Christmas dinner: A food reviewer’s guide to ‘cheat’ this year’s feast

Forget slaving away in the kitchen this festive season, our food reviewer has all the tips and tricks to save you time and energy creating the perfect Christmas spread.

Is the thought of preparing a Christmas feast just all too much this year?

Well it doesn’t have to be if you cheat.

While cheating is certainly not encouraged in sport, on tests or with your spouse, when it comes to pulling together a festive spread, it’s the perfect way to create an abundant table without having to slave away for hours in the kitchen.

As a food reviewer, I’m privy to some of the best eats and treats around, and there are lots of brilliant providores who can help do some of the hard work for you and eliminate the stress of cooking this Christmas.

These are my top tips for serving up a delicious silly season meal with minimal effort:

SEAFOOD

For fresh seafood without the fuss, try ordering at Gambaro Seafood Restaurant.

Forget standing out in the blazing sun queuing for your seafood on December 24, instead order from Brisbane institution Gambaro Seafood Restaurant. The Caxton Street icon offers a broad selection of top-notch ocean catches including oysters, crabs, scallops, bugs, crayfish, barramundi and salmon fillets, calamari and prawns, and you can even have your prawns peeled for you. Even better is when you order online, the whole bundle is put together in an Esky and hand delivered to the boot of your car at a time you select on Christmas Eve. I have been doing this for years now and couldn’t imagine picking up my seafood any other way.

If, however, you’re only after prawns this Christmas, my hot tip – and that of all those in the seafood game – is to buy a box of the frozen variety a week ahead and simply refresh them in a salt brine on Christmas Day. When you’re buying from the display cabinet at your local fishmonger, you’re also buying frozen prawns prepared this way, it’s just they’ve done the thawing for you. If you do it yourself, you can save queuing up and also up to 10 per cent on the display cabinet price.

HAM

Think about skipping the whole ham this Christmas.

A whole ham might look spectacular on the table on Christmas Day, but the truth is, you’ll end up eating barely a few hundred grams of it and then be struggling to repurpose the leftovers into new meals for at least the next fortnight (there’s only so many ham sandwiches one can eat!). Instead, go to your quality local butcher and simply order some pre-sliced ham off the bone that you can then serve as part of a platter on the big day. Serve it cold, because no one really wants hot ham when it’s 32C outside, with a side of potato salad and you’re laughing. Butchers I recommend are Gilly’s Smallgoods in Clontarf, Peter Augustus in New Farm, Camp Hil and Broadbeach Waters, Meat at Billy’s in Ashgrove and Rosalie, and Hunt & Co in Moggill.

SWEETS

Jocelyn's Provisions passionfruit layer cake.

If turning your oven on makes your house hotter than a Swedish sauna in summer, then forget making Christmas cakes, fruit mince pies, biscuits or pavs and buy them. Brisbane is a sweet tooth’s playground with a smorgasbord of fabulous dessert makers offering great desserts this silly season. If it’s rocky road, tarts or layer cakes you’re after, Jocelyn’s Provisions is the go-to with gorgeous white chocolate, lemon and passionfruit varieties; while for gingerbread houses, cookies and plum pudds, try Flour & Chocolate. Jocelyn Hancock’s Cake and Bake is always a winner for fruit mince pies; but if you’re wanting something a bit quirky and cute, try the reindeer vegan doughnuts at Nodo. Great for the plant-based guest, they’re adorable with a Rudolph face.

DRINKS

Four Pillars pre-mixed cocktail varieties.

Damp drinking aka drinking mindfully and not getting drunk is the hot trend this year, so if staying sober is your thing – or you simply have to cater to someone who is pregnant or breastfeeding – then you’ll want to pick up a pack of Lyre’s pre-mixed drinks. While the brand offers a great range of alcohol-free spirits, skip the hard work of making drinks and simply pour one of their cans into a glass with ice and you’re done. There’s a dark and spicy, G&T, Amalfi Spritz, or my favourite, the classico, which is a great alternative to a sparkling wine, with sharp green apple tartness. If a prosecco or moscato is more your thing though, choose the Brown Brothers Zero range, which – as a matter of convenience – is available at Woolworths.

For those who normally serve cocktails at Christmas, you can now easily cheat with some great brands doing fun pre-batched mixes in the can or bottle. My absolute go-to is Maybe Sammy – the award-winning Sydney cocktail bar which continually finds itself on the list of world’s best bars. They have a plethora of shake-ups from classics like the old fashioned and negroni to contemporary twists like a camomile martini or eucalyptus gimlet. Order them online now. For those who like their cocktails a little sweeter, popular burger joint Milky Lane has also released a trio of blends in a can: a bondi sour, creaming soda spider and lychee and passionfruit mojito, with all three ready to be poured straight into a glass like you did all the work yourself. And for the G&T lovers, nothing beats the Four Pillars canned varieties when you can’t be bothered making them yourself. There’s the rare dry and tonic and their now-famous Bloody Shiraz gin and tonic; as well as a yuzu gin and soda mix, and a navy strength gin and ginger combo.