Dec 12 2008
Santa’s Grotto
I was lucky enough to get a food fan as my recipient for Secret Santa at work this year, so I put together a couple of Nigella recipes for them. This also coincided well with Na’s birthday- bonus!
- Spiced Peaches
- Chocolate Pistachio Fudge
Both were really very easy to make. The peaches are cooked up in their own syrup and some vinegar with a seasonal smelling selection of spices. They smelled yummy but sadly I bottled up the lot and haven’t had an opportunity to try them yet. They looked so pretty though and the Christmassy aromas were ever so tempting- and the thought of trying them with roast ham, oh!- means I will almost certainly make another batch before Christmas.
The chocolate fudge isn’t really proper fudge in that it is essentially just butter and chocolate melted into condensed milk. You don’t boil it or anything, and to be honest I was sceptical it would turn out anything like fudge. I decided to go with the suggested ‘grainy’ version which is kept in the freezer to firm up.
It’s okay. It tastes chocolatey and is fudgy in texture, but it isn’t fudge as my mother makes. It’s more like slightly over-cooked chocolate sauce allowed to go hard. Which isn’t all bad! As for the pistachios, well, they look beautiful and so I’ll commend them for that. But with the fudge being so soft I found their hardness a bit unpleasant (something which, ironically, wouldn’t have been a problem in a firmer fudge) and I am only partly convinced regarding the flavour. I like my pistachios salted, really.
I reckon they made pretty neat presents though.
peaches most acceptable to any of you foodie acquaintances, especially those who like to order a big bit of ham at Christmas
Well, indeed, yes.
Well, we had Spiced Peaches with some of our fine, but still very large, ham for lunch today. Interestingly, the troops felt that they were TOO spiced… didn’t clarify quite what was meant by this. After all, Paddy has been known to enjoy a Pizza Piccante from Umberto’s, so his tolerance of “spiciness” would be expected to be high. Perhaps there was too much clove for him.
Whereas, perhaps Granny found the chili flakes too exciting.
Personally, as long as one didn’t try to consume a whole peach-half in one go, I thought they made a nice fruity accompaniment to the ham, akin to chutney in concept but prettier.
Anyway, we will need to try our other spiced fruits soon.
Well done for completing the challenge. Quite an achievement, and clearly a few recipes have stuck as nice things to go back to (see An Ominous Start)
xxxxxx