For many of us, this will be an extra special Christmas. After the year we’ve collectively had, we want to go the extra mile spoiling ourselves. Equally we could all do with a bit of a break in terms of stress levels. Thankfully there are lots of simple tricks, elevations and award-winning products on hand to take things up a notch and bring the luxury with minimal effort.
1. Best fruit forward
Start Christmas morning in style with “the best apple juice ever tasted” by Great Taste Awards judges, who gave three gold stars this year to Attyflin Rosette Apple Juice, a limited edition, naturally pink drink cold-pressed from red-fleshed apples from a 250-acre historic Co Limerick estate. €30 for three 750ml, attyflinestate.com
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2. Sloe goodness
Made from the hedgerow ancestor of all cultivated plums, Wild About So Sloe jelly is hugely versatile: serve this year’s Blas na hEireann supreme champion with blue cheese or pates like On the Pig’s Back chicken liver pate smoked bacon and port, or slathered over ice-cream with plum pudding. €4.50, widely available, www.wildabout.ie.
3. Make mine a Belfast
Switch up the traditional post-prandial Irish Coffee with a bitter sweet Belfast Coffee from Dublin-based Craft Cocktails, a ready-to-pour blend of cold brew coffee, Bán Poitín and rich demerara syrup, to serve from the fridge with a topping of double cream and fresh nutmeg. €35 for 700ml (serves 7), craftcockails.ie
4. Supremely good roasties
Move over goose fat: a former supreme champion at the Great Taste Awards 2015, James Whelan Butcher's Beef Dripping makes for seriously good roast potatoes (and his Heritage Cure Ham and Traditional Ham on the Bone aren't half bad either, both picking up three GTA stars). €4.99, Dunnes Stores, Avoca, jameswhelanbutchers.com
5. Lucky dip
Avoca’s new Glazed Fruit & Nut Mont d’Or Cheese is a clever cheat on an elaborate cheese board: just pop in the oven, serve with the best cheese biscuits going (see below) and a glass of your favourite tawny port (or maybe a tipple of Killahora Orchards Pmo’O Apple Port) and get ready to dip into an instant and ultra-luxe cheese course. €19.95, avoca.ie
6. Take the biscuit
Lismore Food Company do luxury exceptionally well, and their newly extended Christmas collection now has everything from plum puddings and brandy butter to chocolate-coated hazelnuts; but we think you still can’t beat their Lismore Irish Digestives with Wild Atlantic Sea Salt for a top-drawer savoury cheese companion. €6.75, 150g, widely available, thelismorefoodcompany.com
7. Beef it up
Tom Durcan's Spiced Beef is a Christmas classic, as any Corkonian can tell you, but it's now available around the country, pre-sliced for ultimate convenience, as well as ready-to-cook from his English Market stall and online for delivery; no wonder it won an Irish Food Writers' Guild Food Award this year. from €3.45 (100g), Supervalu and Centra, tomdurcanmeats.ie/spicedbeef
8. Fishing for ideas?
If you’re thinking of a fish-based starter, Goatsbridge Trout is a one-stop (online) farm shop, producing everything from chowder to trout caviar to rainbow trout prepared multiple ways (including barbecued or cold smoked with Gunpowder Gin) and they have a free online library of great recipes, as well as their own glossy cookbook to boot. goatsbridgetrout.ie
9. Stuffing with notions
Make a splash with a simple stuffing à la Gary Rogers, executive chef of Carton House: his elevated take on his Granny Rogers Famous Christmas Stuffing combines port-soaked dried cranberries and apricots, clementine zest and juice, diced chestnuts and onion and good quality sausage meat mixed through breadcrumbs; you could wrap it in Parma ham and roast in a hot oven for 25 minutes, or roast it in a boned and rolled turkey.
