Friday, November 04, 2005
Christmas is coming...
Making your Christmas pudding a couple of months before the feast is a great tradition. It serves as a nice harbinger for Christmas itself (way better than the shops filling with Christmas geegaws in September), it fills your kitchen with fine smells and gives you a great excuse to eat and drink nice things of which you only need some for the recipe, like Brakspear Triple (bottle conditioned, 7.2% and really very fine), dark rum and this year's favourite, Lexia Raisins from Waitrose (and Australia before that, it turns out), kind of expensive but only as raisins go, ripe and luscious. Yum, eh ?
Personally I use a Good Housekeeping recipe for this. May not seem very funky, but this is hardly Pacific Rim Fusion Cooking and for this kind of thing, brother, Good Housekeeping rocks.
Good Housekeeping is a great magazine for food, by the way (and for loads of other housey stuff like gadgets and equipment tests and stuff; if you want to know what breadmaker or food processor to buy, or any other kit, you need to be here). People assume it's the house journal of the WI and strictly for old ladies but it ain't - well maybe it is, but it's just really solid reliable information of the kind which in an ideal world your Mum would be supplying and consequently tops for anything traditional. It is, in fact, the Mum you never had, and how bad can that be ? Never actually bought a copy of course (give me a break!) but in dentist's waiting rooms it's my reading matter of choice and knocks both People's Friend and Reader's Digest into a cocked hat.
Anyway, what's wrong with old ladies?
Tip: every month, GH publishes a recipe of the month online. It's nearly always a stonker and this pudding recipe is a fine example. I used it last year and was chaired shoulder-high from the dining room.
I just went to see what's up there currently, by the way. It's still last month's Braised Beef recipe which was a belter (if a little sweet IMO - easy on the redcurrant jelly if you're making it yourself). There's a promise of the legendary Christmas cake and pudding recipes, but things seem to be a bit sloppy on the GH ship at the moment which is both surprising and disappointing. Get it together, ladies!
While I was there, though, I rootled around a bit and found a nice recipe for moules mariniere which will work a treat, I guarantee you (it's pretty classic, but that's what GH is for)...
I digress (though I think a fistful of moules done like this would make a great starter for Christmas dinner...)
Recipe follows when GH have their act together. I'm not typing it all out again, for God's sake. Watch this space..
Making your Christmas pudding a couple of months before the feast is a great tradition. It serves as a nice harbinger for Christmas itself (way better than the shops filling with Christmas geegaws in September), it fills your kitchen with fine smells and gives you a great excuse to eat and drink nice things of which you only need some for the recipe, like Brakspear Triple (bottle conditioned, 7.2% and really very fine), dark rum and this year's favourite, Lexia Raisins from Waitrose (and Australia before that, it turns out), kind of expensive but only as raisins go, ripe and luscious. Yum, eh ?
Personally I use a Good Housekeeping recipe for this. May not seem very funky, but this is hardly Pacific Rim Fusion Cooking and for this kind of thing, brother, Good Housekeeping rocks.
Good Housekeeping is a great magazine for food, by the way (and for loads of other housey stuff like gadgets and equipment tests and stuff; if you want to know what breadmaker or food processor to buy, or any other kit, you need to be here). People assume it's the house journal of the WI and strictly for old ladies but it ain't - well maybe it is, but it's just really solid reliable information of the kind which in an ideal world your Mum would be supplying and consequently tops for anything traditional. It is, in fact, the Mum you never had, and how bad can that be ? Never actually bought a copy of course (give me a break!) but in dentist's waiting rooms it's my reading matter of choice and knocks both People's Friend and Reader's Digest into a cocked hat.
Anyway, what's wrong with old ladies?
Tip: every month, GH publishes a recipe of the month online. It's nearly always a stonker and this pudding recipe is a fine example. I used it last year and was chaired shoulder-high from the dining room.
I just went to see what's up there currently, by the way. It's still last month's Braised Beef recipe which was a belter (if a little sweet IMO - easy on the redcurrant jelly if you're making it yourself). There's a promise of the legendary Christmas cake and pudding recipes, but things seem to be a bit sloppy on the GH ship at the moment which is both surprising and disappointing. Get it together, ladies!
While I was there, though, I rootled around a bit and found a nice recipe for moules mariniere which will work a treat, I guarantee you (it's pretty classic, but that's what GH is for)...
First, rinse the mussels under cold running water to remove grit or sand, then scrub off any barnacles with a small, stiff brush. Pull off the hairy ‘beards’.I would disagree with this in couple of particulars: one, who can be bothered scraping barnacles off ? Damned if I can tell the difference. And two, five minutes seems a long time to cook mussels. You can eat the blighters raw and survive. You're only heating them up in the pan to open them, not cook them - two minutes in a nice hot pan should do it.. also, Noilly Prat makes a nice alternative to wine and means you don't have to either waste a quarter of a good bottle or drink three quarters of a cheap one... that's what I call a storecupboard standby, Delia...
This is the important bit: tap any open mussels on a board or with the back of a knife. If they don’t close it means they’re dead, so put them straight in the bin.
Once the mussels have been cooked, discard any that are closed.
- Heat 25g (1oz) butter in a large pan.
- Add 2 finely chopped shallots and 2 crushed garlic cloves and cook for 5min until softened.
- Add 150ml (¼ pint) dry white wine and bring to the boil.
- Tip 1kg (2¼lb) mussels into the pan, cover with a tight-fitting lid and cook over a medium heat for around 5min until all the shells are opened, shaking the pan occasionally.
- Strain the cooking liquid through a fine sieve into a small pan.
- Add 2tbsp chopped flat-leafed parsley and 50ml (2fl oz) double cream, and season.
- Bring to the boil briefly, then transfer the mussels to serving bowls and pour over the sauce. Serve immediately.
I digress (though I think a fistful of moules done like this would make a great starter for Christmas dinner...)
Recipe follows when GH have their act together. I'm not typing it all out again, for God's sake. Watch this space..
