Nigella Christmas: Food, Family, Friends, Festivities (14 page)

The remainder of the chestnut purée can either be brought out to make these for another day, or can be profitably put to use to make the Hot Chocolate-Chestnut Sauce, unspeakably good swathed over ice cream.

175g best-quality dark chocolate

125ml double cream, plus more to serve if wished

125ml full-fat milk

1 egg

1 × 250g can sweetened chestnut purée

2 × 15ml tablespoons dark rum

• Crush the chocolate to smithereens in the food processor.

• In a saucepan, heat the cream and milk until just about boiling and, with the motor off, pour into the processor through the funnel over the chocolate.

• Let it stand for 30 seconds. Process for 30 seconds, then crack the egg down the funnel and process for 45 seconds more.

• Add the chestnut purée and rum through the funnel, and process until everything is incorporated.

• Remove the blade and, using a rubber spatula and a spoon, fill 6 × 125ml glasses or pots.

• If wished, put a jug of unwhipped double cream on the table and let people pour it over their pots as they eat.

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

Make the pots up to 2 days before, cover with clingfilm and store in the fridge.

FREEZE AHEAD TIP:

Spoon the mixture into freezable, ceramic serving dishes, cover and freeze for up to 1 week. Thaw overnight in the fridge.

MY CHRISTMAS EVE SUPPER FOR 10–12

GINGER-GLAZED HAM

MACARONI CHEESE

SPRUCED-UP VANILLA CAKE

RHUBARB AND STRAWBERRY COMPOTE

The tradition in Continental Europe is to have fish on Christmas Eve. That’s never felt right for me. I rather plan ahead and make the supper before Christmas Day something I can call into service afterwards. My mother routinely baked a ham to go with the turkey on Christmas Day but, given all the vegetables and bits and pieces that need to be seen to, I think that is making life hard on yourself. This, then, is my way of ensuring there is cold ham to eat alongside cold turkey for the rest of the week.

It also provides the perfect cross-generational supper. When my children were younger, I didn’t do dinner on Christmas Eve, preferring instead to have a big late lunch – sausages and mash and a rhubarb crumble – and to pack the children off early to bed where, excitedly, they didn’t sleep. Now, I invite friends and their families over for an early supper, knowing that ham and macaroni cheese will keep everyone happy.

The Spruced-Up Vanilla Cake, with its snowy fir-tree peaks, is a must for my Christmas Eve table, though you’ll find the recipe for this impressively festive yet simply made cake in the baking chapter where it, strictly speaking, belongs. But, with the Rhubarb and Strawberry Compote that follows here, it makes the perfect pudding to give everyone a feeling that Christmas has come. Furthermore, should you not want to bother with the Christmas Morning Muffins the next day, know that this cake, toasted, makes for the most fabulous breakfast, with or without the rhubarb and strawberry compote drizzled over. With a scoop of vanilla ice cream, the toasted cake doubles as an exquisite pudding; think unfried French toast, a creation of extreme vanilla-and-eggy scrumptiousness.

GINGER-GLAZED HAM

I make no excuses for the fact that this is far too big a joint for the planned supper. Even were I to invite a crowd, I know I could count on leftovers. But that, after all, is the point. Anyway, you can adapt it freely, depending on the number of people you want to feed at the first sitting (I did this for 11 adults and 6 children last year) and how many days you want to eke it out for afterwards. But what is important, given that this is probably the most labour-intensive time of year in the kitchen, is that this dispenses with any fiddly steps. The gammon is simply simmered in ginger ale and, although you need to strip off the rind to glaze it, the glaze is straightforward. My patience is pretty well exhausted by Christmas Eve and knowing that I’ve still got the stockings to fill and the next day to get through, I don’t go in for clove-by-clove studding on the ham: instead I let the golden cubes within the ginger preserve (or jam) give a criss-cross effect as they rise to the surface. It works glowingly well.

It won’t give that same crowning effect, but if you cannot get hold of ginger preserve, you could use ordinary orange marmalade and add a teaspoon of ground dried ginger or, indeed, grated fresh, as you heat it up.

1 × 5.5kg joint (mild cure boneless) gammon

3 × 2-litre bottles dry ginger ale

350g chunky ginger preserve (or orange marmalade)

2 × 15ml tablespoons hot English mustard

100g soft dark brown sugar

½ teaspoon ground cloves

• Place the joint in a large pan over the hob and pour the dry ginger ale over it, topping up with water so the ham is just about covered with liquid.

• Bring to the boil, then lower the heat to keep the joint bubbling gently for 3½ hours.

• Towards the end of cooking, preheat the oven to 220°C/gas mark 7 and start on the glaze.

• Put the chunky ginger preserve (or marmalade) into a small bowl, and spoon in the hot English mustard. Add the soft, dark brown sugar, sprinkle in the ground cloves and stir to mix.

• After the ham has had its 3½ hours (and check that it’s ready by inserting a meat thermometer – it should read 71°C), gently lift it out of the pan – no mean feat – and place in a foil-lined roasting tin. Carefully cut away the skin, leaving a thin layer of fat. There is no need to score the surface, simply slap on the glaze and place in the hot oven for 20 minutes.

• Transfer to a carving board where it can be admired before being carved as thinly as possible; I try to get someone else to do this.

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

About 6 hours before serving, cook the ham for 3 hours only, take the pan off the heat, remove the rind and return the ham to the hot liquid. Set aside in a cool place for about 3 hours. One hour before serving, preheat the oven to 220°C/gas mark 7. Put the ham in a shallow, foil-lined roasting tin, cover with a tent of foil and place in the oven for 20 minutes. Then glaze and return to the oven for 20–30 minutes or until golden and burnished.

FREEZE AHEAD TIP:

Any leftover ham can be thinly sliced, wrapped in a double layer of foil, or put into a sealable bag, and kept in the freezer for up to 1 month.

MACARONI CHEESE DE LUXE

I’ll come clean, I am making a vatful here, but I can’t stop myself. At any time of the year, I take the view that welcome is conveyed by plenty and am, frankly, never knowingly undercatered. However, at Christmas, there isn’t a pan that isn’t overflowing, a dish that isn’t full to the brim, a table that isn’t groaning. I’m not apologizing, and nor do I suggest you minimize quantities (though you could probably halve the amounts here if you have a different temperament). I admit I had more than enough for the children and 11 adults, packing up half the leftovers for my sister to take home, and half to heat up for tea when I couldn’t be bothered to cook later on in the week.

If the notion of evaporated milk appals you, use single cream in its stead (or replace both the evaporated and semi-skimmed milk with 2 litres of full-fat milk), but it’s the former that gives that very necessary almost-packaged taste which makes the macaroni cheese so sweetly comforting and gorgeous against the pink saltiness of the ham.

You could add a simply dressed crisp green salad to the supper table, but nothing more is worth considering.

175g soft butter, plus more for greasing

150g plain flour

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

3 × 170g cans evaporated milk, 500ml total

2 × 500g packets macaroni

275g Emmental, chopped or grated

300g red Leicester or Cheddar, chopped or grated

75g Parmesan, chopped or grated

salt

• Preheat the oven to 220°C/gas mark 7, lightly grease a roasting dish or tin (approx. 36cm × 26cm × 6cm deep) with butter, and start heating a large panful of water on the hob to cook the pasta.

• Put another pan (with lid), though not quite as big, to heat on the hob for the cheese sauce; melt the butter over a medium to low heat, add the flour, stirring until you have formed a paste – roux – in the pan. Cook, still stirring, for 5 minutes over a low heat.

• Add the Dijon mustard to the pan, stir well, then take off the heat.

• Pour the evaporated and the fresh milk into a jug and slowly whisk this into the roux. Be patient or you will get lumps.

• When you have whisked in all the liquid, put the pan back on the heat and cook, stirring with a wooden spoon, for about 10–15 minutes, or until all the flouriness has gone.

• When the sauce is ready, add the chopped or grated cheeses (reserving a small handful). Stir until the cheese has melted, season to taste and take off the heat, with a lid on so no skin forms.

• Meanwhile, when the water in the first pan has come to the boil, salt it extravagantly and cook the macaroni for a couple of minutes less than directed on the packet, and drain.

• Tip the drained pasta into your prepared dish or tin, and scrape the cheese sauce on top. With a couple of spatulas or your already dirty wooden spoon and a spatula (why add to the washing up?), mix the two together until the pasta is coated with the sauce.

• Sprinkle over the reserved cheeses and transfer to the oven and cook for 15–20 minutes or until the top has scorched slightly and the underneath is bubbling. This is best left to stand for another 20 minutes or so out of the oven before serving.

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

Make up the macaroni cheese, pour into the prepared oven dish, cool, cover with clingfilm and keep in the fridge for up to 3 days. When ready to use, preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6. Remove the macaroni from the fridge while the oven is heating and cover with foil. Place the dish in the oven for 20 minutes, then uncover, sprinkle over the reserved cheese and reheat for a further 20–30 minutes until piping hot and golden (the time will depend on the depth and thickness of your dish). To check, push a metal skewer or table knife into the centre of the dish; if the macaroni is hot enough, the tip of the skewer or table knife will be piping hot.

FREEZE AHEAD TIP:

Make the macaroni, cool, cover and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the fridge and reheat as above.

SPRUCED-UP VANILLA CAKE WITH RHUBARB AND STRAWBERRY COMPOTE

One of my oldest friends – school, university and now children the same age – Tracey had a grandmother who, over-rouged and frizzy-haired, was known cruelly by us when we were young as Elizabeth I. She was, though, a fantastic old-fashioned cook and at the end of the summer used to make a pie with rhubarb and strawberries or raspberries from her garden. This is my deep midwinter version, made with gorgeously forced pink rhubarb and a pot of good strawberry jam (Wilkin & Sons Little Scarlet is the favourite, but any good strawberry or raspberry jam will do). It could scarcely be easier and can cook, and cool, while the cake bakes and cools. I love it, too, with Greek yogurt, or you can fold it into whipped double cream to make a heavenly fool.

Strictly speaking, that early, tender, puce-pink forced rhubarb is not meant to appear in the shops until January, but for the past two years, I’ve found it from the second week of December. I’m hoping, obviously, my luck holds. If not, then you can either add the same weight of some frozen berries to the jam, and simmer that up into a pulpy compote or serve the Spruced-Up Vanilla Cake, in all its glory, with the Antioxidant Fruit Salad or with an accompanying bowl of crème fraîche sprinkled with pomegranate seeds.

(See here for cake recipe)

1kg rhubarb (weighed with leaves) or 2 × 400g packets trimmed rhubarb

1 × 340g jar best-quality strawberry jam

• Trim the rhubarb and cut into 2.5cm slices.

• Put into a saucepan (with lid) with the jam and stir together.

• Put the lid on the pan, and over a low to medium heat cook for 10 minutes, removing the lid only briefly now and then to give a stir.

• Then, take the lid off altogether, and turn up the heat so that the pan bubbles away for about 4 minutes.

• Tip into a wide-mouthed measuring jug and allow to cool, before transferring to a prettier jug or two for the table, to be poured at will over the yellow, eggy, thick slices of Spruced-Up Vanilla Cake.

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

Make the compote, spoon into a heatproof bowl and leave to cool. Then cover and chill for up to 3 days. To reheat, place over a pan of gently simmering water (you may need to add a splash of water or a squeeze of orange juice) until liquid again. Pour into a jug and allow to cool before serving.

FREEZE AHEAD TIP:

Make the compote and freeze for up to 1 week. Thaw overnight in the fridge and reheat as above.

THE MAIN EVENT

THIS IS IT. The title of the chapter says it all, and if this unsparing statement of fact adds to the pressure, I have to admit, there is no point denying it. This is not just lunch: it is the focus of our expectations. It is also a huge undertaking. So, to feel a twinge of anxiety is not a sign of weakness or impending failure. It’s reasonable. No one, absolutely no one, can just breeze through Christmas Day. I love the whole thing, so I’m not complaining, but I think it is best to accept that it’s going to be a stretch.

The work itself, however – all the preparation and organization needed to pull everything together – is actually not so terrible. Like most things in life, when you actually do what you dread, you find that the fear is dispelled. But then, most things are better to do than to think about. Having to make the best lunch of the year feels daunting: peeling potatoes and trimming brussels sprouts, writing out a list of what must be done, and ticking it off as you go, is hugely satisfying. You don’t have to operate quite like this, but I find it helps, and so have included here a tight timetable that demands, but delivers. This doesn’t need to be followed to the letter, but I suggest that if you want to go off piste, you chart your own proposed trajectory. You need some means of containing and controlling your workload. I have concentrated on two days, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, simply because that’s my favoured M.O. You may find it easier to start the preparations a few days earlier, and sometimes – if you’re at work on Christmas Eve, for example – you will have no choice. But if you look at the Make Ahead suggestions printed alongside each recipe, you can check how many days you can work ahead and finesse the timings to suit your schedule. Should you be someone who finds long-term, advance preparation and freezer-filling the best way to diminish panic and prep-proliferation, then look at the Freeze Ahead tips beside each recipe, and plan a strategy that works for you.