Nigella Christmas: Food, Family, Friends, Festivities (33 page)

• Spread this mixture on a lined baking sheet and bake in a 170°C/gas mark 3 oven, turning over the mixture with a spatula about halfway through baking and redistributing the granola evenly during the baking process. The object is to get the granola evenly golden without toasting too much in any one place. If you have a convection or fan oven, you may need to turn it to a lower heat as well as keeping a sharp eye on it.

• This should be ready – golden enough and dried out like a crunchy breakfast cereal rather than the sticky mess that went into the oven – in anything from 40–50 minutes.

• Remove from the oven and let cool, taking it off the hot baking sheet, before mixing with the dried cranberries. Store in an airtight container.

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

Make the granola, cool and store in an airtight container for up to 1 month.

A BEVY OF HOT DRINKS

MULLED CIDER

VIN CHAUD

HOT HONEYED VODKA

HOT SCHNOCOLATE

THERE ARE FEW THINGS BETTER THAN COMING in from the cold and wrapping your hands around a cup of warm cheer. All these drinks do the trick, raising your spirit levels in every sense, and imbuing all and sundry with festive feeling.

MULLED CIDER

Much as I adore the vin chaud, I think there is room to expand the repertoire of warm punches to get a Christmas party started, or to warm body and soul after a brisk walk or a bout of carol singing (not that I could ever inflict my voice on anyone). This mulled cider is mellow and fruity and, despite the rum sploshed in as well, mild to the taste and all too drinkable. Just make sure you don’t swig while it’s still mouth-burningly hot.

Makes 1.2 litres, enough for about 6 servings

1 litre dry cider

60ml dark rum

250ml apple and ginger tea, made up from herbal teabag

40g soft dark brown sugar

2 clementines/satsumas

4 whole cloves

2 sticks cinnamon

2 fresh bay leaves

2 cardamom pods, bruised

• Pour the cider, rum and herbal tea into a wide saucepan, add the sugar and put over a low heat to mull.

• Halve the clementines or satsumas, stick a clove into each half, and add them to the pan.

• Break the cinnamon sticks in half, and tip into the pan. Add the bay leaves and bruised cardamom pods, and let everything infuse as the pan comes almost to the boil.

• Once the pan is near to boiling, turn down the heat, so that it just keeps warm, and ladle into heatproof glasses with handles to serve.

• To make this into a non-alcoholic warmer, replace the cider and rum with 1 litre of apple juice and 60ml freshly squeezed lemon juice. You probably won’t need the sugar, but taste when warm to see if you want a little and then add as you like.

NOTE:

I find Dr Stuart’s apple and ginger tea (see Stockists) perfect here, but there are so many herbal teas to choose from now, so take your pick.

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

Make the cider, strain and cool. Remove the cloves at this point otherwise the flavour will become too overpowering as the drinks sits. Cover and keep in a cool, dark place for up to 2 days until needed. When ready to serve, return the mulled cider to the saucepan and reheat gently without boiling.

VIN CHAUD

Yes, this is simply the French for mulled wine, but this is how I like to think of it, as drunk from paper cups at the beautiful Christmas market in Brussels or in Francophone alpine regions – I love snow-peaked mountains, so long as I don’t have to ski down them.

Serves 6–8

1 × 75cl bottle good robust red wine, such as Beaujolais

4 cinnamon sticks

1 × 13cm curl orange zest, shaved off the orange with a vegetable peeler

75g sugar

1 star anise

5 whole cloves

80ml cognac

• Pour the wine into a large saucepan and add the remaining ingredients.

• Bring to an almost boil, don’t actually let it boil, then turn down the heat and let it simmer gently.

• The mulled wine is ready when the sugar has dissolved, though you can leave the pan on a very low heat so that your vin chaud stays chaud. This is best served in small cups or heatproof glasses with handles.

• To make an approximate, non-alcoholic version, replace the 75cl bottle of wine with 500ml pomegranate juice and 500ml cranberry juice, and dispense with the cognac.

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

Make the vin chaud, strain and cool. Remove the cloves at this point otherwise the flavour will become too overpowering as the drinks sits. Cover and keep in a cool, dark place for 1 day until needed. When ready to serve, return it to the saucepan and reheat gently without boiling.

ABOVE:

Hot Honeyed Vodka (back left and front right); Mulled Cider (centre); Vin Chaud (back right and front left)

HOT HONEYED VODKA

This is a warmed-up version of Krupnik, the Polish honey vodka – and none the worse for that. Indeed, you can make this and drink whatever’s left (in that unlikely instance) cold. It’s all good.

Makes 1.25 litres, enough for about 25 double-shot glasses

400g sugar

2 × 15ml tablespoons cold water

1 litre boiling water, from a kettle

10 allspice berries

1 cinnamon stick

2 whole cloves

1 lemon, zest and juice

300g honey

500ml vodka

• Put the sugar into a large, heavy-based saucepan with the cold water and dissolve over a low heat.

• When the sugar has dissolved and started bubbling, leave to bubble for a few seconds until it turns a pale caramel colour. Carefully pour in the boiling water, standing well back as you do so, as it will splutter.

• Add the allspice berries, cinnamon stick, cloves and lemon zest (shaved off with a vegetable peeler) and bring to the boil – never stir – and let it bubble for 5 minutes.

• Add the honey, stir, and keep stirring until the honey has dissolved into the spiced caramel.

• Bring to the boil again, then take off the heat and add the vodka, stirring well, and the juice of the peeled lemon.

• Strain into a jug and pour into waiting shot glasses; it should be invigoratingly warm, rather than burningly hot, so that it can be knocked back with relish. Na zdrowie!

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

Tie the allspice berries and cloves in a small muslin bag. Follow the recipe as directed (adding the bag of spices along with cinnamon stick and lemon zest), up to, and including, adding the honey. Remove the bag, cool the mixture, cover and keep in a cool, dark place for up to 2 days until needed. To reheat, return the mixture to the saucepan, bring to the boil, then take off the heat and pour in the vodka. Continue as directed.

HOT SCHNOCOLATE

Well, how could I resist? A friend gave me this gorgeously named concoction-hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps in it, of course – a Christmas or so ago, and I have had to appropriate it. She couldn’t remember where she got the name or the idea, so whoever created it, thank you. The recipe below, however, is mine, from distant, delicious memory.

Makes enough for 2 cups

500ml full-fat milk

100g best-quality dark chocolate, chopped small

4 teaspoons sugar

1 × 25ml measure peppermint schnapps (see

Stockists

)

FOR SERVING:

125ml whipping or double cream

3 peppermint candy canes (see

Stockists

), or minty boiled sweets

• Whip the cream and put aside. Put the milk and chopped chocolate into a pan and slowly warm, until the chocolate has melted.

• Add the sugar, stir well, and bring to almost boiling point, though at no time must it boil.

• Off the heat, stir in the peppermint schnapps, and leave while you crush one of the candy canes or your boiled sweets: you just need enough beautiful pink splinters to adorn the top of the hot schnocolates; leave aside for one moment, though.

• Pour the hot schnocolate into 2 mugs and top with the whipped cream, sprinkle the crushed candy cane (or sweets) on top and, if wished, put a whole candy cane into each before drinking one and handing out the second to a lucky other.

• If you want this to be a non-alchoholic, but still pepperminty hot chocolate, replace the schnapps with a drop or two of natural peppermint flavouring, which is generally how the best-tasting peppermint essence is labelled.

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

Follow the recipe up to, and including, stirring in the peppermint schnapps. Cool, cover and keep in the fridge for up to 2 days until needed. To reheat, return the schnocolate to the saucepan, heat to a gentle simmer, then finish with whipped cream and candy canes as directed.

DR LAWSON PRESCRIBES …

CUBAN CURE BLACK BEAN SOUP

A PANACEA FOR SEASONAL AND SELF-INFLICTED ILLS

EVEN BOWING UNDER THE WEIGHT of this season of overindulgence, I will never be a nil by mouth kind of a person. I go with the Ancient Greeks on this: let food be your medicine. So here is a brace of recipes to help you through the festivities.

CUBAN CURE BLACK BEAN SOUP

This is the perfect antidote to an evening soured by too much office-party wine. A clanging head finds solace in fire and fat, and this bean stew of a soup provides both, with ease and speed.

Serves 2

150g chorizo sausage (not the salami sort)

2 spring onions

½ teaspoon ground cumin

1 × 425g can black beans, drained

1 fresh tomato

500ml chicken broth/stock (I do not intend for you to make your own stock for this; I use the stuff in concentrated form which you simply add to water)

juice of 1 lime, or to taste (feel free to squirt in lime from a plastic bottle)

2–4 × 15ml tablespoons chopped coriander

• Cut the chorizo sausage into slices about the size of one-pound coins (2cm diameter). Then cut each coin in half or quarters, as you wish.

• Cook the chorizo pieces in a dry pan for about 5 minutes, or until they give up their orange oil and crisp up a little. Remove them with a slotted spatula to a bowl or plate.

• Cut off the green parts of the spring onions and reserve for slicing later, then finely slice the white part and add this to the pan slicked with orange oil, along with the ground cumin, stirring everything together for a couple of minutes over a gentle heat.

• Tip the black beans into the pan and roughly chop the tomato, adding the pieces – peel, pips and all – along with the chicken stock. Stir the pan and let it simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes.

• Ladle the soup into 2 bowls; add the reserved chorizo pieces, then give each bowl a good squirt of lime juice and sprinkle with the finely sliced green part of the spring onions and some chopped coriander.

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

Make the soup up to 3 days ahead. Cool, cover and store in the fridge. When ready to serve, return the soup to the saucepan and bring slowly to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer very gently for 5 minutes until piping hot. Ladle the soup into bowls and finish as directed.

A PANACEA FOR SEASONAL AND SELF-INFLICTED ILLS

I love any sort of chicken soup, known in its original form as “Jewish penicillin”. This version is rather different: hot with ginger, which is warming, soothing and exotically aromatic. It’s been recently “proved” – whatever that means – that chicken soup really does inhibit infections and clear the tubes, so those Jewish matrons weren’t actually wrong… Not that they ever thought they were.

Fantastically sour, fragrant Seville oranges often come into season at Christmastime, but if they are late, or not in season where you are, a clementine or satsuma (or similar) mixed with lime approximates the taste and sour punch you want. And provides the same very necessary vitamin C.

Chicken wings, I find, make for the best chicken soup, and a gratifyingly economical one. You can eat this soup plain, or spiked with any or all of the suggestions, right.

Makes 4–6 bowls or mugs

1.5kg chicken wings (you can use a couple of chicken carcasses or a fresh, uncooked small chicken instead)

1 carrot, peeled and halved

1 onion (unpeeled), cut in half

1 cinnamon stick

3 litres water

1 × 15ml tablespoon Maldon salt or ½ tablespoon table salt

approx. 1 × 7cm knob ginger, peeled

juice of 1 Seville orange (or juice of 1 clementine or satsuma mixed with juice of ½–1 lime to taste)

FOR SERVING (OPTIONAL):

handful of beansprouts

1 small red chilli, deseeded and cut into fine wheels

2 spring onions, finely sliced

chopped coriander

• Put the chicken wings, carrot, onion and cinnamon stick into a large saucepan. (I never bother to peel onions for stock as I feel the skin adds to the deep gold of your eventual stock.)

• Pour in the water, stir in the salt, and add the piece of ginger left whole.

• Finally add the juice of the Seville orange (or the mixed clementine or satsuma and lime juices).

• Bring to the boil, then turn down and let simmer for 1½–2 hours, until the liquid has reduced by about half. Taste to see if the chickeniness has come through: when it has, the stock is reduced enough and ready.

• Strain into a wide-necked measuring jug or bowl and leave to cool (you should have about 1.5 litres) and when cold, chill in the fridge overnight to let all the fat rise to the surface, so it becomes a solid layer you can easily remove.

• When you want salvation in the form of this soup, scrape off the fat, and wipe over the surface with kitchen paper to degrease efficiently, then ladle as much as you want to cook at each time into a saucepan and bring to the boil.

• Drink from a mug if you want this clear; or spoon from a bowl, first adding some beansprouts and, after ladling in, scatter with chilli, spring onions and coriander as you wish.

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

Make the chicken stock up to 3 days ahead. Cool, cover and store in the fridge. When ready to serve, remove the fat, ladle into a saucepan and bring slowly to the boil. Finish as directed.

FREEZE AHEAD TIP:

Cool and freeze the chicken stock, in handy portions, for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the fridge, then reheat as above and finish as directed.