A Boxing Day inspired feast and tales of December adventures; I'm talking trifle, cheese & christmas trees

As December garners pace, I'm keeping stride in the kitchen. It's my very favourite place to be, so I muster all the excuses I can to play with seasonal ingredients & gather family & friends to feast.

The unexpected snowfall of last Sunday has been washed away across a week of mostly rain. No matter the twinkling lights of the high street and christmas jumpers out in force, wet weather has the ability to dampen my usually ebuillent festive spirit. I thrive on mornings that steal your breath at this time of the year, icicles suspended from our tired guttering and the evergreens draped in white lace. We picked a dry window in amongst the downpours to fetch the festive tree, a ritual some twenty five years in tradition and tangled with memories. In much the same way I approach the fashion rails, running my hand over fabrics and stepping back to see how it drapes and falls, I apply this same process to tree-buying. I have a penchant for fraser firs, though a spruce made a fan of me a couple of years back. I am fond of a pine scent too, so will forsake needles that promise to hold until Jan for the aroma of a Norwegian forest. We drag each one from a pile and stand them upright, twirling them slowly like a ballerina in an old fashioned jewellery box to gauge their shape and height, before moving on to the next. The ‘one’ is agreed on without too much of a debate, a sturdy specimen some seven - eight feet in height and densely packed with fragrant boughs. In the usual fashion it’s netted and taken home, poked into a pot to sit for 24 hours before the dressing begins.

We were a six strong crowd at our table last night, friendships that flourished across the classrooms of our schoolyears and nightclubs of the nineties that have never fizzled out. In the usual fashion we pull up chairs and settle to hours of chatter about everything and nothing, feasting in amongst the conversations and reminiscing as to where the years have passed to. Children are older now, breaking the rules for themselves and keeping us on our toes with the weight of worry raising teenagers & young adults serves, more so than when they were babes in arms and across those early years of parenthood. Booze is poured with a slow hand for once and everybody is steady on their feet when we wrap up for the night.

Boxing day is where my appetite gets turned on. Cold meats, wheels of cheese and winter salad, (more on this later) Cold leftover stuffing, roasted spuds and pigs in blankets; all making a welcome return to the table 24 hours after their first outing. Potato salad pimped with capers and cornichon, scotch eggs clad with sausagemeat that was overbought to in part stuff the turkey with and quiche, rustled with purpose and waiting patiently in the wings until the 26th. Cheese straws served still warm from the oven make good use of remnants from the day before’s all-but-devoured fromages and a blindingly good trifle is a good shout to round it all off. You can write me out of the ‘Big Day’ dinner in favour of first picks from the buffet table when the 26th comes knocking. My love for these dishes, their ability to encourage repeat helpings and unfettered grazing across hours lost to convivial gatherings steered last nights menu.

All of the above found their way to the supper table, save for any stuffing or turkey. Instead, (and far more to my liking) a large ham baked in cider, marmalade and dijon earlier in the day had stood until cold, with a jar of piccalilli alongside. I took a punt on a leek & comté quiche, a combination I’ve no doubt I didn’t dream up, but nor did I have any recipe for. There are easy principles that can be applied to making quiche, where I’ll fleck the savoury custard with nutmeg and a dab of dijon is stirred through. Three eggs is usually enough to hold firm around 340ml double cream (or 140g each of double cream and thick full fat crème fraîche) Parmesan is always stirred into the egg mixture, so too salt & pepper. The mild mannered leeks left room for the ballsy notes of the cheese to surface, which I’d cubed rather than grated and I rely on a pastry technique from France these days - Pâte Brisée - a version of shortcrust pastry that doesn’t try my patience like most and with reassuringly impressive results.

I have fond memories of winter salad as a child across these colder months. It would accompany crispy skinned jacket potatoes and platters of cold meats, the crisp crunch of mayonnaise clad seasonal vegetables far more pleasing when eaten raw. It turns out winter salad was perhaps just another name in our household for the more widely recognised coleslaw and something my mother would always make from scratch. I may well stand corrected next time we speak, for I could easily have been oblivious to a crucial point of difference. Either way, her recipe knocked spots off the bought stuff. Patience is the main component here, where carrots are painstakingly trimmed into slender matchsticks and shards of celery pencil thin. A large head of white cabbage finely shredded remains the backbone to this dish, whatever it’s name. Mayonnaise is upended with glorious abandon, licking every strand of vegetable as it’s turned through. On occasion raisins might be added in my mothers kitchen. None of the shop bought versions that are omnipresent in supermarkets today can compete with an offering that’s homemade I’d wager. I am far fonder too of the title Winter Salad, not least to give it a point of difference from the industrially produced stuff and, I suspect, the nostalgia I entwine with this ambiguous title. I include a red cabbage alongside the white in my own version of this dish, loosening the mayonnaise with a little crème fraîche if it’s to hand and a squeeze of a lemon.

To Make

Old Fashioned English Trifle

Let’s talk more as to this old fashioned dessert, one that once upon a time was never absent from the christmas table - and most celebratory tables and dessert trolleys across the Uk in the 70’s and 80’s - spooned from a capacious glass bowl deep with sherry soaked sponge and barely set custard. Softly whipped cream and flecks of angelica, flaked almonds and glacé cherries all rooted in the glorious pomp of entertaining across the latter half of the last century have never lost their appeal with me. It begs for second helpings, piles of creamy calories and mouthfuls of boozy carbs. I swear by a traditional version included in the well thumbed pages of ‘Forgotten Skills of Cooking’ from Darina Allen, co-founder of Ballymaloe Cookery School and pioneer of the slow food movement in Ireland, a belter of a recipe passed down the generations without need to meddle. Where trifle sponges are split in half and smeared with crimson raspberry jam before sandwiching back together and slicing into fingers. Custard is fashioned atop a gentle heat, where I substitute the caster sugar mentioned for a vanilla infused version I keep in plentiful supply. It leans on blind faith that the custard will set once cooled and a modicum of trust in being able to rescue the custard with the aid of a bowl of cold water and liquidiser if it curdles. Recipes that have been proven time over to work are the ones I seek, for too much effort and ingredients go into any dish for the results to fall short of the intended mark. Whether your own version is a hand me down through the family or from the pages of a kitchen great, get it in your Christmas armoury and invite all to feast.

To Buy

Montgomery Cheddar

This cheese plays a blinder on any occasion. I thrill at cheeses in much the same way some folk do with wine, an insatiable curiosity to initiate myself with any curds, soft or firm, when crafted by passionate artisans and small dairies serving up brilliance in this field. Flavours that linger on the palate and where notes of woodsmoke, tree nut or orchard fruits are subtly woven in amongst the milky curds and pale cream to spark greedy delight. I remain true to my core values in the cheese arena, shunning the lacklustre commercially produced cheeses - those industrial blocks churned out in mass produced quantities - in favour of the time honoured farmhouse cheeses and passionate producers at the top of their game. Settling to a bijou board for one, where a singular lump of ewes milk cheese is accompanied by crusts or crackers, is as decadent as settling to a plate of oysters where my palate is concerned. I envy the sequence that suppers in France take, where a simple green salad follows the main course and fromages are enjoyed before any dessert concludes proceedings. Try as I might I have yet to convince guests of this turn of events, so we fall in stride with British traditions, where a board of cheese is last out the kitchen, ruby red Port and the such like relied on to wash it all down as it accompanies chatter late into the night.

Montgomery Cheddar is a mightily impressive farmhouse cheddar reminiscent of those from my childhood. I’d back it in a cheese sandwich competition all the way, with or without slices of ripe tomato dotted with black pepper tucked alongside. There are of course other stalwarts of this category - Lincolnshire Poacher, Keens, Westcombe and Hafod spring immediately to mind - but for me, Montgomery has the edge. Available in most good cheesemongers and available to purchase online from Neals Yard Dairy it’s a brick of an unpasteurised cheese, heavy with rich milk from a friesian herd that grazes on Somerset pastures, wrapped in muslin cloth and aging to magnificent effect across months of maturation.

To Gift

Solsona knives

To be clear, I’m a homecook rather than a chef. I’m not required to carry my knives in a tired looking roll bag, nor will I subject them to the same labour those in a restaurant kitchen are required to undertake daily. I do however stand stoveside for plenty of time across each day, unwinding against the gentle rhythm of blade and board as I prepare a meal. For me, I am charmed by a sturdy blade able to lend itself to a myriad of uses, coupled with attention given to the overall aesthetic, one that holds old fashioned appeal much the same as those I was prohibited to use in my grandmothers kitchen at Penn.

I spied these Solsona Handmade Carbon Steel knives on Tea and Kates website a few years ago, hastily adding them to my birthday wish list. The poor things have been subjected to the dishwasher (when it still worked) on occasions when I’ve not supervised the pot washing, a clear no-no on their care instructions and causing irreversible spoiling to the blade, although they are still plenty usable. I spotted them in The Cooks Atelier when we were poking around their store in Beaune earlier this summer, a sure sign of their capability I’d wager and I have jotted them again on this years christmas list, since I prefer to use them over all others we’ve a jumble of. Whilst I can’t attest to any ability to outperform all others, I can confirm their appeal is real.

I note there are a growing number of newcomers to my newsletters here; huge thanks for joining this community. As always, I welcome all your comments and feedback in the section below, even if it’s just to raise your hand to say hello and I’m entirely grateful to have you here with me. Until next time, Millsie :) x