Holiday menu: home-cooked or takeout?
All throughout my childhood, my grandparents’ house was the scene of countless family reunions. During preparations for Christmas, my younger brother and I would run all over the grounds watching everyone cook, picking and tasting meat and sweets even before the dishes were completed. I remember that they made Pancit Luglog by pounding and squeezing shrimp heads. My grandfather had a heavy-duty meat grinder with which he ground fresh tinapa and chicharon for the pancit. Ox tail and tripe for kare-kare were simmered overnight in the backyard over burning wood. Siomai was cooked in large bamboo steamers, the size you find in restaurants these days.
That was then. Much as we Filipinos have retained the tradition of holding family reunions over the holidays, cooking for a large crowd is not as convenient as it once was. House help is scarce. Most wives and mothers work. Pot luck has become the vogue. And for those without the time to shop and cook their potluck contribution, there is the option of ordering cooked food.
Of course, the element of nostalgia is lost. When I was a child, I’d look forward to Christmas and New Year because those were the only days when my grandparents would cook some very special dishes – ones so laborious to prepare that they didn’t dare cook them more than once or twice a year. Kids today can’t look forward to lolo’s or lola’s special meals if they’re going to a potluck party where almost everyone will be bringing cooked food straight from the kitchen of some famous restaurant or even especially ordered in advance from a well-known chef. But the reality of changing lifestyles being unavoidable, it’s not as if we always have a choice.
I’m not saying though that in today’s world, there is no place for hundred per cent home cooked meals for family reunions. I do it every year. Then, I swear I wouldn’t ever again only to find myself excitedly pondering the next year’s Christmas menu even before Halloween. What can I say? There is simply nothing like looking at the happy faces and healthy appetites of family and friends as they happily enjoy the dishes, newly cooked and lovingly prepared, that they can only find at my dinner table.
It can be done. Just spread the cooking over several days. Make sure that some dishes can be cooked or partially cooked days in advance. Meat for kare-kare or callos, for instance, can be boiled days ahead, frozen and thawed until they are ready to be mixed with the sauce and vegetables. Choose desserts that will keep in the fridge for a couple of days before the big day. Cheesecakes can be wrapped and chilled; add the topping on the day of the party.
And please – and this is something that I often see in Filipino family reunions – stop thinking that no Noche Buena or Christmas lunch is complete unless you have ALL the traditional dishes on the table. It is just so boring to see a whole leg of ham, lechon, kare-kare, mechado, callos, kaldereta and pochero side by side. It’s overkill. The important thing is variety. If you’re serving chicken relleno, for instance, it would be redundant to have another heavy meat dish. Go for a seafood dish, a hearty soup and a vegetable or noodle dish. Noche Buena is a special meal but NOT your LAST MEAL.
Now, if you feel you don’t have time energy and patience to cook something special, you can order cooked food. Of course, you don’t want just any cooked food – you want the best that’s worthy enough for one of the highlights of the year. What should you consider?
Some people choose to order from a particular hotel or restaurant because they like the way the chef prepares the food. Great if restaurant is owned by the chef, then, you can be sure of what you’re getting. But in establishments where the chef is an employee, there’s always the chance that he’d have been pirated by the competitor by the time your order is due.
Consider the time element too. The succulent baby back ribs you so love to order from a favorite restaurant is newly cooked and served to you straight from the kitchen. If the same baby back ribs were packed, transported and delivered to your house, they won’t be the same.
Next, choose dishes that you have tried before. It isn’t the time to experiment. If your best friend recommends the baked salmon from a fancy restaurant but you haven’t personally tasted the dish, don’t take the risk. What may taste absolutely divine to your best friend may not be the stuff for family get-togethers where dishes must be attractive to everyone from age one to ninety-nine.
Finally, choose a reliable chef or restaurant and place your orders well in advance. Remember to ask for and keep the receipt when you pay the deposit so you have a ready reference (and proof) later. Check if they will deliver the food to your front door or if you have to do the pick up. Confirm by phone two days before the party to make sure that there’s been no mix-up or misunderstanding about the dishes you ordered and the date and time of delivery or pick-up.
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hi Connie, welcome home. Don’t know if you saw the thanksgiving video i posted on facebook but my cousin gave me an idea- for Christmas dinner, we will have all native foods like daing, tuyo, dilis, arroz caldo, and puto. We’re kinda burned out from eating meats and rich saucy foods. Now if only i can find somebody who can make puto bumbong.
I’m still catching up but that’s a lovely idea. I really don’t believe in excesses and we Pinoys are prone to go to the extreme with Noche Buena.
Sana we can order your Noche Buena. Whatever you cook for your family I will get the same! That satisfies both home cooking and ordered food. Super fantastic idea don’t you think? hehehe…
HAHAHA If I share the pics later, does that count?
we used to have maling sandwiches and gulaman for xmas sa pinas because those were the only ones we can afford.
now, dito sa us, whenever i attend filipino parties during xmas, parang fiesta! paulit-ulit lang ang mga pagkain. pritong manok, ham, tapos beef brisket.
i think it’s too much but maybe those people are enjoying a better economic status dito sa amerika, unlike sa pinas that we could barely afford to buy food.
pero some of them overdo it. parang takot na takot maubusan ng pagkain. laging puno ang pantry na parang may world war na darating any minute.
It’s the same in the Philippines. Fiesta mentality. I don’t understand why there has to be SO MUCH food when a couple of really special dishes will do. People keep forgetting that it’s the togetherness that’s more important.
We do tend to go overboard when it comes to holiday meals.Noche buena leftovers in my family are always packed and carried to our potluck reunions.We sometimes have 4-6 different versions of buko salad,lumpiang shanghai,and fried chicken.I like Ruth’s idea of a native Christmas dinner.And I’ll take your advice to spread the cooking over the week, so I wont fall asleep for the Misa de Gallo
Thanks for the compliment Alisa. Actually, my sister sent me some dried bia and danggit from cavite so i will serve that with some inihaw na bangus and and dilis fried rice( tasted this at a goldilocks resto in SanDiego). Arroz caldo for the soup and puto and mango cucumber salad. Will make feel us closer to our Filipino roots.
I dont have fond memories of celebrating Christmas Eve when I was a child but New Years Eve yes al the time. My mother used to put us to bed early on the 24th so we can wake up early on the 25th, my dad then will prepare a hearty special breakfast for the family, after breakfast, we get dressed and head to all our ninong and ninang’s houses..pra mamasko then later in the afternoon sa house ng mga relatives.
Now that I am here in Dubai with my family, I always make sure that we live the tradtion of having Noche Buena, I want my daughter to learn it even if we are miles away from home. I normally cook menudo, sotanghon, bbq pork and buko or fruit salad for dessert. This year we will try something new. But definitely it will a good one too. Lalo na ngayon I follow your cooking style Ms.C.
Cooking at Christmas time is a true labor of love that needs careful planning. Last year, I got all the recipes for our Noche Buena from this very site and scheduled the preparation of each dish accordingly.
Include items on your menu that could be prepared well in advance like caldereta, mechado, embotido and relleno dishes. I actually used a crock pot (slow cooker) for my spicy Caldereta saving me the trouble of having to look after it.
My Chicken relleno was stuffed and pre-steamed 2 days before Noche Buena then browned in the tubo broiler while we were in church.
Desserts like fruit salad, crema de fruta and most sweets could also be prepared days in advanced as long as they are kept well chilled.
Ham was baking in the oven even before we left for the midnight mass together with the potato wedges with rosemary and olive oil.
The only thing left to cook was the fish fillet which was already pre-coated and ready for the deep fryer and took only a few minutes to brown. The garlic mayo dip was prepared in advanced!
Regarding my Chicken Relleno- I made FOUR whole rellenos because I wanted to experiment freezing them. After pre-steaming, I froze the three other chickens.
One relleno I brought to a pot-luck party on New Year. I defrosted it in the ref for about 24 hours and browned it using the turbo broiler. No one thought that it was frozen!
Another relleno was simply defrosted and kept chilled in the ref through-out the season. This was perfectly matched with potato salad which we served our guests that dropped by un-announced.
The third and final relleno we had for Valentine’s day. I also gave it 24 hours to defrost but this time I tried browning it by deep frying. It too was delicious.
NOW, knowing that I could well freeze CHICKEN RELLENO, I’ve already made a couple for this Christmas Eve’s Noche Buena. Yup, ONE LESS ITEM TO COOK on Christmas Eve!
Wow, that is a lot of relleno! And thanks for sharing that it really freezes well.
@carla that’s what actually i look forward to. the breakfast after the feast.
I don’t know if it’s just me but I don’t really eat that much on Noche Buena. Specially if i’m cooking. I’d end up sitting in one corner sniffing fireworks smoke after a long kitchen shift. But then again as Tita Connie said, it’s the fiesta mentality that pushes us to eat more than we can chew.
Connie, I’m wondering what’s on your menu for Noche Buena? Im here in the US and minsan limited lang yung ingredients.I hope you’ll post like a Menu Sample, it will be a big help to all of us
Wow, you read my mind hehehe I was actually going to start a whole new blog with nothing but suggested menus. But I think I’ll just integrate them all here.
Your tips are beneficial specially in our
“servantless” household.
What I really miss during Noche Buena is the
Chinese ham my Ama buys in Echague during
Chrismastime.
Every year I have the same complaint,whether
it’s at our house,my sister’s or in-laws—too much food.Ipapatikim lang daw ‘yong kanilang
bagong recipe!
BTW…your pic before you boarded the ship looks like
you feel refreshed already..that smile.
Welcome back!
When I was still in the corporate world, I often take-out meals or look for a catering service during special occasions. But nothing beats the taste of home-cooked meals. Now that I am working at home, I have the menu in mind. It will consist of noodles, chicken and pork dishes, and a dessert.
My kids loved your 20-minute egg noodle recipe which I cooked last Sunday. I will have a remake of it, but I will add chicharo to add more color to the dish. I will also cook your chicken and potatoes with with creamy cheese sauce, which they call “white chicken”, and of course, the most conveniently cooked braised porkloin. For dessert, I will prepare husband’s favorite fruit salad using mangoes, grapes, apples, and bananas, since I am trying to get away from the canned fruit cocktail. I know I can prepare the fruit salad and cook the braised porkloin a day before the Noche Buena. Of course, a cake with “Happy birthday Jesus” should not miss the table to teach teh kids and remind the adults the true meaning of the season.
Thanks to your blog and recipes!
Christmas is the season for giving, di ba? So I pour my heart out when I cook for Christmas. Outside of Christmas, I cook, cook, cook as if to hold on to the kids just a bit longer. It’s got to stop, I know–so many requests for help needed elsewhere..
Connie, titles of your cookbooks, please? My best friend is there and will bring back your books for me. Thanks!
A Merry Christmas to you and your beautiful family and
for our homeland, a peaceful and brighter New Year!
There is only one so far and it’s only available on Tastebook.com.
Great post ms. connie!
About the menu suggestions, that’s a really great idea
In our home, the christmas menu is based on what us kids liked to eat. Mom just asks us what we wanted and the menu is based around that. So siyempre as kids dati, there has to be spaghetti, tapos christms ham. One time, all we wanted was macaroni soup
She rarely cooks that kasi and we love it. The christmas eve meal is just for us since we go home to my mom’s side on Christmas day.
I’m not a big fan of fiesta/special holiday food. I find each dish too chopsuey (a mix of anything and everything) and don’t go well with other dishes. Most of them are sweet – morcon, embutido, ham, fish relleno (I’ve never had the urge to remove all the “meat” from inside a fish only to put it back again; besides, relleno doesn’t taste like fish anymore), lechong paksiw, etc. – sweet, sweet, sweet!!!
I feel so disloyal/so unPinoy for not liking foods (like spaghetti-PH version) the Pinoy sweet way.
We had a “Santo” in our house that was part of the Good Friday procession in our city. It’s an open house in our house on this day – neighbors, “devotees” (is that what you call the people who make a panata/vow to a particular santo/image?), friends, relatives, etc. – come and go while helping with Good Friday preparations (dressing the Santo, leading the novena, blah blah blah). Good Friday is a busy day as we toil days before and on the day itself to feed everyone who comes through our door. There’s quite a lot of creativity too since “meat” is limited to “fish/seafoods.” Eight years away from PH and I’ve never missed all the fish relleno, sweet and sour fish, escabeche, fish with mayonnaise. Why do food have to be fiesta-looking and covered with a variety of dressing? I’d take on plain grilled fish anytime.
My menu for special occasions is very basic – grilled or roasted fish or meat. I especially like inihaw na pusit with a spicy soy sauce/vinegar/onion/etc. dip. That takes care of the protein part; I then match that with a roasted vegies medley, some thick soup (like crab and corn soup), green salad, and Tiramisu for dessert. No keso de bola. Except for buying it because it’s round, I never appreciated keso de bola.
I’d go for dinuguan over hamon as main dish for a Noche Buena!