As much as I relish almost every detail of the Christmas feast, there are a handful of ingredients I hold especially dear: the rich, sweet preserve that is mincemeat; the glowing ruby seeds of the pomegranate and the sourness of the cranberry, which never fail to brighten anything in which they appear; and the soft, smoky notes of cured fish such as salmon and trout. Also on that list of favourites are the blue-veined cheeses – the stilton and Stichelton, roquefort and gorgonzola without which the later autumn and winter wouldn’t feel complete.
Cranberries bring a welcome tartness to the inherent sweetness of festive food. Their sour quality, tempered by a little sugar, orange and port, makes an uplifting and much loved sauce for turkey. Throw a handful into the stuffing, simmer them into a jelly for a coarse pork terrine or include them in a mincemeat and apple crumble. The cranberry sauce traditionally used with roast turkey is also good with sausages, and I like the berries added to a sausagemeat patty – for which, incidentally, I use butcher’s herb-freckled breakfast sausages removed from their skins rather than buying sausagemeat. No other berry brings quite the same tartness to the season.
There are numerous blue cheeses from the UK and abroad. Apart from their presence on the Boxing Day cheeseboard, I like to bring them out from now until new year with pears poached in sweet wine, star anise and vanilla, the coolness of the fruit and its juices flattering the piquancy of the cheese. The creamier of the blues, such as gorgonzola, are worth considering in sandwiches with watercress, roast duck and crisp cox’s apples.
Smoked fish is always welcome in my house, but there is something quietly perfect about its appearance at Christmas time. It makes a simple first course for a more complicated feast; the soft texture allows us to pair it with the crunch of cucumber or crisp salad leaves – a quality that is all too often missing in the traditional yuletide menu. I should also mention the ease with which a harassed Christmas cook can put the silky folds of smoked fishes to use.
The crowning glory of any Christmas fruit bowl is a pile of pomegranates. Their copious scarlet juices require any preparation to be done in the kitchen, so I do all the peeling and breaking up of the flesh on the chopping board, then pile the clusters of seeds, like glistening jewels, on to a dish and send them into the dining room. They also serve to add bite to a rice or couscous salad. I often scatter them over a panna cotta, too, or use them to cover the creamy surface of a trifle.
Which brings me to mincemeat. I occasionally make my own, but often end up buying it ready-made and it seems none the worse for that. I sometimes leave out the suet that is included in most traditional recipes and no one seems to miss it. The tiny white beads of fat are all that is left of the Victorian versions and the inclusion of actual minced meat is now consigned to history. There are vegetarian brands available, though I think they are less successful than they could be, some having a burnt caramel back-note to them. The best I have made at home are those containing grated quince rather than the more popular apple.
The inclusion of mince pies at Christmas is non-negotiable in my house, and I use the sweet preserve as an addition to crumbles (apple, mostly) and as a top layer in a sponge cake to which I have added a crumble topping. It is a worthy contender for filling pancakes, too. This year I have made a family-sized mincemeat tart using brown-sugar shortbread rather than pastry. It is glorious with a jug of cream.
Poached pears and blue cheese (pictured above)
Sweet, soft pears make a wonderful accompaniment to salty blue cheeses. Poach the fruit a good few hours in advance so you can make sure it is thoroughly chilled before serving.
Serves 3-6
caster sugar 100g
water 750ml
cinnamon stick 1
vanilla bean 1
star anise 2
pears 3
lemon 1
rosé or muscat or another light, slightly sweet wine 350ml
blue cheese such as Stichelton, stilton or roquefort to serve
Bring the sugar, water, cinnamon stick, vanilla bean and star anise to the boil in a medium-sized pan – I use one about 22cm in diameter.
Peel the pears and cut them in half from stalk to base. Cut the lemon in half and rub the pears with the cut side of the lemon as you go along. Then squeeze the remaining lemon juice into the sugar syrup, add the pears to the pan and lower the temperature to a simmer.
Leave the pears to cook until they’re tender to the point of a knife – this can take 15-40 minutes depending on their ripeness. Check their progress regularly. They should be thoroughly soft but still retain their shape.
Remove the pears with a draining spoon and transfer them to a serving bowl. Turn up the heat under the syrup and reduce to 200ml. Add the wine, then pour over the pears and chill thoroughly for several hours.
Serve the pears with the blue cheese and a little of the syrup to pour over.
Smoked mackerel and pickled cucumber
Smoked fish such as mackerel, salmon and trout need a refreshing accompaniment to bring out their flavour. Lemon is the traditional and obvious answer, but I also like to include a crisp pickle such as cucumber or radish to eat with the soft fish. You get the acidity of the vinegars and a contrast of textures from the crunchy vegetables.
The pickled cucumber in this recipe is made the night before, so it has time to marinate in the aromatics, but is pickled for a short enough time to retain its crispness.
Serves 4 as a light salad
fennel seeds 2 tsp
yellow mustard seeds 2 tsp
cornichons 4
black peppercorns 6
salt ½ tsp
cider vinegar 5 tbsp
cornichon pickling liquor 3 tbsp
cucumber 150g
smoked mackerel 1 whole or 2 fillets
red chicory 2 heads
parsley 4 sprigs
orange 1 large
Toast the fennel and yellow mustard seeds in a dry, shallow pan for 2 minutes, then tip them into a large glass preserving jar. Thinly slice the cornichons. Add the black peppercorns, half a teaspoon of salt, the cider vinegar and the cornichons and their pickling liquor to the preserving jar.
Peel the cucumber, slice very thinly and add to the vinegar and aromatics, then set aside in the fridge overnight.
Remove the skin from the smoked mackerel and break the flesh into large pieces, then put them in a bowl. Pour 3 tablespoons of the pickling liquor from the cucumber over the fish and set aside in a cool place.
Separate the chicory leaves, wash them if you wish, and add them to the smoked mackerel. Remove the leaves from the parsley sprigs. Leave small leaves whole and tear any larger leaves into smaller pieces, then add them to the smoked mackerel. Add the cucumber to the mackerel and toss them gently together.
Remove the peel from the orange and slice the fruit thinly.
Divide the mackerel, cucumber and leaves on to small plates or dishes, tucking slices of orange in between the mackerel and cucumber as you go.
Cranberry sausage cakes with kefir and dill
These delightful little cakes need to be fried in a shallow pan over a moderate heat before they are baked. That way, they develop a glossy, deeply savoury glaze.
Makes 8-10 cakes, for 4 people
onion 1
streaky bacon 180g
olive oil 2 tbsp
mustard seeds 2 tsp
dried chilli flakes 2 tsp
breakfast sausages 500g
dried breadcrumbs 60g
salt and black pepper to season
juniper berries 6
thyme leaves 1 tbsp
cranberries 150g, fresh or frozen
dill 10g
kefir 250ml
Peel and finely chop the onion and dice the bacon. Warm the oil in a shallow pan, then let the onion and bacon cook over a moderate heat for 20-25 minutes until soft and golden. Stir regularly, partially covering the pan with a lid if necessary.
Remove from the heat. Take the skins of the sausages and mix the meat in with the mustard seeds, chilli flakes and breadcrumbs. Season with salt and black pepper. Crush the juniper berries using a pestle and mortar, chop the thyme leaves, then add them to the sausage mixture. Then add the cranberries and mix it all together – it is probably easiest to use your hands for mixing here rather than a spoon.
Shape the mixture into 8-10 large balls and flatten them slightly into patties. Warm a shallow film of oil in a sauté or frying pan over a moderate heat, then brown the cakes on all sides. It is important not to move them until the base of each one has browned; then you can gently turn them over with a spoon or palette knife and brown the rest. Set the oven at 180C fan/gas mark 6.
Transfer the cakes to a baking tray or roasting tin, add a little more oil (or any that is left in the frying pan) and bake for 25 minutes till they are golden and sizzling.
For the dressing, finely chop the dill and stir into the kefir. Then season with black pepper and serve with the cranberry sausage cakes.
Pomegranate rice salad
This is a crunchy rice salad to serve alongside other festive recipes such as cold roast goose or turkey, or with a slice of pork pie.
Serves 4
white basmati or other long grain rice 220g
black peppercorns 8
bay leaves 2
cardamom 6 pods
cucumber 170g
pomegranate 1 medium
shelled pistachios 60g
dill 15g
mint 12 leaves, chopped
parsley 15g, chopped
dried mulberries a handful
golden sultanas 80g
Rinse the rice in a large bowl of warm water, running the grains through your fingertips to wash off the loose starch. Tip the water away, then repeat – twice if the water is still cloudy.
Drain the rice, tip into a small- to medium-sized saucepan and cover with 2cm of water. Drop in the peppercorns, bay leaves and the whole cardamoms, cracked open with a heavy weight so the pods open but the seeds remain intact. Bring to the boil, then lower the heat. Cover with a tight-fitting lid and leave to simmer for 10 minutes.
Lift the pan from the heat and set aside for 10 minutes, but don’t remove the lid just yet.
Cut the cucumber in half, scrape out and discard the seeds and watery core, then cut the flesh into small cubes and put them in a mixing bowl. Cut the pomegranate into quarters and extract the seeds. Keep these in a separate bowl. (Adding them too early will turn the rice pink.)
Roughly chop the pistachios and add them to the cucumber. Pull the leaves from the mint and parsley stems. Chop the dill fronds and stems, and toss with the cucumber and the chopped mint and parsley leaves.
Lift the lid off the rice and use a fork to separate the grains. Add to the cucumber and toss everything together. Stir the pomegranate seeds into the rice along with the dried mulberries and golden sultanas.
Mincemeat shortbread tart
Serve this in small slices – it is very rich – with a jug of cream or a ball of ice-cream. It is deliciously crumbly, so don’t expect a perfect slice. Eat it while warm, rather than cold or straight from the oven.
Serves 8-10
butter 200g
caster sugar 70g
demerara sugar 30g
vanilla bean paste 1 tsp, or a few drops of vanilla extract
plain flour 200g
fine semolina 40g
cornflour 40g
sea salt 2 good pinches
mincemeat 400g
icing sugar to serve
You will need a 20cm pie plate with a wide rim.
Set the oven at 160C fan/gas mark 4 and place a baking sheet in the oven.
Cut the butter into small pieces, put it in the bowl of an electric mixer with the sugars, then beat until light and creamy. Mix in the vanilla paste or extract. Stir together the flour, fine semolina, cornflour and a couple of generous pinches of sea salt.
With the paddle still turning, introduce the dry ingredients to the butter and sugar. Be careful not to overmix or you will toughen the shortbread. Mix the dry ingredients into the creamed butter and sugar, then stop the machine and bring the dough together into a ball. Turn out on to a generously floured board and slice off 180g of the dough and set aside.
Gently pat the rest of the dough into a disc and carefully lift it into the pie plate. It will be soft and fragile and may break. If it does, just tenderly pat it into the tart tin, then trim the edges with a knife.
Fill the tart case with the mincemeat. Roll the reserved dough into a thick cylinder about 3cm in diameter, then slice into about 10 thin discs. Place the discs, slightly overlapping, over the surface of the tart. Bake, on top of the baking sheet already in the oven, for 30 minutes until the crust is pale gold.
Leave to settle for 20 minutes or so before dusting lightly with icing sugar and serving with cream or ice-cream.
A Thousand Feasts by Nigel Slater (HarperCollins, £20) is out now