Looking for ideas and recipes to create a delicious, nutritious and Parkinson’s-friendly Christmas meal? The team behind the Dutch Parkinson’s cooking project ‘Lekker eten met Parkinson’ have adapted a four-course festive menu that can be enjoyed by everyone, and will ensure that people with Parkinson’s get all the necessary nutrients to stay healthy.

Serves: 4

First course – Salmon fillet marinated in lime juice with aniseed and cabbage salads

Ingredients

  • 500g salmon fillet
  • 100ml lime juice
  • 2 tbsp raisins
  • 2 tbsp white wine or cider vinegar
  • 2 tbsp red wine or raspberry vinegar
  • 200g white cabbage
  • 200g red cabbage
  • 2 tbsp sunflower oil
  • 1 tbsp fresh tarragon (chopped)
  • 1 tbsp aniseed
  • 1/3 tsp cayenne pepper
  • Salt
  • Sunflower oil

Preparation

Start your preparations for this dish at least four hours before serving. Start your preparations for the salads a day before serving.

  • Cut the salmon into equal slices, each 2cm thick (approx.).
  • Sprinkle salt, aniseed and hot pepper on both sides slices and leave in the fridge to rest for 30 minutes.

Dressing

  • Place the marinated slices into the lime juice for 90 minutes on each side.
  • Mix the lime juice with the sunflower oil and the tarragon into the dressing.

Salads

  • Put two tablespoons of raisins in vinegar, leave for two hours.
  • Add to the sliced cabbages.
  • Add salt and freshly ground black pepper, oil and tarragon.
  • Place the salads in two parallel lines in the middle of a plate.
  • Place the salmon slices on top and sprinkle with the dressing.

A tip for leftovers

  • Leftover salmon in lime juice can be made into salmon tartare, soup or salad.
  • Any extra cabbage together with (leftover) mashed potatoes can be made into a nutritious soup.
  • You can change the taste of the cabbage salad, which remains fresh up to five days, by combining with boiled chicken.

Second course: Porcini enriched poultry broth with ravioli filled with chicken and/or mushrooms

Ingredients

  • 2 chopped of sunflower oil
  • 1kg chicken wings
    200gr mixed small vegetables
  • 2 celery ribs with leaves
  • 2 medium carrots2 onions
  • 1 leek
  • 100g dried porcini mushrooms
  • 2 cloves
  • 4 bay leaves
  • 6 peppercorns (whole)
  • 12 Chinese ravioli leaves
  • 250g mushrooms
  • 1 tbsp flour
  • 1 tbsp chives or sage
  • 1 egg yolk mixed with 1 tsp oil

Preparation

Start your preparations for this broth a day before serving.

  • Heat the sunflower oil in a pan.
  • Add the chicken and vegetables and sauté until brown.
  • Add 1 litre of cold water and the porcini.
  • Slowly bring to a boil.
  • Simmer for at least four hours.
  • Take out the chicken, vegetables and porcini.
  • Remove meat from the bones.
  • Rinse and chop the porcini.
  • Refrigerate the broth for eight hours overnight, skim fat from the surface.
  • Chop the mushrooms and fry in oil.
  • On a low heat, add porcini, chicken meat, flour and 2 tbsp water.
  • Cook for five minutes, refrigerate and chop fine in your KitchenAid.
  • Mix in the herbs.
  • Brush egg yolk with oil onto each pastry leaf.
  • Place a teaspoonful of the mushroom mix on the corner of each leaf and fold into a triangle.
  • Poach for five minutes in broth.

A tip for leftovers

  • Broth can easily be deep frozen and served at any time.
  • Any extra ravioli can be kept in the fridge.

Main course – Pulled wild boar or venison stewed in dark ale with plums, mashed potatoes, parsnip and broccoli

Ingredients

  • 800g stewing venison or boar (large chunks)
  • 2 tbsp sunflower oil
  • 1 tbsp crushed juniper berries
  • 1 tsp rosemary leaves
  • 1 tbsp chopped thyme leaves
  • 2 tbsp of flour
  • 5 bay leaves
  • 1 bottle brown ale
  • 1 tbsp of red wine vinegar
  • 12 prunes
  • Parsnips (as much as you like)
  • Broccoli (as much as you like)

Preparation

Start your preparations for this stew a day before serving it.

  • Mix juniper berries, rosemary, thyme leaves and flour with some black pepper and salt.
  • Toss your meat through this mix and press until well coated.
  • Heat the oil in a large pan at a high temperature.
  • Fry the meat on all sides to brown.
  • Add bay leaves, ale, vinegar and some water to cover the meat.
  • Cook on a very low fire until your meat falls apart.
  • Take the meat out and refrigerate; pull into strips.
  • Reduce the liquid left in the pan on a high fire until 250ml (approx.) is left.
  • Put the pulled meat in the sauce, add the prunes.
  • Fry the parsnip in sunflower oil.
  • Heat the broccoli in your microwave.
  • Put the parsnip in the middle of a plate and arrange the meat over it.
  • Arrange broccoli around the meat.

A tip for leftovers

  • With the leftover meat you can fill a pasty or garnish a soup
  • Consider adding: some walnuts, cumin seed, small onions, celery or chopped fine herbs, to the sauce.

Dessert – Winter trifle; chestnut purée and cottage cheese, apple, chopped amarena cherries and oatmeal cookies

Ingredients

  • 300g sweet chestnut purée
  • 250g cottage cheese
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
  • 1 apple (finely diced)
  • 200g amarena cherries (finely chopped0
  • 120g crumbled oat cookies
  • Amaretto liqueur
  • Homemade custard

Preparation

  • Poach the diced apple for two minutes in hot water with some sugar.
  • Mix together the chestnut purée, cottage cheese and vanilla sugar.

Presentation

Build your trifle in layers in a large glass bowl or in a separate glass for each guest.

Taste tips

  • Use alternative fruits.
  • Replace the cottage cheese by a soy product
  • Add a scoop of sherbet ice.

A tip for leftovers

  • This dessert can be kept in the fridge for at least five days.

Explore our collection of Parkinson’s-friendly recipes