christmas

Stir-up Sunday, History and Plum pudding

18th November 2016 by Regula 5 Comments

Let me start with blowing my own trumpet, it’s my blog so I’m allowed! I’m pleased to have tracked down a copy of Delicious Magazine while in Budapest because in it they have elected my book Pride and Pudding as one of the best books of 2016! After the hard work creating this book I am of course flattered and beyond happy to get this kind of news! So thank you again Delicious Magazine UK!!

Now on to the news of the day!

This weekend will mark the last Sunday before advent which is traditionally Stir-up Sunday. According to (rather recent) tradition, plum pudding or Christmas pudding should be made on this day. It is a custom that is believed to date back to the 1549 Book of Common Prayer (though it is actually not); where a reading states ‘stir up, we beseech thee’. The words would be read in church on the last Sunday before Advent and so the good people knew it was time to start on their favourite Christmas treat.

It was a family affair: everyone would gather to stir the pudding mixture from east to west, in honour of the Three Kings who came from the east. Sometimes coins or trinkets would be hidden in the dough; finding them on Christmas Day would bring luck and good fortune.

There are a lot of legends and claims made about the origins of the plum pudding. Some say it was King George I who requested plum pudding as a part of the first Christmas feast of his reign, in 1714. George I was christened ‘the Pudding King’ because of this myth but there are no written records prior to the twentieth century to tell us that this king deserved this title.

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Ox heart stuffed with kale, bacon and mushrooms

14th February 2016 by Regula 14 Comments

The meat of the heart is eaten quite commonly in Peru, but it might surprise some of you that for centuries is was also eaten in England. Beef heart is so unpopular I get mine from a local farm for as little as £3. That is great value for a huge piece of meat. I asked a couple of butchers, some in Belgium and also Borough Market. Beef heart is the kind of cut that doesn’t get sold and that is such a shame.

The flavour and texture of beef heart is like that of a good beefy steak because beef heart is a muscle just like steak is. I find beef heart great in any way it is cooked because it has so much flavour and it is very tender. In Peru they make kebab style roasted beef heart, in England beef heart was usually stuffed with a forcemeat.

A couple of years ago I found a recipe for a stuffed beef heart in Elizabeth Raffald’s book The Experienced English Housekeeper (1769):

Wash a large beast’s heart clean and cut off the deaf ears, and stuff it with forcemeat as you do a hare, lay a caul of veal, or a paper over the top, to keep in the stuffing, roast it either in a cradle spit or hanging one, it will take an hour and a half before a good fire; baste it with red wine; when roasted take the wine out of the dripping pan and skim off the fat, and add a glass more of wine; when it is hot put in some lumps of red currant-jelly and pour it in the dish; serve it up and send in red currant-jelly cut in slices on a saucer.

The recipe was copied later by M. Radcliffe in her A Modern System of Domestic Cookery: Or, The Housekeeper’s Guide (1823) and it was also published in a later edition of Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy – A new Edition (1803). The recipe dit not appear in the first edition of 1747. Copying recipes from other cooks was common practice in those days and they were often copied word for word, making it easy to determine their source.

To make this dish slightly lighter I opted to stuff the heart with a duxelles, which is a mixture made with mushrooms, bacon and in this case kale or cavolo nero. If I had caul – a thin lace-like membrane which surrounds the stomach internal organs of some animals – like Raffald suggested, I would have used it as it keeps in the stuffing in nicely and tidy. But if you can not obtain it, some creative string-work will do the trick just fine.
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Winter feasting

23rd December 2015 by Regula 6 Comments

Planning christmas dinner ahead of time

I had it all under controle weeks ago, I only needed to sort out the bird for which I was late. To get a good bird, and with that I mean a bird that has roamed freely and has had a happy life without cruelty, I need to order at the farm over 6 months in advance. And I wasn’t that prepared this year. Getting a turkey, goose, duck or a capon like that is not easy in Flanders. Yes you can walk into a supermarket and get one, but since I don’t know where that bird has been, I tend to try and avoid it. Why? By buying factory farmed meat, you support it. So the number one thing to do if you want to take a stand is just not buying it anymore.

I now have a small turkey in my fridge, from a brand with a good name I’m not going to name. I’m going to treat it like a capon and go medieval this year. For the veg I have done my prep a little while ago, and there are a couple of side dishes which I am doing on the day itself. For us that is tomorrow, we traditionally come together for christmas eve rather than christmas day as we don’t have father christmas coming. Confusingly our father christmas came 6th of december and he is called Sinterklaas or Saint Nicolas. This is a pagan tradition which was adapted by christianity, and in some areas, Saint Nicolas became father christmas and was moved to christmas day. Children get gifts twice this month… imagine if you do not have a lot of money to spend.

But back to christmas and the food that come with it.

The veg prep in advance

Root vegetables.
These are so easy to prepare in advance so you can just finish them off just before serving. Especially if you have no help in the kitchen and the whole family has come to enjoy the celebrations at your house. First things first is choosing your roots, these can be parsnips, celery roots, turnips, celeriac and carrots. Clean and cut celeriac and turnip into dice, quarter thinner ones like parsnip or celery root, and leave small carrots whole.

The best way forward and this will take a little time, is to fry these veg separately because they will each be done at a different stage. If you get your mind set to it, it is actually a relaxing task and arranging all the veg to cool is actually quite pleasant, especially if you are a bit OCD, check my tray. Now leave them to cool, bag them carefully and chuck in your freezer. Then when you need them, defrost in your fridge overnight and glaze them with some butter and stock if you have it just before serving. If you are doing this the day before, you do not have to freeze them of course. Make sure the roots are warm all the way through and place in a warmed serving dish. The full and detailed recipe will be up on the Guardian soon but I think you will manage.

Next up are Brussels sprouts.
Now I am not particularly fond of sprouts, I don’t think they are pleasant to bite into except when they have stewed for hours in a quintessentially Dutch/Flemish dish called Hutsepot. In this dish, potato, roots, and sprouts are stewed with salty meat and sausage. A bit like a cassoulet but without beans and vegetables instead. But it can not be christmas without sprouts, I always prepare them, without fault. So here is an idea to make them a little more fun. I’ve added roasted pumpkin to give a little sweetness, and nuts to bring out the earthiness of the sprouts, and kale because I like it and because it gives a little silkiness and it works like a shawl around the other veg.

I prepped these veg in advance by blanching the sprouts and the pumpkin and then freezing them. Again if you are doing this the day before, you do not have to freeze them. The kale is blanched on the day, then finished off by tossing it in a hot pan with a generous know of butter, salt and pepper. The pumpkin is charred on a grill and the sprouts also tossed in a hot pan with butter. You can add bacon if you must, but some chopped up nuts and whole ones are enough for me.

Celeriac
Another veg that is always on my christmas table. I peel and cube these in advance, blanch and freeze or keep in the fridge until needed for either celeriac puree or soup. I saved you on time to do this in advance and it feels very good when you just have to finish these veg on the day. You feel wonderfully prepared!

Over to the fresh and crisp vegetable sides to make on the day
Kohlrabi is to winter what cucumber is to summer, a refreshing mouthful. I simply peel and dice the kohlrabi and toss them with a very simple dressing made of yoghurt diluted with water and salt and pepper. Then the whole lot is mixed with torn up watercress leaves and basil just before serving. More watercress then basil. It looks pretty and is perfect to bring a little fresh note to the meat and butter heavy table. Keep covered in the fridge until needed.

More roots – fresh beetroot and carrot salad
I can’t seem to get enough of them, but they are extremely healthy. If you can get your hands on multicoloured beets and carrots then use these. Some people just really love this stuff and will empty the plate quite quickly. This salad is made on the day. Just use a food processor or mandolin (careful!) to finely grate the carrots and beets. Cut parsley finely and mix in with the roots. Make a dressing by mixing a little apple vinegar, olive oil, yoghurt and salt and pepper. Now toss in with the roots. If you used more vegetables you might need to double the amount of dressing. Now cover up and place in the fridge until needed, or serve at once.

Beans, for bean lovers
Beans at the christmas table? Why not? I love beans. All too often I won’t have a large appetite after cooking christmas dinner, I will be running around giving people more sauce, more meat, more whatever. So I will end up, not eating meat and enjoying the vegetables instead. These beans are also good the day after for lunch. They are tasty. Vegetarians on your table will also be grateful for these. These are also okay to make a day in advance, or a couple of hours in advance. Soak a cup of white beans overnight and cook until done, let them cool. Finely chop up a half of red paprika, heat up a little olive oil in a small pan and fry lightly with one crushed clove of garlic. This will help it digest better. Chop up a handful of parsley and mix in with the beans, paprika and garlic. Now prepare 1/4 cup of yoghurt with a teaspoon of water and season with salt and pepper. Toss in with the beans, ready.

Mulled wine or Ypocras. (find my recipe here)
You need to make this a couple of days or a week in advance so the flavours can develop. You can even make the base and freeze it. I always make my mulled wine to an ancient recipe for Ypocras, or Hypocras. The spice mixture for ypocras was known as ‘Gyle’ and usually contained cinnamon, grains of paradise, long pepper and cardamom pods. These spices were bruised with a pestle and mortar and then left to steep in the red or white wine overnight or possibly even longer to soak up all the flavours.

Of course it can’t be christmas without christmas pudding if you are British, or obsessed with Britain like I am. But unfortunately it is too late to cook a christmas pudding, this is definitely a task you should do weeks and sometimes months in advance if you like a boozy pudding. I you want to be prepared for next year, you can start your pudding early with this recipe I posted a couple of years ago here >

I’ve written up the vegetable recipes in a more detailed manner for my friends over at Burleigh pottery, these are the links to the pages:
Preparing for christmas part one >
Preparing for christmas part two >

I’m wishing you a happy christmas wherever you are, and I hope to see you over on this blog again in 2016!

Love

Regula x

To make Ypocras

24th December 2013 by Regula 7 Comments

And then it is suddenly christmas again… it seems only yesterday that it was september and now we are only moments away from januari. It will be march in the blink of an eye and when it’s august you will be wondering where those months have gone to.
When you are a child, the days seem to drag on like weeks and the weeks like months but when you are all grown up… you wonder where that hour of free time went to and when you are finally able to start reading that book you’ve got to read in the summer.

To warm your spirits after the last busy weeks of the year 2013, a year that has brought me excitement, friendship and a new venture of which I will tell you all about very soon – I had mulled wine on my mind.
The sweet scent of the warm wine and spices always transport me back to the christmas markets in Aachen. My parents and I would drive to Germany especially for it each year. Even from a young age I would be allowed half a cup of mulled wine to warm my hands and to bring a rosy blush to my ice cold cheeks. It was one of the highlights of my year, to take in the different scents in the air, the aniseed of the artisan candy being made, the greasy smell of Reibekuchen, the aroma of spices blended with chocolate from the Aachener Printen biscuits and the mulled wine and rum.

Sometimes the very unlikely of foods and drink can be the ones that have been around for centuries and some recipes never changed very much.
Mulled wine or ypocras as its name was for centuries, has been around since the Middle Ages but mulled spirits pre-date Medieval times. I found a recipe for a fine spiced wine in a Roman cookery book that looks a lot like the recipe for ypocras. It is commonly thought that the drink is named after the Greek physician Hippocrates, however this is not so. It is more likely that ypocras has this name because the herbs and spices were strained through a conical filter bag known as a Manicum Hippocraticum – sleeve of Hippocrates. The Old French name for Hippocrates was ypocrate which explains the etymology of the Middle English name ypocras, hipocras, ipocras, ippocras, hvpocras, hvppocra, and many more variations.

The spice mixture for ypocras was known as ‘Gyle’ and usually contained cinnamon, grains of paradise, long pepper and cardamom pods. These spices were bruised with a pestle and mortar and then left to steep in the red or white wine overnight or possibly even longer to soak up all the flavours.
One can assume that ypocras was used for medicinal purposes rather than for feasting as in recipes it is often mentioned as the perfect tipple after dinner to aid digestion. The oldest recipes therefore include many more herbs which will have given the spiced drink more of a cough syrup flavour than the enjoyable winter warmer we know today.
The first English recipe for Ipocras dates from approximately 1390 and goes as follows:

Pur fait Ypocras,
Treys Unces de canell. Et iij unces de gyngener. spykenard de Spayn le pays dun deneres. garyngale. clowes, gylofre. poivr long, noiez mugadez. maziozame cardemonij de chescun i.qrt douce grayne de paradys flour de queynel de chescun dimid unce de toutes. soit fait powdour and serve it forth.

The recipe is more a list of ingredients and assumes the cook knows the proportions and that a red or white wine is to be used. Sugar was a precious ingredient and only for the lord and master so Ypocras would only contain sugar in the wealthy homes while the common folk sweetened their drink with honey.

Ypocras was common enough to be mentioned in literature as Chaucer wrote In his Merchant’s tale in the 14th century “He drynketh Ypocras, Clarree and Vernage Of spices hoote t’encreessen his corage.” and John Russell’s The Boke of Nurture even contains a ypocras recipe in verse.

Through history we find a vast amount of recipes for this spiced drink, but not only for the spiced wine. Before hops were being used in beer, there was a mixture of herbs known as the ‘Gruut’ that was used to flavour and preserve the beer. Mankind has always been searching for flavourings to tinkle the taste buts.

After the 16th century recipes become more richer including more sugar, oranges, lemons, almonds and apples. My recipe uses cinnamon, cloves, long pepper, nutmeg and clementine juice with a few tablespoons of home made sloe gin. I used raw cane sugar which worked rather well instead of white loaf sugar.
Sometimes I will add marjoram and cardamom like in the first recipe but because of the marjoram it started to taste rather savoury. It is still very pleasant and not a flavour you’d expect in a mulled wine so it is a definite option to add it if you want something different. The long pepper added enough spice so I didn’t need to use the dreaded ginger but if you are a ginger lover, feel free to add it as you please. I would have loved to add Grains of paradise but I had no way of getting my hands on them.

Regula Ypocras

What do you need

2 bottles of red wine, not your cheapest, not your most expensive.
4 buds of long pepper, crushed – email me if you can’t find it, I know where you can get it.
5 cloves1 fresh bay leaf
1 teaspoon of grated nutmeg, freshly grated please
1 stick of cinnamon
100 g raw cane sugar
the peel and juice of 1 clementine
3 tablespoons of sloe gin, or cherry brandy, you can omit this

Optional

1 sprig of marjoram
1 pod of cardamom, bruised

Method
heat up 200 ml of red wine with the sugar and the spices, juice and peel until it dissolves, boil for 10 minutes and then simmer for 5 more. Add the marjoram if you are using it and leave to cool, when nearly cold or cold, add the rest of the wine and the sloe gin and leave to take up those lovely flavours overnight. You can even freeze the wine and spice mixture before adding the rest of the wine.
Strain, bottle and keep in the fridge until needed then gently heat up before use – don’t allow it to boil or you will loose the alcohol and we won’t want that.

You might also enjoy
Raspberry vinegar >
Sloe Gin >
Damson cheese >
Cobnut Brandy >

Yuletide cookies for the tree

19th December 2012 by Regula 7 Comments

My mum and I used to bake yuletide cookies every december, and every year they came out burnt. As a child I was convinced they should be baked until the bottom part was nice and dark, after all, my mother made them that way.
When I asked her for the recipe last week, to make them in my own home for the first time, she added after listing the ingredients – don’t let them burn like we always did.
So here I was, making dough with a house full of foodie friends who were visiting to have an early christmas feast. Yet another excuse to eat well and be merry. To celebrate, in times where there is so much sorrow.
I bought my first christmas tree, named him Marcus and the plan is to plant him in the garden for next years christmas feast. On sunday morning we decorated Marcus with the cookies and he filled the living room with the scent of butter cookies and pine.

Marcus the tree. Why not use the cookie cutter as an ornament as well?

Yuletide is the twelve day midwinter festival celebrated from december 21 to 22. Later christianity adapted it to the ‘Twelve days of Christmas’.
It is the celebration of light – the beginning of shortening nights and lengthening days- and the rebirth of the world. Yulefires were lit – just like fires were lit at Samhain – but this time to transport the flame from the passed year to the fire of the new year. The Yule log which originally was an entire tree and not just a log, was brought into the house with a ceremony and decorated with edibles like apples and nuts before being burnt in the fire hearth. The tradition of burning the Yule log is derived from custom in 6th to 7th century Anglo-Saxon paganism which was practiced across northern Europe prior to Christianization. But I recently discovered from my friend Giulia that in Italy ‘the log’ is celebrated as well.

These cookies are so simple to make and fun, so the perfect thing to do with children… and bigger children because us girls sure had some fun decorating the tree with them!

Method
Preheat your oven to 160°C
Combine the butter and sugar and whisk until creamy
Add the egg yolks
Add the vanilla and Kirsh or Whisky
Add the flour
Combine and create a solid ball
Roll out the pastry until it’s just under 5 mm thick
Use a cookie cutter to cut out shapes
Use a toothpick to create a hole in each cookie, make it large enough
Arrange the cookies on a baking paper lined baking plate
Bake for about 15 minutes, don’t let them burn, the back should be golden not black 😉
Let them cool before using them to create decoration as they need to harden first

Enjoy

Beware, cats like these cookies as well it seems…

You might also like
Traditional pepper cookies (kruidnoten) >

christmas

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