Although the following meals are not deemed to be Mediterranean, they are 100% Christmas recipes offering the necessary ingredients a Christmas table should have. Christmas dinner is affected by the brightness and the enthusiasm of these festal days. Like the colorful, festal nights of Christmas, rich in ornament, these recipes offer a baroque decoration, full of goodies and delicious titbits.

So let the spirit of the season stay alive, and enjoy delicious Christmas cuisine following Aunt’s Eirini recipes. As far as the diet is concerned, leave it until later.

ROAST STUFFED PORK

Ingredients: 1 young pork of 5-8 Kilos (11-17.6 pounds), fresh onions, parsley, mint, anise, some minced onion, some rusk crumbs, salt and pepper, 10 smoked sausages, 2 ½ cups of rice and butter.

1. Remove all the guts and intestines, wash them well inside out, scald them in boiling water, strain them, add some onion, salt and pepper and boil them.
2. When ready, strain them (keep the broth) and mince them with a sharp knife.
3. Mince the fresh onions and let them get light brown in a casserole with butter.
4. Add 5 cups of the guts and intestines broth and when it is hot enough, add the julienne guts and intestines, the rice, some anise, mint, parsley, salt and pepper.
5. When the pilaf is almost ready take it out and add the inside of the sausages which you have fried a bit, beforehand. Then stir well.
6. With this mixture fill the stomach of the pork and then stitch it tight with a piece of string. Then cover it with lemon juice, salt and pepper and pour it over with hot butter.
7. Spread some vine sticks on then griddle and put the meat on them. Then put it in the oven and, when it is ready remove the string, put the filling separately, cut the meat in portions and serve it together with some filling next to it.

CHRISTMAS TURKEY

Ingredients: 1 medium turkey, 1/2 cup of butter, 1/2 kilo (1.1 pound) of chestnuts, 1 handful of pine seeds, 1 cup of milk, some fresh butter, some black raisins, some cinnamon powder, 1 minced onion, 4 spoonfuls of rusk crumbs, some minced parsley, some lemon juice and salt & pepper

1. Clean, parch and wipe the turkey, peel and half-boil the chestnuts, let them cool a bit and peel their inner peel without breaking them in pieces.
2. Then, saute the minced onion in 2-3 spoonfuls of scorching butter, add the turkey liver (minced), then add the milk, let them boil a bit and add the chestnuts, the raisins, the pine seeds, the cinnamon powder, 1 spoonful of fresh butter and the rusk crumbs.
3. Mix them all well and the filling is ready. After that, salt and pepper the turkey inside, fill it well with the filling, stitch it, put it into a proper griddle, salt and pepper it outside, pour some lemon juice and the rest butter over, cover it with a piece of aluminum foil and roast it well.
4. When ready, remove the stitches, empty the filling into a bowl, cut the turkey in portions, put them into a plate, garnish the meat with baked potatoes and pour its sauce over.
   Serve its filling in a separate bowl