Getting sick of eating Polvorones and Nougat, buying gifts thinking about the people we love, having fun at company dinners, visiting markets, watching Christmas movies with the family, decorating the house… For many people, Christmas is a very special time of the year full of memories. It is also true for celebrities who, like Isabel Preysler, celebrate Christmas dinners in style.
The model and television presenter Nieves Álvarez remembered her Christmas with great affection in Vanitatis. “What I liked most was decorating the Christmas Eve table with my aunts, who took care of even the smallest detail,” he said. Anyone can easily decorate a Christmas table with small details (and following Decosfera's expert advice), and Álvarez recalled how his family placed the cutlery, chose beautiful tablecloths, took out the glassware and created centerpieces with colored balls. “For me, that aesthetic moment was very exciting,” he said.
As was what was traditionally eaten at home. For dinner, there was always a recipe, “the poultry broth that my mother prepared (an absolute gourmet delight) that I liked so much,” he recalls. Christmas consommé is one of those traditional recipes that never fails. In the case of Álvarez, his mother prepared it with poultry but, as the gastronomy experts from Directo al Paladar (DAP) tell us, the traditional recipe is a meat broth with vegetables, ham and beef knee bones, and with meat and poultry. “The result can be used to make the classic Catalan galets soup and other variations of Christmas soups, or to reduce it by making Christmas consommé,” they explained.
How to make Christmas broth at home
The trick to start this broth is to make it from cold water, putting the bones (one ham, one beef and a couple of salted backbone bones) in three liters of cold water (we will then get a consommé for about eight people), along with half a kilo of blood sausage, half a kilo of chicken and about 300 grams of beef brisket. We will also add two leeks, a carrot and a potato and put the lid on the saucepan until it starts to boil. Once it does, we will lower the heat and let the broth cook over very low heat and without covering. This way the broth will not be cloudy but transparent as they explain to us in DAP.
At first, the bones and meat will release foam and impurities that we will calmly remove with broth. And we will let it cook slowly and very gently. So smooth that the broth barely has to bubble, staying that way for two hours. In this case, haste is of no use and experts advise against making it in a normal pot and not a pressure cooker, to avoid it being cloudy and having to be clarified later.
Once the broth has cooked for two hours, we remove the vegetables, bones and meat, and pass the broth through a very fine strainer or cheesecloth to remove any impurities. In order to remove the excess fat properly, we are going to let it cool. This way the fat will stay on top, on the surface, and we can easily remove it. All that remains is to reduce the broth in a saucepan until it reaches half its volume and adjust the salt. And voila, you now have an ideal Christmas broth.
At Christmas, traditional Christmas sweets cannot be missing so that the celebration is round, and Álvarez assures that in his, “after dinner, the puff pastries and the Polvorones for dessert, of which he always wanted more and more.” And if you don't know how to complete your Christmas proposal, we leave you some ideas. You will find everything from starters and appetizers for Christmas, to some seafood recipes and of course, fish and meat recipes.
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