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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I get WAY more excited about our Christmas Eve buffet than
any other meal on the calendar. It’s my special day; once we’ve picked up the
turkey then BOOM, it’s time to get prepping. Here’s what we had this time
round; white crabmeat and cress cocktails, lobster with samphire, coconut
prawns, crudités with our blue cheese dip, Parma ham, fig and goat’s cheese
bundles, pigs in blankets and of course, cheese and pineapples! With some
tiramisu macarons and spice pear Bellini’s thrown in for good measure. My, god
the acid reflux… HAPPY HOLIDAYS! Xxx
