Christmas Lunch/Dinner. Bread Sauce?

I’ve always made my own bread sauce (most recently Delia’s), cranberry sauce and stuffings, as well as the pigs in blankets, but have decided to take it easy this year and buy it all in. I love bread sauce, but I’m in a minority of 2 or 3 out of the 12 of us. This year I’ll be using the Gordon Rhodes mix, which gets good reviews. No doubt for the first time ever I’ll be asked if I made all the extras myself!

My recipe is really simple - just milk, butter, breadcrumbs, very finely chopped onions and lots of grated nutmeg plus salt and pepper. No cloves!

Urmstongran if truth be told I'd have more bread sauce and forget the turkey.
HillyN, do try Delia's recipe - you'll never eat the packet stuff again.

My Mum always made bread sauce. She was from North Yorkshire

All our family love bread sauce, but I've never made my own, just the packet mix. (South West)
The smell of cloves always reminds of when my Mum had toothache; she used to put oil of cloves on the tooth!

Listen all you Delias out there - isn’t there ENOUGH to do on the day?!

Plus, you can only fit so much on a plate! I’d rather fill up with an extra roastie myself ?

I make it but with bay leaves instead of cloves. We have it with the turkey and then cold on the turkey sandwiches. Then again added to the turkey and ham pies!

Just to be clear, I don't put onions in biscuits if I'm baking my own!

Oh dear, Hooty, if we ever meet, perhaps we should stick to tea and biscuits, as my approach to cooking consists of start with onions and go from there!

We never had it (midlands) and I’ve never tried it, nor will I now I see it has onions in it! Yuk yuk yuk! (not envy!)

My father was a Londoner born and bred, and he always wanted bread sauce with Chr. dinner.
Nobody else was keen.
I've cooked more Christmas dinners than I could ever count, I've never made it, and nobody's ever asked for or expected it.
Cranberry sauce only here.

We always have it. I like it with the onion chopped up before warming it in the milk, and then the bread added in small chunks, not crumbs, so that the sauce isn't too smooth. It needs a bit of butter too.

Like you, BlueBelle, I regard it as one of the few things I can make which is reliable and people seem to like it! I don't like bread and butter pudding, but perhaps I like bread sauce because it is savoury.

My mincemeat recipe called for cloves this year. You can taste them in it. I hope everyone else likes them!

I bought jars and jars of cloves last year because I was going to stud oranges with cloves with the DGC to make pomanders but we didn't find time to do it.

And I don't think we're having turkey this year either.

Cloves anyone?

Always have bread sauce. My mum's was out of this world.
I've got the cloves ready I do eat it throughout the year with chicken and sometimes with nice pork sausages.
Parsley and thyme stuffing as well as sage and onion, and the apple sauce.

By the time I've got the turkey and trimmings on the plate, the rest of the dinner is wallowing over the sides.

We love bread sauce in our house. It isn't Christmas dinner if it isn't on the table. I often make my own, but have used the packet sort of I'm short of time.

I’ve never had it - it didn’t feature on the Christmas table when I was young. I have always had a problem with the thought of anything involving bread being soaked in milk, or water, which is why I have never been able to make DH’s favourite bread pudding.

Yes we have it in the midlands and the black country.
I prefer onion sauce myself.

Definitely not only a Northern thing - as others have said, a traditional accompaniment to chicken or turkey.
I have only ever made my own (Delia) and it’s a doddle go make.
Make my own cranberry and orange relish too.

My mother (from London) used to insist on it. I'd cook some for her but nobody else ever wanted any. She insisted on home made cranberry sauce too!

I've never tried it either. I may make some this Christmas and see how it goes down.

shysal

oops!

A few years ago I joined friends for a carvery meal before Christmas. I was pleased to see a dish of bread sauce which I spooned over my whole plate, only to discover on eating that it was horseradish, which I hate!

I usually serve bread sauce with poultry, sometimes instead of gravy. I use up stale bread by blitzing it and adding some softened chopped onion, then freeze in portions to be mixed with milk and seasoned when required.

We always had it (in the NE)
You peel an onion, cut it in half, pierce with a few cloves and stew gently in milk.
Then use the flavoured milk to soak some finely chopped white breadcrumbs. Plus s&p, and some of the copped cooked onion, if you like. No cloves!