Cinnamon.

Cinnamon is for life, not just for Christmas.

Welcome to ingredient, where once a month I take a deep dive into some of my favourite seasonal and store cupboard ingredients. This month I’m focusing on cinnamon: the ‘Christmas’ spice which has so much more potential than being relegated to holiday cookies and super sweet (but yes, super delicious) cinnamon rolls.

For paid subscribers click here for my recipes for my Meatballs with Tomato & Cinnamon, Grated Carrot Salad with Cinnamon, Coriander & Pistachios, and my Caramelised Onion & Cinnamon Rice.

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I put the finishing touches on this piece this morning, but I started drafting this at the start of August. Yes I know, but I’d made a delicious, cinnamon heavy tagine the night before and I knew that I’d be slammed when this is supposed to go out, in the final mad weeks of producing the Christmas recipes people who don’t usually cook during the year go crazy for, before sinking into the happy oblivion of the two weeks I usually take off for Christmas where I spend it reading all the books, and cooking all of our families traditional Christmas recipes just for fun, rather than for work.

It is obvious why I chose cinnamon for my first December writing ingredient. Cinnamon is the scent of Christmas. Cinnamon is the Christmas spice. While I know festive baking, especially the baking of Christmas cookies is more of an American pre-occupation, there are a few recipes in our family it would not be Christmas without. My mother and I churn out tray after tray of her famous mince pie recipe for my Dad and J even we ourselves don’t even like them, we make batch after batch of her chocolate florentines and our joint recipe for homemade amaretti biscuits for gifting, and while I do try and edge in a batch of my classic gingerbread men every year, for me at least it is not Christmas without at least one mammoth batch of German Cinnamon Stars. Adapted from Anja Dunk’s stunning German cookbook Strudel, Noodles & Dumplings (gifted to me by her publishers and beloved by me ever since) ever since we first tried these simple, marzipan-heavy sugar stars, flavoured simply with copious amounts of ground cinnamon they’ve been one of my tastes of Christmas. Needless to say her latest book, Advent: Festive German Bakes to Celebrate the Coming of Christmas is at the top of my wish list this year, even though I’m very much usually a cook, not a baker.

So we can’t get away from the fact that cinnamon is the spice we associate the most with Christmas. Add cinnamon to a cookie and it will taste like Christmas. Cinnamon sticks are as essential to a good mulled wine as they are, at least for me, to make handmade, fragrant decorations for the tree.

Our associating cinnamon with Christmas probably dates back to the Medieval period, where cinnamon was used as a preservative and therefore cropped up more during the winter months - it helps slow the growth of bacteria on meat - and where, because of it’s price and that spices were still seen as luxury items, they’d have been piled onto celebratory tables during the traditional Christian winter holidays.

However, cinnamon, like the puppy in that famous Dog’s Trust advert, is not just for Christmas. Cinnamon is a delicious, deep, warming spice that always has a place in my kitchen in both ground and whole form and that I reach for almost every single time I embark on an Indian or Moroccan-inspired dinner.

But, it is December. So, should I be providing you with a trio of easy recipes that showcase cinnamon as a year round spice, something to add depth, body and aroma that we can enjoy and celebrate all year around, or should I be giving the people what I know they want after 8 years as a professional recipe developer: festive recipes at the start of the festive period?

After a couple of months of deliberation (note: I’m now stopping in and writing this paragraph mid-November - usually I do sit down to write issues of ingredient all in one sitting, but I hope this will give you some idea of what November and December are like for us food people who work in digital, rather than in print - those Christmas deadlines would have been met way back in July!) I realised that, whilst Christmas recipes are quite literally my bread and butter around about now, we still have to eat food that has nothing to do with December 25th for the rest of the month.

So, for my first recipe this month, I’ve shared my recipe for Meatballs in Cinnamon and Tomato Sauce.

I write in One Pan Pescatarian that 'one of the first things I remember cooking all by myself for my parents while they were working outside in the garden one weekend was gigantes, a big dish of Greek butter beans in a cinnamony tomato sauce, baked to bubbly perfection.’ Obviously I’ve already done the Greek beans recipe thing, but I don’t think the beautiful, warming, sultry combination of cinnamon and rich tomato should be left there. Cinnamon and beef are already firm friends, and thanks to our Jewish roots my family tends to make meatballs with just beef mince rather than a mixture of beef and pork, so it seemed like the perfect combination for a rustic pan of gently seasoned meatballs wrapped in a magnificent sauce.

Next, because I could not leave Christmas quite alone, I’ve got a bright, vibrant make-ahead friendly Boxing Day salad idea¹ for you by way of my Grated Carrot Salad with Cinnamon, Coriander and Pistachios. Here ground cinnamon provides a little bit of warmth and interest alongside another warming spice - coriander, it’s seeds toasted then bashed lightly in a mortar and pestle - in a zingy, citrus-laden salad that is just crying out for a nice fat piece of Christmas ham on the side.

And finally, I’ve got my Caramelised Onion & Cinnamon Rice for you all, my take on a delicious spiced rice with burnt onions and nuts I watched my best friend’s husband prepare a couple of Sunday’s ago whilst I had an argument with a giant chicken whose juices just refused to run clear - as a general rule, if I know my way around a kitchen I’ll step in and cook to prevent my heavily pregnant host doing it herself (!) - and which I’ve changed up to suit my kitchen, and, of course, to go heavy on the cinnamon which I adore.

One of my biggest issues cooking white basmati rice is that I now live in a village without gas, and I’ve struggled to consistently steam white rice since I last had it in my kitchen in 2019. So, I always cook it like pasta and make sure I let it stand long enough not to be soggy: therefore, my version of this recipe should suit everyone because rather than steaming my rice with spices and frying the onions and nuts, everything comes together into one pan which the cooked and rested rice is added at the end. I apologise that it is not quite as authentic as the rice that comes out of the British Pakistani kitchen they originally borrowed it from, but it works for my kitchen, and will hopefully work in all of yours too, regardless of setup.

This is the original recipe, just as a point of comparison that arrived to grace the table at said best friend’s baby shower last Saturday. Her mum arrived with it and some delicious lamb kebabs to serve alongside the cake I’d just spent the past two days baking, because what is a proper celebration without rice? Anyway, I thought a picture, showing the differing colours of spice pockets as it steamed, the topping of burnt onions and browned cashews, and the generous, colourful array of peas, corn and potato pieces might help you trace how my version evolved from this original.

Have a lovely winter break, however that looks for you, and I’ll see you all in the New Year (and just as a teaser, I’ve already written my January recipes and you’ve got a delicious pie, a warming soup and your new favourite Sunday roast side dish to look forward too!)

1. Though as Boxing Day salads go, I also need to point you in the direction of my Shredded Brussels Sprouts Caesar Salad - studded with pecans and dried sour cherries, I think it has to be one of my all time favourite things to eat alongside a plate of cold cuts.