Wow: this chef knows how to make a complete Christmas dinner for 4 people for a tenner (!)
Our groceries have become more expensive and surprise: that’s not suddenly going to be any different at Christmas. Whether you sit down at the gourmet set or want to serve Christmas classics, you’ll have to pay more than you did the year before. But it turns out that (Christmas) miracles aren’t a thing of the past just yet! Twente-based Michelin-starred chef Lars van Galen has managed to make a complete Christmas dinner for €2.50 per person.
€2.50, people. That’s what you pay for a special frikandel at the snack bar these days. So how do you put an entire Christmas dinner on the table for that amount? By being very creative and shopping smart, it seems.
The shopping list
Chef Van Galen was given a tenner by the AD to put together a Christmas dinner for 4 people. €2.50 per person, then, and 63 cents per course. What he got at the market: egg, chicken, Brussels sprouts, pears, chicory, lime, sweet potato, beetroot and 8 almonds. Cost: €6.45. With the remaining €3.55, he bought a bottle of red wine (€2.95) and 4 bake-off Kaiser rolls (58 cents) at the supermarket. And he had to make something out of all that. He was allowed to use pepper, salt, oil and butter from his pantry, by the way, because ‘those are things everyone has at home’. But the fresh rosemary proudly growing in his backyard? No way.
Creativity is key
You read it already: to make the challenge succeed, he had to think out of the box. And that’s exactly what chef Van Galen did. For the starter, he prepared beetroot in several different ways: a roll, roasted cubes and a purée, which he arranged on the plate like a little painting, along with lime cream and smoked almonds. Intermediate course: pumpkin soup with some green garnish (secretly picked from the garden). For the main course, chicken was served with Brussels sprouts, caramelised chicory and sweet potato cream. And finally, a tower of pear with lime sorbet, drifting over the dessert like snow.
You can do it too!
The tasting panel was full of praise. Completely Christmassy, and yet not expensive at all: never before had such an inexpensive dinner been served at the four-star hotel ‘t Lansink (where the dinner was prepared and served). People, there is hope. It can be done. Let your creativity run free, shop smartly at the market and perhaps take a course to become a Michelin-starred chef before the 25th. Then you and I can also put an affordable dinner on the table this Christmas.
Source: AD
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