Category Archives: Christmas

26/12/2025 · 6:20 am

To Make Turkey and Hazelnut Soup (& Turkey Stock)

If you are not loving your leftovers at Christmastime, then you are missing a trick: it doesn’t have to be all dry turkey and cranberry sandwiches for the next week.

This is a really great recipe adapted from Jane Grigson’s English Food. I’ve made a few tweaks, and I have provided you with a method for making turkey stock. This recipe would work with leftover chicken, or even pheasant and partridge, or a mix of them.

Leftover turkey and stuffing are used to make this soup

Because it’s a leftovers dish, don’t worry if you don’t have all of the ingredients, though I would say it’s important to have at least three of the basic soup veg and one herb (fresh or dried). It doesn’t even matter if you don’t have any hazelnuts: almonds would work just as well, or you could miss them out entirely. Also, if there are any leftover boiled or steamed vegetables, or roast potatoes, you can pop them in before everything gets blitzed.

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This recipe makes many servings.

For the soup

2 to 3 tbs of fat: this could be butter, leftover fat from the roast potatoes or skimmed from the roast turkey juices

Basic soup veg, peeled, trimmed and diced, such as 2 carrots, 2 onions, 3 cloves garlic, white part of one or two leeks (keep the green parts for the stock), 3 sticks of celery

Herbs: 4 bay leaves, a small bunch of thyme or a tsp of mixed, dried herbs

1 tsp celery salt

1 bunch tarragon leaves, chopped

1 bunch parsley, chopped

1 medium potato, peeled and diced

1.5-2 L turkey stock

Salt and pepper

2 handfuls diced turkey breast (or whatever you have left)

100 g roast hazelnuts, roughly chopped

Leftover stuffing, cut into approx. 1 cm dice

150 ml cream

Heat the fat in a stockpot or large saucepan and add the diced soup veg and herbs, plus the celery salt. Stir and fry on a medium heat until things begin to turn golden brown. Add half of the parsley and tarragon plus the potato and continue to cook for another 7 or 8 minutes.

Pour in the turkey stock and bring the whole lot to a lively simmer, then turn it down to gently bubble until the vegetables are nice and soft, about 15 minutes.

Taste, and season with salt and pepper at this point, then add the diced turkey and the hazelnuts. Simmer for a further 7 or 8 minutes, then allow to cool slightly before blitzing the soup in batches in your blender or food processor. Be careful here! Don’t overfill your blender, especially if the soup is still quite hot.

Return to a clean pan, bring back to a simmer, add the cream and the rest of the parsley and tarragon, as well as the diced leftover stuffing. Taste and season with more celery salt and pepper. Serve immediately.

For the stock

I keep vegetable trimmings and peelings in bags in my freezer for stock-making sessions such as these; you can, of course, use regular stock vegetables: celery, onions, carrots, leeks, etc.

This secret to getting a good colour to your jellied stock is to brown the carcass and vegetables very well.

Makes around 2 litres of jellied stock

2 tbs of fat or oil

The roast turkey carcass, broken into pieces – don’t be too thorough with removing the meat, leave some on.

Vegetable trimmings and peelings (avoid brassicas) or a mixture of stock vegetables: 2 carrots, 2 celery sticks, the green part of a leek or two, a couple of onions, a few smashed garlic cloves.

Aromatic herbs, e.g. 3 or 4 bay leaves, a small bunch of thyme and/or rosemary, parsley stalks

Aromatic spices, e.g. 1 tsp black peppercorns, 6 cloves, 1 tsp allspice berries, 2 blades of mace

1 tsp salt

Any leftover turkey juices or turkey gravy

Cool water to cover

Heat the fat or oil in a stockpot or pressure cooker and add the turkey carcass, the vegetables, the herbs, the spices as well as the salt. Stir and fry until both the turkey and vegetables are starting to turn a good, golden brown.

Add any leftover gravy and top up with water so that it barely covers the turkey and vegetables.

If cooking in a stockpot: bring slowly to a simmer, turn the heat over and let it cook very gently for two hours.

If cooking in a pressure cooker: bring to a simmer, when high pressure is reached, reduce the heat and cook for 25 minutes before turning off the heat and allowing the stock to depressurise.

If cooking in a slow cooker: transfer everything to your slow cooker (careful!) and cook on a high setting for 1 hour and then a medium setting for 2 more hours.

When the stock is ready, pass the whole thing through a strainer, pressing down on the cooked mush with the back of the ladle: we want as much flavour as possible. Let the stock cool down and then refrigerate. Skim away the fat before using.

Tip: If you need the stock straight away, you can skim the fat with a spoon, but a quicker method is to throw in a couple of handfuls of ice cubes. The fats immediately freeze to the exterior of the cubes, and can be lifted out before the ice has had the chance to melt.

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24/12/2025 · 5:39 am

Lambswool

Merry Christmas everyone!

It’s time for my annual Yuletide boozy drink post. This year: lambswool, a drink very much associated with the Wassail on Twelfth Night (the night before Epiphany, 6 January, and the last day of Christmastide). It has been drunk since at least Tudor times – I cannot find any descriptions prior to the late 16th century. It’s a type of mulled ale, and this description by Robert Herrick in his poem Twelfth Night: Or King and Queen (1648) is a very good one:

Next crowne the lowle full
with gentle lamb’s wool;
Adde sugar, nutmeg and ginger;
with a store of ale too;
and thus ye must doe
to make the wassaille a swinger.[1]

What Henrick doesn’t tell us is that there is cooked apple floating on the top which break apart, hence the name lambswool. These apples are, in the early modern period, generally roasted crab apples, so very sour in flavour, though in later recipes such as the lambswool described by Peter Brears in Traditional Food in Yorkshire, made in Otley, West Yorkshire in 1901, dessert apples are used. They were cored and cooked and floated in the drink, then fished out and eaten separately.[2] Spiced cakes and mince pies were also eaten.[3]

Have a fantastic Christmas – all TWELVE days of it!

Many drinks were laced with rum or brandy and often enriched with eggs, cream or both,[4] such as this one here for ‘Royal Lamb’s Wool’, dated 1633: ‘Boil three pints of ale; – beat six eggs, the whites and yolks together; set both to the fire in a pewter pot; add roasted apples, sugar, beaten nutmegs, cloves and ginger; and, being well brewed, drink it while hot.’[5] Before the lambswool was poured into the Wassail cup sliced of well-toasted bread sat at the bottom. With the apple floating on top, this was basically a full meal. Nice and full, it was then passed around, everyone taking a sup from the communal bowl. I prefer to ladle it into separate glasses or mugs – and I am sure my guests would be pleased with this decision.

Lambswool drinking was not restricted to Twelfth Night, or even Christmastide, as this entry from Samuel Pepys’ diary dated the 9th of November 1666 informs us: ‘Being come home [from an evening of dancing], we to cards, till two in the morning, and drinking lamb’s-wool. So to bed.’[6]

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Recipe

I have to admit, I was unsure about the lambswool, but it was delicious. I think that it should come back, and it is certainly much, much nicer than bought mulled wine. Recipes don’t necessarily specify the type of sugar, but I think light brown sugar really complements the maltiness of the beer well.

A note on the beer: trendy IPAs and other craft beers are far too hoppy for this recipe – I think there’s a flavour clash, so make sure you go for a low-hop traditional brown ale. I used Old Speckled Hen (which is available to buy gluten-free, by the way). The best – and, dare I say it – most authentic choice would be an unhopped ale, but I have never come across one! Add cream and eggs if you think it matches your own tastes: I have to admit that as an eating/drinking experience, the creamy texture worked better with the pureed apple than the version without.

I used dessert apples for the wool, but you can use crap apples if you want to be true to the early modern period, or Bramley’s Seedlings, which do have the benefit of breaking down to a nice fluff. I discovered that it’s very difficult to get your apples to float on top, but this is not of great importance. Sam Bilton has an ingenious way of getting her apple puree to float though, and that is to fold a whipped egg white into the cooked apple puree.[7]

Makes 6 to 8 servings

6 small to medium-sized dessert apples

Caster sugar to taste (optional)

2 x 500 ml bottles of brown ale

120 – 140 g soft dark brown sugar

2 cinnamon sticks

8 cloves

1 tsp ground ginger

120 ml dark rum or brandy

4 eggs (optional)

300 ml cream (any kind will do; optional)

To serve: freshly-grated nutmeg

Start by making the apple purée: peel, core and chop the apples and place in a small saucepan with a few tablespoons of water, cover, turn the heat to medium, and cook until soft. If the apples don’t break down naturally, use the back of a wooden spoon. Add caster sugar to taste – if any is needed at all.

Whilst the apples are cooking down, pour the beer into a saucepan, add 120 g of soft dark brown sugar if making the non-creamy/eggy version, or add 140 g if you’re intrigued by it! Snap the cinnamon sticks and chuck those in along with the other spices. Turn the heat to medium and let it all get nice and steaming-hot; you don’t want it to boil, otherwise you’ll lose a lot of the alcohol. Leave for 10 minutes so the spices can infuse, then add the rum or brandy. Let it come back up to heat for another five minutes. If you don’t want to make the custardy version, the lambswool is ready, and it can be ladled out into glasses or mugs and top with a couple of spoons of the warm apple purée and a few raspings of freshly-grated nutmeg.

For the custardy version: after you add the brandy or rum, whisk the eggs and cream in a bowl, take the lambswool off the heat, and pour three or four ladlefuls of it into the cream and egg mixture, whisking all the time. Now whisk this mixture into the lambswool, and stir over a medium-low heat until it thickens. If you want to use a thermometer to help you, you are looking to reach a temperature of 80°C. Pass the whole lot through a sieve and into a clean pan, and serve as above.

Notes

[1] Herrick, Robert. Works of Robert Herrick. vol II. Alfred Pollard, ed., London, Lawrence & Bullen, 1891.

[2] Brears, P. (2014) Traditional Food in Yorkshire. Prospect Books.

[3] Brears (2014); Crosby, J. (2023) Apples and Orchards since the Eighteenth Century: Material Innovation and Cultural Tradition. Bloomsbury.

[4] Hole, C. (1976) British Folk Customs. Hutchinson Publishing Ltd.

[5] Though quoted in many places, I could not find the source of this recipe – but the reigning monarch was Charles I

[6] Diary entries from November 1666, The Diary of Samuel Pepys website https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1666/11/.

[7] Bilton, S. (2025) Much Ado About Cooking: Delicious Shakespearean Feasts for Every Occasion. Hachette UK.

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17/12/2025 · 12:35 pm

Nesselrode Pudding

This delicious iced dessert, which was very popular in the 19th century at Christmastime, crops up in most cookery books of the time, and is described as ‘a quiet Victorian icon’ by Annie Gray in her excellent book At Christmas We Feast (2021).[1] It is associated with this time of year because of its main ingredient: puréed chestnuts, and it deserves a comeback.

Count Nesselrode (Creative Commons)

According to Eliza Acton, the pudding was invented by the famous Marie-Antoine Carême,[2] but it is not the case. In one of her best (and most obscure) books, Food with the Famous, Jane Grigson informs us that it was actually ‘invented by Monsieur Mony, chef for many years, to the Russian diplomat, Count Nesselrode, in Paris.’[3] Annie Gray took the research step further: the first printed recipe appears in Carême’s book L’Art de la Cuisine Française. In the original French version, he tells us he got the recipe from Mony, but in the English translation, he claims he – Carême – invented it.[4] Odd.

Listen to Annie discuss her book At Christmas We Feast with me in this past podcast episode.

Recipes do vary, though chestnuts are essential (unless you are Agnes Marshall, who asks – rather controversially – for almonds, in her Book of Ices[5]). Other ingredients include glacé and dried fruits, vanilla and maraschino liqueur – an essential. in my book, but some recipes suggest using brandy or rum as alternatives. There is a custard base, but the mixture is not churned like regular ice cream: this is a no-churn affair. It’s prevented from freezing to a solid block with the addition of airy whipped cream and Italian meringue.

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Recipe

There are several stages to making this pudding, and you need to start making it at least two days before you want to eat it. Don’t let the making of egg custard sauces and Italian meringues put you off. However, a good digital thermometer and electric beater are essential.

Serves 8

For the pudding:

60 g chopped raisins or mixed fruit (currants, raisins and sultanas)[7]

60 g chopped candied peel or Maraschino cherries

80 ml maraschino

1 vanilla pod

300 ml single cream

3 egg yolks

160 g light brown sugar

160 g caster sugar

3 tbs/45 ml water

2 egg whites

300 ml whipping cream

440 g can or 2 x 200 g packets of unsweetened chestnut purée

To garnish: Maraschino cherries or candied chestnuts

For the custard sauce:

300 ml single cream or half-and-half whole milk and cream

50 g caster sugar

4 egg yolks

Around 25 ml maraschino (see recipe)

Soak the dried fruit and peel or cherries in maraschino overnight.

Next day, split the vanilla pod lengthways and scrape out the seeds and place both pod and seeds in a saucepan along with the single cream and heat to scalding point.

Meanwhile, put the egg yolks and light brown sugar in a mixing bowl, mix and then beat with a balloon whisk until it becomes a few shades paler. Pour in the hot cream by degrees, whisking all the time. Return the mixture to the pan and stir over a medium-low heat until it thickens – don’t let it boil, or you’ll get scrambled eggs – this should take about 5 minutes. If you want to use a thermometer to help you judge this, you are looking for a temperature of 80°C. Pass the mixture through a sieve into a tub, seal, cool and refrigerate until cold.

As it cools, make an Italian meringue: in a thick-bottomed saucepan, add the sugar and water. Place over a medium and stir until the sugar is dissolved, then bring it up to a boil. Insert your thermometer.

Meanwhile, put the whites in a bowl, ready to beat. When the temperature of the syrup hits 110-115°C, start beating the eggs to stiff peaks. When the syrup is 121°C, take the pan off the heat and trickle the syrup into the whites in a steady stream. Keep beating until almost cold – around 10 minutes – then cool completely. Whip the whipping cream until floppy.

Now the Nesselrode pudding can be assembled. Mix the chestnut puree into the cold, rich custard; you may need to use your electric beater to make the mixture smooth. If you like, pass the mixture through a sieve. Using a metal spoon, fold in the cream, then the meringue. Take your time – you don’t want to lose all of the air you have introduced to the meringue and cream. Strain the fruits (keep the alcohol) and fold those into the mixture.

Select your mould – a generous 2 lb/900 g loaf tin is best, but you can use a pudding basin, or anything you like, as long as it has a volume of around 1.5-1.6 litres – and line it with cling film. Gingerly pour or ladle the mixture, cover with more cling film and freeze overnight.

Now make the custard sauce as you normally would – there’s a full method here – flavour with the strained alcohol. Taste it and add more booze if desired. When it tastes just right, add an extra half shot. Cool, cover and refrigerate.

To serve:

Remove the pudding from the freezer 30 to 40 minutes before you want to serve it. At the same time, place the custard sauce in the freezer so that it can get really cold.

Turn out the pudding onto a serving plate, remove the cling film, clean up the edge with kitchen paper and garnish. If the pudding is a bit of a mess around the edge, pipe some whipped cream around it. Pour the ice-cold custard sauce into a jug and serve.

Note: to make nice, neat cuts, pour hot water into a tall mug or (heat-proof) glass and heat up a serrated knife; this heat and a gentle sawing motion should result in clean cuts.

Notes

[1] Gray, A. (2021) At Christmas We Feast: Festive Food Through the Ages. Profile.

[2] This earliest mention of the pudding in the many editions of Acton’s classic Modern Cookery was the 14th. Acton, E. (1854) Modern Cookery for Private Families. 14th ed. Lonman, Brown, Green, and Longhams.

[3] Grigson, J. (1979) Food with the Famous. Grub Street.

[4] Gray (2021)

[5] Marshall, A.B. (1885) The Book of Ices. William Clowes and Sons.

[6] Ibid.

[7] When I made the pudding for the blog, I decided to forego chopping the fruit, wanting nice, big, plump fruits. A mistake: the large pieces sank – rats!

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18/12/2024 · 1:41 pm

Recipe: Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Prunes

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16/12/2024 · 7:31 pm

My Foolproof Roast Potatoes

I told my social media followers that my Christmas recipe this year was going to be roast turkey and I said that I would also provide the recipes for two sides. I provided four options: roast potatoes, Brussels sprouts, bread sauce and cranberry sauce/jelly. Roast potatoes received the most votes so here we go.[1]

I believe that the roast potatoes are almost as important as the roast meat, perhaps more important. Whether it’s the Christmas dinner or the weekly Sunday roast, if you mess up the roasties, everyone will be sad, and there’s a good chance you’ll be forever shunned by friends and family.

So I provide you with my method. It’s tried and tested and I reckon foolproof! Don’t worry about precise weights/volumes of ingredients or sizes of roasting trays; this recipe is most adaptable so use what you have. What is important, however, is the type of potato used and the fat or oil in which they are cooked.

The potatoes must be of the floury type: Maris Piper, King Edward and Albert Bartlett varieties are easy to find in the supermarkets, but for me the supreme variety of spud when it comes to roasting is the Alouette. It’s technically a waxy potato, but when roasted the centre is like the creamiest mashed potato. It’s not widely available in supermarkets, but keep a look out at greengrocers and farmers’ markets; you will not be sorry should you happen upon some and buy a kilo or two. I bought mine from Unicorn in Manchester.

Next, we need good fat or oil. I used approximately equal amounts of lard and rapeseed oil. All solid animal fats are good: beef dripping, goose fat and duck fat are great alternatives – they all have high smoking points and make for a crisp potato. As for plant-based oils, you must avoid olive oils completely and go for high smoke point ones like rapeseed, groundnut or sunflower. Avoid the solid, white vegan fats, they are bad for you and the environment. You don’t have to go half and half either, you can use all oil or all animal fat: I vary it depending on what oils and fats I have in the store cupboard/fridge.

Anyway, let’s get to it.

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Recipe

Make sure to use a deep roasting tin and that it is big enough to fit all of the potatoes in a single layer. Notice too there are no herbs thrown in, but if you want to add some be my guest.

If making roasties for the Christmas dinner, you can slide the tray of oil or fat into the oven as soon as the turkey comes out.

Good, floury potatoes, peeled

Salt

Plant-based oils and/or solid animal fats

Preheat your oven to 190°C (if you followed my turkey recipe, the oven will already be at this temperature). Add enough oil or fat to the tin so that it comes to a depth of between 0.5 to 0.75 centimetres. Slide it into the oven to get nice and hot.

Angular cuts make for crispier roasties

Cut your potatoes into good-sized pieces[2] making cuts at angles so that there are sharp, angular pieces: the pointier, the crispier; the crispier the better.

Get a large pot of water that had been liberally dosed with salt boiling and add the potatoes. Cover and bring back to a boil, and once boiling again, set a timer for 6 minutes.

When the time is up, strain the cooking water and allow the potatoes to steam dry for a few minutes, then place them back in the pan, cover the lid and give them a good shake to fluff up the edges (wear oven gloves, don’t get a steam burn). Leave the lid off the spuds again so that they can steam a little longer. You can do this stage well in advance if you like – even the previous day.

Fluffed and ready for the oven!

Gingerly remove the roasting tin and place the potatoes in the oil, spacing them out in a single layer. Use a pair of tongs to help. Slide the roasting tin back into the oven. After 15 minutes turn them over, and keep turning them every 15 minutes or so until crisp on the outside and cooked through the centre. It will take around an hour.

Using tongs, place in a warmed serving dish or bowl and serve.

Notes

[1] Sprouts came second – recipe coming very soon.

[2] I’m not going to dictate to you what a good size is; it’s all down to personal preference, but as a guide, medium potatoes get cut into quarters or sixths, and larger ones into eighths.

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11/12/2024 · 2:24 pm

Roast Turkey and Giblet Gravy

A very bronzed roast Copas turkey: butter is the only way to get this deep, delicious colour.

This blog post complements the recent episode of The British Food History Podcast called Turkey with Tom Copas.

If you feel inspired to order a Copas turkey, you need to get your order in by 16 December to avoid disappointment.

In the episode, we discussed the best way to roast turkey and we concluded that as long as you baste the bird and calculate the cooking time properly, it will be delicious. Tom even says that there’s no need to cover the turkey with bacon. While I agree with him, I do like the crispy bacon and the delicious, perfectly seasoned juices that come from the roasting turkey. My way of roasting turkey is very similar to how I cook a chicken.

What we didn’t discuss is the giblets! Please don’t waste them, they can be turned into lovely rich gravy when combined with the roasting juices. It’s important to get the giblet stock on about 45 minutes before the turkey goes in the oven (or you could prepare it in advance).

If you want to stuff the turkey, I suggest you stuff the neck only because an empty cavity means quicker cooking and a more succulent turkey.

Right, let’s get to it.

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To Roast a Turkey

You don’t have to use bacon if you don’t want to, but butter is essential. It adds richness, helps the bird keep moist and gives the skin a lovely deep brown colour.

1 free-range turkey

250 g salted butter, softened

Freshly ground black pepper

Around 14 rashers of dry-cured streaky bacon (optional)

Stuffing (optional)

Halved or quartered carrots and parsnips (optional; see recipe)

As soon as you get up on Christmas morning, take the turkey out of the fridge, untruss it, and when it’s time to cook the turkey, preheat your oven to 190°C.

Sit the turkey on a board, legs facing towards you, then make a tear in the skin where the breast starts and lift the skin away from the breast. Don’t rush – you don’t want to tear the skin. Put half the butter between the skin and breast and massage it as far back as possible. If you are using stuffing, add this under the skin too and tuck the flap of neck skin underneath. If there’s not much neck skin, don’t worry, it can be secured with a skewer.

Smear the rest of the butter over the outside of the turkey and season with plenty of black pepper, then lay the bacon over, overlapping each rasher only slightly.

Weigh the prepared turkey and calculate the cooking time: 30 minutes per kilo. A 4.5 kilo turkey will take 2 ½ hours. If cooking for more than 3 hours, cover the legs with foil.

Sit the turkey in its roasting tin, place it in the oven, and leave it for a good 45 minutes before doing anything at all. At the 45-minute mark baste the turkey with any juices; make sure to tip any juices in the cavity into the roasting tin.

Baste every 20 minutes or so. When the bacon is very crispy, remove it and set aside.

If you like you can add some carrots and parsnips, peeled and halved or quartered to braise in the juices. It’s best to do this when there are 90 minutes to go – don’t forget to turn the veg over each time you braise.

90 minutes to go, the bacon has been removed and the vegetables added to braise

When the time is up, you can test with a digital probe: 68°C is the temperature you are looking for. Take the turkey, place it on a carving board and cover with foil. It will happily rest for one to two hours.

When it’s time to carve, remove the legs and separate them into thighs and drumsticks. For the breast, I find the easiest way is to remove one side completely and then slice it thickly. These can be arranged on a warm serving plate, surrounded by the crisp bacon. Only cut into the second breast if the first one goes (it keeps better that way for leftover feasts).

I massaged the stuffing quite far into the turkey’s breast skin, protecting the meat and keeping it juicy

To Make Giblet Gravy

Don’t waste or fear the giblets! The giblets are the heart, neck, gizzard and liver.[1] Use your vegetable trimmings from the veg to make the stock: though avoid brassicas like sprouts.

For the stock:

Heart, gizzard and neck

A knob of butter

Leek greens, carrot peelings, and some celery trimmings, or 2 outer stems of celery

2 cloves of garlic, lightly crushed

Herbs: bay leaves, parsley stalks, rosemary or thyme sprig tied with string

175 ml white wine

Cold water

For the gravy

Giblet stock

Pan of turkey juices

1 tbs cornflour

To make the stock, first cut up the giblets into quarters.

In a saucepan, heat the butter until foaming, add the giblets and fry over a medium-high heat until brown – about 5 minutes. Now add the vegetable trimmings, garlic and herbs and wilt them. Cook until they have picked up a tinge of brown, then add the wine. Stir and scrape any nice burnt bits from the bottom. Add water to just cover the contents, put a lid on and bring to a simmer and cook for around 3 hours, then strain through a sieve into a clean pan (or into a tub if you’re making it in advance).

When it’s time to make the gravy, get the stock nice and hot. When the turkey is cooked and is resting on its board, pour the hot stock into the roasting tin and scrape off all the nice treacly burnt bits, then tip the whole thing back into your saucepan. Skim away most of the buttery juices.[2] Bring to a simmer and then add the cornflour which has been first slaked in a little cold water. Stir and simmer unlidded for 10 minutes.

Check the seasoning, though usually I find that the bacon and the salted butter from roasting the turkey have done it for me. Pour the gravy into a jug. You can pass it through a sieve, but I never do. Easy!

[1] Use the liver for the stuffing, or fry it and eat it on toast. You could devil it – recipe for devilling livers can be found here.

[2] But don’t throw the fat away, it can be used for frying vegetables for sauces or soup.

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24/12/2023 · 10:22 am

Negus

Wine, Cyder, Negus, Purl,[1] and Porter;

Are liquors for any Courtier.

The Free-Mason’s Calendar, 1776[2]

Merry Christmas everyone! It’s time for my annual boozy Christmas drink, and this year’s is so good, you can even give it to the kids; if you take Mrs Beeton’s advice (I advise against it, but what do I know). It is called negus; the ingredients are simple, and you are almost guaranteed to have them this time of year: wine, sugar, citrus fruit, spices. Easy.

Its origin lies with the English officer class of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, who got into the very sensible habit of watering down their wine to avoid getting too drunk of an evening. They still wanted something to drink though. It is named after Colonel Francis Negus (1660-1732), ‘a well-connected gentleman’, who, aside from being a noted member of the officer class, was also an MP, and a talented horse rider and hunter, so-much-so he was given the position of Master of the Horse and Warden of Windsor Forest. Quite the chap it would seem. The earliest description known comes in the form of a handwritten note in a 1725 edition of Tacitus’s works. It said: ‘After a morning’s walk, half a pint of white wine, made and hot and sweetened a little, is recond very good. – Col. Negus, a gentn. of tast, advises it, I have heard say.’[3] Initially it was a heated mixture of white wine and water, sugar and then some citrus juice, sometimes lemons, or sweet or Seville oranges, and it hasn’t really changed that much.

Its low alcohol made it especially good for the infirm or chronically ill. One Dr William Buchan in his 1797 book, prescribes claret negus for those with ‘Slow or Nervous Fever’, what we would call depression today.[4] In the book Oxford Nightcaps (1827), the author tells us that a doctor friend of his, a certain Doctor Willich, thinks ‘Negus is one of the innocent and wholesome species of drink especially if Seville oranges be added’. He also recommends lemons, cinnamon, cloves and all-spice. And calves’ foot jelly, which was thought very nourishing to those who couldn’t digest anything too rich or challenging.

Mr Fezziwig’s Ball as depicted by John Leech

Into the mid-19th century, negus settled down as a drink to be enjoyed by everyone, the wine most often used now being port (a drink which had been made popular since the Napoleonic Wars). It is mentioned in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843). When the Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge to show him the wonderful parties put on by his old boss, the kind and caring, Mr Fezziwig: ‘There were dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer.’[5] What a sight they would have been!

Isabella Beeton’s considered negus a children’s drink

So inoffensive was negus that it became a popular drink with kids, with Mrs Beeton informing us in 1861 that ‘[a]s this beverage is more usually drunk at children’s parties than at any other, the wine need not be very old or expensive for the purpose.’ Her proportions are 1 pint of port to every quart of water, plus a quarter of a pound of sugar, zest and juice of one lemon and some grated nutmeg. She adds: ‘Allow 1 pint of wine, with the ingredients in proportion, for a party of 9 or 10 children.’[6]

It’s essentially a weak version of my favourite hot-booze drink, smoking bishop, but child-friendly. Hm. I suppose it’s one way to get them to sleep on Christmas Eve night!

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The recipe

Use whatever wine you prefer and your favourite citrus fruit. I went with port and a clementine and added some nutmeg and cinnamon. I must say it was very drinkable.

I’ve metricated the volumes, but the rule of thumb here is 1 part wine to 2 parts water, and you can sweeten the mixture to your taste.

Makes 1.3 litres:

400 ml wine (port, claret or white wine)

Zest and juice of 1 citrus fruit (lemon, sweet orange, Seville orange, clementine, etc)

Spices: ¼ freshly grated nutmeg, a snapped cinnamon stick, a teaspoon of cracked allspice berries or bruised cloves; choose your favourites.

800 ml boiling water

100 to 120 g caster sugar.

Heat the wine slowly with the zest and juice of your chosen fruit, and the spices until scalding hot (but not boiling). Add the hot water, then add sugar to taste. Pass through a sieve into a punch bowl or jug. To serve, ladle into beakers or cups.

One final note before I go: in Jerry Thomas and Christian Shultz’s How to Mix Drinks (1862), there is a very interesting-sounding soda negus recipe. The wine is warmed up with sugar and spices, then left to cool, then soda is added before serving.[7] Worth a try I think!

Notes

[1] Purl was an ale that had been infused with wormwood. Sounds full-on. Potential future Christmas booze post.

[2] Anon. (1776) The Free-Mason’s Calendar: or, an Almanac for the Year of Christ 1776.

[3] Wondrich, D. (2021) The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails. Edited by D. Wondrich and N. Rothbaum. Oxford University Press.

[4] Buchan, W. (1797) Domestic Medicine, Or, A Treatise on the Prevention and Cure of Diseases, by Regimen and Simple Medicines. Edited by I. Cathrall. Richard Folwell.

[5] Dickens, C. (2010) A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings. Penguin Classics.

[6] Beeton, I. (1861) The Book of Household Management. Lightning Source.

[7] Thomas, J. and Schultz, C. (1862) How to Mix Drinks, Or, The Bon-vivant’s Companion. Dick & Fitzgerald.

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20/12/2023 · 6:57 am

Westmorland Sweet Lamb Pie

This post complements the 2023 Christmas special of The British Food History Podcast called ‘Mince Pies’:

I have written several times about mince pies and mincemeat over the years on the blog. There are my two go-to mincemeat recipes: Jane Grigson’s Orange mincemeat, and Mrs Beeton’s traditional mincemeat, along with instructions on how to make small, individual mince pies. This year, however, I wanted to make an old-fashioned sweet lamb pie, once eaten in  Westmorland in the Northwest of England, a defunct county now making up parts of Cumbria and North Yorkshire. It was one of the last areas of the country to carry on putting meat in its mincemeat mixtures.[1] Like all mince pies of the past, they were not eaten only at Christmas, but much of the year, though because of the dried fruit content, they were associated with wintertime.

I was first introduced to this pie by Jane Grigson, and I made it many moons ago, for the Neil Cooks Grigson blog, I really liked it and have been meaning to revisit it.[2] These pies were not of the small individual type, but large plate pies, baked in a pie plate made of earthenware, tin or enamel.[3]

I’ve based the recipe on hers, but I did make some changes inspired by other recipes found on the Foods of England Project website.[4] The mincemeat isn’t cooked, but because of the booze and sugar content, it keeps very well. Don’t be put off by the meat content, it makes the filling succulent – and you can taste it, but this blurring of sweet and savoury is most delicious, something I have come to embrace after so many years of making historical British food.

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The filling:

This makes around 2 ¼ litres of well-packed filling, but I do intend to make two large pies at least and lots of smaller ones, so scale down if need be. It keeps for months if left somewhere dark, dry and cool; and remember mince pies are for life, not just for Christmas.

500 g lean lamb

200 g lamb or beef suet, membrane and sinew removed (packet stuff is acceptable if fresh is unavailable)

350 g apples, peeled and cored

120 g almonds

250 g each currants, raisins and sultanas

300 g soft, dark brown sugar

100 g chopped candied peel

Juice and zest of 2 oranges

120 ml dark rum

1 tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp each ground mace and cinnamon

½ freshly grated nutmeg

To make a truly ‘minced’ meat, you need to chop the meat, suet, apples and almonds quite finely. (You can, of course, use minced lamb, slivered almonds and grated apple and suet).

My ‘minced’ lamb and suet

Mix everything together in a large bowl and pack tightly into sterilised jars.[5] Leave to mature for at least a week before using.

The pie:

These pies were made on pie plates, but you can make them in any flan or pie tin you like. For my 26 cm diameter pie plate I used the following amounts, though the pastry was quite thin, so you may want to proportion things up in line with perhaps 360 g flour. I will leave it to you to judge size and thinness. There are instructions on how to make small, individual mince pies here.

300 g plain flour

150 g butter, or 75 g each butter and lard

75 g caster or icing sugar

80-100 ml cold water

Egg wash: 1 egg beaten with ½ tsp salt

Dice the fat and rub into the flour until breadcrumbs are formed (or use the flat beater on a machine, set to slow), then add the sugar, mix, and add the water slowly mixing and stirring. Bring everything together to form a firm dough. You might not need all of the water. Knead briefly to smooth the dough, cover and then leave to rest in the fridge for around 30 minutes.

Roll out two-thirds of the dough into a round, lift and lay it over the plate neatly. Prick the base with a fork. Spoon the filling in. Again, go with your gut – do you want a thin amount or loads? I added enough to come up to the lip of my plate.

Roll the remaining third of the pastry out into a round. As it rests, wash the rim of the pie plate and place the lid on top, securing it with a crimping tool or fork prongs or with your thumb or forefinger. Cut a steam hole and brush with egg. You can sprinkle a little sugar over the top if you fancy.

Place in the fridge to firm up and preheat the oven to 200°C. When the oven has come up to heat, slide the pie onto the centre shelf and cook for around 35 minutes, or until a good golden-brown colour and you can see the filling bubble through the steam hole.

Best eaten warm with thick cream, or rum butter.

I ate my first piece so quickly, I forgot to photograph it. This is my seconds.

[1] Mason, L. and Brown, C. (1999) The Taste of Britain. Devon: Harper Press.

[2] Read the original post here: http://neilcooksgrigson.com/2014/01/02/388-sweet-lamb-pie-from-westmorland/

[3] Grigson, J. (1992) English Food. Third Edit. Penguin.

[4] Hughes, G., ‘North Country Sweet Pie’, The Foods of England Project. http://www.foodsofengland.co.uk/northcountrysweetpie.htm

[5] To sterilise jars, heat them in the oven for 25 minutes at 120°C. Any rubber seals – or lids with rubber seals, can be sterilised in very hot water.

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10/11/2023 · 1:06 pm

To Roast a Haunch of Venison

Christmas isn’t too far away and the chances are you are probably already discussing what meats you will be roasting on the big day. Well, I am going to stick my neck out and suggest venison. Game used to be a very important part of the Christmas feasting, especially in the countryside, making an excellent centrepiece to the day’s feasting.

Regular readers will know that I love cooking with game, but it has been a while since I cooked some up for the blog. I got the opportunity to cook a nice haunch of venison because I was sent some from Farm Wilder to try out, and my gosh it was good. Apart from the meat being tender and delicious, the deer that make their venison are culled as an important part of land management in Southwest England. Without any natural predators, their numbers are increasing and pretty as they may be, they are very damaging to woodland habitats – in short, they are a menace![1]

A medium-rare roasted haunch of Farm Wilder venison

For more information about Farm Wilder and their venison, click this link.

The important thing when buying a roasting joint is to buy as large a one as possible; large joints always roast juicier and more evenly. Bear in mind that any excess venison can be chopped and made into a hunter’s pie – essentially a shepherd’s pie but with lamb swapped for venison. I’ve suggested a 2 kg haunch but don’t worry if yours is a different weight, I have included a formula for calculating the roasting time in the method. The haunch is the equivalent of beef topside, but I think it is a much superior joint in both tenderness and flavour.

Venison is best marinated before cooking; it adds a complexity of flavour to the meat and makes it even more tender. Many recipes go into great detail about how this should be done using cooked marinades, but I think the best is also the simplest: red wine, red wine vinegar, olive oil and some herbs and spices.

Folk also make a big deal about the meat drying out in cooking (venison being a very lean meat) and there are – again – complex methods to keep the meat moist: larding it with needles or tying sheets of pork backfat or skin around it. These work, but I have found that smearing the joint with plenty of butter and covering it all with smoked streaky bacon works perfectly, adding more depth of flavour; and you get to eat some crispy bacon with your dinner.

I chose to serve my venison with potatoes and parsnips roasted in duck fat, Brussels sprouts, gravy and a fruit jelly: redcurrant is the easiest to get hold of from the shops, but quince or medlar jelly can be used too.

Serves 8:

2 kg haunch of venison

½ bottle red wine

125 ml red wine vinegar

125 ml olive oil

Around one dozen black peppercorns and juniper berries

A bunch of herbs: e.g., rosemary, thyme, marjoram or winter savoury sprigs, 3 or 4 fresh bay leaves

2 carrots, peeled and sliced

2 sticks celery, trimmed and sliced

1 leek or onion, trimmed and sliced

75 g salted butter, softened

Salt and pepper

6 to 8 rashers of smoked streaky bacon

2 tbs of redcurrant, quince or medlar jelly

2 or 3 tsp cornflour

500 ml beef stock

The day before you want to cook the venison, place it in a tub only slightly larger than the joint itself along with the wine, vinegar and olive oil. Lightly crush the spices, tie the herbs with some string and add those too. Make sure the venison is covered – or mostly covered – by the wine mixture then cover and refrigerate. Turn the meat once or twice if it is not completely submerged.

Next day, take the tub out of the fridge a few hours before you want to cook the meat, so it can come up to room temperature. Preheat your oven to 225°C. Calculate your cooking time: for rare meat roast for 15 mins per 500 g of meat plus 15 minutes; for medium 18 mins per 500 g plus 15 minutes.[2]

Now prepare the meat. Spread your vegetables in the centre of the tray and place the venison on top. Dab it dry with some kitchen paper then smear the top with the butter, season well with salt and pepper, then cover the top with the bacon, making sure each rasher overlaps the next slightly.

Oven-ready haunch of venison

Ladle around half of the marinade into the tin and slide the meat into the oven. Roast for 15 minutes and then turn the heat down to 180°C. Baste the venison every 15 to 20 minutes or so, adding more marinade if it starts to dry up.

For the last 15 minutes of the cooking time, turn the heat back up to 225°C, remove the bacon, give the meat one more baste, and let it crisp up at the edges. Take the tin out, remove the meat to a board or dish and cover with kitchen foil. It will sit very happily there as you roast your potatoes and cook your veg.

Now make the gravy. Strain the contents of the tin into a jug and spoon or pour a couple of tablespoons (approximately) of the buttery olive oil layer into a saucepan. Discard the rest of the fat. Put the pan over a medium heat and stir in 2 teaspoons of cornflour. Once incorporated, cook for a minute before adding the juices. Mix to blend, before adding the beef stock, mix again and then add the remaining marinade. Cook for 10 minutes, then add the jelly and season with salt and pepper. If the gravy isn’t as thick as you’d like, slake another teaspoon of cornflour in a little cold water and stir it in. When ready, strain into a warm jug.

Remove the outer mesh covering the joint, slice and serve with the gravy, the crisp bacon rashers and extra jelly on the side.

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Notes:

[1] It is for this reason that I consider venison a vegan-friendly food: we’d have to cull them whether we ate meat or not, so we may as well.

[2] If you like your meat well done, I can’t help you.

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29/12/2022 · 11:10 am

Black bun (Scotch Bun) Part 2: Recipe

My traditional yeast-leavened black bun

As promised, and carrying on from my last post, here is my recipe for the traditional yeast leavened black bun (Scotch bun). I must say I was really surprised with how well it turned out: it was enriched with so much stuff and was so huge, I thought the poor little yeast cells wouldn’t be able to do their job. I was wrong, but it did take two days to do two provings required before baking.

The white dough is essentially a sweet brioche made without eggs. When it was time to knock it back after its first rising, I was encouraged by the network of small yeasty bubbles that had formed inside the dough.

The tiny bubbles in my enriched basic dough

The bun was huge and made quite the centrepiece (though if you wanted to reduce the quantities and make a smaller one, go ahead). The cake inside was deliciously moist, and the brioche dough wonderfully buttery and thin and in such contrast with the treacle-black centre.

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It may have been big, but it kept well and was perfectly delicious well over a week after baking.

For the basic dough:

450 g plain white flour

450 g strong white bread flour

160 g caster sugar

10 g dried fast-action yeast

20 g salt

160 g softened butter

400 ml hand-hot full-fat milk

A smidge of flavourless oil

For the centre:

750 g basic dough

100 ml black treacle

400 g currants

400 g raisins

100 g candied peel

100 g slivered almonds

1 tsp mixed spice

½ tsp each ground cinnamon and allspice

2 eggs, plus 1 more for glazing

Butter for greasing

Granulated sugar

Two days before you want to bake your black bun, in the evening, make the basic dough. This is best done with an electric mixer, however don’t let me stop you attempting this by hand. Mix the dry ingredients – flours, yeast, sugar and salt – in your mixing bowl, make a well and add the butter and milk. Mix slowly with a dough hook until everything is mixed together, then turn the speed up a little and knead until smooth. Because it’s a low-gluten mixture and there’s all of that butter and sugar, it won’t be very elastic, but when it’s really smooth, you are done. It should take 8 to 10 minutes.

Paint the inside of a bowl with oil, then bundle up the sticky dough as best you can and cover with cling film. Leave to prove until around double in size. This took 18 hours: I use a low amount of yeast on purpose that the yeast ferments slowly. It may take less time for you if you used more yeast, and if your home is warmer than mine.

Knock back the dough and place 750 g of the dough in your food mixer, then add the treacle, dried fruits, candied peel, almonds, spices and eggs. Mix with a flat beater for a couple of minutes until everything looks smooth and like a Christmas cake batter. Set aside.

Take the remaining dough, form into a ball, place on a floured work surface and roll out into a large circle 32-35 cm in diameter. Make sure your pin is floured too; this will prevent sticking. With slightly wet hands, scoop the dark sticky dough and pop it in the centre of your circle. Now gather the dough so that the centre is completely covered – rather like a giant Eccles cake.

Cut away bits of the dough that have bunched up too much and glue any edges with a thin coat of beaten egg. Don’t worry if it looks a bit messy. Turn the bun over and flatten it with your hands, smoothing away any bulging bits to make a nice round shape.

Now liberally grease a 25 cm flan ring with butter and place on a baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper and then dusted with flour, and place the bun in the centre. Press the bun or lightly roll it with your rolling pin so that is just a centimetre off from touching the edge. Paint the top with egg and scatter over a little granulated sugar, then stab holes in the top with a thin, pointed knife right down to its base – this keeps it flat as it rises. Cover with a large plastic bag[1] and allow to prove until it has grown large enough to fill the ring. For me, this took 12 hours.

Preheat your oven to 175°C and place a heatproof tin on the bottom of the oven. When it’s time to bake the bun boil the kettle, then open the oven and slide your bun onto the middle shelf, gingerly slide the tin out enough so that you can pour in the hot water, slide it back in and close the door.

Bake at this temperature for an hour, then turn the heat down to 140°C and bake for a further 2½ hours. If the top is getting too brown, cover it with some kitchen foil.

Remove from the oven, and slide onto a cooling rack. Remove the ring when the bun is just warm.

The black bun will keep for weeks in an airtight box or tub. It is delicious eaten with sharp cheese.

Notes:

[1] I find a supermarket ‘bag for life’ is best for this task. I have one that I use only for proving things like this. Turn it over and turn up the edges, as you would your trousers to make it a sturdy shape and hey presto!

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