There's a lot of salt here,
12:45so I'm going to scrape off that salt over to the side
12:51and then using a carving fork to slice the beef
12:58to the desired thickness.
13:02This roast is going to be a little bit thicker
13:05roast should serve between six and eight hungry people.
13:11Now, if it seems that the top is too fatty for your taste,
13:16you can always cut right here and just take out the fat.
13:22But it's sort of pretty to see the whole piece of beef on a plate.
13:27If you want thinner slices, you might have to use an electric knife,
13:32but these nice thick slices are kind of traditional.
13:37I'm going to serve my prime rib in Yorkshire pudding
13:39with roasted root vegetables,
13:41young carrots from the garden, and some baby leeks.
13:47Perfect Yorkshire pudding.
13:49Golden brown hills, sunny yellow valleys,
13:52perfect for Christmas dinner with a standing rib roast
13:55and roasted vegetables.
13:56It's fit for your family, it's fit for your friends,
13:59and it's certainly fit for Henry VIII.
14:01Ah, dinner is waiting, hot from the oven,
14:04glistening roasted ducks,
14:09golden butternut squash puree,
14:11freshly grilled vegetables,
14:14fresh cabbage sauerkraut with mushrooms,
14:17and golden brown herb fleck popovers.
14:20I like to serve this kind of dinner as a sit-down buffet,
14:24leaving me lots of time to spend with my guests.
14:27It's an informal way to entertain,
14:28and guests can get up and help themselves to seconds
14:31and sometimes even thirds.
14:33It's a tradition to make a gingerbread house
14:35for my dessert table every Christmas.
14:37This year's gingerbread house has a copper leaf roof
14:40and sugar glass windows.
14:41It stands ready to be gobbled up after dinner,
14:44along with the shortbreads, cookies, fruitcakes,
14:47and of course the glorious croquembouche.
14:50Each and every Christmas should be one to be remembered,
14:54to evoke warm feelings of friendship,
14:56continuing the wonderful family traditions
14:58you set out to make year after year.