Top tips for tasty Christmas meats from Asda

There’s nothing I like more than a hamper of delicious goodies and this week I had one delivered right to the door (my best kind) by Asda. They wanted to show off their Christmas meat collection and I was certainly impressed. It didn’t hurt that the meat came in a rather gorgeous wicker basket, surrounded by mince pies and wine. (Again, my best kind.)

I wouldn’t normally think to choose Asda for my festive meats, so I was really pleasantly surprised to see just how fancy and festive they were. Our basket included:

Extra Special 21 Day Bone-In Horseradish Beef, Extra Special Venison Rack and Extra Special Six Bird Roast.

(Are you sensing the theme here?)

Having never cooked bone-in beef, venison rack or even three birds in one, let alone six, I was very pleased to see that each of the meats came with really simple cooking instructions, but Asda also have some ideas for adding a little something extra and impressing your friends and family.

Here are a few of Asda’s top tips:

• Always rest your meat for 15-20 minutes after you take it out of the oven to allow it to finish cooking
• Keep it wrapped loosely in foil as it rests so you don’t lose too much heat
• Carve tougher cuts of meat into thinner slices to make them easier to cut and eat
• Only carve as much meat as you need and keep the remaining meat wrapped in one piece
• Juniper berries and rosemary are great ingredients to rub on game meats
• Basics like lemon, honey and thyme work well with chicken and turkey

We ate the venison rack straight away (after cooking it of course) because I didn’t have enough room in the fridge for everything, and were really impressed. We cooked it just as it was and it was moist, tasty and exactly what we needed to get us into the Christmas spirit while I made Bee (reluctantly) watch Bridget Jones.

If you’d like extra inspiration, check out Asda’s recipes.

Disclosure: I was sent this meaty hamper for the purposes of helping promotes Asda’s Christmas meats