Christmas in a Scottish castle & other Yuletide memories
Festive tales from Edinburgh, Warsaw & Buenos Aires
Crossing Roslin Castle’s ancient stone bridge over the Esk river gorge we settled in for one of the most memorable Christmas celebrations I can remember.
Roslin Castle: JMW Turner
Built by the Sinclair family in the 14th century and in large part reduced to a picturesque ruin by many English sieges and attacks during Henry V111’s ‘War of the Rough Wooing’ in 1544, when the bullying monarch tried and failed to force Mary Queen of Scots to marry his son and heir Edward, only the castle’s east wing remains habitable today.
Now if you’ve ever stayed in a Scottish castle in winter you’ll know that a six feet radius of the blaze in the main fireplace is the only place to be. The bed linen in our turret room always seemed to be slightly damp which made us cuddle up even closer than usual for warmth, (it’s no coincidence that our daughter’s middle name is ‘Roslin’).
During the day we’d drive into Edinburgh, grill meat on an open fire at the beach close by or just walk through the ancient woods in the glen surrounding the castle. In the evenings we’d prepare an enormous meal and hunker down with a dram and a bottle of wine, listening for the howl of the ‘Hound of Roslin’, slaughtered in a famous 14th century battle on the site and looking out for the spectre of the ‘White Lady’, who is said to pace the castle’s halls.
On Christmas Eve with snow falling silently under a panoply of stars, we made the short walk to Roslin Chapel to attend Midnight Mass. Bathed in flickering candlelight the ancient church’s ‘Green Man’ carvings seemed to move around as we sang carols and I tried to imagine where in the shadows the secret entrance to the hidden crypt where the Knights Templar are said to have secreted the Holy Grail might be, as we contemplated a carving of the seven deadly sins on the pillar next to our pew.
The next morning with the castle and grounds blanketed in white we slowly roasted our Christmas Goose and toasted our Scottish Yule, little knowing that a few months later we would have a living, breathing reason to remember this Christmas week for the rest of our lives.
Roast Goose with all the trimmings: Serves Four
Roast Goose has always seemed to me to be a much more special bird for the Christmas table, never more so than since we moved to the USA and have been welcomed to friends’ ‘Turkey Day’ celebrations.
1 10lb goose with giblets
Clean and pat dry the goose; season with salt and pepper to marinate overnight.
Put the giblets and other trimmings into a saucepan with half an onion and a chopped carrot. Cover with water and bring to the boil, simmering for 1 hour. Discard solids and set aside.
Place goose on a rack in a roasting pan and pour some water into the bottom of the pan. Roast breast side down in a pre-heated 350 degree F oven for 1½ to 2 hours. Midway through the roasting process, flip the goose breast side up.
Remove from the oven and let rest for 20 minutes before carving.
To make the gravy, discard most of the fat from the roasting pan, add 2 tbsp flour and place the pan on a medium heat, scraping up any bits in the process. Add the stock that you set aside earlier, stirring and scraping until the gravy has thickened up.
Of all the places we’ve lived, Poland does Christmas the best. It helps that we’ve rented a chocolate-box-lid worthy wooden house on the edge of a forest, a forest deeply snowbound for most of the winter where I can snowshoe or cross country ski on a whim and that there is a frozen lake close by where I skate figures of eight while pulling our daughter on her sledge around the endlessly patient ice fisherman warming themselves with small primus stoves and large shots of vodka. However, it was more than a guaranteed white Christmas that made the occasion extra special.
As in many Roman Catholic cultures, Christmas Eve is the focal point of the celebrations and if you’ve ever felt that the magic and mysticism of the holiday have disappeared forever you should spend it with a Polish family, as we did with our neighbours. We’d been invited to share supper (‘wigilia’ or vigil, symbolising the wait for the birth of the baby Jesus), with them and from the moment we stamped the snow off our boots on their threshold, we were entranced by the special rituals which mark this occasion.
Before sitting down for supper, their two boys and our young daughter gathered on the front porch to see who could spot the first star in the sky (‘gwiadzkà’), in remembrance of the Star of Bethlehem. This accomplished we sat down at the dining table, which according to tradition had one empty chair and place set for ‘an unexpected guest’ who might come by.
Supper began with us passing round ‘opłatki’ (special communion wafers). Following our hosts’ lead we all broke off a piece, then kissed each other on both cheeks with good wishes for health and prosperity in the year to come. The centrepiece of the huge meal that followed was the carp which we’d seen swimming in our hosts’ bath tub a few days earlier and which was served glazed in aspic, breaded and deep fried; but there were also barszcz (beetroot) and mushroom consommés, light as air pierogi (small fried dumplings with several types of fillings- cheese, potato mushroom, cabbage and onions), herrings in oil and a variety of salads, which were followed by fruit compote and poppy seed cake. Naturally there was copious vodka, with shots of Żubrówka (bison grass vodka, a specialty distilled in the Białowieza forest in Eastern Poland where Europe’s last herd of bison still roam) and over dessert Goldwasser, an herbal liqueur with tiny flakes of 22 and 23 Carat gold leaf suspended in it, which looks especially magical in candlelight.
After dinner there were small presents for the children and then we trudged through the snow together to attend midnight mass in the church close by, with my daughter fast asleep in my arms in her snowsuit.
Sauerkraut & Mushroom Pierogi: Serves Eight
For the dough:
10½ oz AP flour
1 egg
Salt to taste
For the filling:
1lb sauerkraut, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
4oz mushrooms, finely diced
Sift the flour and salt together; add the egg and about 2-3 tablespoons of water. Knead the mixture lightly until you have smooth, soft dough. Let it rest while you tackle the filling.
Heat a frying pan with 2 tablespoons of oil. Add the onion, cooking until translucent, then the mushrooms and sauerkraut. Cook until there is no more liquid left in the pan. Set aside.
Divide the dough into four. Cover the others while you roll out each quarter individually. Roll each piece to about an eighth of an inch thick, then cut out “rounds” of 3 – 3½” circumference. Place a heaped teaspoon of the filling in the middle of each round, then fold in half and press the edges together firmly.
Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and then add the pierogi. When they start to float to the surface, turn the heat down and simmer for 5 minutes. Drain and serve with a little caramelized onion mixed with some olive oil and breadcrumbs.
As the beautiful Polish proverb states: 'Jak będzie wigilia, tak będzie caly rok. 'As goes the vigil, so goes the entire year'.
We’ll never forget the day after Christmas one year in Buenos Aires, when record rainfall of well over 4 inches in 3 hours flooded our part of the city. Sabrina and I had gone downtown by car under sunny skies for coffee and a little street tango when we got a call from Rosie, our resourceful Paraguayan maid, that the ground floor of the house was starting to flood.
Panic-stricken we drove blindly back up Avenida Libertador, (the main road that runs north south alongside the River Plate), past growing numbers of people paddling canoes and small boats, as the water level rose inexorably. This would have been total madness in any vehicle, let alone the Alfa Romeo we were driving. Somehow the car made it through the deluge to our house and we spent the next several hours bailing the water out of the ground floor rooms, a process our six year old daughter found hilariously funny.
Later that afternoon as the rain subsided and the sun re-emerged, we cracked open a bottle of local bubbly and barbecued a huge spread of seafood to celebrate our lucky escape.
Mixed Seafood Grill with Garlic Mayonnaise: Serves Six
2 lbs shrimp, frozen, 21-25, leave the shells on
1 box frozen New Zealand green lip mussels
1 pkt frozen jumbo scallops
1/2 cup finely chopped parsley
6 cloves garlic, minced
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 cup EV olive oil
Mix the last 7 ingredients together, marinate the seafood with it. Leave to marinate for no more than half an hour. Cook on the grill until done (all except for the scallops which I instead sear on a very hot skillet).
Just another day in troubled paradise!
Back at you, Jolene! We both wish you Happy Holidays
such lovely warm holiday memories! Thank you for sharing and happy new year!