After my over-done goose and chicken I have finally realised I should have used one of my Christmas presents, a digital temperature probe. Tonight's meal is roast rib of beef and all I had to do was put it in the oven at the correct temperature (230°C for 25 minutes before turning it down to 160°C) until the alarm on the temperature probe went off. I like pretty rare beef so I set the probe to beep when the centre of the meat reached 50°C. It looks pretty good from the outside:

And on the inside (with pommes dauphinoises and green beans):

For pieces at the edge of the joint that looks just perfect to me. It was delicious.

Lunch today is lobster rolls. We had these twice in New York from the Pearl Oyster Bar and they were quite delicious. To make them you will need:

Two brioche rolls
A reasonable-sized cooked lobster
Mayonnaise
Goose fat or butter

Get all of the meat out of the lobster and chop it into not too small pieces. Mix this with some mayonnaise. Slice the brioche rolls in half and fry the inside in (ideally) goose fat or butter until golden. Fill the now-fried rolls with the lobster and mayonnaise mix. Eat with a lot of pleasure. These are very nice with extremely thin frites.

I roasted a goose for Christmas dinner tonight; it did not work out exactly as I had hoped. Roasting meat in a fan oven is always difficult, but I failed to take enough account of its drying effect, cooked it for too long that resulted in quite a dry bird.

Tip of the day: Don't roast a 4.5kg goose for two hours at 180°C in a fan oven.

Sadly I didn't take a picture when the chicken was just out of the oven. It looked good, but sadly turned out to be a bit dried-out. Still had a reasonable flavour, though. My advice is that to cook a 4.5kg you need to do it for less than 2.5 hours. Maybe I could have turned the temperature down a bit as well.

The Christmas goose and chicken were delivered today. Here is the chicken:

It may not look it in that picture but it is a monster. Over four and a half kilograms. My recipe books give instructions for cooking chickens weighing up to two kilograms... Hmmm...

I had some fresh tortellini planned for lunch today. I didn't have any sauce, alas, so I wondered if I could perk them up a bit by grating cheese over them. Then it struck me that I could put the pasta with the cheese on it under the grill:

It was rather nice. You need a characterful cheese, ideally. I used some old cheddar. Don't skimp on the amount of cheese used.

I warn you that if you put a plate or bowl under the grill it will get mind-bendingly hot.

Today is my birthday and I am having some friends over to help ease the pain of becoming even more knackered and crapulent. I don't want to spend the evening tied to the cooker so I have made something where all the preparation can be done in advance: a daube. This is beef and bacon stewed up in white wine and beef stock with a few vegetables added for extra flavour. I started cooking it this morning, as stews are often better if they are cooked a long time. All it needs now is to be warmed up when my guests arrive and served with some pasta. The recipe I used comes from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's excellent River Cottage Meat book. I highly recommend this book as a great source of recipes and philosophy on cooking meat.

David.

Even though I am an atheist I still think that Christmas is a good excuse to have a blow-out meal of lovely meat. I cannot stand turkey, it is so dry and flavourless, so I cook a more traditional Christmas bird: goose. I recommend as a good source of free-range geese this place. I got a wonderful goose from them last year that was full of flavour and quite delicious. They also sell huge free-range chickens that are similarly lovely. I've just put my order in for a 4.5kg goose and a 4.5kg chicken; this should keep us full for a few days.

David.

We were just cruising by this place after getting a bit tired of pintxos crawling and as luck would have it they had a spare table for us. This is a classic restaurant that opened in 1948 and it is located on the restaurant street Fermín Calbetón in the heart of the old town. We sat at a comfortable table next to a tank of fighting lobsters and ordered the following:

Crispy vegetables, langoustines and gambas with a reduction of sweet sherry vinegar. This was a bit dull, but the seafood was nice enough.

Alubias 'Babarrun beltza' bean stew with stewed cabbage, crispy bacon and salted pickled green chillies, which David found to be delicious even though he hates cabbage.

Daniel had a salpicón of lobster with tomatoes and a spidercrab vinaigrette which consisted of most of a lobster and was incredibly delicious.

Our main courses were:

Palourdes grilled with salt and lemon, once again an excellently prepared grilled dish that really showed the quality of the ingredients, although it was a bit salty.

Again Daniel ordered wisely, choosing the grouper supreme with onion, apple, cider vinegar and butter sauce. The richness of the butter was cut by the apple and cider vinegar to produce a very pleasing effect. The grouper was perfect, indeed supreme.

For desserts we had:

Chocolate mousse with coffee bean and orange ice cream, which was really rather nice.

Orange sabayon and caramelised coffee strings which was light and airy unlike Daniel's dessert: French toast with nougat, sesame seeds and refreshing goat's milk ice cream. This was rather stodgy and lacked clarity and focus.

All in all this was a pretty good meal, and not outrageously expensive either. Considering the quality of the food this was very good value for money.

Daniel and David.

We felt lucky to get a table at this Hondarribia restaurant, it was crowded with locals having lunch. This is considered to be one of the best fish restaurants in the area.

We had three starters which were:

Jamón Ibérico, perfectly acceptable jamón but nothing special. There was quite a lot of it.

Artichokes with jamón pieces in a lemon-butter sauce, which was very rich and nicely meaty.

Palourdes clams a la plancha, were perfectly grilled being not at all over-done. Very fresh and tasty.

Our dining companion had hake alla Romana (in an egg batter) with green peppers and chips. It was perfectly cooked and the egg batter made it light and delicious.

The two of us shared a fairly large turbot that had been grilled with garlic, white wine and parsley. This was filleted at the table by a surly waitress with expert skill and precision using only two spoons. This was probably the best grilled fish either of us has had. Plump and meaty.

Daniel finished off with arroz con leche (cold rice pudding), which was creamy and nice, and what he claimed was the best coffee in the world.

This was an excellent restaurant, in our opinion this ranks above Elkano in Getaria as the best seafood restaurant in Gipuzkoa. The restaurant itself is quite rustic, as it is an old fisherman's house, but the ambiance is most engaging. Hondarribia is well worth a visit; the old town on the hill is very pretty.

Daniel and David.