Season's Greetings & Christmas Specials

How are last minute preparations for Christmas coming along? Are you frantically baking and cooking or relaxing with your feet up while your parents put together the Christmas feast? Either ways, I'm sure you are all looking forward to Christmas celebs tomorrow.

The husband has pushed off to India and I had to stay back because of a hectic work schedule and Id be joining him only in Jan. I was all ready to have frozen pizza and get drunk on wine on 25th, when a friend invited me over to hers for Christmas. Since the entire transport system comes to a standstill on 25th I am heading to hers tonight, attend a midnight Christmas service at the church and ring in Christmas with friends tomorrow. I would have loved to be with family, but hey, I'm not complaining. Atleast I'm not having frozen pizza and watching Downton Abbey reruns in my Pj's.

Anyways, here's wishing all you guys a very Merry Christmas. Have a glass or two of wine on me and enjoy your day to the max. Leaving you with some fun Christmassy stuff ...

Oddka

I love my cocktails and am forever trying to recreate new ones at home, which means scouting the drinks aisle at the supermarket is a treat. I came across this vodka drink called ODDKA and was thoroughly amazed at the flavours on offer. Fresh cut grass.. seriously.. now that's a flavour I'm completely intrigued by. Other flavours include Electricity, Salty caramel popcorn, Twisted melon and Peach Bellini. As luck would have it, I was asked if I'd like to try some Christmas cocktails using ODDKA and how on earth could I say no? Since I'm home alone, I've not really made any cocktails as yet but if I have a girls night out around New Years, I'd definitely be trying out a few cocktails from the list ODDKA has put together. If you do want to try something different this Christmas, then head on over to the ODDKA website and give some of their cocktails a go. Your local Asda or Sainsburys should stock a few flavours of ODDKA.

Castello Cheese

I received this really adorable Christmas stocking, with my name on it and all, filled with Castello Cheese. I had big plans to make Ronnie Murray's Baked leek tart with Castello Jersey Blue and I even bought all the ingredients, but with crazy work schedules I had to put the cooking on hold. I shall definitely give it a go one of these days I'm home. The Castello range includes Creamy Blue, Creamy White, Traditional Danish Blue, Extra creamy Danish Blue, Pineapple Halo i (I made a macaron filling with the Pineapple cheese), and the latest addition just in time for Christmas is the Tickler Cheddar, with a sweet, strong and tangy taste. If you are doing a cheese platter for the parties, don't forget to include this one, its a winner. Pair it with a Rioja Gran Reserva 2001 or a an Italian Barolo wine.

Christmas food and drink matching

Pairing the right drink with the food you serve is really an art. I try hard to actually do this and mostly, because of lack of knowledge, I just do a theme and follow with drinks from the same cuisine. When you do a large spread like for Christmas, this becomes a bit of an issue, especially when you have invited people with different tastes. To make matters easy for people like me, Waitrose has teamed up with wine lover Philip Schofield and wine connoisseur Olly Smith to develop a food and wine matching guide to get the combinations right. The infographic gives you a basic knowledge of pairings which would help you manage your Christmas meal pretty easily. I am sooo going to keep this for future references. There are also some great videos here for some festive inspiration

Parmigiano Reggiano Christmas Cook-off

Parmigiano Reggiano (PR) is one cheese I regularly use in cooking- in soufflés, bakes, dips and just to grate atop pasta. I was recently invited to a Parmigiano Reggiano Christmas Cookalong organised by the Consorzio del Formaggio and lead by top chef Valentina Harris. We started off the evening tasting some amazing starters like dates filled with PR and wrapped in Parma Ham, PR lollipops with sesame seeds and chilli (an absolute favourite) and a 30 month matured PR with balsamic vinegar. We were then split into two teams and set about creating our meal for the night- Venetian duck stuffed with a PR mix, Fennel topped PR and Rosotto PR. It was my first time cooking with duck, and although not really a favourite, I quite enjoyed the whole cooking experience. Highlight of the evening, however, was cracking open a 45kg PR wheel which we all got to taste, after which we all sat down to a fabulous meal. After an evening of like minded food enthusiasts and after gaining such indepth knowledge about PR, I cant wait to cook with the cheese. For more information and recipes check out the website

With thanks to all the brands for inviting me to their events and for review samples.

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Home made lemon extract (DIY edible Christmas gift)

Every year I have major plans of making edible gifts for my friends. Last year I started off with good intentions; to make a hamper of sorts with all cool edible gifts... because you know food blogger and all, people would be more happy to receive things to eat than onesies form Primark. Since sending edible gifts by post to parents in India was not an option, I thought of making a recipe calendar for them with my "gorgeous photographs (self-proclaimed of course)" and recipes. I harassed Ro so much about the calendar - software to use, how to get dimensions right, where to get it printed etc etc- that he finally lost it and asked me to just do my own shit.

And that's exactly what i did... wasted A LOT!!!! of time with the damn calendar. The thing is, I have this image of how it should be in my head and I have to get it that way no matter what. The fact that I was challenged with high end photo editing software meant I had to use Picasa and PicMonkey to take care of my needs, and unfortunately my needs exceeded the basic help these options left me with. So by the time I got to month March it was around 30th of December. No way was I going to finish the remaining 9 plus the main cover in less than a month. So there, that conveniently ended my calendar plan.

You might wonder if I at least completed my edible hamper idea.. nope that also didn't happen in spite of pinning tonnes of packaging and labelling ideas and looking forward to making them. It actually made me wonder if I was more interested in packing and labelling things, than making the edible gifts. The only thing I finally did was send these cupcakes to my neighbour..yes in that red plate itself. Shame on me, I know!!

This year, I started early, in spite of a crazy work schedule. These home made lemon extracts are proof that I actually have edible gifts to send out to friends. The old me would have waited till 24th December to infuse, but no, I'm 17 days early and patting my back for being proactive. They will be one of the gifts my lucky friends receive. My non alcoholic friends will of course get some edible goodies which i'll try and blog before Christmas, but no promises.

First on the list will be the Christmas themed cookies I'll be making with the new OXO Good Grips Cookie Press. This fabulous gadget not only lets you whip out cookies of same size, but you also have the option of selecting from 12 different shapes with snowflake, wreath and tree definitely going into my Christmas gift box. The daisy, buttercup and sunflower are a personal favourite so I'm going to include that too for good measure. The stainless steel blades are dishwasher safe and can be easily stored in the box that comes with the gadget. The cookie press will be available in Lakeland from January 2014 and if you want to make loads of cookies at one go then this is the gadget to have.

Lemon extract basic recipe adapted from here (makes 3, 236ml bottles)

Vodka- 3 cups (any quality is fine)

Lemons- 5 to 6 (make sure they are organic, unwaxed lemons)

Glass bottles with lid- 23 to 250 ml

Sterilise the bottles by washing them in warm soapy water and then leaving to dry completely.

Wash the lemons and wipe them dry.

Peel the lemons with a zester, making sure none of the white pith comes along with the zest.

Carefully add the zest into the bottles. I added around 2 lemons per bottle for a strong flavour. 

Pour in 1 cup of vodka per bottle. If you use a measuring jug with a beak, it would be much easier, or a funnel.

Seal with a lid and store in a cool dark place.

Gently shake it everyday, for about 1 week or so, or alternate days at least.

When ready to use, either strain the fruit and use or simple keep using the extract as and when required with the peel still in the bottle.

Dress the bottle and its a perfect Christmas gift.

Notes: I bought my bottles online at a very reasonable price

I chucked a slit birds eye chilli into one bottle

My next set of 3 will be orange extract. Use one large orange for each bottle and follow the procedure mentioned above.

You can actually go crazy with infusing vodka- vanilla, rosemary and lime, raspberry, blackberry, mango, peppercorns- are on my to do list. If you do want to give it a shot, just eye ball the measurements based on how strong you'd like them to be and use accordingly.

Add the extract to bakes, cakes and custards or add some simple syrup and use in a cocktail. 

With thanks to OXO Good grips for the review sample.

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Christmas pudding ice cream

 

Last week, a bunch of us had a cook-along session on Google+ Hangout hosted by Great British Chefs and Tesco Real Food. We were cooking along with award winning Chef Galton Blackiston who runs Morston Hall, up at the Norfolk coast, and making Christmas pudding ice cream was on the agenda. It was my first time doing a hangout session like this and so was a wee bit nervous as to how it would churn out (pun intended).

We were asked to do a few preps before hand and jot down any relevant questions we wanted to ask Chef Galton during the session. It all went on extremely well and I'm completely amazed at how technology can just make things so much more convenient. I mean we were all in different parts of UK, in the comfort of our own kitchen and cooking along with so much ease. Except for a few glitches with the audio at times, it was an absolutely well thought out session. Thanks to GBC for this fantastic opportunity and to Chef Galston for the demo. You can watch it here.

Now, I know its not the perfect weather for ice cream, but really this one needs to be made this Christmas y'all. We are all going to od on Christmas pudding and even worse, have tonnes of it left over. Chucking them into a custard base and churning them to make fabulous ice cream is THE way to go about using whats left over. I am not a big pudding fan or for that matter an ice cream fan, meaning I can just about have a slice or scoop of each, but when the two come together it just makes it so much better.

I had to try hard to not keep eating spoonfuls of custard while it was cooling down. So the ice cream base is a really good one, to experiment with. You can use it as it is with a kick ass sauce, chuck in some candied fruits, or add some nuts and such to make it appealing. Its pretty basic and except for the whisking bit, doesn't really take too much time. Those in India, remember the rum and raisin ice creams we get..well this ones sort of like that.. but a whole lot boozier..who's complaining about that now? :)

Recipe adapted from Great British Chefs (serves 5 to 6)

Single cream- 300ml

Milk- 150ml

Vanilla pod- 1/2, split length ways

Egg yolks- 3

Caster sugar- 62 gms

Christmas pudding- 125 gms, crumbled into pieces

Add the cream and milk to a sauce pan and scrape in the vanilla seeds along with the pod.

Place the pan over medium high heat and bring to a gentle simmer.

Remove from heat and set aside to infuse for about 30 minutes or so.

In a bowl whisk together the egg yolks and sugar till pale and smooth.

Bring the cream and milk mix back to a simmer.

While whisking the egg, slowly pour  in the cream.

Pour the mix back into a saucepan and place over low heat.

Keep stirring continuously till you have a thin layer of custard that coats the back of the spoon.

At this point, take the saucepan off heat and pass the custard through a sieve into a bowl.

Allow to cool completely. Lay cling film on top of the custard to prevent a skin from forming.

If you want to speed up this process, place the bowl over an ice bath and keep stirring till it turns cool. I actually chucked it into the refrigerator for a while.

Once cool, you can either churn it in an ice cream maker, stirring in the Christmas pudding once the mixture begins to thicken and then freeze till ready to use.

If you don't have an ice cream maker, then pour the custard into an air tight container and freeze for about 30 to 45 minutes or till just about set.

Take it out, whisk well and then fold in the Christmas pudding gently, to not break it up too much. 

Notes: This is a halved recipe

My air tight container was really good and so i only had to whisk the custard twice, at 1hr intervals and it was perfect. I also added the pud into the custard the first time and kept whisking gently each time.
I may not infuse the cream for 30 mins next time. Couldn't really find much difference.

I was paid for the ingredients and the time. Thanks GBC

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Turkey and chickpea pilaf

There are some things in life you need to do once. Roasting a turkey is definitely one of them :)

And that's exactly what we did. 

I have never cooked a whole chicken (poussin exempted), leave alone a 5kg turkey. So when Asda asked if I would like to review a Turkey from their Butchers selection, I was a bit sceptical, but the husband was 100 percent confident he could handle it and so I said yes, why not! I decided to give him full responsibility of handling and cooking the turkey and I must say he did a really good job.

We did some research and decided to do a turkey roast- Indian style and boy are we glad we did so. Most of the turkey roasts I've had are bland, but doing an Indian prep took care of that. The marinade was a basic chilli powder, lime juice, salt, pepper, ginger-garlic paste one and Ro made sure he got the marinade under the skin all throughout the turkey. He also put some onions, lemon wedges, bay leaves, garlic pods and carrots into the cavity for the flavours to catch on. He then nicely doused olive oil over the bird and rubbed it in, followed by seasoning generously with salt and pepper. The cooking method we followed was from here and we managed to get a golden, crispy roast turkey, but the last 10 minutes of cooking on high heat somehow burnt it a wee bit, but no complaints there as we loved the flavours.

We were only a few of us for lunch when we did the roast turkey and so had tonnes left over. After packing off some to friends and relatives, the remaining batch was divided into two. One went into the freezer for future use, and I made this turkey and chickpea pilaf with the remaining. This is a very quick lunch preparation if you have all the ingredients at home and can actually be a one pot meal if you are not obsessed with precooking the onions before hand. Either ways, we loved it. I am hooked on to cooking rice in the microwave now and cant think of doing it any other way. Try this easy peacy pilaf with your left over Chritstmas turkey, and you wont be disappointed..seriously!!!

Recipe adapted from here

> Olive oil- 2 tbsp

Onion- 1 small, finely chopped

Garlic- 1 tbsp, finely chopped

Ginger- 1 tbsp, finely chopped

Green chilli- 1, slit

Curry paste- 1 heaped tbsp (I used Sharwoods korma paste)

Chickpeas- 150gms (from a 400gm can. Drain and use 150 gms)

Turkey- 150 gms, shredded

Basmati rice- 1 cup, washed and soaked in cold water for 15 minutes

Stock*- 2 1/4 cups (I used chicken stock, feel free to use vegetable stock as well) 

Lime juice- from half a line

Coriander leaves- to garnish

Salt- to taste

Heat the oil in a large frying pan and saute the onions till they turn light brown.

Add the garlic, ginger and green chilli and continue frying for 2 to 3 minutes till their raw smell disappears.

Add the curry paste and cook for a further 1 minute.

In goes the chickpeas and shredded turkey. Saute till all the masala gets coated well.

Drain the rice and add to the pan, fry for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring continuously. 

Add salt (remember, the stock will have enough salt, so add accordingly), give a final stir and transfer the mix into a microwave safe bowl.

Pour in the stock and lemon juice, give a stir and place in the microwave.

Cook on high (700W) for 15 minutes.

Once done, check if all the water has been absorbed and then cover and leave aside for 10 minutes.

Fluff well using a fork and garnish with coriander leaves just before serving.

Make a meal of it with a side of yoghurt, pickle and poppadoms.

Notes: Replace the turkey with shredded chicken

I use a stock cube. I dilute it in the required amount of boiling water and use that.

If you don't have curry paste, then use a meat masala or curry powder in its place.

With thanks to Asda for the turkey and gift voucher.

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Stir up Sunday and mince pie recipe

 

Today is Stir up Sunday. In all honesty I had no idea there was a day called Stir up Sunday. So when Asda invited me to an event for the same, I was a bit confused. Thanks to Google, all my doubts were cleared and here's what Stir up Sunday is all about. Its the last Sunday before the season of Advent and its on this day that you prepare (stir-up) your Christmas puddings so that there is enough time for the flavours to develop. The whole family gets together and takes their turn at stirring the pud and while they are at it, each of them would make a secret wish. Also, the pudding is stirred from East to West in honour of the three wise men who visited Baby Jesus. I was thoroughly amused by these findings and it did make me look forward to the event.

Asda in collaboration with the Leiths School of Food and Wine invited some of us lucky food bloggers for some hands on experience with Christmas baking. The evening was so much fun, with the highlight being the fabulous spread from the Asda Extra Special Range. I was thoroughly amazed at how good they tasted and my personal favourite- the dim sum platter - was to die for. I cant wait for them to appear in the market so I can start gorging on them religiously. We socialised over mulled wine and champagne and then was given a brief by the talented chefs about Stir up Sunday and Christmas puddings after which we were all lead to the kitchen to do a blind tasting of three different Christmas puddings, all matured for different durations. We also got to taste the absolutely delicious Jewelled Yule Pudding which was moist and laden with fruit, nuts, brandy and spices...sooo very Christmassy. It was perhaps my favourite.

We then went on to try our hand at some baking. Started off with mince pies and although I'm paranoid when it comes to handling pastry, I somehow managed it and was not as intimidated as I thought. While the pastry was chilling in the fridge, we went about making our pudding mix. This was quite exciting for me, since it was my first experience and in spite of trying to concentrate really hard I kinda messed up a bit. I added the entire egg mix at one go instead of slowly adding and stirring, but thanks to a helpful Head Chef, I still managed to bring it all together after the soaked fruits were added. We transferred the mix into a pudding dish and did the ritual of covering it up (which I am pretty sure I wouldn't be able to do without some help). It has to be steamed for 10 to 12 hours (yes you heard it right) after which it can be stored in a cool dark place for as long as you want. So yes, now I have to get around to doing the steaming business if I want it ready for Christmas.

We also decorated some all butter Christmas tree cookies with orange chocolate and nuts. These, if tied with a string can be so adorable on Christmas trees. Sadly mine got over soon after i brought them home and so will have to do a fresh batch and resist the urge to eat them, if i have any plans of hanging it up on a tree:). While the goodies were being baked and set, we continued gorging on the yummy food and catching up with each other. It was such a fun night out, and we all got back home with bags full of goodies from the Asda Extra Special Range and enough Christmas puddings to last for a while :)

Star topped mince pies (recipe adapted from the Asda, in collaboration with the Leiths School of Food and Wine)

Shortcrust pastry

Plain flour- 170 gms

Salt- a pinch

Butter- 100 gms, unsalted

Caster sugar- 2 tbsp

Egg yolk- 1

Iced cold water- 2 tbsp

Filling

A jar of Asda Extra Special mince meat (refer notes)

Sift the flour with salt into a large bowl.

Rub in butter till the mix resembles bread crumbs

Add the sugar and mix through followed by the egg yolk and water.

Mix it all together to form a firm dough. May need a bit more water, but remember, a crumbly dough, although difficult to handle, will result in a shorter, lighter pastry, as opposed to a damn dough.

Divide your pastry into 2, approx. 2/3rd to 1/3rd.

Roll out the larger disc to a 3mm thickness and cut out 12 circles, a little wider than your pie tray hole.

press the circles into the  lightly buttered pie tray.

Roll out the smaller half of the pastry dough and cut out 12 stars. 

Transfer on to a baking tray and chill both trays in the refrigerator for about 20 to 30 minutes.

When ready to bake, pre heat the oven to 200C.

Place a spoon and a bit more of the mince meat filling into each pie shell ad top each of them with a star.

Bake for about 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Remove the pie from the tin and place on a wire rack to cool.

Just before serving dust with some icing sugar.

 

Notes: We were given two mince meat filling- one a whisky and orange and the other port and brandy. I did a half and half. 

Also, don't fill your pies with too much mince meat, they may bubble up when cooking and spill over, causing the pies to stick to the tray.

With thanks to Asda for having me over as a guest for the event

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