Christmas in July: A Menu Built for Actual Winter

By Vicki Richards, National Customer Manager at The Gourmet Pantry.

Christmas in July is a mid-winter dinner held six months out from the real one, and it is the only time the northern hemisphere menu suits the Australian weather. Serve it hot: soup, a slow braise or risotto, then gingerbread and a warm drink.

The December menu argues with the thermometer. A three hour roast, a steamed pudding and a mug of something spiced are northern hemisphere answers to a northern hemisphere winter, and in an Australian summer they are a costume rather than a meal. In July they stop being a costume. The oven earns its keep, a braise is the right texture instead of a heavy one, and the drink at the end of the night is the one people want. July is also the only point in the year when the slow, hot end of our gourmet meals range is the obvious answer rather than a compromise.

One thing to settle first. We do not sell the roast, the ham or the pudding, and this dinner needs none of them. Everything below is built on things that keep in a cupboard, plus what you buy fresh that week. For the December version of the same exercise, our three Christmas menus cover the hot lunch, the cold table and the no-oven option.

The shape of the night

Six courses is a restaurant. Four is a dinner. Christmas in July works best as one hot centre with three small things around it, because the appeal is sitting at a table for two hours while it is dark outside. Set it out like this.

The soup is the course people underrate. It is made two days early, it reheats without suffering, and it holds the first half hour together while the main is in the oven. Our pumpkin soup with hawaij and toasted seeds was written for that job, and it is the rare starter that is better on the second day.

Three mains, and what each one costs you in time

Pick one. All three are hot, all three feed six with bread and a green salad, and the real difference between them is how much of the evening you spend standing up.

1. Truffle risotto, about 30 minutes at the stove. The Borgo de Medici truffle risotto kit at $39.95 puts the rice, the truffle and the seasoning in one box, so the only skill required is stirring and not wandering off. Serve it in wide bowls with black pepper and a lemon wedge, and dress the salad before you start, because risotto will not wait for you.
2. A tagine, three hours in the oven and twenty minutes of work. Belazu tagine paste at $12.95 for 170g is smoked paprika, preserved lemon and sweet tomato already balanced against each other, so the method is brown the meat, stir in the paste, add stock, lid on, walk away. Our beef tagine is the long version. It is the choice for eight or more, because a braise scales in a way risotto never does and it can be cooked the day before.
3. A braise on a weeknight budget. The Slow and Steamy Moroccan style tagine sauce mix at $9.95 for 75g does the same job for a quarter of the price. Add chopped tomatoes, stock and whatever cut is cheap that week, then apricots if you want it closer to the paste version. Cook this one when Christmas in July is a Tuesday with friends rather than a production.

Whichever you pick, the sides stay dull on purpose: buttered couscous or mash, one green vegetable, bread for the sauce.

The sweet end, where gingerbread finally makes sense

Gingerbread is a cold weather biscuit that Australia has always eaten in the heat. In July it comes into its own, which is the small pleasure at the centre of the whole idea. Our gingerbread range runs from a single iced gingerbread man to a traditional gingerbread house kit at $49.99, a two hour job for children on a cold afternoon and a decoration for the table afterwards. Build it before anyone arrives.

For the pudding shaped hole in the menu, do not make one. A steamed pudding is a bakery purchase or a fortnight of feeding brandy to a bowl, and neither belongs in a dinner you decided on last Sunday. Vanilla ice cream with a warm sauce over it, a plate of biscuits and something chocolate covers the same ground, hot against cold, in five minutes.

Drinks, and what to order in advance

The drinks are half the reason people hold the dinner at all. Mulled wine belongs to weather like this: a bottle of something cheap and red, orange peel, a cinnamon stick, a few cloves and a spoon of sugar, warmed and never boiled. Enjoy responsibly, and warm the same spices in apple juice for anyone driving. Later in the night, Whittard Christmas tea at $29.95 for a 75g clip top tin is a black tea blended with vanilla, cloves and citrus, the spiced end of mulled wine in a form you can serve at ten o'clock. Our hot chocolate range covers the other half of the table, and it is what the children will remember.

The cupboard half of this menu is three or four items: a paste or a kit for the main, biscuits, a dessert sauce, something to drink. Order it in one go rather than in three trips, because free Australia-wide shipping starts at $100. Orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched the same day from our Corio, VIC warehouse, tracked with Australia Post, so a Saturday dinner is safe if you order in the middle of the week before. The fresh half is a shopping list for that same week: meat for the braise, a pumpkin, bread, cream, a lemon. None of it needs booking, which is the other quiet advantage July has over December.

Questions we get asked

What do you eat at Christmas in July?

The hot version of a Christmas menu. A soup or a warm starter, a roast or a slow braise with hot sides, then gingerbread, pudding or something warm over ice cream. Mulled wine, hot chocolate and spiced tea replace the cold drinks of December.

What is a good Christmas in July menu in Australia?

Four courses, one of them hot and the rest assembled. Nuts, olives and a chutney with crackers on arrival. A soup made two days earlier. One hot main, risotto or a tagine, with couscous or mash and a green vegetable. Gingerbread and ice cream with a warm sauce to finish, then tea or hot chocolate.

What should I cook for a Christmas in July party?

Cook a braise. For more than six people a tagine or a slow cooked shoulder is the only main that behaves: it improves overnight, it reheats, and it does not mind whether guests arrive at seven or half past. Risotto is better for four to six, because it has to be eaten the minute it is done.

How is Christmas in July different from Christmas lunch?

It is smaller, it happens at night, and nobody is obliged to be there. That removes the pressure that makes 25 December hard work, and it lets you cook the menu the tradition intended: hot food, a long table and a drink that steams.

The pantry side of this dinner is one order placed midweek, and it sits in our gourmet meals range, alongside the pastes, kits and sauces that turn a cheap cut into a main course. If you would rather send a dinner than cook one, our Christmas hampers are packed by hand in the same room, and every product in them is one we have tasted.