The traditional Czech Christmas dinner consists of a slow-fried breaded carp filets and potato salad. But it’s been a great many years since I had a carp on Christmas Eve. Our circumstances have made it impossible to spend Christmas with my parents back in the old country for some time now, and here in Scotland carp is not to be found in the fish van (my ‘new’ country has an odd attitude to freshwater fish; it’s a shame, for in my humble opinion, the carp is, culinary speaking, the finest fish of them all). But not being able to lay my hands on a carp, Christmas Eve means matching the potato salad with a slow-fried breaded haddock (haddock is a fine fish in its own right, and one of my firm favourites, but carp it isny; we have tried a number of options over the years, but none of them come close).

And so it is doubly important that the salad is done right. For the best results it should be made a day in advance, to allow all the flavours to develop and mesh, but I run out of time yesterday, trying to finish up work things before taking a few days off.

But it is done now.

It is the nature of the potato salad species that it’s a bit different each time. If I am honest, the present batch looks more like a carrot salad than a potato one, I guess one too many carrots. Which makes me smile and think of my cousins.

Back when as bairns we were spending summer holidays with my gran, my sister once asked over a scrumptious Sunday lunch (my gran was an exceptional cook), ‘I wonder what our cousins are having for lunch?’ My gran’s deadpan response to that was ‘Carrots, they often have carrots’.

Nobody ever came up with any compelling explanation what made my gran say that (not least my gran), but it became a running joke. And so as I survey the results of this years’s effort, I think of them fondly.

Last year I cut the potatoes too large, so this year, naturally, they seem to be way too small, I got a feeling if I stir it any more, there will be none left at all. (That has happened before too, when I mistimed the cooking time; it never stops amazing me how different the cooking time is for different variety of the spud.)

But I think it will do. Later I decant into a glass bowl, and decorate it with some pickled chanterelle. There should be some parsley as well, but I have none, so might have to settle for basil to get some green colour in. But I am sure it will be fine. It always is. (And if you are making some yourself, may yours be as well.)

Merry Christmas everyone!