The Sacred Art of Eating

It’s been a year since I finished The Challenge. I spent lots of time last year saying ‘this will definitely be cooked again’- so, one year on, what have we gone back to?

• Red Prawn and Mango Curry -a great many meals inspired by this, as well as ‘proper’ repeats.
• Caramel Croissant Pudding - about three times! Including just last night, in celebration of the acquisition of some bourbon.
• Rhubarb and Custard Gelato - when I found some pink rhubarb, and I even blogged about it!
• Steak Slice with Lemon and Thyme -at least once!
  
• Flourless Chocolate Brownies, and
• Hot Chocolate Sauce -when my cousin and her man came for dinner. Very well received :o)
  
• Goujons of Sole with Dill Mayonnaise- I am fairly sure we did this but perhaps without any dill. But I remember frying!
• Mango Split
• Home-made Instant Pancake Mix, - absolutely loads. It is our standard recipe for ‘breakfast’ pancakes now. We even did it for D’s parents and Granny on Christmas morning this year.
• Blueberry Syrup for Pancakes- sometimes, but not always, when we make the above. Ridiculously easy, ridiculously good!
• Maple Chicken ‘n’ Ribs- still can’t get them as sticky as I want. Still meaty and good.
• Moonblush Tomatoes
• High-Speed Hamburger with Fast Fries- fast fries, certainly. Not sure about the burgers.
  
• Tuna Steaks with Black Beans- yup, although we couldn’t get pinto beans in Leith, funnily enough!
• Nectarine and Blueberry Galette-right here!
  
• Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Sundae- well the sauce anyway. Tis gorgeous!
• Chowder with Asian Flavours
• Rapid Ragù- winter warming fare.
  
• Jumbleberry Crumble
• Doughnut French Toast
• Totally Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies- they don’t hold their own weight though, so are not to be advised for taking to parties!
  
• Potato Cakes with Smoked Salmon- we haven’t re-cooked these. But D bought smoked salmon today. And the night is yet young!
• Duck Breasts with Pomegranate and Mint- again, I have not yet re-cooked. But I do have two duck breasts sitting in the freezer waiting specifically for the right occasion.
• Ice Cream Cake- for a party, it went down very well! So fast, in fact, that I got no pictures of the finished product!
• Mexican Hot Chocolate 1 2 Properly- Essentially whenever we have any kahlua!
  
• Rocky Road Crunch Bars- a LOT
  
• Sesame Peanut Noodles- quick, easy and very satisfying. Plus once you’ve bought beansprouts you might as well make a massive amount.
• Snowball- repeated a couple of times and then it dawned on me, the reason I didn’t rate it was that I don’t like lemonade! How obvious! Dougal has since introduced me to drinking advocaat with ginger ale. Much better!
• Festive Fusilli- is only festive if you serve it at a feast. Otherwise is sunblush tomato, vodka and mascarpone pasta!
• Marshmallow Crispy Squares- at least once. I needed to use the rice crispies up! And they are scrummy.
• Garlic Oil- eventually it dawned on me to use a food processor to cut the garlic up. We need a new bottle now, in fact.
• Salade Niçoise- even with the inclusion of anchovies!

17% repeat rate. I predicted at least 10 at dinner tonight, so I suppose I’m not wrong. Looking through the list tonight it is clear that I like making sweet things! I think the recipes we repeated were probably more representative of low-faff rather than those recipes we were most excited about last year. This might be because the biggest surprises came from recipes I would never normally have bothered with before…and which apparently I am not inclined to go back to! A revision of the list tonight was good though- now I have some fresh ideas for 2010!

What a way with Turkey! I think this could become a Festive Favourite.

•  Turkey Tonnato

There is always a great scrabble to come up with new ways with Christmas leftovers. I don’t know if she can take full credit for it or not, but here Nigella takes a traditional Italian dish (one which is a favourite of my parents) and converts it to use cold roast turkey.

Fine slices of turkey are taken off your princely carcass, and fanned oot on a plate.

On top of the meat, a Tonnato is spread- just like in Vitello Tonnato this is a sauce of blended mayonnaise, tuna fish, lemon juice, paprika and garlic. Perhaps because we used a food processor rather than a blender, the sauce was quite thick rather than the runny affair you see in photos. Otherwise though, I think you’ll agree it looks just awesome!

I would absolutely agree with Nigella’s suggestion that a baked potato goes well with this. The simplicity of the potato against the mixture of flavours in the dish. Also, without the taters, this would be a cold dish, in the middle of winter. As it is, the oven was on for over an hour and although it was dark and bleak outside it was warm and familial in our kitchen.

Brilliant, brilliant tea, and not fiddly to make at all.

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.

A ‘traditional’ Christmas Eve Supper, with some drinks and a spiced pudding.

• Snowball
• Rouge Limonade
• Seafood Pot
• Holiday Hot Cake with Eggnog Cream

We had my maw and paw over on Christmas Eve; my mum left us her car so we could drive home on Christmas Day and in return we cooked them a ‘traditional’ Christmas Eve supper. Not my tradition- although it was so good we could probably start it- but apparently it is very much the done thing to have fish on Christmas Eve.

We kicked off with drinks and nibbles (some left over Maple Pepper Pecans from the pairty); a Snowball for Lizzie and I, a Rouge Limonade for Dougal. Nigella’s recipe for a snowball isn’t really any different to any other you will have had. I’m still not sure I’m a fan but my mum likes them so it was a treat to be able to offer her one. The rouge limonade is a sort of red wine spritzer- lighter than wine, probably quite good if it were really hot (like at a busy party) and you need chilled down, but nothing fancy. I’ve drunk things like it in France- perhaps it is suited to warmer climes!

The main event was the Seafood Pot. Our fabulous fishmongers, George Campbell & Sons on Ferry Road in Leith, had furnished with monk fish, salmon fillet, squid and surf clams. These are very simply cooked up, with butter and sherry and lots of steam. We served it, as suggested, with a fennel salad, which sadly I halved in size at the last minute in a fit of miscomprehension of my guests! The combination was lovely and made me realise that fennel is a flavour I need to make more of in my cooking. The finishing touch was a couple of lovely baguettes made by Dougal, which were just perfect for mopping up the juices.

Pudding, as suggested in the book, was Holiday Hot Cake with Eggnog Cream. The cake is made by pouring boiling water over a spiced cake batter and then baking the unappealing result! My solid tin wasn’t quite as deep as suggested and I was worried about fitting the water in, so we went for a springform tin. This may have been part of the reason that we lost some liquid to the inside of the oven, resulting in some bad burnt caramel smells! The other problem will probably have been that I failed to preheat the oven properly (which is to say, I set the temperature but didn’t turn the oven on) so it went into a cold oven, which may not have helped.

As a consequence, the finished product was a bit thin and lacking in bounce. The recipe was supposed to do many more people than we had, but in fact just went round the five of us (my little bro having turned up at this point for pudding and a lift to my Mum & Dad’s). Still, the flavours were good and the eggnog cream (cream with advocat whipped in it!) was a tasty accompaniment. Just not quite the steaming success I’d hoped!

An attempt at socialising.

• Mincemeat Parcels with Bourbon Butter

We have been meaning, pretty much since we moved to our new place, to invite ‘the stair’ (that’s the inhabitants of the other seven flats in the close, for those of you not native) in for home made goodies and drinks. And it has just kept being put off and put off. We’d meant to invite them the weekend before the Christmas Party, but somehow never got round to it- a good thing, as it turned out, as poor D had probably norovirus and so our flat was no place for guests.

In the end we invited them all the Tuesday before Christmas, but put the cards through everyone’s doors with frankly far too little notice for December. We got a card from one neighbour, apologising for his absence. A little before 8 the bloke from the flat opposite popped in with a posh bottle of wine and gave his apologies. 8pm came and went and no one came, and I actually didn’t mind. I reasoned that the notice was too short, that it wasn’t anything personal, and revelled slightly in the thought of an unexpected free evening stretching ahead of me (with the added bonus of mulled mine and mincemeat parcels, which I’d already made).

Then, at about twenty past eight, came a knock at the door! The young couple from Gf1 had come up, bringing their sleeping six month old baby with them. They must have thought I was a right eejit at first as I was grinning ear to ear, so touched and pleased that someone had come! Dougal put the finishing touches to the mulled wine, I arrayed the Mincemeat Parcels on a plate, and we had a nice evening just the four (five!) of us, getting to know one another a bit and sharing ‘newly moved’ stories.  The wee one woke up after about forty minutes and gave us a lovely show of cooing and looking around and dribbling and generally being a pretty wee thing.

On the food front, Mincemeat Parcels with Bourbon Butter: definitely a good thing. Easy to throw together, even in a hurry, and pretty fancy to give to guests too. I didn’t have ready rolled puff pastry but managed just fine rolling it myself- I also didn’t have a square pastry cutter so I suppose the uneven edges of my pastry mattered less.

These were, of course, particularly good because of the mincemeat that went in them. The recipe stipulates ’superior mincemeat’ meaning ‘good stuff from a jar’; however we used homemade by HarveyNick Cranberry Studded Mincemeat- one of Nigella’s own recipes, no less. This was *totally* worth it (and I’m sure she’d agree her own mincemeat is superior!) and while you might think it’s not very express to have to make your own mincemeat, I’m sure you could do so days or even weeks in advance so it needn’t be a chore on the day.

The only change I made to Nigella’s recipe is that I egg-washed the tops of these before baking. I already had a beaten egg, as one is used to stick the layers of pastry to each other, and I had felt that the Chicken, Bacon and Mushroom Pies were lacking in their dull tops (where the ones in her picture were shiny). This was absolutely the right decision- it didn’t take two ticks to do, meant less potential wastage of egg and resulted in lovely glossy parcels. Fantastic!

Also: Bourbon Butter hits the spot, it does.

A sparkling Christmas Party, in every way.

• Christmas in a Glass
• Pomegranate Bellini
• Martini Olives
• Maple Pepper Pecans
• Cocktail Sausages

Quite a list! We also did a couple of platters of sweet petit fours, revisiting the Lunchbox Treats (in mini cases), Rocky Road and Marshmallow Crispy Squares as well as finishing off the Chocolate Pistachio Fudge. The Party Popcorn, previously prepared for a party in January was a roaring success. And of course Dougal provided two types of fantastic Bertinet Bread: Pecorino, Olive and Herb bread sticks and Cranberry Stars (an amalgamation and reworking of two recipes). Ruth helped with the pre-party damage limitation (washing up!) while the ever-lovely Mat also stepped into the breach, and made some of Nigella’s Star-topped Mince Pies and Apple Pies from Feast (although not as mini pies, sadly) using HarveyNick’s homemade Nigella’s Cranberry-Studded Mincemeat (also from Feast). And the whole night was kicked off with Jamie Oliver’s Mulled Wine, which was lovely. So it was truly a food fest. Would I have any other kind of party?

Sadly, we are a little short on pictures, largely because we were having too much of a good time to think about stopping and photographing food. However, here are some construction shots, just to give you an idea of the thing!

Of the two cocktails, the Pomegranate Bellini was my favourite. I found the Christmas In A Glass (Pain d’Epice syrup plus prosecco) a bit on the sweet side. I think most people agreed it was an instant winner on mouthful number one but that you didn’t really want to finish your glass. We made our Bellinis with pomegranate syrup rather than purée, as it seemed overkill to buy 1kg of purée for one party. I slightly regret this decision though, just for reasons of fanciness. However I think the pom syrup may take a serious beating in cocktails over the coming year so if we feel the need to repeat these at Christmas next year buying in new product will be an option anyway.

Of the new party nibbles, the olives were the least successful, with the sausages coming second (for being fabulous but not especially unusual in their premise) and the maple pepper pecans topping the podium for audacity and pep. My complaint with the Martini Olives is that they simply weren’t boozy enough. Not like Nigella to hold herself back! I’d hoped these would be a little dark and dangerous but in fact most people didn’t notice they weren’t just olives straight out of a jar.  When I said they were a recipe people asked if I’d stuffed them myself- hardly very express!

The sausages were sticky and sweet and yummy and I would highly recommend them for a party. Nuff said.

The Maple Pepper Pecans were an interesting case. They start out sweet and buttery and then, right at the end, wham! the cayenne pepper hits you. Various people said ‘why the f**k would you put cayenne pepper on them, man, …. oh, but they’re brilliant, I’ll just have another’ -consistently strangely critical for something they all seemed quite happy to munch away at.

Mince pies were all fab and I would highly recommend the Feast Recipes, both for the pies (lovely pastry) and the mincemeat, which has the added bonus of not being too overly dry-fruity, for those that don’t like. Oh yeah, and Jamie Oliver’s Mulled Wine is *fantastic* -if you didn’t see the programme with him cooking it on the week before Christmas, you clearly weren’t watching any telly. I don’t think I will ever make mulled wine any other way.

Merry Christmas Chaps!

A hearty mid-week roast.

• Butternut Squash with Pecans and Blue Cheese

One of those dishes that you can use in place of Turkey as the Veggie Main at Christmas Dinner, but which equally is nice just to eat, for tea one night after work. It has in its favour its relative ease in construction- although you do need a sharp knife to easily prepare butternut squash. On the other hand, pecans and blue cheese don’t come especially cheap, so as veggie meals go it ain’t a bargain.

It looked quite pretty to start with, but once the cheese and nuts were mixed through the roasted squash, lost its beauty somewhat. The squash may have been a little over-roasted, which wouldn’t have helped.

I quite enjoyed this- I really like butternut squash- but I’m not sure it was great as a meal in its own right. The pecans would have benefited from a little toasting, and as a meal, it needed something else going on. Not a bad side dish though, I’d say.

Nigella claims to be no big drinker. However she likes her boozy recipes-this one overwhelmed us a bit!

• Seasonal Fruit Salad

The term ‘Salad’ is a bit mis-used here. This recipe wouldn’t have the 5-a-day brigade convinced at all! Yes, there is fruit in it, but the alcohol content rather cancels it out.

Beautiful to look at, but rather hard to stomach. We both agreed that a spoonful or two over ice cream would be nice, but that you’d have to be a seasoned drinker to eat this straight. One of the clementines I’d used had been a bit dry and dull, and it ended up particularly dangerous, having sooked up even more alcohol than the rest of the fruit.

I can’t imagine a context where I’d cook this again, elegant on the eye as it was. Seems a little sad, but there we go.

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.

We had a teeny tiny amount of the Broccoli and Stilton soup left over from last night’s tea. Not enough for a full portion, but we’d no more broccoli to eke it out with either.

So I made us a little amuse-bouche. Brill.