December recipe: Stollen

Stollen

Stollen is a fruit bread from Germany, traditionally associated with Christmas in the same sort of way as mince pies are associated with Christmas in Britain. My recipe is based on one given me by a friend of a friend some years ago, modified in various ways since. I particularly like the approach of filling the bread with a thin spiral layer of marzipan like a Swiss roll, rather than the more usual approach of inserting a cylinder of marzipan like a sausage roll.  I can’t claim credit for that inspired stroke of genius; someone else thought of it before the recipe came to me. Whoever they were, I salute them.

I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Apologies for the long absence of posts here during this year. I hope to be able to post more in the future.

Stollen (makes two)

3 Tablespoons (3 x 15 ml spoons) warm water

1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) sugar

1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) dried yeast

9 oz (approx 260 g) plain flour*

1 oz (approx 25 g) light brown soft sugar

4 oz (approx 100 g) butter

2 Tablespoons (2 x 15 ml spoons) dark rum, or other spirit of your choice**

4 oz (approx 100 g) sultanas

3 oz (approx 80 g) raisins

2 oz (approx 50 g) candied mixed peel

1 egg

Milk to mix (see method below for the quantity)

4 oz (approx 100 g) marzipan

Icing sugar to dredge

Method

Dissolve the teaspoon of sugar in the warm water.  Sprinkle the dried yeast on top and leave in a warm place for about 15 minutes until frothy.

Rub the butter into the plain flour and sugar until it resembles breadcrumbs.

Add the dried fruit, rum and beaten egg.

Stand the bowl on the scales and set the reading to zero. Add the yeast liquid and note the weight, then add enough milk to make the weight up to 110 g. If your mixing bowl won’t stand on your kitchen scales, this is generally about another 60 ml (about 4 Tablespoons) of milk – add it gradually, mixing as you go, and stop when you have a soft dough like a scone dough.

Mix well. It should form a soft dough, like a scone dough. If it is too wet, add a little more flour; if too dry, add a little more milk.

Leave to rise in a warm place for about 1-1.5 hours***.

Divide the dough in half. Flour the work surface, and roll out each half into a rectangle, roughly twice as long as wide.

Divide the marzipan in half and roll out each half into a rectangle a little smaller than the rectangles of dough.

Put a rectangle of marzipan on top of a rectangle of dough, and roll up like a Swiss roll. Damp the edge with water or milk to seal. Pinch the ends together so the marzipan is fully enclosed. Repeat with the other rectangle of dough and marzipan.

Put the two stollen rolls on a greased baking tray and brush with milk or beaten egg.

Leave to rise again in a warm place for about 45 minutes.

Bake in a hot oven at about 220 C for about 30 minutes until the rolls are golden brown.

Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack. Dredge with icing sugar

Serve warm or cold, cut in thick slices.

If there is any left over, it will keep for a couple of days in an airtight tin.

The stollen can be frozen. Freeze before dredging with icing sugar.

* Yes, plain flour, not bread flour. Stollen should have a texture more like cake than bread

** If you are organised enough, soak the dried fruit in the rum for a couple of hours beforehand.  I never remember, so I don’t know if it makes any difference

*** If time is very short, you can cheat by omitting the first rise. It’s better if you can do the two rises, but not so much better that you should forego making stollen if there isn’t time for two rises

December recipe: Winter chicken hotpot

Winter chicken hotpot

This casserole is warming, easy to make, and a versatile user-up of odds and ends of vegetables. In this version I’ve used chicken pieces, although you could also make it with leftover turkey if you have a lot of turkey to use up after the Big Day. It’s a complete meal cooked in one pan, so the washing up is minimal, and if you use tinned pulses it will take under an hour to make.

You can vary the vegetables as you choose, depending on what you like and what you happen to have available. Carrot, parsnip, turnip, swede* and cooking apple would all be quite at home. Similarly, you could use butter beans or haricot beans instead of chick peas.  It’s the sort of recipe that’s more of a general guide than a set of specific instructions, and will probably be different every time you cook it. Here’s the version I made the other day, in the middle of a busy week.

Winter chicken hotpot (serves 2)

2 oz (approx 50 g) dried chick peas, or twice the weight of tinned chick peas

Two chicken pieces (wings, drumsticks or thighs all work well)

8 oz (approx 250 g) butternut squash

4 oz (approx 125 g) leeks

Half a red pepper

2 oz (approx 50 g) mushrooms

1 small onion

1 clove garlic

Approximately 0.25 pint (approx 150 ml) water

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon medlar jelly** (optional)

1 lb (approx 450 g) potatoes

Soak the chick peas in cold water overnight. Rinse the soaked chick peas three or four times, then put them in a saucepan, cover with cold water, bring to the boil and then simmer for about 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes until tender. If using tinned chick peas, follow the instructions on the tin.

If using chicken wings, halve them at the ‘elbow’ joint. This is quite easy with a sharp and strong cook’s knife. I find it easier to cut just on the lower side of the joint, where the wing has two small bones instead of the single thick bone in the upper part of the wing.

Peel the butternut squash, scoop out the seeds in the core, and cut the rest into chunks about 1.5 - 2 cm (0.5 - 1 inch) cubed.

Trim, wash and slice the leeks.

Remove the seeds from the red pepper and cut into pieces about 1.5 cm (about 0.5 inch) square.

Peel the mushrooms. Quarter them if small, or slice them if large.

Peel and chop the onion. Peel and crush the garlic.

Peel the potatoes and chop them into dice about 1 cm (about 0.5 inch) cubed.

Brown the chicken pieces in cooking oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat.

Add the chopped onion, squash, leeks, pepper and mushrooms. Fry until the vegetables are starting to colour. Stir in the crushed garlic.

Add the cooked chick peas and diced potatoes, along with the water, paprika and medlar jelly. Season with salt and black pepper.

Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 30-40 minutes until the chicken and vegetables are all cooked. Stir from time to time, especially towards the end of the cooking time, as the potatoes tend to stick to the bottom of the pan when they are nearly cooked. If it starts to get dry, add a bit more water. 

*I believe previous discussions here established that the root vegetable that’s called ‘swede’ in the UK is called ‘rutabaga’ in the US

**Recipe for medlar jelly.  Crab-apple jelly or redcurrant jelly work equally well.

December recipe: Medlar jelly

 

Medlars

The medlar is an unusual fruit. Related to the rose family, the fruit looks a little like a gigantic brown rose hip.  The fruits can be harvested after the first frost or left to fall off the tree by themselves. 

When first harvested, medlars have hard white flesh and are quite inedible. They have to be left in a cool dry place to ‘blet’, a sort of ripening process, for a few weeks. During the bletting process, the hard white flesh softens to a deep brown paste.

Unbletted medlars (left), partially bletted medlars (middle) and bletted medlars (right)

Once bletted, medlars can be eaten raw, although it’s a fiddly job to pick out the seeds.  I prefer to turn them into medlar jelly.  This amber-coloured aromatic jelly is delicious with cold meats, especially poultry. (So it could come in handy in a few days’ time as an accompaniment to the remains of the Christmas turkey).  It’s a fairly straightforward process, although it’s time-consuming because of the wait for the juice to strain.  Here’s my recipe.

Medlar Jelly

Bletted medlars, approximately 3 lb (approx. 1.5 kg)

Water, 1 pint per 1 lb fruit (approx. 1.25 litres per 1 kg)

Granulated sugar, 1 lb per 1 pint of strained juice (approx. 800g per 1 litre)

Rind and juice of half a lemon per 1 pint of strained juice (per approx. 550 ml)

Sort the medlars.  They are bletted when they are dark brown and feel soft all over.  If when you cut the fruit up you find that a small part of the fruit is still hard (as with the medlars in the middle of the photograph above) it’s OK as long as most of the fruit is bletted.

Wash the medlars.

Cut the medlars into quarters and put them in a large saucepan, making a note of the weight of fruit.

Add 1 pint of water per 1 lb of medlars (approx. 1.25 litres per 1 kg).  Put a lid on the saucepan and bring to the boil.  Reduce the heat and simmer for about 1 hour until the medlars are soft and pulpy.  Remove from the heat.

Hang a jelly bag or a double layer of cotton or muslin cloth over a large bowl.  I use two old tea towels tied to the legs of an upturned stool (see photo).  Pour the contents of the saucepan into the jelly bag or cloth so that the juice drains into the bowl.  Leave to strain for a couple of hours (or overnight, if this is more convenient).

Straining the medlar pulp

When all the juice has strained through, discard the pulp.

Measure the amount of juice.

Put 1 pint of juice in a large saucepan with 1 lb of granulated sugar (approx. 800g sugar per 1 litre juice). Add the rind and juice of half a lemon. Heat gently, stirring all the time, until the sugar has dissolved.

Add about a teaspoon of butter (I am told this helps to prevent the jelly sticking to the pan, and have never been brave enough to try missing it out to see what happens).

 

Bring to the boil.  It should boil at a full rolling boil, i.e. bubbles should cover the whole surface of the jelly and it should boil hard enough to spit occasionally.  Don’t lean over the pan, and keep pets and small children out of the way, as a spit of boiling jelly can give an unpleasant burn.

Boil until the jelly reaches setting point.  Test for set by dripping a teaspoon of jelly onto a cold plate.  It should form a pool (if it forms a bead, the jelly is done; take it off the heat immediately).  Push the pool with your finger.  If it wrinkles, the jelly has reached setting point.  If not, boil for another 2 minutes and test again.  I find it usually takes about 15-20 minutes to reach setting point.

Remove from the heat.  Pour into a heatproof jug, then use the jug to pour into jars.  Cover and seal immediately.  I use cling film and then a screw-top lid.

The jelly is ready for use as soon as it has cooled down, and will keep in a cupboard for at least a couple of years.

Medlar jelly

December recipe: Fruit cake

This is a rich and comforting fruit cake for the winter, not to be confused with the much darker and heavier traditional Christmas cake.  It will happily share a slow oven with a casserole, such as beef and vegetable hot pot.

You can vary the dried fruit as you please, depending on taste and availability.

Fruit cake

4 oz (approx 125 g) light brown soft sugar

4 oz (approx 125 g) butter

2 eggs

rind of 1 orange (optional)

8 oz (approx 250 g) self-raising flour

1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) ground mixed spice

0.5 teaspoon (1 x 2.5 ml spoon) ground nutmeg

14 oz (approx 400 g mixed dried fruit of your choice*

milk to mix

*e.g. glace cherries, dates, dried apricots, raisins, sultanas, currants, cut mixed (candied) peel

Grease a loaf tin about 8 inches by 4.5 inches by 3 inches (approx 20 cm by 11 cm by 7 cm).  Line it with a strip of greased greaseproof paper.

Halve the glace cherries (if using).  Chop the apricots and dates (if using) into pieces about the size of a raisin. 

Melt the butter in a large mixing bowl.  Beat in the sugar. 

Beat in the eggs and orange rind (if using). 

Stir in the flour, spices and chopped dried fruit.  Mix well. 

Stir in a little milk, until the cake mixture is a soft dropping consistency (i.e., if you lift a spoonful of mixture out of the bowl and hold the spoon vertically, most of the cake mixture will drop off the spoon and fall back into the bowl). 

Put the cake mixture into the greased and lined loaf tin and level the top. 

Bake in a slow oven at about 150 C for about 1.5 hours, until set and a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean (i.e. with at most one or two crumbs clinging to it, not coated in a layer of uncooked cake mixture). 

Cool for a few minutes in the tin, then turn the cake out of the tin and cool on a wire rack. 

The cake will keep in an airtight tin for a week or so, and freezes well.

December recipe: Venison in red wine

A robust, richly flavoured casserole is comforting in the dark, cold days of mid-winter. This casserole can be made with venison or beef, according to preference.

Serves 4.

Venison in red wine

12 oz (approx 350 g) stewing venison
4 oz (approx 100 g) smoked streaky bacon
Half an onion
1 garlic clove
1 Tablespoon (1 x 15 ml spoon) plain flour
Approx 4 fl. oz. (approx 100 ml) red wine
0.25 pint (approx 150 ml) water
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) redcurrant jelly
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) dried rosemary

Dumplings

4 oz (approx 100 g) self-raising flour
2 oz (approx 50 g) suet
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) sage, or other herbs of choice

Cut the venison into cubes about half an inch (approx 1.5 cm) in size. Chop the bacon.
Peel and chop the onion.
Fry the venison and bacon in cooking oil in a heatproof casserole over a medium to high heat until browned.
Add the onion and crushed garlic and fry another minute or two until the onion starts to colour.
Stir in the flour and mix well to coat the meat.
Pour in the wine and water. Bring to the boil, stirring all the time.
Stir in the redcurrant jelly and dried rosemary. Season with salt and pepper.
Cover the casserole and cook in a moderate oven about 170 C for about one hour while you make the dumplings.

To make the dumplings, mix the self-raising flour, suet and sage in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper.
Gradually add sufficient cold water to mix to a soft dough. If the mix is floury, add a little more water; if sticky, you have added too much water, so add a bit more flour.
Divide the dough into 8 pieces and roll into balls.
Add the dumplings to the casserole.
Return the casserole to the oven for a further half an hour (one and a half hours in total), by which time the dumplings will have swelled up and cooked through.
Serve with jacket potatoes and vegetables of choice.

The casserole can be frozen without the dumplings

December recipe: Christmas meringue

This is another alternative to Christmas pudding, sweet, suitably festive and lighter than the traditional plum pudding.

It’s a variation on mince pies. You can make it with any mincemeat of your choice (for a home-made mincemeat recipe, see here).



Here’s the recipe.


Christmas meringue (serves 2)

Pastry:
6 oz (approx 150 g) self-raising flour
4.5 oz (approx 125 g) butter
2 Tablespoons (2 x 15 ml spoons) icing sugar
1 egg yolk (use the white to make the meringue)

Filling:
Mincemeat of your choice, home-made or bought

Meringue topping:
1 egg white
1 oz (approx 25 g) granulated sugar

Grease two patty tins about 4 in (approximately 10 cm) diameter.

Rub the butter into the flour and icing sugar.

Beat in the egg yolk and press the mixture into a ball of dough. This quantity of pastry is much more than you need for the meringue tarts. About one-fifth to one-quarter of the pastry will be enough to make two meringue tarts. You can freeze the rest or store it in the fridge for two or three days to be used later.

In theory, at this point you are supposed to chill the pastry overnight. I find it is less prone to break if I roll it out straight away.

Roll out the pastry on a floured work surface. I like thin pastry so I roll mine to about 2 mm thick; you can leave yours thicker if you like.

Cut circles big enough to make pastry cases lining the base and sides of your tartlet tins.

Spoon mincemeat into the pastry cases. Don’t overfill them or the mincemeat will boil out and make an unpleasant mess on the baking tray. The filling should be no more than level with the rim.

Whisk the egg white until it stands in soft peaks.

Fold in the sugar using a metal spoon. Pile the meringue on top of the mincemeat, making sure that the meringue seals against the pastry edges.

Bake in a hot oven, around 200 C, for about 15 minutes until the meringue is set and golden brown.

Let the meringue tarts cool for a minute or two in the tins to set the pastry, then lift them out with a palette knife or pie slice and serve immediately.


Wherever you are, and whatever you are doing, have a happy Christmas, and best wishes for the New Year!

December recipe: Beef pie

This is a warming meal on a cold winter day, especially with crisp roast potatoes, roast parsnips and a green vegetable like Brussels sprouts. You can make it with any type of stewing or braising steak, or with stewing venison if you prefer.

(If you have three-quarters of a turkey to use up, you might prefer the recipe for leek and turkey pie)

Beef pie (serves 2)

Shortcrust pastry

4 oz (approx 100 g) plain flour
1 oz (approx 25 g) butter
1 oz (approx 25 g) lard

Filling

6 oz (approx 150 g) stewing or braising steak
2 oz (approx 50 g) smoked streaky bacon
Half an onion
1 dessertspoon (1 x 10 ml spoon) plain flour
0.25 pint (approx 150 ml) stock, red wine, or a mixture
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) dried rosemary
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) Worcester sauce (optional)*

Rub the butter and lard into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Gradually add cold water until the mixture forms a soft dough. If it’s flaky, add a little more water, if it’s sticky, add a little more flour.
Or you can use ready-made shortcrust pastry if you prefer.
Roll out to fit the top of the pie dish you are going to use, aiming for about 1/8” (approx 2-3 mm) thick. How much pastry you need depends on the size of your pie dish; if you have a lot left over, surplus pastry will keep wrapped in cling film in the fridge for a few days, or can be frozen.

Cut the steak into cubes about 0.5” (approx 1 cm) square. Cut the bacon into narrow strips.
Peel and chop the onion.
Heat about 1 Tablespoon (1 x 15 ml spoon) of cooking oil in a saucepan over a medium heat. When hot, put the steak and bacon pieces in and fry over a medium heat until browned.
Add the chopped onion and fry another minute or two until the onion starts to soften.
Stir in the flour, and mix well so that the flour coats the meat and onion. Pour in the stock or red wine, add the dried rosemary and season with salt and black pepper to taste.
Bring to the boil, then cover the pan with a lid and simmer over a low heat for an hour or so, topping up with water (or more stock or wine) if necessary to keep the liquid level about constant.
Pour the beef filling into a greased ovenproof pie dish.
Cover with the pastry to make a lid. Use the pastry offcuts to make decorations if so inclined.
Brush the pastry with milk.
Bake in a hot oven at about 200 C for about 30-40 minutes until the pastry is set and golden brown.
Serve with crisp roast potatoes and roast parsnips, which need to be roasted at the same temperature and so can share the oven with the pie, plus a green vegetable (or other vegetables of your choice).


*Don’t ask me what Worcester sauce is made of. Here’s a link to the history (or the legend) of its origin. I am told it bears some resemblance to the Roman garum, in which case all I can say is that I take off my hat to the Romans if they consumed it by the amphora-full.

December recipe: Mince pies

Mince pies appear in Britain at Christmas like some prolific passage migrant. For eleven months of the year mince pies might as well not exist. In December, suddenly these little (and not so little) confections of pastry filled with sweetened spiced dried fruit appear on every table at every occasion. Coffee after dinner. Friday cakes at the office. Tea with a friend. Pub Christmas specials. Carol concerts. Cafes and cake shops, bakeries and restaurants. Supermarkets, boxes piled high by the pallet load. Hot, cold, with cream, with brandy butter, on their own, served as a dessert or nibbled with coffee.

There are as many variants as there are cooks. Shortcrust pastry, buttercrust, puff pastry, sweet flan pastry? Cherries in the mincemeat? Almonds? Citrus peel? Suet? About the one (reasonable) certainty is that the mincemeat won’t contain any meat. Mince pies originally contained minced meat and dried fruit, a popular combination in medieval cookery, but the meat had largely disappeared by the end of the nineteenth century, with only the shredded suet remaining as a vestigial reminder of the original content.

For a month no other sweetmeat is so ubiquitous, and then in early January the world goes back to work, the reduced-to-clear stickers go up on the supermarket displays, and the mince pie vanishes as completely as Santa and Rudolf.

I make mince pies from about the middle of December onwards, by which time the mincemeat made with apples from the garden tree in November will have had a chance to mature. But the batch I make on Christmas Eve, listening to the Radio 4 broadcast of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College Cambridge, is always special for me. It’s at that point that I feel all the frenetic preparations are over and the festival itself is beginning.

Here’s my recipe.

Mince pies

Pastry
6 oz (approx 150 g) self-raising flour
4.5 oz (approx 125 g) butter
2 Tablespoons (2 x 15 ml spoons) icing sugar
1 egg yolk (use the white to make meringue)

Filling:
Mincemeat of your choice, home-made or bought

Grease tartlet or patty tins.
Rub the butter into the flour and icing sugar.
Beat in the egg yolk and press the mixture into a ball of dough.
(In theory, at this point you are supposed to chill the pastry overnight. I find it is less prone to break if I roll it out and make the mince pies straight away).
Roll out the pastry on a floured work surface. I like thin pastry so I roll mine to about 1-2 mm thick; you can leave yours thicker if you like.
Cut circles big enough to make pastry cases lining the base and sides of your tartlet tins.
Spoon mincemeat into the pastry cases. Don’t overfill them or the mincemeat will boil out and make an unpleasant mess on the baking tray. The filling should be no more than level with the rim.
Re-roll the rest of the pastry and cut smaller pastry circles to make lids.
Damp the top edge of each pastry case with water and cover with a pastry lid, pressing the edges well down.
Brush the tops of the mince pies with milk, and sprinkle each with a little granulated sugar.
Snip two small holes in the top of each mince pie.
Bake in a hot oven, around 220 C, for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.
Let the mince pies cool for a minute or two in the tins to set the pastry, then lift them out with a palette knife or pie slice. Cool on a wire rack.
Store in an airtight tin, or can be frozen.

I find this quantity of pastry usually makes 20-24 mince pies. My tartlet tins are about 6 cm diameter. If you like thicker pastry, or if you have larger tartlet tins, it will make fewer. Try it out and see. Any leftover pastry will keep, uncooked and wrapped in cling film or foil, for a few days in the fridge, or can be frozen.


Wherever you are, and whatever you are doing, have a happy Christmas, and best wishes for the New Year!