The cookery writer whips up delicious dishes for her favourite season …
Before Christmas, I like to wake up before everyone else in the house. I creep out of bed while it’s still dark, slip my feet into warm slippers, shuffle quietly into the kitchen (taking care not to wake the others) and make myself a mug of tea. Then I go and admire the Christmas tree. I’ll sit on the sofa, with my tea, gazing at the tree for a good chunk of time, wallowing in its sweet, I-can’t-wait-until-it’s-Christmas scent and shimmering lights, soaking up the magic. Because it is magic. One of the things I love most about Christmas is the excuse to make magic and to live amid it, if only for those few weeks.
A sweet breakfast is a nice contrast to the savoury treats to come at lunch or dinner. Pistachio cream croissants are simple: twist scraps of ready-made puff pastry into little horns, then fill with pistachio cream from an Italian deli.
I have always loved Christmas. I love the bonhomie and the conviviality and the excess of it all: the food, the sweets, the brandy-laden puddings, the rustle of tissue paper on Christmas morning, the jolliness of sing-along carols. I love that sweet, outdoorsy smell of a real fir tree and the twinkling lights in the street at night. I even love how bustling and busy the shops get in that last mad rush before the day itself. I love it all. So, to have the excuse to lose myself in the unadulterated joy of egg nog-fuelled holiday baking, to conjure up festive menu upon festive menu for family and friends, this is truly my happiest place.
Panettone Perduto – an Italian version of pain perdu or basically French toast – is a nice way to use up excess panettone.
It will come as no surprise that what I love most about Christmas is the food. I, greedily, just love to eat, so I look forward, year round, to the excuse to do so: panettone, fruit cake laden with marzipan, gingerbread, turkey sandwiches dripping with cranberry sauce and chestnut-laced stuffing … For all the festive frippery and wreath-making and table-dressing (because I love that, too) in the pages of my new book, The Christmas Companion, food is at the centre of it, just as it is at the heart of my holiday season, whether I’m celebrating with friends in the build-up to Christmas proper or sitting down to a feast on the day itself.
Nut & Cranberry Terrine looks as spectacular at the centre of the table as poultry; arguably, even more spectacular … and it happens also to be vegan.
Cooking for Christmas – when we get the balance right and don’t overstretch ourselves (I emphasise this caveat, because it’s an important one) – is infinitely more fun than cooking over the rest of the year. There is a treatlike quality about what we eat at Christmas, a unique mix of the celebratory and the deeply comforting, which makes Christmas food very gratifying to eat, of course, but also hugely rewarding to prepare and to share. Even those who don’t cook much often relish being in the kitchen at Christmas: the one moment in the year when we have the time (or more time, anyhow) and the excuse; when we have the people we love most gathered around us to share our meal with. Even in the absence of those we love, the food we eat over the holidays is often so laced with tradition and nostalgia that it becomes a way of bringing those poignantly absent that little bit closer, of evoking their presence. I’m a firm believer that food on a plate is rarely just the sum of its ingredients. It has meaning and emotion and conjures feelings as well as taste, and at Christmas this is most especially the case.
A buffet works especially well for the kind of party that brings friends and family together across generations. It’s also a delightfully cosy and relaxed way of entertaining: people can come and go as they please; children can run around; those who wish can pop in for a quick hello, while others can stay, partying on.
Some of us grow up with a wealth, or perhaps a weight, of Christmas traditions, others learn to forge our own precious traditions later in life. Like a magnifying glass, Christmas has a way of amplifying our feelings, sometimes for the better, but at other times also for the worse. For all the excitement and joy that the festivities bring, they can also shine a searingly bright light on what we don’t have, but very much wish we did. The year after my father died, for example, was a difficult Christmas; no amount of holiday baking or spoiling gifts could change that, though it did nourish me in some way with a feeling of hope.
Caribbean ‘black’ cake – rich with rum and dried fruits – is sublime.
In The Christmas Companion, I realise I’ve painted an idyllic picture of what it means to cook at Christmas, but I know things don’t always quite pan out as we hope. Life is messy and complicated, and it doesn’t stop being so because of the holidays; but Christmas cooking is nothing to fear. It might be perhaps a little chaotic – many of the best Christmases are – but there is nothing innately tricky about roasting a bird or baking a fruit cake, trust me. A turkey is effectively just a big chicken, while Christmas cake is the most forgiving of all cakes to bake. And if, indeed, that really doesn’t sit comfortably, then there is so much else that is good which we can happily cook, enjoy and call ‘Christmas’.
Chestnut martinis come out the most exquisite shade of ambrosial gold. The syrup adds a shot of sweetness to the vodka, but with an unmistakable hint of the distinct flouriness of chestnut. To make four use: 200ml chilled vodka, 120ml chestnut syrup, ice and marrons glacés to serve (optional). You can also use chestnut syrup in coffee or hot chocolate: both are delectable and festive-feeling combinations.
Whatever you choose to cook, my one insistence is that you err on the side of excess: it is Christmas after all. I would say that, of course, being the more-is-more sort of person that I am. But I also insist upon this point for practical reasons: the leftovers are how I feed my family, with minimum effort and very much delight, in the days following Christmas. They bring festive joy beyond the day itself …
The Christmas Companion by Skye McAlpine, published by Bloomsbury, €39.50.