Dec 25 2008
A Wee Gifty
Probably the only recipe in the entire book where I won’t actually be tasting the finished product.
- Steeped Christmas Fruits
A thought which makes me feel rather guilty now, seeing as I alone have tasted every other recipe in the book. Dougal missed out on the first recipe in the book, Smoked Cod and Cannellini although as you’ll recall at the time I didn’t think he was missing out on much! On the other hand, I’m not sure he’s forgiven me yet for missing out on the Nutella Pancakes!
The Steeped Christmas Fruits are a variant on that foodie Christmas gift, Dried Fruits in Quality Booze. I can recall my dad doing Prunes in Armagnac a few years back, and Nigella talks about past Christmasses of Rum and Raisin and so on. Goes very well over ice cream but a distinctly grown up taste!
This recipe calls for Mixed Dried Fruit (such as you might put in fruit cake) and posh, Pedro Ximenez Sherry. We baulked at paying over ten pounds for the delivery of Nigella’s preferred brand (found by googling and with the help of Nigella.com) and settled for Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference variety. It is rich and thick and sweet smellling and I will most probably be taking Nigella up on the suggestion of just having a glass of it neat over ice cream for a really express pudding.
My problem is that I’m not a huge fan of the steeped dried fruit genre. I’d go as far as to say that Dougal isn’t a fan at all, so making a jar of these for us seemed frankly silly. So I made two as gifts, one for each set of parents. Like I said, grown up tastes. D’s Mum has reported that she is greatly enjoying hers over yoghurt, which sounds practically healthy!
I also took Nigella’s suggestion (which I swear is in the book but I cannot find it any more, no matter how hard I look) or varying this recipe by using mixed sweetened cranberries, raisins, sour cherries and blackcurrants and steeping these in Pama, the pomegranate liqueur. Illogically, this D and I both fancy, so in addition to the two jars we did for friends, we may make a further portion for ourselves.
