Gather around, Jacqui Toumbas has your friendsmas feast sorted

By Stamatina Notaras

There are two months in the year where the days blur together, day drinking becomes standard practice, and even the grumpiest of folk have a slight skip in their step as we all wait for the big man in red.

If you guessed any other months besides November and December, I’d be curious to hear more about your life. For the rest of you, picture this: you’re driving to family Christmas and are greeted at the door by one of Theia Kath’s infamous bear hugs and the comforting aroma of lemon-drenched potatoes. As the backyard fills with smoke, nothing matters more than talking nonsense with your cousins (whom you see every weekend) while sneaking succulent pieces of lamb souvla off the spit – life is good.

There’s no denying that while Greeks can do almost anything (right?), we have unequivocally mastered the Christmas Day feast. With food being our love language and a relentless aspiration to send every family member home unable to think about food for two days (each armed with a doggy bag of leftovers they’ll undoubtedly finish for breakfast the next morning – because Yiayia didn’t raise a quitter), everyone pulls out all the stops come December 25. 

One person who truly encompasses the true meaning of Christmas – food, family, and friendsmas – is food influencer, content creator, and now retreat host, Jacqui Toumbas. Driven by a love for food, travel, and culture, if you can’t find her running retreats in Italy (and soon-to-be Greece), just follow the Mediterranean-spiced scent to her kitchen, where she’s adding sugar, spice, and everything nice to create moreish meats, decadent treats, and magazine-cover-worthy plates of palate-pleasers.

This festive season, take the time to celebrate the friends who become family – the ones who make you laugh until you cry and wipe the tears away when you’re sad. 

And what says ‘thank you for listening to me tell the same story from different perspectives for the past three months’ quite like a three-course meal?

Introducing your Friendsmas feast à la Ms Toumbas…

Entrée – Spanakopita

• 2 sheets puff pastry
• 500g Spinach
• 3 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 Tsp pepper
• 1 bunch shallots
• 1 bunches parsley
• ¼ bunch dill
• 200 gr Ricotta
• 465 gr feta
• 330 gr cheddar
• 4 eggs (2 extra eggs for wash)

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 160 degrees Celsius and remove the pastry from the freezer.
2. Prepare all your ingredients; wash and roughly chop (or break with your hands) the spinach, finely chop the shallots, parsley and dill. Place them all in a very (very) large bowl.
3. In a separate bowl combine the eggs, ricotta, feta, cheddar and olive oil. Mix well.
4. Combine the wet ingredients into the spinach mix and mix well. Here’s the thing, depending on your eggs you may need one more. You want the spinach mix to be well coated.
5. Set the spinach mix aside – you’ll find as it sets aside it will slowly wilt and decompress.
6. Grease a large tray. My tray is a large square (it’s called a Baklava tray apparently!).
7. Gently line the base of the tray with the shortcrust pastry. YIAYIA’S TIP: make sure about 0.5-1cm of pastry comes up the edge – it will shrink and you don’t want gaps!
8. Prick the pastry with a fork and blind bake with rice or weights for 10 minutes, then remove the weights and bake for another 10 minutes.
9. Once the shortcrust pastry is completed, remove from the oven and gently add the filling on top of the shortcrust pastry. Pack it all in!
10. Once the spinach mix is in, gently place the puff pastry on top of the spinach mix, overlap if needed to cover the top completely.
11. Whisk the remaining 2 eggs and brush the top of the pastry for a golden finish. Prick with a fork and place back in the oven for 45 minutes or till golden brown.

Main – Chicken Gyros 

• 6-8x boneless chicken thighs
• 1 cup greek yoghurt
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp paprika
• salt & pepper

Method:

1. Combine the chicken and remaining ingredients in a large bowl and combine well. Cover with cling wrap and place in the fridge to marinate for a min of 2 hours. 
2. Once the chicken is ready, start layering the meat onto the vertical skewer. Skewer one thigh, spread out, with the spit going through the centre. Layer the next thigh on at 90° to the first one. Continue layering, changing the chicken direction by 90° each piece, all the way up until you run out of chicken. 
3. In a preheated oven (180 degrees) bake the chicken uncovered for about 20 minutes, or until golden, brown and some crispy bits have formed. Cover the tower lightly with foil and then resume the baking process for a further 40 minutes or until the inner temperature of the chicken has reached about 80 degrees.
4. Once cooked to the right temperature. Remove from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes. Carve using a sharp knife.

Dessert – Baklava Berry Tiramisu 

Baklava Syrup

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 sml pce cinnamon bark
• 1 3cm pce lemon rind

Macerated Strawberries

• 250g strawberries
• 3 tbsp sugar 
• 2 tbsp lemon juice

Mascarpone Cream

• 300ml thickened cream
• 250g mascarpone cheese
• ½ tsp vanilla bean paste
• 35g icing sugar (3Tbsp)

Assembly

• 14 Savoiardi biscuits
• 0.5 -1 cup toasted, crushed nuts (I like to use almonds & pistachio) 
• 1 piece baklava 

Method

1. Prepare the macerated strawberries. Slice all strawberries into ½ cm thick slices and place in a bowl. Combine with sugar and lemon juice. Mix well and sit aside. For best results; allow to sit for 30 min – 1hr.
2. Prepare the Syrup. Combine all the syrup ingredients into a small saucepan and place over medium heat. Allow to come to a boil and slowly simmer for 5 minutes. Set aside to cool.
3. Prepare the mascarpone cream. Combine the thickened cream and powdered sugar. Whip with a whisk for 9-12 minutes till firm peaks appear. Then fold through the mascarpone and vanilla. Combine well.
4. Assemble. Start by placing the mascarpone cream into a piping bag and snipping off the end about 1 cm from the tip. 
5. One at a time, dip a savoiardi biscuit into the cooled syrup and place on your desired plate. Repeat this till 7 are in a row. Then carefully pipe rounds of cream on top to completely cover the savoiardi biscuits.
6. Sprinkle the cream with crushed nuts (quantity is up to you, I use about ¼-½ cup).
7. Layer half the strawberries on next.
8. Repeat this again creating another layer of soaked savoiardi biscuits, then cream, nuts and strawberries.
9. Finish by cutting up a piece of baklava and sprinkling over the top!
10. Allow to sit for a minimum of 1 hour in the fridge before digging in.

If you like the sound of these, you can find more finger-licking recipes on her website – Jacqui Toumbas.