mwnch

I stuck to my usual method for cooking my ham on Christmas Eve this year, boiling it in cider before baking in the oven. However, I used some of the crab apple and sloe jelly that I made earlier in the year as the basis for the glaze - and very pleased I was with the results.

For a 2.5 kilo ham, I used a quarter of a jar of jelly, two tablespoons of mustard powder (for the ham) and a tablespoon of allspice (for Christmas) with a glug of maple syrup, all melted together and used in place of the sugar and butter concoction of the original recipe. Tasty!

Served with a parsley sauce, mashed potato and peas this makes a great Christmas Eve preparation for the festivities to come.

I make my parsley sauce by adding a generous serving of chopped parsley (5 - 6 tablespoons) to my white sauce, prior to adding the milk to the roux, along with a tablespoon and mustard powder.

AKA Béchamel
The classic basic flour and milk sauce, used in everything from lasagne to parsley sauce. This is my take on it.

Better get this straight from the beginning, when I say ‘my‘ recipe, I really mean a recipe that I stole originally from Nigel Slater and adapted a bit. Now the rubbery faced one has gone and stolen it (albeit in a further adapted form) from me and Nige (admittedly more likely from Nigel than from mwnch) and (I’m guessing at this bit) sold it to Sainsbury’s where it now features on a Christmas commercial!

Outraged? - That’s not the half of it!

There is obviously a serious side to this and that is to do with the copyright on recipes.
(Just for the record…I’m not really that angry with Jamie, actually, I feel kind of sorry for him, following his early TV series that saw all his surfer type chums using him to do all the cooking at parties and now having to be Tony Blair’s pal.)

There has already been a fair amount of discussion of this on the web; to me this example demonstrates the potential minefield of such copyrighting. Whilst seemingly impossible, if this monster is allowed to rear its head, the big-boys with the big lawyers will end up owning every subtle, exciting and tasty combination of ingredients. Leaving us little guys with the few recipes that remain in the public domain (bread and jam anyone?) or are gut wrenchingly unattractive to the copyrighter (pilchard and marshmallow supreme?).

I’m pretty sure who’ll loose this one if it comes to a stand-up fight between me, Nigel and Jamie…

So, the recipe in question is my cider brandy camembert, reproduced below in all its glory, while I can still publish it…

With only two ingredients this recipe is a great combination of the sea (haddock) and land (cheese).

If you can get you hands on some, use Y-Fenni cheese, a great Welsh cheddar blended with ale and mustard seed, it complements the smoky fish perfectly.

If you can’t get Y-Fenni substitute it by spreading the fish with a coarse grained mustard before covering with a mature cheddar.

I love fish with spinach and this is a great opportunity to bring together that heavenly combination! So serve with some mashed potato (champ if you fancy) and quickly blanched spinach with a hint of nutmeg.

As much as I rattle on about fresh, organic, seasonal, local…. there are times when washing, peeling and chopping is just a bore.

For those times, I’ve found a great way to save time, without cutting too many corners is to use ‘very lazy’ chillies and garlic (there are others available that I haven’t tried yet). The content of the jars are preprepared and finely chopped, just add to your cooking straight from the jar and avoid the wash/peel/chop yawn.

They are preserved in white wine vinegar and so last a long time, just be careful that the vinegar doesn’t add a tang to your dish - I wouldn’t use on uncooked dishes.

Available in all good supermarkets (probably!)

Hating waste as much as I do, I always try to squeeze as many meals out of a roast chicken as possible. One great way to finish off a half-or-more eaten carcass is to make stock from it.

Once made, throw in some pak choi, noodles and cooked chicken then garnish with chilli sauce for a great quick and easy meal — super noodles with from left-overs.

‘Why have beef when you can have chicken?’

CDavies

I’m not really sure if there is an answer to that…