Nigella Christmas: Food, Family, Friends, Festivities (29 page)

Indeed, a lot of the recipes from Joy to the World (as the title, I hope, indicates) beg to be included in a list of possible presents (see here). Think Star-Topped Mince Pies, Panforte – a few slender wedges in a cellophane bag would do it – the Edible Christmas Tree Decorations or Sticky Gingerbread, which you can simply cut into squares and box or bag up. I like, too, to bake mini gingerbread loaves in brown-card loaf cases; one batch of regular recipe fills three medium bakers’ moulds (which is what they were called where I got them, and see Stockists), 16cm × 8cm × 5cm and two small bakers’ moulds, measuring a cute 10cm × 5cm × 4cm. I know that mathematically it shouldn’t work out this way, but it just does. I put them all together in the 170°C/gas mark 3 oven, taking the baby loaves out after 20 minutes and leaving the other ones in for another 20, making it 40 minutes altogether.

The cookies from the same chapter – Cranberry and White Chocolate Cookies, Christmas Chocolate Biscuits, Christmas Cornflake Wreaths and Gold-Dust Cookies – are obvious contenders too, and it’s not as if you need dedicate a whole batch of each per present: a few, charmingly wrapped, say everything you want.

But that’s the point: whatever you make is going to be a better present than almost any you might buy. Even a batchful of Christmas Cupcakes, which last no longer than the day you give them, brings happiness that endures long after they are eaten up.

And, really, wouldn’t you rather be in your kitchen instead of the shopping mall at Christmas?

STERILIZING JARS

Jars (and see Stockists if you want something special) and bottles should be sterilized before having foodstuff put in them, but I have to say that I regard a dishwasher-clean jar or bottle (providing it comes fresh from the machine, with not so much as a finger touching the inside) as a sterilized one. If you wish to be more meticulous, you can sterilize by washing your jars well in soapy water, then rinsing them and letting them dry in a cool (140°C/gas mark 1) oven. If you’re putting warm chutneys or jellies into them, all jars must be used warm.

VANILLA SUGAR

CHRISTMAS-SPICED SALT

STEEPED CHRISTMAS FRUITS

MARINATED FETA

OLIVES ‘N’ PICKLED THINGS

WINTER-SPICED VODKA

POMEGRANATE VODKA

HONEYED FIG VINEGAR

CHRISTMAS CHUTNEY

RICH FRUIT CHUTNEY

BEETROOT AND GINGER CHUTNEY

CRANBERRY AND APPLE CHUTNEY

CHILLI JAM

CHRISTMAS KETCHUP

CORN CHOW-CHOW

PEANUT BRITTLE WITH ART AND SOUL

CHRISTMAS PUDDINI BONBONS

VANILLA SUGAR

I start with an idea, rather than a recipe, as I want to emphasize (even to the point of hectoring repetition) that you don’t have to be a master culinary craftsperson in order to make an edible Christmas present. You don’t, as you will see, even need to cook.

This is probably the most basic of homemade edible gifts, but it is no less lovely, and will be none the less appreciated, for all that. I love the snow-whiteness of the sugar in the jar, just as it is, but I have nothing against tying on festive ribbons and bows: the season gives licence for exuberance.

To denote what’s in the jar, however, I feel a no-nonsense brown luggage label or parcel tag looks best, and it has the advantage of giving you space to suggest uses for the vanilla sugar – which are that it brings an exotic yet nursery-comforting scent to mugs of coffee or hot chocolate, warm milk, cakes, cookies, pies and muffins and anything else that takes your or the recipient’s festive fancy. Be sure to make clear, too, that the sugar can be replaced as it is used, keeping the jar as a permanent source of aromatic sweetness.

I think it’s best to make the sugar up – and it’s hardly arduous to tip some sugar into a jar and snip in a vanilla pod – at least a week before you’re giving it, but you could do it months ahead. I keep a jar permanently in my kitchen.

Makes enough to fill 1 × 500ml jar

500g caster sugar

1 vanilla pod

1 × 500ml sealable jar, or whatever permutation of sizes you prefer

• Sterilize your jar, following the instructions, and leave to cool.

• Pour the sugar into the cooled jar.

• With the point of a small, sharp knife, cut into the vanilla pod lengthways, so its black and densely aromatic seeds are revealed, then cut this spliced and splayed stick into 3 short lengths and drop them into the sugar, embedding most of them well.

• Seal the jar and leave in a cool, dark place for at least a week before giving to some lucky person.

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

Vanilla sugar can be stored in a cool, dark place for about 1 year. If you make it 1 month before using or giving, add a label to say it can be kept for a further year and topped up as the sugar is used. After 1 year, replace the vanilla pod.

CHRISTMAS-SPICED SALT

You could call this the savoury version of the Vanilla Sugar on the previous page: an idea, simply achieved, with the ingredients gathered in the course of your normal supermarket shop. Not all supermarkets stock red peppercorns, it’s true, but plenty do, and a scour around a local deli should easily yield a supply (or if you’re a mail order queen like me, turn to Stockists).

But do make sure you get red peppercorns, as it’s the little red cheeks peeking through the salt, like holly berries in the snow, that make this so Christmassy.

And maybe scrawl on a piece of red card that this salt is good sprinkled on steak or roast chicken or to add a little oomph to the table and plate whenever desired.

Makes enough to fill 1 × 500ml jar

250g good-quality sea salt or Maldon salt

2 teaspoons red peppercorns

2 teaspoons crushed dried red chillies

4 star anise

1 × 500ml sealable jar

• Sterilize your jar, following the instructions, and leave to cool.

• Put the salt into a bowl with the peppercorns, dried chillies and star anise.

• Toss everything about, then carefully tip into your cooled, prepared jar and seal tightly.

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

Spiced salt can be stored in a cool, dark place for about 1 year. If you make it 1 month before using or giving, add a label to say it can be kept for a further year and topped up as the salt is used.

STEEPED CHRISTMAS FRUITS

Many of you will know that this is not a new enthusiasm, but an undimmed one, which I think speaks more for it anyway. The first of the options, the Mixed Fruits steeped in Pedro Ximénez – that Spanish sherry tasting of raisin and muscovado sugar – truly is Christmas pudding in a jar; as you open it, the thick scent of treacle-dark sherry and rich fruit hits you. I love it, as I do the other fruits here, the golden sultanas suspended in and swollen with the deeper golden Grand Marnier and the dark-red dried cherries in the equally dark-red syrupy, clove-scented cherry brandy – spooned over vanilla ice cream to make an instant pud. But I’m not just finding an excuse to satisfy my own greed, unapologetic though I am about such an instinct: these are my seasonal no-wrap standbys. There are some people I wouldn’t dare not give a jar to at Christmas, but then these liquor-steeped fruits make the perfect present: simple to make; luxurious to receive.

Each batch makes enough to fill 1 × 500ml jar

FOR THE MIXED FRUITS IN PEDRO XIMÉNEZ:

250g mixed luxury dried fruits (raisins, sultanas, currants and glacé cherries)

250ml Pedro Ximénez, plus 100ml for topping up if needed (see

Stockists

)

1 × 500ml sealable jar (or 2 × 250ml jars)

FOR THE GOLDEN SULTANAS IN GRAND MARNIER:

250g golden (or regular) sultanas (see

Stockists

)

250ml Grand Marnier, plus 100ml for topping up if needed

1 × 500ml sealable jar (or 2 × 250ml jars)

FOR THE DRIED CHERRIES IN CHERRY BRANDY:

250g dried cherries

250ml red cherry brandy (not kirsch), such as Gabriel Boudier brand, plus 100ml for topping up if needed

1 × 500ml sealable jar (or 2 × 250ml jars)

• Sterilize your jar (or jars), following the instructions, and leave to cool.

• Add the dried fruit to its cooled, prepared jar and then pour in the liqueur, which should just cover the fruit if it is a jar that isn’t too roomy for it. Clamp on the lid, or seal tightly, and leave to stand in a cool, dark place.

• It is preferable to keep these for at least 4 days before giving away, but you could, if in a hurry, give them away instantly. However, as the fruit stands in the liqueur, it will absorb it and swell; after 4 days of steeping, you may want to top up with about 100ml more liqueur.

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

Make the steeped fruits up to 1 month before eating or giving, and keep the alcohol level topped up. Store in a cool, dark place and use within 1 year. Once opened, keep in the fridge and use within 1 month.

MARINATED FETA

There’s something rather lovely about giving the sunny taste of the Greek hillside as a Christmas present. And I can’t help relishing that, despite the Aegean sunshine conjured up by the promise of salty feta in its herb-sprinkled oil, the sight of the white cubes, speckled with the dark green of the mint and oregano and the red of the crushed chillies does, in fact, look Christmassy in the extreme.

This is another bung-in, rather than cook-up, present. And, to make your life even easier, you could buy the feta that comes ready cubed in little tubs of brine. But if you do so, be aware that about half of the tub’s weight is made of the liquid the feta’s sitting in.

600g drained feta, cut into 1cm cubes, or 3 × 390g cartons of ready-cubed feta in brine

1 teaspoon crushed chillies 1 teaspoon dried mint

1 teaspoon dried oregano

500ml regular (not extra virgin) olive oil

2 × 250ml and 2 × 125ml sealable jars

• Sterilize your jars, following the instructions, and leave to cool.

• Put the cubed feta into a bowl and add the chillies, mint and oregano, gently tossing the cubes about to get even coverage, keeping in mind that you don’t want to bash the feta about too much.

• Fill the cooled, prepared jars loosely with the herb-and chilli-sprinkled cubes to just below the rim, and pour oil over to cover. Seal the jars and keep in the fridge. Don’t forget to scribble storing notes on the label.

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

Prepare the marinated feta up to 1 week before eating or giving, and store in the fridge. Use within 1 month, keeping the cheese topped up with olive oil.

OLIVES ’N’ PICKLED THINGS

This is, I suppose, a hybrid of a recipe, if putting pickled vegetables and spices in a jar counts as an actual recipe. I wanted to make a jar of the sort of pickles you might be given over a glass of Bandol rosé or pastis if you’re in the south of France, but which would be just as nice with a hunk of good, English bread and cheese or a post-Christmas meal for anyone lucky enough to get it in their stocking.

The nigella seeds, borrowed from Indian cooking, are here to add their sour oniony taste, their sooty black colouring (nigella denoting little and black) and for obvious egomaniacal gratification; the rice vinegar, which is plucked from my Southeast Asian shelf, is here for no other reason than that it is as clear as water and I didn’t want even the pale straw colour of cider or white wine vinegars to interfere with the sombre preserved beauty of the pickles. A distilled malt vinegar would work on this principle, but might be a bit rough on the palate.

100g black pitted olives

125g cornichons (baby gherkins, about the size of a child’s little finger)

3 × 15ml tablespoons capers

75g cocktail or pearl onions

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 teaspoon whole coriander seeds

1 teaspoon nigella seeds

3 fresh long red chillies

175ml rice vinegar

1 × 750ml sealable jar (or 3 × 250ml jars), with vinegar-proof lid, such as Kilner jar or reusable pickle jar

• Sterilize your jar (or jars), following the instructions, and leave to cool.

• Drain the olives, cornichons, capers and cocktail (or pearl) onions of any liquid they may be in.

• Tip them into your cooled, sterilized jar (or jars), and spoon in the cumin, coriander and nigella seeds.

• Halve and deseed 2 of the chillies, tucking the 4 halves into the jar.

• Now deseed and finely chop the remaining chilli, sprinkling the Christmas-red confetti into the jar as well.

• Top up the jar with the rice vinegar, so that everything is covered, then screw on the lid.

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

Make the pickles up to 1 month before eating or giving. Store in a cool, dark place for up to 3 months. Once opened, store in the fridge and use within 1 month, keeping the pickles topped up with vinegar.

WINTER-SPICED VODKA

It’s true, a shot of vodka is warming enough, but this makes a real present out of doing little more than opening a bottle and some spice jars. I love how beautiful it looks, with the dried chilli, the cinnamon stick, the seeds and pods captured in the vodka, and imbuing it with fireside warmth and glowing pale amber colour.

You may suggest, as you hand it over, that it be knocked back in shots, used to make a festively spiced martini or, with the addition of some tomato juice, a sprinkle of salt and a dash of Worcestershire sauce, a particularly memorable Christmassy Bloody Mary.

Makes 500ml

1 teaspoon whole coriander seeds

3 cardamom pods, bruised

½ teaspoon cumin seed

1 cinnamon stick

1 dried red chilli

500ml vodka

1 × 500ml sealable bottle

• Sterilize your bottle and leave to cool.

• Pop all the spices into your cooled, prepared bottle.

• Preferably using a miniature funnel (Stockists of such arcane kitchenalia, as well as of bottles and jars, and so forth), pour in the vodka, seal the bottle and put it to steep, in a cool, dark cupboard, or anywhere away from the light.

MAKE AHEAD TIP:

Make the spiced vodka up to 1 month before drinking or giving. Store in a cool, dark place and use within 1 year.

POMEGRANATE VODKA

I concede: there is no occasion in your or anyone’s life when Pomegranate Vodka will be a pressing need. But that is why it makes such a wonderful present. It’s out of the ordinary, but eminently usable, in an indulgent, uplifting kind of a way.