Ah, for the years of my life when the day after Christmas — that source of rich gravy, rich desserts, and perhaps rich gifts — could be ignored, thanks to the blessing of Boxing Day.
I loved Boxing Day. The entire British universe (well, the post office, probably the local off-license, certainly any company I worked for) shut down, as it did for Christmas Day, to honor the good old-fashioned practice of giving the servants boxes of food and good cheer (and probably some outgrown clothes, unwanted china and repurposed attic “treasures”). No one ever gave me a box of food, but I know of friends, here in America, that receive a beneficent ham or turkey from the owners of their business enterprise. Dickens rules!
And so might Jamie Oliver.
I liked Jamie Oliver’s cookbooks well enough, but it was a British Airways video, viewed on my way home in mid-December, that brought him back to my attention. You perhaps know that last 45 minutes at the end of a flight, when you’re dehydrated and fussy and the stewards have made you put all your in-flight amusements back in the overhead bin, and you don’t want to start an actual movie knowing you’re landing in 50 minutes… so you click on the screen for Our Favourite Holiday TV Shows? Well, I do and I did. And there was Jamie Oliver’s Xmas Special, with a half-dozen recipes mingled in with shots of his happy and festive family.
I was intrigued by the first dish he made: a Beetroot-Cured Gravlax that produced such spectacular colours (even allowing for video enhancement) that I immediately wanted it on my very own white china serving platters for the Winter Solstice Open House. I have never attempted cured fish, but I used to make sushi once upon a time, so I decided to buy a slab of salmon (easy-peasy in Washington) and make the recipe.
First have Mellors convert Jamie’s kilos into pounds… Tiomkin offers advice.
Then apply your “cure.” This is the first ‘cure’ of grated beet-root, brown sugar, coarse salt, dill, lemon, and gin…
While one waits, impatiently, for the cure to transform fragile salmon into a translucent ornament, one might as well make one’s very own Christmas crackers. (Special thanks to Marks & Spencer on Oxford Street, for selling the rotund fun in flatpack I could get through customs.) I stuffed the crackers friends would pull on Christmas Day with keyrings from Covent Garden market and silk purses from the Victoria & Albert museum.
Best of all was carving off the first thin slices of fish and seeing it look, near as darnit, like old Jamie’s close-ups. Once set out on tiny petite toasts, drizzled with his creme fraiche/horseradish dressing and topped with a minute sprig of dill, I was sure my hors d’oeuvre warranted a close-up.
And could easily have been served in British Airways’ first class cabin. Maybe they would let me fly back for free if I offered to cook?