If your roast potatoes are crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside the ‘game’ is already won.  The second mortgage you’ve taken out to get a big enough piece of meat to feed the family, particularly if you’ve wanted the animal ethically reared, is largely wasted.

Last weekend I had a fuller-than-usual table for Sunday lunch – it was Great-Auntie Mary’s 82nd birthday.  In accordance with ‘family tradition’, it was her choice of birthday food.  So we had roast chicken(s) plural, stuffing, gravy, cabbage, carrots, mixed root vegetable puree and roast potatoes.

On average, I suppose I cook a full ‘roast’ once a month.  Maybe.  For my mum it was a weekly event with the ‘meat’ rotated – chicken, lamb, beef, pork.  My grandparents’ too.  Monday was ‘wash day’ and ‘leftovers’.  Leftovers were cold meat, ‘bubble and squeak’ and piccalilli.

I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a great ‘roastie’ cooked outside of a home kitchen.  The thing is, they just don’t hang around.  For utter perfection, they need to go from oven to table with no intervening anything.  Maybe just the time it takes to sprinkle with coarse sea salt … but that is it.  “Keep warm uncovered”, is a lie.  You lose the crispy.

To get the fluffy centre you need a ‘floury’ potato.  Maris Piper, Desirée, Romano and King Edward are all great UK choices.

Peel – and cut into even pieces.  I aim for 5cm/2½” pieces.  The straight ‘cut’ sides are actually a good thing.

Place your potato into cold salted water and bring to the boil.  Aim to have the potato in the water for a maximum of 10 minutes.

You are not aiming to boil to a mush – just soften the edges.  My mum used to ‘fork’ her potatoes to break up the surface but I just – roughly – drain and tip back into the saucepan.  It should be enough to break up the edges of the potato so it will catch the fat and give a lovely crispy finish.

I listened to an Italian TV chef on Food network this week who said once you’d roasted your cut-into-smallish-cubes potato in olive oil, garlic and rosemary you’d never par-boil again.  Rubbish.  It’s an entirely different thing.  His point was that par-boiling makes the potato soggy and a soggy potato will never crisp  up.  I’ve finished spluttering now, but he’s cooking his roast potatoes wrong.

Once you’ve par-boiled, you need to dry your potatoes off.  That’s probably on the lowest of low heat, then air dry.  Mine sit on the warming plate of my Aga.  But ‘dry’ is the key to a crispy potato.  There’s no need to add semolina or flour, you just need to wait until your potato is dry.

The next ‘secret’ is the oven temperature.  You want to whack your oven up to the hottest you can get it.  Your fat needs to be as hot as hell itself.

And the fat …

My fat of choice is goose fat.  Duck fat coming a close second.  Oddly I don’t really like beef dripping, even when I’m cooking beef.  It seemed illogical – and then Liddy said it was because they “taste like chips“.  So, that explained it..!  Yes, they do – and I don’t like that.

So, your goose fat needs to be screamingly hot.  Conveniently, any meaty joint needs to ‘rest’ to allow all those juices to re-absorb – and that’s the time to cook your potatoes.  My mum used to roast hers around the joint while we were at church …

Nope.  I won the roast potato war.  Wait until your joint is out of the oven and whack the temperature up as high as your oven will go.

One hour or thereabouts, your potatoes are ready to rush to the table.

Eat.

Roast Potatoes – there is never enough

• Floury potatoes (Desiree, King Edward, Maris Piper) – aim for a minimum of three ‘roastie’ sized pieces per person
• Goose fat – aim for a screamingly hot, shimmeringly sea of fat to approximately 1cm in depth.

Pre-heat your oven to the hottest it will go.

Wash, peel and cut your potatoes into pieces – half or quarters.  Put them in a large pan of salted boiling water, along with the peel.  Yes, really.  I wrap mine in muslin.  Parboil for 10 minutes, although this will depend on how small you have cut your potato.  You are not aiming to ‘cook’ the potato so much as to break up the edges.

Put the fat into your roasting tin and put it into the oven until it is screamingly hot.  (Aga:  because an aga cooks from above, below and both sides you need to cook in a shallow roasting tray).

Drain the potatoes and discard the peel.  Shake the potatoes about to ensure the edges are roughened.

Take the roasting tin out of the oven, but try to keep the fat hot.  Ideally, put your tray on the hob over a gentle heat. Place the potatoes in one by one – they should sizzle as they hit the pan – and baste all over.

Roast until golden and crunchy,  It’ll take about an hour.

Season.

Eat.

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You can’t really have an English Christmas without dried fruit and booze.  Certainly not a Dickensian epic – mince pies, smoking bishop (that’s alcoholic), good will to all ….

And you need to get going now.

If ‘mincemeat’ is a concept outside of your cultural Christmas norm, I should explain modern versions contain no meat.  They did used to – and the further back you go the more ‘meaty’ they are.

Home-made mincemeat is such a simple thing to make.  Even if the idea of a pantry full of preserves comes under the heading of ‘life’s too short ..’, you might want to make an exception for this.

This is my ‘master’ recipe.  Mincemeat is such a ‘forgiving’ thing to make you can let your imagination fly.  Within the framework of dried fruit, apple, booze and some kind of fat you have endless possibilities.

I grew up in a house with an almond tree in the front garden and I know ‘cracking’ them is a horrendous task.  So, I don’t do that – but I’m not going to pay extra to buy them blanched. Bring a pan of water to the boil, add the almonds.  1 min.  No more, you don’t want to soften the nut.

Drain and rinse with cold water.  You can see the ‘skin’ has wrinkled.

Dry with a clean tea-towel.  You can be as vigorous as you like ..!

It’s an easy job to slip the almond from the skin.

You will never again pay a premium for blanched almonds.

Love it or hate it – ‘mixed peel’.  I love it, but I buy whole mixed peel and chop it myself.

It’s a completely different product to those nasty little supermarket tubs of ‘mixed peel’.

You can vary the dried fruit to suit your mood.  I’m using the ‘standard’ – currants, raisins and sultanas.  There’s no reason why you shouldn’t use figs, prunes, cherries …

Traditionally, the fat is beef suet.  You can, of course, grate your own – or you can buy a packet.  That’s what I do – 200g – I don’t like silly little bits left in a packet so use it all.  There are vegetarian alternatives.  Or you can use butter – freeze and grate.  Butter tastes wonderful, but it’s not a ‘looker’ when it cools.  If you’re the one going to cook with it – when it will return to unctuous loveliness – then it’s a good choice, but not if you’re going to give it as a gift.

The grated zest of one orange.

And the zest of one lemon.  Then add the juice of both.  Why would you waste it?

I chop my almonds by hand as I like the nutty chunks in my mincemeat.

Peel, core and chop the apple.  I like chunks, but you can grate it.

Then, it’s the spices.  Cinnamon.  Mixed spice.  Nutmeg.

Add the sugars.  Then the alcohol.  I’m adding whisky.  Brandy, Rum, Disaronno, Cointreau are all lovely alternatives.  Mix.  Clean hands are better than a spoon ..!  Let it all steep in a bowl, covered with cling-film for 24 hours.

Then pot in warm preserving jars and leave to mature for 2-6 weeks.  After that, it’ll keep for about 3 months.  (Longer and the apple may start to ferment.)

After 2-6 weeks you are ready to bake ..

Yum.

Boozy Christmas Mincemeat – Makes 3 500g Le Parfait jars.

• 250g/2 cups currants
• 250g/2 cups raisins
• 250g/2 cups sultanas
• 200g-250g/ 2 cups Bramley apples, peeled, cored and shopped into small pieces
• 200g/2 cups suet
• 150g/1 heaped cup blanched almonds, roughly chopped
• 175g/1 cup demerara sugar
• 50g/third cup dark muscovado sugar
• ½ rounded teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 rounded teaspoon ground mixed spice
• A grinding of nutmeg
• 1 lemon, rind and juice
• 1 orange, rind and juice
• 125g/1 cup mixed peel, chopped into dice
• 250ml whisky

Mix together the dried fruit, chopped apple, suet, chopped almonds,, mixed peel,  cinnamon, nutmeg and mixed spice.  Grate the zest of a lemon and orange into the bowl, then squeeze and add the juice. (A warmed fruit gives more juice.)

Add the whisky and give everything a good mix.  Clean hands are easiest.  Cover and leave for 24 hours, giving it all an occasional stir.

Pot the mincemeat up into sterilised jars.  Leave to mature for 2-6 weeks and use within 3 months – or freeze.

Bake.

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Spaghetti alla carbonara is an incredibly popular supper in my house.  I suppose it’s not so very far removed from  ‘eggs and bacon’ which might account for it.

Most of the recipes, published in the UK, are rich with double cream …

… but not this one.

It does make me wonder what they put in those gloopy jar sauces …  The ingredients list is tiny.  Store-cupboard/freezer stuff, really.

My carbonara sauce changed after a second visit to Rome.  A fellow foodie had sent me on a trek to Trastevere and, more specifically, ‘Da Carlone’.  Should you wish to follow in my footsteps you find it in Via della Luce 5, near Isola Tiburina.

Their carbonara was not heavy.  Not gloopy.  No wimpy bits of streaky bacon.

Da Carlone use guanciale which is pig cheek – and it was delicious.  I’ve never been able to find that, so my replacement is pancetta.  Helpfully, my local deli sells some beautiful pancetta.  Don’t worry about the fat.  Really.

Cut it up into nice bite-sized pieces.

Get your water on to boil.  It’s 1 litre of water for every 100g dried pasta.  Minimum.  You need this quantity of water because the pasta will release lots of starch and too little water will see it being re-absorbed.

Keep the lid on – it will boil faster.  Just before the water comes to the boil you add the salt.  10g for every litre of water is the guideline.  This feels like a lot.  I can’t honestly say I measure it, but I add until I feel like I’ve overdone it .. and never have.  Coarse salt is preferable.

Think ‘as angry and as salty as the mediterranean sea’.

There’s no need to add any oil.  If you think about it – oil floats on the surface of water so it’s not going to do anything to stop your spaghetti sticking together.  (The only exception is lasagne sheets – a little bit of oil keeps them seperate as you slide them into the saucepan.)

Do I weigh my pasta???  Sometimes.  Every now and then I give my portion sizes a check – it’s all too easy to supersize without meaning to.

How much per person depends on whether you are going all out.  Pasta is often the Primo course – that’s the one slotted between Antipasto and Secondo.  It’s smaller.  50g-ish, as there’s so much else to come.  100g per person is what I cook for a standalone family supper.  6ft menfolk get a larger portion than I give myself.

Give the bundle of spaghetti a bash on the work surface and it will splay out like a sheaf of corn.  To be truthful I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sheaf of corn, but it’s how I imagine one might look …

Add the spaghetti to your fiercely boiling water.  Give it a stir with a wooden fork and put the lid back on.  You want the water to come back to the boil as quickly as possible.

Then lid off again … and get on with the sauce.

Roll the sage up and cut into little strips.  Chiffonade is the posh name – just in case you need it for a charity quiz night.

Bash the garlic cloves, no need to peel.  Love that.

Put the ‘good’ olive oil – yes, really – this is a time for the pricey extra-virgin olive oil – in a huge skillet type pan.  On a low heat, warm the oil so that it’s flavoured with the sage and garlic.  It’s all very … gentle.

Now add the pancetta cubes.

They are done when they look like this.  Turn off the heat.

Fish out the garlic cloves.  Their work is done.  (If you love garlic, it’s almost irresistible not to squeeze it on some toast.  Cooks’ perks?!?)

You need two eggs and one egg yolk for a ‘carbonara’ for four.  (All the normal reservations about raw or lightly cooked eggs apply – ‘not for the very young, the elderly, when pregnant or for people with suppressed immunity’.)

Beat together in a bowl.  Add the finely grated parmesan or pecorino and lots and lots of black pepper.  Have your unsalted butter, cubed and ready.

Odd picture, I know.  But, it’s back to the spaghetti.  If you are feeding Italians you have to concentrate here.  Soggy, water logged pasta wins no plaudits.  Al dente.  That’s cooked through with a slight bite so you know you are chewing something but no uncooked pasta at the centre.  Test a strand 1 minute before the minimum cook time on the spaghetti packet.

Then, and this is why there’s this picture, scoop off a little of the starchy water before you drain the spaghetti.

There’s no need to be too thorough.  A little water is all to the good.  Return the drained spaghetti to the hot saucepan and add the butter.  Give it all a good stir so the butter melts and coats the spaghetti strands.

Turn the heat on beneath the pancetta pan and tip the coated spaghetti into it.  Stir to coat with flavoured oil and disperse the pancetta cubes.

Then tip the spaghetti into a warmed serving bowl and immediately add the cheesy egg mixture.  Stir.  The hot spaghetti will ‘cook’ the eggs.  (If you’ve got everything too hot you’ll end up with scrambled eggs.  It looks revolting but will taste just fine.)

A few tablespoons of the reserved starchy water will make everything silky smooth and surprisingly creamy tasting.

That’s it.  A little parsley would have looked pretty but it tastes better without it.  Lots of Parmesan or Pecorino, freshly grated.  Buon appetito.

Spaghetti alla carbonara – Serves 4

• 2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil
• 6 sage leaves
• 2 garlic cloves, bashed
• 150g/5oz  guanciale or pancetta, cubed
• 400g/13oz good quality dried spaghetti
• 2 whole eggs and 1 egg yolk
• a handful of Parmesan/Pecorino – about 8 tablespoons, finely grated
• 60g/2¼oz unsalted butter, cubed
• coarse sea salt
• Freshly grated black pepper

Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil and prepare all the ingredients.  It helps to have everything ready.

Gentle warm the oil in a large frying pan or skillet and add the sage and garlic.  Once the oil is flavoured, add the guanciale or pancetta cubes and fry over a higher heat until golden brown and the delicious fat partially melted.  Remove the garlic cloves.

Cook the spaghetti in vigorously boiling salty water.

Beat the eggs and egg yolk together.  Add the finely grated cheese and lots of freshly ground black pepper.

Once the spaghetti is al dente, drain.  Make sure to reserve a little of the starchy water before doing so.

Return the cooked spaghetti to the hot saucepan and immediately add the cubed butter.  Stir to melt the butter and coat the spaghetti strands.

Tip into the pan in which you have the guanciale or pancetta.  Stir fry over a medium heat for a few minutes.  Let the flavourful oil coat the pasta and disperse the bite sized guanciale or pancetta.

Transfer to a warmed serving dish.  Tip in the egg and cheese mix with 3-4 tablespoons of the starchy water.  You may need a little more to create a smooth, fluid sauce.  Stir to combine.  Serve immediately.

Extra parmesan/pecorino to grate over is lovely.  Buon appetito.

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A blast from the past.  Taste-wise, Coconut Castles remind me of one of my regular school dinner puddings.

Not so surprising since the component parts are the same – sponge, raspberry jam and desiccated coconut.  At school it was baked in a slab and served with custard.  Not despised but certainly nothing to compare to ‘Chocolate Toothpaste’ (for which I have the recipe) on account of the custard being lumpy and having a cold skin.  Nevertheless, I’m not adverse to serving my coconut castles – incandescently better – sitting in a pool of proper English custard …  A moat egad!?!

More often I sit them on a pressed glass cake-stand I inherited from my mum because that feels ‘right’.  Although this recipe comes to me via my mum (in imperial measurements), I can’t remember her cooking it.  It has the feel of something my Grandparents would have made and served alongside Dundee Cake at Sunday tea.

My ‘Imperial’ recipe is a neat 4oz butter, sugar and self raising flour with two eggs.  Converting it to metric means you either go ‘up’ to 125g or down to 100g.  I prefer down …

The reason I made them this week was that I tracked down some beautiful candied angelica ready for Christmas.  In no way is candied angelica an essential ingredient for this but, much like the pressed glass cake stand, I have an emotional need.  Angelica ‘leaves’ are traditional and there are standards …!

Coconut Castles begin with softened butter.  Add the eggs … slowly, beating well after each addition.

Fold in the sifted self-raising flour, baking powder and salt.

Divide the mixture between the greased dariole moulds.  A big piping bag makes the job easy.

Half to three quarters full to allow for the mixture to rise and place them on a baking tray.

Bake for 20 minutes or until risen, golden brown and firm to the touch of a finger at Gas Mark 4/180ºC/375ºF.  Leave to cool for 5 minutes.

Then trim the top so it will sit flat and turn them out.

Allow the cakes to cool completely.

4 tablespoons of red jam, pushed through a sieve and warmed.  Add a tablespoon of water if you feel it’s a little thick.  Pour the desiccated coconut onto a plate/flan tin.  Then spear the bottom of one of the cooled sponges with a fork.

First you brush on the warmed jam.

And then you roll it in the desiccated coconut, taking care to get a good coverage.

Keep going.

Then decorate with half a glacé cherry and ‘leaves’ of candied angelica.  Eat.

 

Coconut Castles (English Madeleines) – Makes 8

• 4oz/100g butter
• 4oz/100g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 4oz/100g self raising flour
• pinch of salt
• 4 tablespoons red jam
• 2oz100g desiccated coconut
• Glacé cherries
• Candied Angelica

Preheat the oven to 180°C/Fan 160°C/gas 4.

Grease the dariole moulds.

Beat the butter with the caster sugar until light and fluff.  Add the eggs – slowly – and beat well after each addition.

Gradually fold in the self-raising flour, salt and baking powder.

Divide the mixture between the dariole moulds, filling then no higher than ¾ full.

Place on a baking tray and bake for 20 minutes at 180ºC/Gas Mark 4/350ºF or until risen, golden and firm to the touch of a finger.  Leave to cool for 5 minutes and then level the ‘base’ before turning out onto a wire rack.  Leave to cool.

Push the red jam through a sieve and warm through in a small pan, adding a tablespoon of water if necessary.  Spread the coconut out onto a shallow dish.

Using a fork, spear the base of the sponges and brush them with the jam and then roll in the desiccated coconut.

Cut the glacé cherries in half and shape the candied angelica into ‘leaves’.  Decorate each ‘castle’ with a half  and cherry and a pair of ‘leaves’ of candied angelica.

Eat.

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Shirley Conran very effectively sold the idea that ‘life’s too short to stuff a mushroom’ – but in the struggle against the relentless pressure on women to be ‘perfect’, why did the poor vegetable get it?  Now, if she’d written life was too short to clean windows or dust furniture …  I’d have agreed.

I may be hurtling towards fifty but I’ve yet to lose my little girl love of individual portions and I particularly like it when nature does the portioning.  Maybe it’s just I’ve never learnt how to share properly?  Worrying thought.

Little gem squashes seem to be a bit overlooked in the UK.  At the supermarket you’ll find them, sometimes, alongside the more usual butternut squashes.  They are about the size of a large orange and have a sweeter flesh than a butternut, an edible skin and a perfectly formed stuff-able cavity when the seeds are removed.

This is one of my Liddy’s favourite things to eat.  I normally use chestnut mushrooms, but since I knew these were going to have their picture taken I bought some fancy ones …

Bring a saucepan of salted water to the boil and cook the scrubbed gem squash for about 4 minutes.  If you’ve an enormous one, maybe a minute longer.

Once they’ve had their time, scoop them out of the water with a perforated spoon and set them to cool naturally.

Once they have cooled, cut the top quarter off to make a ‘lid’.  Keep the tops …

A teaspoon deals with the seeds.

Since the squash are partly cooked this is so easy.  None of that usual scraping you associate with the pumpkin family.  Throw the seeds away.

Strip the thyme leaves from their stalks.  Rosemary, chopped very fine, is a completely different flavour but a nice substitute if you don’t have any fresh thyme.

Mix together 100ml of olive oil (or rapeseed oil – England doesn’t have the climate for growing olives but does produce fantastic ‘nutty’ rapeseed oil …), garlic, salt, freshly ground black pepper and 1 teaspoon of thyme leaves.

Place the gem squash on a baking tray and divide the oil evenly between them.

Replace the ‘lid’ and roast until soft.

Meanwhile, pour the double cream into a saucepan.

Add the garlic, salt, pepper and thyme leaves.  Over a very low heat infuse and slightly thicken the cream.

In a large frying pan, gently warm a drizzle of oil and the final garlic clove, finely ‘microplaned’.  Add the mushrooms (about 100g per serving), then toss over a high heat until golden.  Add the chopped parsley.

Top up the oil with the warm cream and divide the remaining cream between the shallow soup plates.  Place the gem squash in the centre.

Top with the mushrooms and serve with the lid ‘artistically’ place to one side.

Eat.

 

 

Roasted Gem Squash with Mushrooms and Cream – Serves 6

• 6 gem squash
• 100ml olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, grated on a fine microplane grater or crushed to a puree with salt
• salt and pepper
• 300ml double cream
• 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
• 600g mushrooms
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/Gas Mark 4.

Bring a saucepan of salted water to the boil.  Wash the gem squash and add them to the boiling water.  Cook for about 4 minutes, with some slight flexibility depending on size of your squash.

Scoop out with a perforated spoon and place on a cooling rack.  Allow them to cool at room temperature.

When cool, slice off the top quarter and put on one side.  Use a teaspoon to scoop out the seeds and throw them away.  Transfer the gem squash to a baking sheet.

In a jug mix the olive oil with 1 clove of grated garlic (or a third of the puree), salt, freshly ground black pepper and 1 teaspoon of thyme leaves.  Divide this mixture between the 6 Gem squash.  Replace the lids and roast in the oven for 30-35 minutes or until the flesh is beautifully soft.  (Aga:  Cook bottom set of runners in the Roasting Oven for about 20 minutes, turning once.)

Meanwhile, place the double cream in a saucepan.  Add 1 cloves of grated garlic and 1 teaspoon of thyme leaves, picked off the stalks.  On a very low heat, allow to simmer.  The cream will thicken very slightly and infuse with the flavours of the thyme and garlic.  Season to taste.

Heat a drizzle of oil in a frying pan over a very low heat, add the final clove of grated garlic and, once the oil has taken on some of the flavour of the garlic but not coloured, add the mushrooms.  Turn up the heat and toss until the mushrooms are golden and coated in the garlicky oil.  Season.  Then add the chopped parsley.

Fill the remaining space in the cavities with cream and divide what’s left between six shallow soup plates.  Place the gem squash in the centre of a pool of cream and top the squash with the garlicky mushrooms.  Some will fall to the side.  Add the squash ‘lid’.

It’s particularly lovely served with warm walnut or hazelnut bread.

Eat.

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