Christmas Recipes

Before we go a step further, I must stress that it is not in any way essential to serve two stuffings, nor is it written in stone that you must serve stuffing in a particular way. You can make one stuffing although, as I mentioned earlier, it is not advisable to stuff the body of the turkey without allowing extra cooking time which, whilst ensuring that the stuffing is properly cooked, can result in an over-roasted bird. You can stuff the neck cavity only, you can leave the bird entirely unstuffed, you can make stuffing balls – whatever you like. However, in the event that you might like to have two stuffings I give below two recipes.

Simple Stuffing for the Neck of the Turkey

Assuming your turkey is the 16lb dressed weight bird we've been discussing throughout, then you will want the following:

• 1lb good quality sausagemeat
• 3 slices crustless white bread if unsliced, four if using sliced white
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• Grated rind of one lemon
• 1 dessertspoon freshly-chopped parsley
• Few sprigs of fresh marjoram, chopped or a scant teaspoonful of dried
• 1 fat clove garlic, finely chopped
• 8oz chestnuts*
• Salt and Pepper
• Olive oil

*Chestnuts – if you are using raw chestnuts, simmer them in a little milk until they are partly-cooked, then let them cool before chopping roughly. Save the milk. If you are using the tinned or vacuum-packed chestnuts, (which are my preference), they only need to be roughly chopped.

Fry the chopped onion and garlic in some olive oil until soft and transparent. Soak the bread in some water – or use the chestnut milk if you have it. Mix all the ingredients together thoroughly.

If making the stuffing in advance, allow to cool thoroughly before putting in the refrigerator, well-covered with cling-film wrap to prevent the smell from attaching itself to anything else.

On Christmas morning (or late on Christmas Eve), turn the turkey upside down, pack the stuffing into the neck cavity of the bird, drawing the skin flap over the stuffing and securing with cocktail sticks or skewers to prevent it from falling out during cooking. Don't pack too tightly, lest the skin burst.

A Different Stuffing to Hand Round Separately

• 3 packets of good quality stuffing mix (I use Chiltern Herb's Country Stuffing Mix), made up according to directions on packet.
• 1lb good quality sausagemeat
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic finely chopped
• 2 ribs of celery, finely chopped
• 4oz semi-dried apricots, finely-chopped
• 4oz toasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped
• about ½ oz butter

As before, lightly sauté the onion and garlic, along with the finely-chopped celery and leave to cool. Then mix with all the other ingredients and put in an ovenproof dish. Dot the top with flakes of butter and bake on GM4 or equivalent for about an hour – it could take more or less depending on the depth of your dish. It is quite difficult to overcook a stuffing, so if the top is browning but you think it needs a little longer just cover it with foil. It will shrink slightly from the side of the dish and the fat from the sausagemeat will be clear when it's cooked. I leave it to cool, then take it out of the dish, wash the dish thoroughly and replace the stuffing into it before wrapping well in cling film and freezing. I take it out of the freezer on Christmas Eve and reheat for an hour on a low shelf of the oven, or you could microwave it if you prefer.

You can do pretty well what you want with a basic stuffing – I love the combination of celery, nuts and apricots, but you could use walnuts and prunes, or pistachios and semi-dried peaches or pears – the choice is up to you. I would, however, use the dried stuffing mix which has so many flavours already in it and saves a great deal of time. I use fresh white breadcrumbs for the lighter stuffing.

Cranberry and Clementine Relish

• 1lb fresh cranberries, picked over to remove any slushy ones
• 1lb granulated sugar
• Juice of 2 lemons
• 4 clementines, food-processed until well-chopped
• 4 tbs port, optional

Wash the cranberries and put into a large saucepan with the sugar, the lemon juice and the four clementines. Cook on a low light until the sugar has melted and the cranberries have popped, then bring to a fast boil for about four minutes – cranberries are very high in pectin, so it takes very little time to achieve a set. Turn the heat out and when the bubbling has subsided add the port if using and stir through. Pot into sterilised jars and seal as for jam.

Red Cabbage Casserole

• 1 red cabbage
• 2 sliced onions
• 3 cloves garlic
• 8oz streaky bacon (optional)
• 3 well-flavoured apples, Cox's Orange Pippins or Braeburns are good
• Salt and Pepper
• Tablespoon demerara sugar
• 2 fl oz elderflower cordial
• Oil or dripping for frying

Gently fry the sliced onions and garlic in a large pan or pot – a wok is useful for this dish. Quarter and core the cabbage, then slice quite finely, discarding any tough-looking ribs from the stalk end. Season well, add the sugar and the elderflower cordial, which gives a lovely, subtle flavour, then cover with a lid and cook on a low light for about 20 minutes – add a little water if it seems too dry. Meanwhile, cook the bacon until crispy and cut into lardons (if using) and peel, core and cut the apples into eighths and add to the cabbage, mix in to distribute evenly then carry on cooking for another 20 minutes. The dish is done when the cabbage is cooked to your liking – some people like it with some crunch and others prefer it softer. Let it cool completely before freezing.

Any left over casserole is wonderful served with interesting sausages and mash and makes a lovely, simple supper after all the richness of Christmas. If you like caraway seeds, a tablespoonful mixed in to the cabbage is delicious, although I don't put them when serving the casserole on Christmas Day, as I think too many flavours become confusing and palate-jading after a while, but I normally add them to any leftover casserole and serve it with juicy Cumberland bangers.

Bread Sauce

I don't serve bread sauce at Christmas, since I think there's already quite enough going on, but it is a traditional accompaniment, so:

• 2oz white breadcrumbs
• Half a pint of full cream milk
• 1 small onion stuck with a few cloves
• Half a dozen whole peppercorns, scraping of nutmeg, bay leaf
• Knob of butter
• Double cream to finish
• Salt

Put the milk in a pan and add the onion and all the flavourings. Bring to simmering point and allow to simmer very gently for about fifteen minutes, to infuse all the flavours. Strain the milk into a clean pan, add the breadcrumbs and return to the heat, simmering again for twenty minutes or so, until the sauce has thickened. Season with a little salt, add a knob of butter and a few tablespoonsful of double cream and stir well. If your sauce isn't as thick as you would like, add some more breadcrumbs to achieve the consistency you want. This can be made in advance and frozen, although it benefits from a little extra cream when re-heating.

Raspberry and Chestnut Trifle

I make no apology for including chestnuts twice in one meal – for me they are the very essence of Christmas. The quantities below should serve eight.

• 1 Swiss roll cooked but left unrolled (recipe follows)
• 1 jar raspberry jam
• 4 fluid ounces of Marsala
• 1lb raspberries (probably frozen at this time of year but quite acceptable)
• One and a half pints of white custard
• 2 tins sweetened chestnut puree
• Glace chestnuts and cocoa powder to finish
• 1 pint double cream, vanilla extract, 2tbs caster sugar

Cut the flat Swiss roll in half and sandwich together with a generous amount of jam, then cut into small slices and pile into a dish. Sprinkle with Marsala (or sherry, or raspberry syrup if you don't want to use alcohol). Scatter with the raspberries. Make a white custard using one a half pints of milk, two, well-heaped tablespoons of cornflour slaked in a little of the milk and 3 level tablespoons caster sugar. Heat the milk almost to boiling point, pour onto the cornflour/milk/sugar mixture and return to the saucepan, stirring until thickened. Turn the heat to very low and simmer for a few minutes to let the starch cook out. When thickened, add the tins of chestnut puree and mix through. (This is why a white custard – do it with a yellow custard and it looks very unappetising.) Pour the custard over the sponge and fruit mixture and allow to cool completely before putting in the refrigerator, well covered in cling film. Before serving, beat the cream with the vanilla extract and sugar until thick but not solid and spread carefully over the trifle. Scatter with coarsely chopped crystallised chestnuts and dust with cocoa powder.

Glace chestnuts are phenomenally expensive – but you can now buy Italian candied chestnuts in syrup for about £4.50 a jar in good supermarkets and delicatessens and they are ideal for this trifle, as long as you drain them well first. If you can't find the tins of sweetened chestnut puree you can use the unsweetened variety that comes in larger tins, but you may need to mix it with a little of the custard first, or it won't incorporate as smoothly. You may also want to make the custard a little sweeter – remembering that anything served cold won't be as sweet as if served hot.

Swiss Roll

This is the quickest and easiest cake mixture I know.

Line a Swiss roll tin with a sheet of greaseproof paper.

Separate four large eggs. Whisk the whites with 3oz caster sugar until you have a stiff meringue. In another bowl beat the yolks with a further 3oz caster sugar until pale and tripled in volume. Mix the yolk mixture into the white mixture. Now add 4oz sifted self-raising flour and fold in gently. That's it.

Pour the mixture in the swiss roll tin and bake on GM4 or equivalent for about 15 minutes, until the top is golden brown and springs back when you gently prod it with a finger. Carefully ease away from the sides of the tin with a knife, if necessary and tip the cake onto a sheet of greaseproof paper onto which you have sprinkled a little caster sugar, then leave to cool. (If you were going to roll it up as for a traditional Swiss Roll it would be important to trim the edges of the cake on all four sides immediately and then roll up and unroll before allowing to cool, so it didn't break when rolling up again after filling it., but for the trifle we only want a jam sandwich so needn't bother with this.)

Cumberland Rum Butter

• 8oz unsalted butter
• 4oz icing sugar
• 6oz Barbados sugar
• 1 level teaspoon mixed spice
• Good scraping of fresh nutmeg
• Dark rum to taste

Soften the butter and mix the sugars until, beating until light and fluffy. Add the spice and beat again, then start adding rum in small quantities until it tastes the way you want it. As a rule, to the above quantity of butter and sugar I would use about 2 fluid ounces of dark rum. If you use too much you run the risk of the rum splitting, or separating out of the butter and sugar mixture. If that happens, simply sieve in a little more icing sugar to take up the slack.

Brandy Butter

Very similar, except...

• 8oz unsalted butter
• 4oz icing sugar
• 4oz caster sugar
• Grated zest of one lemon
• Brandy to taste

The method is as before.

One of the best reasons I know to make too much rum or brandy butter is that it is just wonderful after Christmas, when melted gently in a frying-pan and used for re-heating Christmas pudding or – particularly in the case of the rum butter – for frying bananas. Heat pudding or bananas until the butter begins to turn to toffee and serve with something cold – clotted cream, Greek yoghurt, vanilla ice-cream – just remember how hot the sauce will be!

Christmas Cake

All the recipes I have seen for Christmas Cakes give a long string of ingredients, precisely listed. In fact, a Christmas cake is little more than a Victoria Sponge Cake made with plain flour instead of self-raising and with brown sugar instead of white – to which you add a lot of dried fruit!

For a ten inch cake, then:-

• 8oz very soft butter
• 8oz moscovado sugar
• 8oz plain flour, sifted with 1tsp cinnamon and 1tsp mixed spice
• 4 eggs

Beat the butter and sugar together until light. Add the eggs, one at a time and continue to beat until all are incorporated. Fold in the sifted plain flour and spice. That's your basic mixture.

The next step is to add the dried fruit. You will want three pounds and you can use mixed dried fruit mixture, or a pound each of raisins, currants and sultanas, or any mix of these to make up the weight. I prefer to use fewer currants, so my mixture of fruit is 8oz currants and 11/4lbs each of raisins and sultanas.

Then you add whatever else you want in the way of extras – if you want glace cherries or nuts, add up to 4oz of each. If you want chopped peel, add up to 4oz of that. If you want to add almond extract to enhance the nut flavour, then by all means do. If you want to add up to 2oz whisky brandy or rum, then you can. It's up to you. If you want a really dark cake, add a couple of tablespoonsful of black treacle or molasses to the mixture.

Once you have incorporated everything you have decided to use into your mixture, turn it into a well-lined, loose-bottomed cake tin around which you have also tied a layer of brown paper for extra protection and cook it slowly on GM2 or equivalent, one rung down from the centre of the oven, until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. This is a job to do when you are going to be around for an afternoon or evening, since he cake will take between three and four hours to bake. But then you wouldn't want to miss that heavenly smell anyway!

I don't add alcohol to my cake mix, I must confess. I don't think it does anything for the flavour and I much prefer to 'feed' a cake with brandy, whisky or rum once it has been cooked. When the cake is completely cold I turn it upside down, stab it all over with a skewer and drizzle an ounce or so of alcohol over it and let it sink it. Then I wrap it first in greaseproof paper and then in foil and leave for a couple of weeks before repeating the process. I like it to get at least two good soakings before its eaten. Another trick is to put it way with the cake board it will eventually rest on, on top of it, then weight the board with a few tins from the store cupboard. It helps to 'press' the cake and makes it much easier to cut.

If you don't want such a rich cake, may I suggest a Tropical Fruit Cake? Use golden caster sugar instead of dark brown sugar and replace l lb of vine fruit with l lb of the semi-dried tropical fruit that is available in metal pouches from most supermarkets these days. Then add your nuts and cherries if you want them. I always drizzle rum over this cake, to enhance the tropical feel.

Finally, a word about cake tins...I suggested ingredients for a 10" tin. The tin doesn't have to be exactly ten inches and it can be round or square. If you put the above amount of mixture into, say, a 12" square tin, you will simply get a slightly shallower cake that needs a larger board to sit on...I have known people go out and buy a cake tin specially, because they didn't have one that was exactly 10" and it isn't necessary!

Christmas Pudding

This is another of those recipes that respond to personal taste – start off with a basic mixture and then add what you like in the way of cherries, nuts, etc. It's also astonishingly easy to make – put all the wet ingredients into a large bowl, add all the dry ingredients and mix well, preferably with your hand, although for the purposes of offering the entire household a 'wishing stir' I would perhaps offer a wooden spoon for the sake of both tradition and hygiene!

The ingredients below will give enough for 3x1pt puddings, each of which will serve six people. I tend to make one large, one small and one mini pudding each year – we eat the large one at Christmas, the smaller one at Easter and the baby one is eaten straight away just to check it tastes nice! As a precaution, if you are going to insert money or charms into the pudding, I would advise that you a) wrap them in foil and b) insert them carefully after the pudding has been re-heated and before you serve it.

• 12oz sultanas
• 12oz raisins
• 8oz currants
• 8oz chopped mixed peels
• 8oz fresh white breadcrumbs
• 8oz plain flour
• 10oz suet (I use the vegetarian variety)
• 1lb moscovado sugar
• 1 heaped teaspoon mixed spice
• 1 heaped teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 level teaspoon ground ginger
• Scraping of fresh nutmeg

To the above, if you want to, add 4oz chopped glace cherries and 4oz slivered almonds.

In a large mixing bowl put 6 large eggs, half a pint of full cream milk, half a pint of alcohol (sherry, brandy, whisky or rum) and 2 teaspoonsful of almond extract. If you want a very dark pudding add 4 tablespoons of black treacle or molasses.

Mix the liquid ingredients well together and then add the dry ingredients, mixing really well until everything is incorporated. Your end result should be a 'dropping' consistency. If it's very wet, add some more fresh breadcrumbs to soak up the liquid. If it's very dry, add more liquid – either milk or alcohol, it's up to you.

Grease each pudding basin, put a disc of greaseproof paper in the bottom of each one then fill them with mixture, leaving about 1" headspace for rising. Take a sheet of greaseproof paper and fold in half and make a pleat in the middle of it, then cover the puddings with a pleated double sheet of greaseproof and tie down well. Then cover with a double sheet of silver foil and repeat the process. It makes life easier and safer when removing oiling hot puddings if you tie strings around the bowls, tied at the top into a loop, for easy removal of basins from saucepans.

The puddings will need to be boiled for at least four hours so check the water levels from time to time and replace with boiling kettle water when required. After four hours remove the puddings, take off the foil and greaseproof coverings and leave to get completely cold. Then put fresh greaseproof and foil coverings on before storing away to be brought out on Christmas Day and re-heated for a minimum of three hours in the same way as they were cooked.