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As thoughts turn to this year’s Christmas dinner, many may be hoping to avoid the usual dry turkey and lacklustre vegetable trimmings.
Fortunately, Jamie Oliver is on hand to revitalise festive menus with his special, Jamie Cooks Christmas. The celebrity chef offers innovative takes on traditional fare, from a lasagne elevating humble cauliflower cheese to a new level, to a sticky toffee pudding injected with a shot of coffee, offering welcome twists to classic dishes.
Cauliflower cheese lasagne
Serves: 10
Time: 2 hours 40 minutes, plus cooling
Ingredients:
4 large leeks (white part only)
4 cloves of garlic
½ fresh red chilli
Olive oil
½ bunch of fresh thyme (15g)
1 cauliflower
1 romanesco cauliflower
125ml dry white wine
1 small knob of unsalted butter
For the white sauce:
2 litres whole milk
1 bunch of mixed herbs, such as rosemary, sage, bay, thyme (20g)
75g plain flour
75g butter
150g Cheddar cheese, plus extra for grating
150g Lancashire cheese, such as Mrs Kirkham’s
30g blue cheese, such as Stichelton
For the pasta:
500g Tipo ‘00’ flour, plus extra for dusting
5 free range eggs
For the anchovy crumb:
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
100g stale bread
8 anchovies in oil, from sustainable sources
Method:
1. To make the pasta, place the flour on a board or in a bowl. Make a well in the centre and crack the eggs into it. Beat the eggs with a fork until smooth. Using the tips of your fingers, mix the eggs with the flour, incorporating a little at a time until everything is combined.
2. Knead the dough for three to four minutes, until you get a smooth, pliable dough – it shouldn’t be sticky. Cover with a bowl or cloth and leave to rest for 30 minutes.
3. Trim, wash and slice the white part of the leeks, peel and finely slice the garlic, and finely slice the chilli. Place a large casserole pan on a medium-high heat with four tablespoons of oil, the garlic and chilli. Strip in most of the thyme leaves, then stir in the leeks and season with sea salt and black pepper.
4. Roughly break up the cauliflowers into florets, roughly chop some of its leaves, and set aside. Finely slice and add the stalks to the pan, along with the wine and butter, turn the heat up and cook for 10 to 15 minutes, or until softened and starting to caramelise, stirring occasionally.
5. Add the florets and leaves to the pan with 300 millilitres of water. Season, reduce the heat and cook with the lid on for 30 minutes, or until softened and sweet, stirring occasionally.
6. To make the white sauce, pour the milk into a large pan on a medium heat. Tie the herbs together with a length of string to make a bouquet garni, then add to the pan, tying the end of the string to the pan’s handle so you can easily fish it out later. Simmer gently for a few minutes, while you rub the flour and butter together in a small bowl.
7. Remove the bouquet garni, then add the butter-flour mixture, a small piece at a time, whisking continuously until smooth. Simmer until it starts to thicken, stirring occasionally – it will thicken more once you add the cheese.
8. Remove the sauce from the heat, grate and stir in the Cheddar and Lancashire cheeses, season to perfection with salt and pepper, then leave to cool.
9. Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/gas 3.
10. Make the anchovy crumb: strip the rosemary leaves into a blender, add the bread and anchovies, then whizz to fine breadcrumbs.
11. To roll out your pasta, clamp a pasta machine firmly to a clean flour-dusted surface. Divide the dough into four pieces and press one portion out flat, then start to roll it through the pasta machine at the widest setting, lightly dusting with flour if it sticks.
12. Click the machine down a setting and roll the dough through again. Keep rolling the pasta through the machine, working it through all the settings, from the widest down to around the narrowest until you have a long, two millimitres-thick sheet of pasta, lightly dusting with flour as you go.
13. Repeat with the remaining dough until you have four sheets of pasta.
14. To assemble your lasagne, place two long pasta sheets into the bottom of a deep baking dish (roughly 25 centimetres x 35 centimetres), with the excess hanging over the side.
15. Cut the remaining sheets of pasta into rectangles, roughly seven-centimetres x 15 centimetres.
16. Add a layer of veg into the dish, followed by four generous serving spoons of white sauce, a crumbling of blue cheese and a layer of pasta. Repeat the layers once more, then top with the rest of the veg, most of the remaining white sauce and fold over the overhanging pasta. Top with the remaining white sauce and a grating of Cheddar.
17. Sprinkle over the anchovy crumb, then bake on the bottom of the oven for one hour to one hour 20 minutes, or until golden and bubbling.
Festive porchetta and all the trimmings
Serves: 8, plus leftovers
Time: 5 hours, plus resting
Ingredients:
1 x 5kg higher-welfare boneless pork loin, with belly attached and fat trimmed to ½cm-thick, skin removed and reserved (ask your butcher)
50ml Vin Santo or sherry
4 carrots
1 red onion
2 sticks of celery
1 heaped tsp fennel seeds
2 tbsp plain flour
1 heaped tbsp cranberry sauce, plus extra to taste
For the stuffing:
200g free-range chicken livers, cleaned, trimmed
250ml milk
4 red onions
4-5 slices of higher-welfare smoked pancetta
Olive oil
50g unsalted butter
1 heaped tsp fennel seeds
3 bay leaves
1 bunch of rosemary (20g)
1 bunch of thyme (20g)
200g mixed dried apricots, cranberries, raisins, sultanas
50g pine nuts
1 whole nutmeg, for grating
250ml white wine
200g stale breadcrumbs
For the potatoes:
2.5kg Maris Piper potatoes
1.5L organic chicken stock
1 bulb of garlic
A few sprigs of fresh rosemary
For the mixed veg:
6 parsnips
1 swede
4 small turnips
10 small carrots
A few sprigs of woody herbs, such as rosemary, thyme, sage
4 cloves of garlic
4 fresh bay leaves
2 tbsp cider vinegar
Method:
1. Get your meat out of the fridge and up to room temperature before you cook it. Place the chicken livers in a bowl, cover with the milk and set aside to soak.
2. To make the stuffing, peel and roughly chop the onions. Finely slice the pancetta, then place in a large frying pan on a medium-high heat with one tablespoon of oil, half of the butter, the fennel seeds, bay leaves and two generous pinches of black pepper. Cook for three minutes, stirring regularly, while you pick and roughly chop the herb leaves, and finely chop the dried fruit, then add to the pan along with the onions and pine nuts. Turn the heat down to medium and cook for 10 to 15 minutes, or until softened and starting to caramelise.
3. Make a well in the middle, add the remaining knob of butter and the livers, discarding the milk. Grate in half the nutmeg, season with sea salt, pour in the wine and allow to cook away. Remove from the heat, pick out and discard the bay leaves, stir in the breadcrumbs, then set aside and allow to cool (you can roughly chop the livers at this point, or keep them chunky).
4. Place the pork loin, fatty-side up on a board, score diagonally at one-inch intervals, then season generously all over with sea salt and pepper. Pour over and massage in half the Vin Santo, then flip the pork, pour over and massage in the remaining Vin Santo, then set aside.
5. Lay out several lengths of butcher’s string at one-inch intervals on the board. Place the pork fatty-side down on top, with the loin furthest away from you, then lightly score the flesh three or four times at one-inch intervals along the belly, pack the stuffing tightly on top across the centre underneath the loin, then roll up the pork, patting on and compacting the stuffing as you go – you’ll end up with around 10 stuffing balls’ worth of leftover stuffing. Sit it with the seam underneath and tie with the string to tightly secure it.
6. When you’re ready to cook, preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas 4.
7. Make a trivet: scrub the carrots, peel, quarter and break up the onion into petals, halve the celery sticks, then place into a large roasting tray. Sit the porchetta on top.
8. Score the underside of the skin and season generously with sea salt and the fennel seeds. Flip it over and score again randomly. Place the fat skin-side up on the top bars of the oven, with the porchetta on the shelf beneath, so the rendered fat drips onto the pork. Cook for three hours, or until the meat is really tender, basting now and again, removing the crackling after about one hour, or when golden and crisp.
9. Peel the potatoes, cutting any larger ones so they’re an even size – you want them quite chunky (roughly eight centimetres). Heat the stock in a large pan, add the potatoes and parboil for 14 minutes. Drain into a colander over a large bowl to catch the starchy stock – this will make an incredible gravy later. Steam dry, then shake the colander to chuff them up. Add to a large roasting tray with the unpeeled garlic cloves, rosemary and a pinch of salt and pepper.
10. Scrub the remaining root veg well, keeping the skin on. Trim and cut the parsnips and swede into rough chunks, cut the turnips into sixths (or eighths, if large), and trim the carrots, keeping them whole. Add to a large roasting tray, season with salt and pepper, pick over the herb leaves, add the unpeeled garlic, bay and vinegar. Set aside.
11. Transfer the cooked porchetta to a board, cover with tin foil and a tea towel, then leave to rest for 1 hour 30 minutes.
12. Carefully spoon a few tablespoons of pork fat over each veg tray (use olive oil, if you’d like to keep them veggie), toss well, then place all the veg in the oven and roast for one hour to one hour 20 minutes, or until golden.
13. Skim away the remaining fat from the porchetta tray into a jar, leave to cool, then place in the fridge for tasty cooking another day. To make your gravy, place the porchetta tray over a medium heat on the hob. Stir in the flour, mashing the carrots and scraping up all those gnarly bits from the base. Stir in the cranberry sauce, then add 700 millilitres of the reserved starchy stock and simmer until it’s the consistency of your liking, stirring occasionally. Strain the gravy through a coarse sieve, pushing all the goodness through with the back of a spoon, then season to perfection, tweaking with a little extra cranberry sauce, if you like.
14. Carve up the porchetta, and serve with the gravy, roast veg, crackling and all your favourite trimmings.
Sticky toffee coffee pudding
Serves: 16
Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Ingredients:
For the pudding:
170g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing (at room temperature)
340g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
450g fresh Medjool dates
1 level tsp ground cinnamon
1 whole nutmeg, for grating
50g walnut halves
170g golden caster sugar
170g dark muscovado sugar
4 large free-range eggs
For the caramel sauce:
250g unsalted butter
125g golden caster sugar
125g dark muscovado sugar
50ml espresso
50ml dark rum
250ml double cream
70g walnut halves
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. Grease and lightly flour a 26-centimetre bundt tin or a 20-centimetre x 30-centimetre baking dish.
2. Destone the dates and put into a food processor with the cinnamon and 300 millilitres of boiling water, then finely grate in the whole nutmeg. Leave the dates to soak with the lid on for 10 minutes, then blitz to a purée, stopping occasionally to scrape down the sides to help it along.
3. Add the walnuts to the food processor and blitz again. Add both the sugars and the butter and blitz until combined. With the motor still running, crack in the eggs. Add the flour and a pinch of sea salt, then pulse until combined. Pour the pudding mixture into the prepared tin, then bake for 45 minutes, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.
4. When your pudding is almost ready, make the sauce. Place a wide saucepan over a medium heat, cube and add the butter, then sprinkle over the sugars.
5. Once the butter has melted, stir in the espresso cocarefully add the rum (it may splatter), then bring to the boil. Add the cream and walnuts, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes, or until the sauce has thickened and turned a lovely deep golden colour.
6. Remove the pudding from the oven. If using a bundt tin, flip out the cake onto a platter and brush it all over with the sauce – as the cake cools down, the sauce will harden into a delicate crisp layer. If using a baking dish, poke holes in the top and pour over one-third of the sauce.
7. Decorate the sponge with the walnuts, using a fork to remove them from the sauce. Serve with a jug of the remaining sauce and some double cream, ice cream or custard, if you like.