Nigella Christmas: Food, Family, Friends, Festivities (12 page)

• Just before you are ready to serve, fill a sink or plastic washing up bowl with warm water to come about halfway up the mould, and sit the as-yet-unturned mould in the warm water for half a minute.

• Take the mould out of the sink, wipe the water off the outside and place your serving plate on top. Then, with one hand on the plate and the other on the mould, tip them both over and lift off the mould to reveal the jelly. It will look smaller than it did in the mould; that’s expected.

• Dribble the Cointreau (or your choice of alcohol) over the jelly (putting the bottle on the table so people can anoint with more as they eat) and scatter with pomegranate seeds, a few on top, but most around the side. It spoils the jewel-like clarity of the jelly, but this is out of this world with a little double cream poured over each portion. Put a small jugful on the table as encouragement.

NOTE:

The amount of gelatine leaves is deliberately low; packets will instruct you to use more, but a voluptuously soft set is desirable. This does mean, however, that the jelly needs an overnight set in the fridge and cannot be unmoulded in advance. If you want to dispense with the worry of unmoulding, simply divide the warm jelly mixture between six stemmed glasses of under 200ml capacity each and set in the fridge.

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

Make the jelly up to 3 days ahead. If it’s possible to cover the mould with a tight seal of clingfilm without it touching the jelly, then do so. Otherwise, leave uncovered and put in the fridge, but make sure you have nothing heavily flavoured with garlic in the fridge at the same time!

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH …

…A FINGER-LICKIN’ SUPPER FOR 8–10

BOURBON-GLAZED RIBS

SPOONBREAD

SPINACH AND BACON SALAD

GIRDLEBUSTER PIE

This is the perfect relaxed holiday supper, though there’s no reason it couldn’t be a button-bursting lunch when you’re not at work, either. It’s big and friendly and gives an atmosphere of homestead warmth. You may feel mightily full when you get up from the table, but you will feel happy.

BOURBON-GLAZED RIBS

I can’t think of any way of cooking ribs I dislike, but this bourbon and muscovado marinade-cum-glaze does double-duty, tenderizing the meat before it cooks and slicking it with a conker-shiny, delicious-beyond-words glaze after, and is frankly more inviting – the rich scent in the air as it cooks, the sweet stickiness as you eat – than is decent. I salivate both in memory and in hope.

This glaze is stickily perfect for sausages, too, in which case roast 24 pork sausages for 40 or so minutes at 220°C/gas mark 7. Mix together the marinade ingredients but forget the marinating and simply boil up and reduce the glaze as below, pouring over the cooked sausages as you serve them.

24 pork spare ribs

100g dark muscovado sugar

175ml bourbon

2 × 15ml tablespoons soy sauce

2 × 15ml tablespoons American mustard

2 × 15ml tablespoons tomato ketchup

• Put the ribs into a freezer bag and add the other ingredients to form a marinade. Place in the fridge, putting the bag into a bowl to avoid drips or spillages, and leave overnight.

• The next day, remove the ribs from the fridge, and preheat the oven to 220°C/gas mark 7.

• Pick the ribs out of the marinade and put them into a shallow roasting tin, then pour the marinade into a saucepan.

• Cook the ribs for 1 hour, turning them over halfway through cooking.

• When the ribs are cooked, bring the marinade to a boil and cook for about 7 minutes or until it is thick and glossy. Plate up the ribs, then pour the bourbon sauce over them.

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

Chill the ribs in the marinade for up to 3 days.

FREEZE AHEAD TIP:

Freeze the ribs in the marinade for up to 1 month. Thaw overnight in the fridge, and cook as directed.

SPOONBREAD

This is something of a cross between cornbread and creamed sweetcorn – a kind of Southwestern polenta. It is perfect with ribs or sausages as here, but I love it, too, with some sizzled bacon (in which case no need to add bacon to the salad) or to jazz up a fridgeful of cold cuts.

I mostly use the kernels drained from their cans, but do use frozen sweetcorn if you prefer; if you haven’t got time to let it thaw, put it in a sieve and pour boiling water over it for a quick defrost.

I like to bake this in a round, shallowish copper roasting tin (28cm × 5cm deep with a capacity of 2.25 litres), so be prepared to adjust cooking times if your ovenproof dish has different dimensions.

75g soft butter, plus more for greasing

450g sweetcorn kernels, drained

4 spring onions, roughly chopped

150g mature cheddar, roughly chopped

4 eggs

350g yellow cornmeal

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 litre full-fat milk

• Preheat the oven to 220°C/gas mark 7. Grease your ovenproof tin or dish, melt the 75g butter in a saucepan over a low heat and leave to cool.

• Put the sweetcorn, spring onions and cheddar into a food processor with the eggs.

• Process to chop the vegetables and cheese, then add the cornmeal and baking powder.

• Process again until the mixture becomes paste-like, then, with the motor running, add the milk and melted butter.

• Pour into the greased tin or dish and bake for 1 hour until just set.

• Remove the spoonbread from the oven and let it stand for 10 minutes – it will continue cooking as it stands – before taking to the table.

SPINACH AND BACON SALAD

I love those Eighties salads, tossed with bacon-cubes and a warm dressing that makes the leaves begin to wilt. “Begin” is the operative word: though spinach, even young, relatively tender-leaved spinach, stands up to the warm drizzle well, as does the chicory. I like to go for the rusty-red blades, but if all you can find is the regular pale jade chicory, it won’t make any difference: they taste the same; my preference, here, is aesthetic.

And even though this is a spinach salad, some other bag (or two) of salad leaves would do just as well. Similarly, if you haven’t got any pancetta, just snip up some streaky bacon.

200g baby spinach, or similar salad

4 small heads red chicory

1 teaspoon garlic oil

75g pancetta cubes

75g pecan pieces

2½ × 15ml tablespoons cider vinegar or white wine vinegar

2 × 15ml tablespoons maple syrup

• Arrange the spinach in a large salad bowl. Add the chicory, separated into leaves and then torn into bite-sized pieces, and toss together.

• Warm the garlic oil in a frying pan over a medium heat, and drop in the pancetta cubes, cooking until they are crisp and bronzed.

• Add the pecans, and mix well with the pancetta in the fatty pan.

• Take off the heat, and stir in the vinegar – be prepared for a lot of sizzle.

• Now stir in the maple syrup, quickly pour over the salad and toss swiftly, serving immediately.

GIRDLEBUSTER PIE

I confess: it was the title that lured me. Tell me you don’t feel the same. I came across this in a recipe by Elinor Klivans, whom I often turn to for chocolatey solace, in her The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook, which includes the wonderful phrase “let the chocolate chips fall where they will”.

Although her recipes always work to the letter, my recipe is not hers. I am inspired by the digestive and chocolate base and coffee ice cream filling (though if you’re feeding children, I’d suggest vanilla) but I like a butterscotchy topping, which sets the minute it hits the ice cream. Sometimes bits of ice cream bubble up to the surface, making the top gloriously Florentined.

And the joy of the girdlebuster (as it is known for short at home) is that, should there be any left, you can put it back into its dish and just stash in the freezer again for midnight feasts. Admittedly, this is not huge, but a small slice is all that’s needed. Do not let it “ripen” out of the freezer before slicing because it all gets too sticky and drippy and messy.

FOR THE BASE:

375g digestive biscuits

75g soft butter

50g dark chocolate pieces or chips

50g milk chocolate pieces or chips

FOR THE ICE CREAM FILLING:

1 litre coffee ice cream

FOR THE TOPPING:

300g golden syrup

100g packed light muscovado sugar

75g butter

¼ teaspoon Maldon salt or pinch of table salt (optional)

2 × 15ml tablespoons bourbon

125ml double cream

• Process the biscuits with the butter and chocolate pieces or chips until it forms a damp but still crumb-like clump.

• Press into a 23cm pie plate or flan dish. Form a lip of biscuit a little higher than the plate or dish if you can. This process takes patience as you need ideally to form a smooth even layer. Sorry.

• Freeze this biscuit-lined layer for about an hour so it gets really hard. In the meantime, let your ice cream soften, just enough to be scooped, in the fridge.

• Spread the ice cream into the hard-biscuit-lined dish to form a layer. Then cover in clingfilm and replace in the freezer.

• Put the syrup, sugar and butter into a saucepan and let it melt over a low to medium heat, before turning it up and boiling for 5 minutes, then turn off the heat and add the bourbon, letting it hiss in the pan.

• Add the cream and stir to mix into a sauce, then leave to cool. And once the sauce is cool, but not set cold, pour it over the pie to cover the ice cream layer and then put it back in the freezer. Once frozen, cover with clingfilm again.

• When ready to serve, remove from the freezer, take the whole pie out of its dish and cut into slices. Should you have any pie left over, slip it quickly back into the dish and return, covered with clingfilm, to the freezer.

FREEZE AHEAD TIP:

Make and freeze the pie in its dish, as directed, but cover with clingfilm and a double layer of foil. Freeze for up to 6 months.

EASY ELEGANT DINNER FOR 8

EFFORTLESS HOME-CURED PORK

APPLE AND ONION GRAVY

TIRAMISU LAYER CAKE

I actually did this dinner for my brother Dominic’s birthday last year, but I think of it as a Christmastime menu simply because his birthday is 17th December and so he helps usher in the family festivities. My seasonal celebrations, anyway, are regulated by the family diary: my daughter’s birthday is the 15th and so no tree, no mention of Christmas, no festive distractions of any kind are allowed to intrude until after that date. To tell the truth, it is a very convenient curtailment.

When I say that the curing of the pork is effortless, I am not making any false promises. I suppose it is not quite accurate to call it “curing”, since that implies preserving: what I am really doing is “brining” (as with my Spiced and Superjuicy Turkey). But I avoid that word because it hardly tempts, whereas the effect it produces, which is rather to tenderize and imbue with flavour, is more of an obvious inducement. All it involves is putting the pork in a pan or bowl, covering it with water, apple juice, spices and a few other bits and pieces and your work is done, save for bunging it in the oven later.

With this, I make an apple and onion gravy, which is really halfway between a gravy and a sauce; it’s thick but just pourable. All this, the light-toned pork and the equally pale apply, oniony gravy that anoints it, is not supercharged aesthetically and I would go for a vegetable to add depth of colour as well as taste. My choice is the Red Cabbage, though I love it with the bacony, creamy peas (Piselli con Panna e Pancetta) as well. But it’s an either or; don’t do both. And you can either bake fluffy potatoes in their jackets alongside, and put some chive-flecked sour cream on the table to dollop in them, or steam some small, sweet and tight-fleshed waxy potatoes.

I created the Tiramisu Layer Cake especially for my brother, since there is nothing he likes more than coffee, chocolate and creaminess all in one overindulgent package, but I also recommend here the Christmas-Spiced Chocolate Cake, a seasonal favourite I came up with to celebrate another seasonal birthday – on the 21st December – for the voice coach and pocket venus, Joan Washington.

EFFORTLESS HOME-CURED PORK

These days pork is reared to be so lean that it is barely digestible when you just plain roast it. Of course, you can stuff and roll it, as I do when going all-out in my Rolled Stuffed Loin of Pork, but that is work – work that rewards, but work just the same. This is altogether easier. Indeed, it is impossible to think of any kind of preparation that would involve less effort; not only does it make the pork juicily delicious, but it also makes it easier to carve thinly, which means it goes a lot further, too.

Because of the magic-soaking treatment, a supermarket pork loin joint is just fine, though go for organic or proper farm-sourced for choice. And it comes all ready for you – fat removed, boned, rolled and tied. This size joint certainly looks small, but once carved ultra-thinly – as the cure helps you do – there’s plenty to go round.

1 litre apple juice, preferably pressed

1 litre water

100g Maldon salt or 50g table salt

250ml cider vinegar

4 small onions, peeled and quartered (or 2 large onions, cut into eighths)

stalks from large bunch of parsley (optional)

cloves from 1 head garlic, bruised but not peeled

80ml maple syrup

1 teaspoon cardamom seeds

1 teaspoon caraway seeds

4 teaspoons garlic oil

• Put the skinned, boned and rolled pork joint in a pan or stockpot (with lid).

• Add the remaining ingredients except the garlic oil, put a lid on the pan or stockpot and place in the fridge or in a cold place for at least a night and a day and up to 2 days.

• Half an hour before the pork needs to go into the oven, preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6, then take the pork out of its brine and sit it on a rack in the sink to let the liquid drain off and the meat get less cold.

• Transfer the pork to a roasting tin, pour the garlic oil over it and roast for 1½ hours, before removing to a carving dish. A meat thermometer, inserted, should read 75°C when the pork is cooked through.