What's on the menu for our Kilkenny chefs this Christmas?

Christmas Day at the Hayden’s by Edward Hayden

Greetings everyone and I would like to take the opportunity to wish you all the very best for the festive season and every blessing for 2024. As the year ends it gives us all an opportunity to visit with ourselves and reflect on the year that was, as we plan for the year ahead. 

I absolutely love Christmas. For me Christmas begins very early and the lead up in terms of commitments around cookery demos, media commitments etc. Is very busy so when the big day comes, I am well ready for it.

I have 12 of my family coming for Christmas Dinner and I am really looking forward to it. I love entertaining, love having the dining room looking fantastic and planning a gastronomic feast of festive food. My friend will call around noon to collect a trifle and we will have some bubbles and canapés and then my guests arrive around 2. I serve canapés and bubbles to them as they arrive, and we catch up about what Santa has brought to us all.

Starter is a delicious China teacup of soup and wholemeal scones topped with smoked trout and crab and then onto the main course. My friend Frances rears a turkey for me each year and it is always delicious. I will serve that with a baked ham and all the trimmings. 

After that we move to my sister’s house and her in-laws call down and we all enjoy a dessert buffet. After a busy day my absolute favourite thing is to sit late Christmas night with a glass of wine and a bowl of trifle, watching the lights flicker on the Christmas tree and reflect on how thankful I am for good health, a good job, family and friends that love me...all things that I appreciate greatly but conscious that for one reason or another not everyone enjoys them.

Christmas is a sad and happy time in different ways and this year as we are so conscious of war and migration and many other maladies, we are very conscious of the nativity story. 

My final advice is to give your family and friends the gift of time this year.... life is very short and it's over in a puff of smoke...make each day count.

A very happy and holy Christmas to you all. Edward Hayden Xxx

Christmas in the Daly’s by Tracie Daly

We love Christmas in our house and not because of the gifts but because of the food traditions we bring back to life each and every year. We celebrate the provenance of the Turkey because it takes centre stage and focus every Christmas for us as a family.

Our father, Malachy Daly was a vet, so knowing that the bird was of top quality was above all the key to achieving a perfect Christmas dinner. Growing up, Mr. Paddy Fitzgerald from Caslewarren, Clara was our wonderful friend & Turkey farmer and his arrival with the plucked bird would spark the beginning of Christmas for us all.

Back then, my mother and father would then gut, prep & hang our Turkey in preparation. They would save the precious neck, heart, and gizzards. This year and for the last number of years we get our Turkey from Artisan Butcher Jon Browne who is sourcing it from Billy Gray, a sustainable Turkey farmer.

We use the necks, hearts, and gizzards to make a stock and the most glorious Turkey soup as starters.  Our age-old tradition is to stuff the Turkey on Christmas eve with my homemade sage and rosemary butter stuffing and then wrap the bird entirely in streaky bacon & foil and then on Christmas morning we will roast out prized and prepped turkey for seven hours. The juices I skim and make a delicious and intensely flavoured gravy. I’ll keep the sacred turkey fat for roasties at a later stage and the carcass, once finished, becomes another glorious stock into a rich turkey soup.

The smell in our kitchen on Christmas morning is truly outstanding and what we live for every December 25th. This tradition is steeped in nostalgia and even though Dad is sadly no longer with us, he is still very much present in this turkey tradition that he started with us over 50 years. ago.

Forever missing those who have gone and very grateful for those that are here. I really hope you get to relive your delicious traditions this Christmas surrounded by the people you love & care about. Merry Christmas one and all, Tracie Daly 

Christmas Day at Ryeland Lodge by Anne Neary…

My Christmas day looks like this. We go to mass at 10am. Then back to the lodge at Ryeland House Cookery for drinks at 11.30am. Drinks which will mostly include champers as I have a liking for Moët Chandon!

All my family will be there, and we will have finger food which will include some of our lovely finger food I made on our Christmas courses at Ryeland Lodge Cookery School. One of them is whipped feta with heirloom tomatoes, olives, garlic and finished with a good olive oil.

Then present giving takes place which is always a bit craic. After which we go for a short walk and then down to Ryeland House for Christmas Dinner with a good selection of red and white wine.

After that it is a lot of fun and games including some of our old favourites which included Mexican train and Monopoly.

A few songs later on in the evening and of course the turkey sandwiches.

Christmas day with the Phelans by Tom Phelan…

Our Christmas day is not the norm, both of my sisters are nurses and like me are either on duty or on call. There is always someone coming or going but at some stage we all manage to sit down for dinner together. This year is no exception, I am working Christmas day but plan on getting home around 6pm right in time for dinner.

The dinner is a feast, and I am only the assistant to the chef, my main objective is to keep my two sisters out of the kitchen and ensure that stress levels are kept to a minimum. Mam takes the lead with the cooking and always does the dessert, Banoffee Pie and Sherry Trifle, the latter being my favourite dessert. I normally do the starter.

This year we will have fresh crab with some homemade Guinness brown bread. We always have roast turkey and honey glazed ham for the main course with potatoes from the home farm, boiled, roasted, and mashed.

Vegetables are never short either with many of them also coming from the farm. Dad’s task is to prep the veg. Even after all that there is always space for some of my homemade Christmas pudding and traditional Christmas cake. It’s always a great occasion with many cousins, aunts, and uncles appearing throughout the day and night.

By the end of St Stephens day up to 30 people will have been wined and dined.