Nibbles #7

A British Christmas dinner, the history of the slow cooker, and how to make the ultimate bread and butter pudding.

Welcome to Nibbles where once a month I share everything brilliant I’ve been reading on the web as well as some general updates from my kitchen, my vegetable garden during the growing season, and other miscellaneous ‘you really need to know about’ updates.

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Christmas Dinner 2022: roast goose from Longland Farm, roast turkey stuffed with our family stuffing recipe, two bird gravy, bread sauce, cranberry sauce with cherry brandy (but this year made with kirsch from the cherry jar), roast potatoes, roast parsnips, carrots, Tenderstem broccoli, and Pigs in Blankets. Washed down with champagne, of course!

• Kiki takes us dining out on Cocido Madrileño, a chickpea-based Spanish pork stew which is served as a multi-course feast:

Cocido madrileño, the Spanish meal as filling as Thanksgiving dinner

• Olivia has written a brilliant long read about how the Slow Cooker gradually captured our hearts, including its interesting history. (via The Spirits)

• Now I want to throw a canned fish dinner party.

• The beautiful and fascinating history of menu design. (via Smitten Kitchen)

• Nicola shares the history and science behind the perfect Bread and Butter Pudding.

• No comment necessary, just read about Samantha’s random encounter:

  The Stranger in Paris Who Stood Up to the Nazis

• She’s also shared some reflections on a year of expat life in Egypt that I think are perfect for the New Year:

  A Year of Expat Life, Distilled

• And (you can tell how much I enjoy Samantha’s writing, right?) she’s got some poignant thoughts on tourism:

  A Trip to Garbage City

• Jolene shares with us the beautiful story and traditions of The Feast of St. Lucia:

  Lucia Morning

• On the brilliance of Deb Perelman.

• For the first time ever, a British journalist interviews the women at the very top of MI6.

• Leah has done a brilliant interview about Jewish food with Ori Zohar from Burlap & Barrel. Also, I know Hanukah is over but I don’t think doughnuts should just be for the holidays and her recipe looks excellent (it is a paired down version of the one from her book I made and it worked really well!):

  Easy (As Possible) Sufganiyot

• I don’t care about the health warnings, I want a Cannibal Sandwich (and it is not what you think, even if you’ve also been watching the new season of Avenue 5!)

• All about the history of (and the foods of!) Chinese Winter Solstice.

• And finally, in one of the most Jewish recipes ever, we need to start frying pickles into our latkes:

  Pickle Latkes

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What I’ve been cooking: Christmas food, obviously. And Hanukkah food. I deep fried both doughnuts and Roman Mutton Chops. But on the published recipe front, if you still fancy some festive food for NYE, over for my Macknade residency I made more of a formula, rather than a recipe for Panettone Trifles with Boozy Cherries. On the blog, I did an After Eight Bundt Cake¹, Clementine Possets, a fabulous smoked salmon and caviar Latke Platter, and a plate of Prawn Cocktail Devilled Eggs.

Returning to normal time of year eats, if you got an Instant Pot for the holidays you’re in luck because I published my first ever Instant Pot recipe, my Instant Pot Sticky Korean Chicken Thighs.

1. For my international readers, an After Eight is a very thin fondant-filled dark chocolate mint popular after dinner here in the UK, especially at Christmas - they come in long dark green and black boxes, and each mint is in it’s own individual black paper sleeve in the box with a gold clock on it. I’ve also seen them in French supermarkets, and I tried strawberry After Eights from a discount chain once, and those were evil.