Bigos, or Hunter’s Stew

I really connect with Polish food. It’s rustic, seasonal and affordable, as well as being influenced by just about anyone who’s passed through at some point; notably French, Jewish and Russian cuisines. I know this is silly but it feels really earthy and spiritual somehow when I cook something Polish for dinner; I feel transported to a scarred land of wheat fields, cabbages, harvests and preserving. I want to go to Poland at some point to get the “peasant making delicious stew on farmstead” image out of my head; I’m sure that it doesn’t actually resemble a Bertold Brecht play. This aside, what’s most important to me is the food, and it’s really delicious. One café, Barbakan, situated on Walmgate in York was one of my favourite lunchtime spots when I was a student. Small, bustling and cosy, Barbakan really opened my eyes to the wonders of Polish food. Baskets of sourdough bread would be served alongside piping hot dishes of goblaki -stuffed cabbage leaves- potato and cheese stuffed pierogi -dumplings- or peppery, juniper-spiked bigos. According to my worn cookbook, The Polish Kitchen, by Mary Pininska, bigos is the national dish of Poland and was traditionally made with any food harvested from the land; game, juniper berries, mushrooms, all bolstered of course, by sauerkraut. See this as a base recipe to expand upon and make additions to; there is only one prerequisite, which is that you absolutely must make bigos at least one day in advance to let the flavours mature.

Zesty Smoked Salmon and Broccoli Tartlets

On a recent trip to Scotland in which she raided a well-stocked farm shop, my Mum picked up a packet of smoked salmon trimmings. I’ve heard of them of course and just assumed they were cheaper because they were scraps, which is true but holy moley, they’re also as smoky as anything! As the outer parts of smoked salmon, trimmings are exposed to the full whack of smouldering woodchips in the smokehouse. I actually needed to soak ours in milk for an hour to reduce the pungency but after that they were good to go! The default recipe for trimmings seems to be paté; which has never appealed to me. Equally sacrilegious when it comes to smoked salmon is the prospect of a quiche; if you buy it smoked, you don’t cook it! Come on, people don’t buy whiskey to flambé, or stir caviar into a risotto, do they? However, with my trimmings so unbelievably strong I had to make an exception to my rule, labelling them “tartlets” in the hope of getting away with it. Plus, the salmon was actually on the turn and cooking it seemed to be the best option. I’m sorry most of my recipes deal with semi-rotten foodstuffs from the back of our fridge; that’s what cooking’s all about, isn’t it?

Sprouty Side Dish

People associate sprouts with Christmas but my Dad wants them with every single meal in the winter months. He buys bag upon bag of them, silently depositing them in the fridge as wordless suggestions for me each week. Luckily, I’m a huge fan too and can eat them by the bowlful, even if he shouldn’t; sprouts are high in potassium, which actually interfere with his anti-rejection drugs! Apart from this risk factor, the primary problem with Daddy’s sprout consumption is that he’s a massive traditionalist and turns his nose up at anything other than a pure boiled “farty sprout”. My favourite take on sprouts is definitely the single cream and chopped chestnuts route but I decided to give this recipe a go because I was feeling guilty about a packet of marvellously rooty multi-coloured baby carrots I’d ignored but refused to throw out. It worked nicely as part of a hot buffet but would go really well as a side dish for dinner; try it with something gamey like pheasant or venison.

Peppermint Bark

I’m not ashamed to admit that we still have one of our Christmas trees up. Yes, it might have just been Burns Night but it seems ridiculous that we’re supposed to be satisfied looking forward to and celebrating what is essentially just one week of festivities. We make Christmas last as long as humanly possible in our house because who wouldn’t want to feel snug and secure for a few more weeks? Our freezer is still stocked with Christmas-related foodstuffs; yesterday we made a curry with a turkey leg, today a broth out of the bones. This recipe is a quickie for anyone who has candy canes left over. I’d actually never heard of peppermint bark until someone gave Amy a bar of it as a gift two years ago; it was from America so the chocolate element was pretty naff but given my family’s penchant for chocolate mints it only seemed right to pick up a bottle of peppermint essence whilst out Christmas shopping in anticipation of making my own.

Spiced Quince Upside-Down Cake

This was definitely a George’s Marvellous Medicine cake; sweet, spiced, syrupy and squidgy, made during a dizzy turn without really looking at any of the ingredients. That is where genius lies- I’ll have to stop paying attention more often! Feeling up for the challenge of cooking with a strangely antiquated ingredient that was nevertheless new to me, I’d bought a couple of quinces before Christmas from a farm shop up on the moors. They had to wait patiently for their turn though, as lumpy onlookers to our festivities from their vantage point by the fruit bowl. When it’s "buffet season" I’m not going to faff about poaching anything other than an egg. The reason everything turned into a cake was simple; Daddy. I want everyone to enjoy dessert, so having him silently eat a spiced, poached quince wasn’t something I was looking forward to (he’d even pointed out earlier that the smell of cloves reminded him of the dentist). So a thirty-second cake batter was whipped up, spooned on top and with fingers crossed it got pushed into the oven. I’ve never even eaten a quince before but with the right preparation they’re absolutely delicious. If you see any that are still lurking around in the shops, really do try this; they’re like pears but amazingly perfumed and fragrant.

Blue Cheese Dip

This right here is the holy grail of dips. A bastardised version of a Delia Smith recipe for blue cheese dressing, I think from How to Cook 2, it's served us well all through the festive season and is the main culprit for all that weight gain... During my last, tired months living in York it was constant munching of blue cheese, not chocolate that gave me a body-shape akin to a Moomin. Luckily, I like Moomins! This dip is definitely Daddy’s favourite - mine too- as it knocks the socks off any drab old sour cream and chive number. My mum’s allergic to penicillin so blue cheese is off her menu but we still had to keep shouting at her whenever she sneakily took a spoonful. Honestly, you’d think if you were allergic you’d just respect that but no, not in this house! We eat this dip with crudités but it’s also great with barbequed chicken wings, which we had tonight! You can use any blue cheese you have around; for us, that meant an enormous chunk of Blacksticks Blue but Gorgonzola, Dolcelatte and even Stilton work very well.

Spring Rolls

Sorry for the obese picture- classic NYE buffet. These are pretty simple to make, they just require having a bit of free time. I always make them with spring roll wrappers bought from Chinese supermarkets but this year -shock horror- we had so many buffets that we ran out and I had to use filo pastry. The results were ok but not as crisp and crunchy as usual; they actually tasted shop-bought, which made me feel that they were naff in comparison but hey, we still ate them all. What beasts. Obviously these spring rolls had turkey in them but put in whatever you’ve got; if you have tons of money then for goodness sake shove some prawns in there. I’ve even made them vegetarian a few times and no one’s even noticed because they’re so moreish.