Plenty of Singapore Christmases are centred on a chicken, and nobody at those tables feels anything is missing. The size is honest — it feeds four to six, which is the size of most family Christmases. The timing is kind: an hour in the oven, not a day of it. And a chicken, when it has been raised properly, carries a celebration on flavour alone. Christmas dinner does not need scale. It needs one bird worth carving, and people who still believe chicken should taste of something.
Miss A's Handpick Fine Food is a Singapore premium grocer founded in 2017, online at missa.sg with a store at 421 East Coast Road. The bird we put at the centre of our own Christmas table is the one we sell all year: an organic chicken of an old French breed. Around it, two supporting acts — wagyu sliced thin, and king salmon with its skin cooked to crackling — and the dinner is complete. Nothing on this table is difficult. It is just well chosen, and timed with a little sense.
The bird: sixty days in the making, one hour in the oven
French Poulet is the breed's name, not its birthplace — say that first, because it confuses everyone. The chicks are flown in from France, and the chickens are raised on a farm in Malaysia for a minimum of 60 days: 100% vegetarian feed, antibiotics free, no growth hormone, never caged. Sixty days is a long, unhurried growing, and it shows where it matters: flesh with bite, skin that crisps instead of sweating in the pan, and drippings so good the potatoes cooked under the bird become the dish people ask about afterwards.
Roast the 900g bird at 180°C for about an hour to an hour and a quarter. Salt it well, inside and out. Truss it if you like things tidy; it is not compulsory. Rest it under foil for fifteen minutes before anyone is allowed near it with a knife — that quarter hour is when the juices settle back into the flesh, and carving early is how a good bird gets wasted. Carve thick. A slow-grown chicken does not need a marinade with a backstory or a glaze doing fireworks. It needs heat, salt, patience, and gravy made from its own pan if your family insists on gravy — which is to say, made properly, from the bird itself. Find it in the Organic Chicken collection.
The rich course: wagyu, sliced thin and passed around
Before the bird, or beside it, put out something rich in small amounts. An A5 Hokkaido striploin — 200g, out of the freezer the day before for 24 hours of slow thawing in the fridge, half an hour on the counter, then minutes in a fiercely hot pan — rests, slices across the grain into ribbons, and goes to the middle of the table with a small dish of salt. People lean in. Someone takes a slice and goes quiet for a second. Two steaks do this for six people, because richness portions itself; a slice of A5 is a full stop, not a comma. The cuts are in the Premium Meat collection and the Japanese Wagyu collection.
The clean course: salmon, for the one who wants fish
Every table has the relative who says "just fish for me" — and by the second course is eating with more conviction than anyone. Ours is the Akaroa king salmon this shop was founded on in 2017: farmed 14 to 16 months in cold harbour water, cut by hand at harvest, vacuum-sealed, and on a plane — farm to Singapore table in 36 hours. Skin-side down in a dry pan, left alone until the skin turns to crackling, one brief turn, done. A 150g portion is a main course in itself; serve half portions if it is playing support to the chicken. One piece of calendar discipline: Christmas Day is a Friday this year and a public holiday, and there are no deliveries on public holidays. The fish lands fresh every Wednesday and Saturday, so aim for Wednesday the 23rd — or collect from the East Coast Road store and skip the arithmetic. The range is in the King Salmon collection.
For the relatives you are visiting rather than hosting, the Gifts collection carries food gift sets and hampers — the season's obligations, in a form that travels well.
FAQ
We are eight people. Is one chicken enough?
One 900g bird feeds four to six. For eight, roast two — they sit side by side in the same oven, at the same temperature, for the same time — or keep one chicken and let the wagyu and salmon carry more of the table. Two birds also means four legs, which settles the oldest argument in family dining.
When should everything arrive, given Christmas Day is a holiday?
Work backwards. There are no deliveries on Sundays or public holidays, and the fresh salmon lands on Wednesdays and Saturdays — so Wednesday the 23rd is the landing day for the fish and the chicken, with the frozen wagyu able to come earlier in the week and wait. Standard delivery is free over $150, otherwise $15, in a 3–7 PM window with timing not guaranteed. Or collect free from the store at 421 East Coast Road, Singapore 429008.
Can the whole dinner really run on one oven and one pan?
Yes — that is the design. The chicken roasts and rests; the salmon and wagyu take the same pan minutes apart; nothing is cooked to order once guests sit down. The cook eats Christmas dinner at the table, not standing at the stove. Which is rather the point.
