Christmas Eve

The tree has been decorated (complete with wooden lobster), presents wrapped, and enough food bought to survive a six month siege. Christmas can begin. The kitchen still smells faintly of mulled wine, which was scented with ginger cordial, and the sitting room smells of pine needles and spicy from the Christmas tree decorations studded with cloves.

My sister is making a chocolate log, and because we don't have an electric whisk everyone has had to have a go with the hand whisk, trying to get the mixture to leave its elusive 'ribbon' that shows that it is thick enough. Once the sponge has been cooked it will be rolled up with whipped cream and jam and then smothered in chocolate fudge icing.

As well as a the chocolate log there's a pavlova baking in the Aga. This isn't excessive, you understand, the pavlova is for the non-Christmas pudding eaters and the chocolate log is for afternoon tea.

My family nearly always has fish pie on Christmas Eve, before the excesses of the next day. This one was made from cod and salmon poached in milk with a few bay leaves and pieces of leek and carrot, then the milk used in a white sauce, made more exciting with Worcestershire sauce, a tiny bit of mustard and seasoning. Instead of mashed potatoes it just had breadcrumbs on top, and we ate it with new potatoes and peas. A calming meal before the festive madness begins tomorrow.

Christmas feasting, part one

As the old saying goes (I think) 'If one Christmas meal is good, then more than one is even better'. Ever since university I've done a Christmas dinner with friends as well as the real event on 25th December. I can't remember if I did the year I lived in France when a) it is impossible to get hold of a turkey, and b) no-one I knew owned an oven, but I hope I did.

This year was destined to be a good one: not only did I have an oven but also three lovely housemates who are I'm very pleased are as greedy as me. I wanted to avoid turkey because I knew I'd be eating it on actual Christmas Day, and much as I love it I think part of its appeal lies in only having it once a year. Gammon seemed like a good option, it feels Christmassy and smothered in mustard and honey looks suitably Special Occasion. But gammons there were none (at least in Clapham Asda) so we had a leg of pork instead, and I'm so glad we did.

Normally I think pork can be a bit dull. Any bits of the a pig that haven't been cured or aren't covered in fat have a tendency to be dry and dessicated. Julian Barnes in A Pedant in the Kitchen once described it as 'tasting like the compressed cardboard from which they make hospital pee-bottles', and cooked badly enough I think this is pretty accurate.

We decided to try Nigel Slater's recipe for roast leg of pork with onion and Marsala gravy which was a triumph and in the process I think I have discovered the holy grail that is the Secret of Crackling. Two things that I think resulted in the spectacular, pale gold puffs of fat that crowned the pork (I forgot to take any photos so you'll have to take my word about its beauty) were rubbing the skin with salt that night before, and once it was cooked leaving it to rest then just before serving it putting it under a searing hot grill for a couple of minutes.

*The mince pies and mince pasties were made by my housemates Anna and Agnes, and are one of the reasons I'm very glad I live with them.

A leg of pork, around 1.5kg

Salt - lots

For the gravy

3 onions

Oil or dripping if you have it

2 tbs plain flour

2 small wine glasses of Marsala

1 tbs grain mustard

The day before you plan to eat score the skin of the pork at 1cm intervals so that the cuts go down into the fat but not the meat. Rub generously with salt and leave, uncovered, in the fridge overnight.

If you remember in time it is a good idea to let the meat come back to room temperature before you put in in the oven. I rinsed off the salt I'd applied the previous day (I'm not sure why, but I was concerned about it being too salty) and dry it well. A tea towel works well because you need to get all the moisture off it if you are to have any hope of getting crackling. Re-rub with salt, plonk on a rack in a roasting tray and put it in the oven preheated to 220 degrees. After 30 minutes lower the heat to 190 and cook for 25 minutes per 500g - for our leg this came to about two hours in total.

Meanwhile, slice the onions thinly and put in a pan with the oil/fat on a low heat. Leave them to cook very slowly for at least half an hour, stirring every few minutes and adding a drop of water it it looks like they might stick. I didn't do this and massacred the pan, but managed to rescue most of the onions.

Once the onions have become a single pale brown mass stir in the flour and cook for a minute or two. Throw in the Marsala and let it splutter for a moment then add the water and the mustard. Let it all bubble gently for at least ten minutes until it has thickened a bit and no longer tastes floury.

I don't normally make a separate gravy to go with a roast and just deglaze the pan with some wine or stock, maybe using a bit of flour, because that way the gravy 'matches' the taste of the meat. But this rarely produces quite enough, and on this occasion it was lovely to have far too much gravy, along with too much meat, potatoes, roast vegetables and wine....

But it seemed a shame to waste the gorgeous sticky juices and residue at the bottom of the tray the pork was cooked in, so I poured in a glass of water and let simmer over the hob, scrapping up the stuck-on bits from the bottom until it became a syrupy, amber liquid, and added this to the onion-Marsala concoction.

Once the pork has cooked (ie. the juices run clear or brownish rather than pink) cover it with two layers of foil, shiny side down, and leave to rest for at least 30 minutes. Resting is so important when roasting meat; it allows the fibres that tensed up in the heat of the oven to relax and the juices to flow back into them thus avoiding dry, cardboard pee-bottleness.

Jus before you you're going to eat put it under a grill set as hot as it will go for just a few minutes to puff up the crackling. As I type this I realise that some people might be concerned about letting meat cool slightly (although cocooned in foil it shouldn't lose much heat) and them putting it back in the oven might not constitute best food safety practice. But we were fine after eating it, and the meat was still hot all the way through when I carved it.

We ate the pork and onion gravy (which was fantastic - Marsala and pork are very good partners, and pork is always good with alium) with roast potatoes, parsnips and carrots, with lots of wine and then chocolate log. Perfection. Christmas Day has a lot to live up to.

Fritatta with potato and cooked greens

Lunch in ten minutes. One potato, one hanful of leftover cooked greens, three eggs. Easy.

Chop a potato into small dice and fry in olive oil until golden over a low heat

Stir in a small hanful of cooked cabbage or sprout tops, or use raw spinach or rocket, and allow to heat through and season well

Add three eggs, lightly beaten. Although it seems counterintuitive if you beat the eggs too much the frittata will be tough. Pour over the eggs and mix quickly with the potato and sprout topsCook on the hob for a minute or two then cook th top by putting in under the grill for a minute more. This is just a good cold, and wonderful packed lunch food.

Butternut squash soup

I'm sorry I have neglected you of late, little blog. I have been horribly busy so either haven't had time to write posts, or haven't eaten anything worth writing about. Poached eggs on toast have become a staple of mine, along with the exciting variation of poached eggs on marmite toast, but I imagine you all know how to poach an eggs.

If you don't: slide egg into barely simmering water, cover and leave on the lowest possible heat for five minutes. You should also read what Delia has to say on them in How to Cook, in fact everything she has to say on eggs. There are some especially interesting parts on how an eggs changes as it becomes older, and what it can best be used for when it is really fresh, middling, and a few weeks old.

Beyond poached eggs I have totally fallen in love with this butternut squash soup. It's so intensely savoury it almost tastes meaty, but it doesn't even use chicken stock. I've recently discovered Kabocha squash and I imagine it would work just as well here.

1 butternut squash, peeled and diced
1 onion, diced
Butter
Two cloves of garlic
A finger length piece of rosemary
1 scant tsp smoked paprika

Fry the onion gently in butter until it begins to turn translucent. While this is cooking chop the garlic and rosemary as finely as you can - you could use a garlic crusher but I don't think they're worth the hassle of washing up. Add this to the onion and cook until it smells fragrant, then stir in the paprika, cook for one minute then add the squash.

Cover with water and simmer until the squash collapses when you prod it with a wooden spoon, probably about fifteen minutes. Blizt with a stick blender (or any other sort of blender, or put it through a mouli if you prefer to do things traditionally). Eat, for lunch, for a late night snack, or even for breakfast.

Bubble and squeak

Bubble and squeak poses something of a dilemma to me. It is wonderful, and every time I eat it I vow to do so more often, but it also should be made from leftovers and I rarely have leftover cooked potatoes and cabbage.

True, it is possible to cook it from scratch but that just seems wrong, and also not in the spirit of what is a very good breakfast food. I don’t mind a bit of light cooking in the morning, I sometimes enjoy it, but peeling potatoes and cooking cabbage would be a step too far.

But this morning I found both the require ingredients, and it was clear what breakfast would be, although this is the sort of thing that works well at any time of day, particularly as a late night snack.

Heat a good layer of fat in a frying pan. I never tried but I think that in the same way that goose fat makes roast potatoes almost improbably crispy, it would do the same thing to the potatoes in bubble and squeak (does anyone know which is which?). The next best options are bacon fat (from frying a few rashers in the pan) or butte rand a drop of oil.

Squash the potatoes so that some of them are almost mashed and others are still in small pieces. Mix with roughly chopped cooked cabbage, a small handful of each per person. If the mixture is soft and sticky enough you can form it into a cake, if not, no matter (mine didn’t).

Place it in the sizzling fat, lowered to a medium heat and leave for at least there minutes or so to form a crust on the underside. If you’ve made one large patty then you can try and flip it over – good luck! If not just turn all the little bits over and let them brown on the other side.

Bubble and squeak was traditionally eaten with leftover roast meat, but is also very good with sausages, bacon or fried eggs. I like to fry eggs in a lot of oil – it acts a conductor of heat and it comes up towards the sides of the eggs then it makes the edges go brown and lacy. To cook the top of egg I spoon a bit of the fat over and then put a small saucepan lid over the whole egg for one minute. The heat then gathers underneath it and acts a bit like an oven to cook the top of the white.

Cut into the yolk and let it run through the crunchy and soft potatoes and cabbage. A bit of ketchup or chilli sauce can work well here and you must eat it with a cup of tea. If you’re really hungry or carb-loading, it’s rather good on toast.

Sweet-spiced breast of lamb with braised fennel

Belly of pork has become very popular lately and for good reason; the combination of crispy skin and melting strands of fatty meat is a winner. But while its cousin, breast of lamb, has many of the same qualities - namely good flavour, plenty of lovely fat and being even cheaper than pork belly, it doesn't seem to have taken off in the same way.

Although there is a lot of flavour in it, breast of lamb is a shy cut of meat; it takes some coaxing to bring it out, and to keep it from being tough. Elizabeth David recommends braising it, then cutting in into fingers, which are then dipped in egg and breadcrumbs, grilled and served with tartare sauce. I decided to go for a cross between roasting and braising by first searing the meat then cooking it in a hot oven with a bit of liquid.

For the lamb (enough for four)
Breast of lamb
1 tsp each fennel seeds, black pepper, ground cinnamon, crushed chillies
Half a star anise
4 cloves of garlic plus another whole bulb
2 small leeks
1 onion
A glass of red wine

For the fennel (enough for one)
1 bulb of fennel
A thick slice of butter, about 20g

Grind the pepper, fennel and star anise to a rough powder in a pestle and mortar, then mix in the cinnamon and flaked chillies. I rubbed this into the flesh side of the meat, then crushed the garlic with a teaspoon pf oil to make a paste and smeared this over the top. In retrospect it would have been much simpler to mix everything together and then apply it to the meat - crushed garlic doesn't stick very well to meat when with a layer of spices on it.

Roll up the meat and secure with string, or cocktail sticks would work. Although it's normally recommended to roll it lengthways, starting at the fleshier end so that the thickest layer of fat is on the outside, the fat on mine was fairly evenly distributed so I rolled it across the width to make a thinner sausage shape that would cook quicker.

Sear the meat on all sides in a hot roasting pan until it's a deep gold colour, then add the leeks and onion, cut into big pieces, and garlic bulb, halved. I wasn't sure if red wine would go with the fennel, star and anise and cinnamon but had a sweet, berryish Australian Shiraz to hand, so I added a glass of that then poured in water to come about an inch up the side of the pan. Cover with foil and put into the over, set to 200°C for about an hour.

About 30 minutes in check to make sure it isn't drying out too much. I found that the liquid had reduced by about two thirds so I added about another 250ml of water.

For the braised fennel, trim off the green stalks, reserving any green fonds to use as a herb once it's cooked, and cut the bulb into quarters. Melt a thick slice of butter in a dish with a lid that can go in the oven.

Toss the fennel in the butter until it's glossy and there's butter caught in between its layers. Add water to come just under halfway up the fennel - you can use a light chicken stock if you want something richer, but with the lamb I didn't think there was any need for that.

If I was eating this, as the centre of attention, with bread and salad then I might be more tempted to use stock. Put it in the oven with the lamb, feeling virtuous that you're saving energy this way, and cook for about half an hour until tender.

Once you can stick a knife into it with very little resistance it's cooked, so remove it from the oven and let it rest while you put the roasting pan on the hob. Fish out the pieces of leek and onion and if they still look edible, eat them (mine were delicious).

Taste the juices and if they are too strong then add a bit of water. Squish the garlic cloves to release the creamy flesh and blend it into the sauce. Sieve it - although this seems fussy, it's necessary to get rid of all the garlic and onions skins.

Despite the fairly assertive flavours involved - fennel, chilli, cinnamon - this melded into something mellower than I had expected, and the fat emulsified the water, wine and the juices that leaked out of the lamb into a silky sauce. You need something to soak this up, I went for potatoes but I think rice could be good as well.

The next day I cut the leftovers into thin rounds and cooked them under the grill until they were crisp - they were like little lamb pinwheels and I was tempted to eat them as they were as a snack, but in an effort to make them into a proper meal had them on top of couscous with toasted almonds and some chilli sauce.

Smoked haddock chowder

It's officially autumn. The air smells of smoke, it's dark when I get up to go to work, and I know the clocks go back sometime soon and really should find out exactly when. The onset of cold weather makes me feel I should be about to go into hibernation (eat yourself silly then sleep it off for six months? Yes please!), but failing that comfort food seems to be the next best option to ward off the gloom of shortening days.

Although there are exceptions I think comfort food falls into three categories: food that you ate as a child - for me this is macaroni cheese and rice pudding; most warm food you eat from a bowl with a spoon, such as soup or stew, and food that is so sweet or fatty you it is clearly intended to provide an emotional rather that nutritional boost - chocolate brownies and ice cream, cheesy mashed potatoes.

Chowder falls into the second category, although I did eat eat is as a child it was never with much enthusiasm. When I was living in Brussels I found most supermarkets sold very thin slices of smoked haddock which prompted me to try and make variation on the chowder my Mum used make, which was mostly white fish, leek, potato and corn. Perhaps it was the tinned sweetcorn, which I never really liked, that used to put me off.

I developed my own version using lardons, leek and potato fried until the potato began to soften then added the haddock, covered with milk and simmered very gently until it turned opaque. Lots of parsley was essential. I made this when my parents came to visit me one weekend and I wanted to show off how domesticated I was capable of being. Chowder seems like something a brisk, sensible, sober housewife would make. I am not that, but at least I can make chowder.

Butter, plenty
One large leek
One large floury potato
One carrot
One skinned smoked haddock fillet, around 200g
Enough milk to cover, about 300ml
A bay leaf or two
Small bunch of parsley

Cut the leek into finger-wide slices, and rinse if they're gritty. Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed pan -I used my old faithful Le Creuset I found at a second hand shop - stir in the leeks and leave on a very low heat while you peel the potato and carrot and cut into small cubes. Add these to the leeks and cook, covered for about ten minutes until the potato has started to soften around the edges, although it will still be hard in the middle. Add more butter and/or a splash of water if it begins to stick.

Add the haddock, cut into bite sized pieces, and the bay leaves to the vegetables, then pour over over enough milk to just cover. Simmer over a low heat until the fish begins to flake. Sprinkle with roughly chopped parsley, and eat with buttered bread.