This post is a happy sponsored collaboration with Sherry Wines UK with 3 new festive recipes for you: a clementine and rosemary manzanilla cocktail, sherry cream and rosemary pork chops and PX, dark chocolate and coconut panna cotta. For further inspiration, check out my Sherry summer picnic feature with recipes for peach and manzanilla slushie, smoky pork rillettes & olive tapenade.

It is December 1st! And so yes, now we all can start raving about and planning Christmas. Today I went out and bought pine branches and red berries and lots of clementines. Tis the season, and it is freezing to boot so I need no excuses.

You know how much I love sherry, that most underrated of drinks. I am delighted to be working again with Sherry Wines UK, and here I present 3 festive recipes for you, for your Christmas. A bright easy but full flavoured lunch, a gorgeous dessert and a cocktail to get you through.

I wax lyrically about my favourite dry sherries all the time: bone dry fino, briney manzanilla and nutty oloroso regularly grace my table. I am such a fan. There are many sherries though, and sweet sherries are perfect to consider for winter and also for festive celebrations. They are rich and deep and reassuring. They speak of time and luxury and relaxing. For this piece I will focus on three of my favourite sherries and three recipes and recommendations. Continue reading

Homemade Rhubarb Cordial

There is a lot to be said for the sunshine and a big bright sky. It brings cheer after a long harsh winter – and I know I haven’t experienced most of it – but London has become a dour place, and it seems as though as a city, it has been suffering from a severe Seasonal Affective Disorder.

So, what joy the sun brought with its big sky and warm sunshine. Everyone was cheerful and the parks were full. I was inspired to cook something bright and joyful. I wanted fruit and I wanted a refreshing non alcoholic drink. My mind turned to rhubarb cordial.

I love homemade cordials, I have one in my book and make many at home all the time. I finish them off with sparkling water and ice and sip as I work. After work, they sometimes end up in a cocktail.

The cordial I made is a fresh version to be consumed within the week. If you want to preserve it so that it lasts a few months, use citrate (also called citric acid) in place of the lemon (1 teaspoon for the recipe quantity below). Citrate is available in pharmacies generally although no longer in the UK, you can however order it online.

I used bright English rhubarb, not forced rhubarb but normal stuff. It was a lovely bright pink, if broader and tougher than its slender cousin. After a brief period of cooking, the cordial mixture is allowed to strain gently through a fine mesh sieve (or some muslin), releasing the bright pink cordial and leaving the darker fruit fibre behind. This incidentally, is great mixed in with yogurt for breakfast.

This recipe also works really well when you combine it with blood orange or rose extract when you are cooking the rhubarb. I make both, and adore them.

Enjoy! This is so easy and is really so delicious. The vibrant flavour and colour are something that you don’t get in the shop bought stuff, unless you are buying an artisanal one (which is also homemade, just not in your home :)

RECIPE: Rhubarb Cordial
Continue reading

Curling Stones

Folks, I’ve found my sport. SPORT, on a food blog? Does it help if I tell you we played for haggis? And what about if I told you that what this post is actually about is a recipe for Hendrick’s Hot Gin Punch?

HOT GIN PUNCH? I know, so bear with me while I tell you about, *cough*, sport.

So, sport, eh? I found my sport, and my sport is curling.

I wasn’t happy about the idea of going curling initially, and spent the entire trip there thinking up schemes to get out of it, but one hot gin punch later, I thought I would give it a go.

Chasing a 20kg granite stone up and down the ice with a sweeping brush – I hate them too, almost as much as sport – sounds like a nightmare, but it proved to be fun. The ice won’t allow you to run, or it will take you with a fall, so measured giggly forays up and down the ice with a sweeping brush proved entertaining. SWEEP | SWEEP | SWEEP they called, and sweep I did. We came second.

Curling for a Haggis

We got to play for a haggis but sadly we didn’t win it. Next time! I hear I can play it in Surrey, and I actually plan to. It is fun you see.

Second! But I did get to wear this awesome hat.

We thawed out after curling with a delicious Hendrick’s Hot Gin Punch. Magical in many ways, I love that it has been adapted from Charles Dickens’ own recipe. Now, where are my fingerless gloves?!

“Punch, my dear Copperfield, like time and tide, waits for no man”

Hendrick's Hot Gin Punch

HENDRICK’S HOT GIN PUNCH for 6 people

Three brimming teacups of Hendrick’s gin
Another three of Madeira wine
Three cloves
Pinch of grated nutmeg
Large teaspoon of cinnamon powder
Two teaspoons of brown sugar
Six large lemon and orange twists
Small slice of orange
One fresh pineapple
Four large spoons of honey
Juice of two lemons

Mix all ingredients in a pot. Warm but not quite till ebullition. Let your concoction cook without boiling for 20 minutes to a half hour. While it cooks the taste will change, make it to your own taste balancing the sweet/sour balance with honey and lemon. You can also re warm the mix, sometimes the punch will get better and better as you cook it more and more. When you think it is ready, pour in a teapot and serve hot in tea cups with gingerbread on the side.

Adapted from the original 1850 recipe found in the book Drinking with Dickens by Cedric Dickens, Great-Grandson of Charles Dickens, this recipe is inspired by Charles Dickens’ own gin punch recipe, so it is the etiquette to quote while pouring the first cup: “Punch, my dear Copperfield, like time and tide, waits for no man”, David Copperfield, 1850.

The Hendrick's car with bar in the boot!

Hendrick’s. It’s not for everyone. Or so they say, but really who can resist? I love the stuff.

I quite like gin anyway. I am a big fan of boutique gin operations, as you may have seen, given that I have written about London based Sipsmith before. They love to experiment, as it turns out Hendrick’s do too. The appeal of Hendrick’s for me is the gorgeous complex botanicals and the freshness and aromatics introduced by the rose and cucumber notes  that are added post distillation. There are many other botanicals in there too like elderflower and coriander, but more on that later. More than anything, I do love the Hendrick’s G&T with ice and a slice (of cucumber). Try it sometime.

The flying cucumber at the front of the Hendrick's car

Recently, I found myself in Glasgow for a dinner which brought together an explosive pairing: Hendrick’s Gin and London’s own Bompass & Parr. Picked up at the airport by a gin mobile, the fabulous Hendrick’s car, complete with a rose for gear stick, a silver cucumber with wings on the front, and a bar in the boot – yes – BAR IN THE BOOT, we started our morning with a G&T with ice and that slice in the airport car park. I was won over.

Bath of Hendrick's G&T with cucumber & rose

For dinner we were whisked to a stately home outside Glasgow where we were greeted by the eccentric and well wrapped Lord Von Hendricks, smoking jacket and all. Cocktails were served initially from a bath in the entrance hall filled with G&T, slices of cucumber and rose petals. Gorgeous.

Lord Von Hendrick's with his highly strung wife

Trusty nervy lieutenant

A tour through the house with his trusty, although slightly useless staff, somewhat highly strung wife, and lieutenant in tow, brought us to the Bompass & Parr canapés and more lovely gin cocktails. Favourites were the Hendrick’s cured salmon, and the tongue-in-cheek take on a chicken nugget, whole breaded quail breast with cucumber jam.

Hendrick's Gin Punch

Whole Breaded Quail Breasts with Cucumber Jam

Dinner in the wonderful kitchen

Dinner was in the kitchen, a most beautiful room that I could happily live in and never need for anything else. We had a two course meal (we had had rather a lot of the canapés) at a large table, dressed with pink and green jars and two pigs heads (freakishly with glass eyes), catered by Bompass & Parr with two Hendricks’s cocktails to match.

Crab Starter

Hendrick's Cucumber Sours

We started with a light crab dish with cucumber jelly, cucumber and tomato served with a deliciously tart celery sour, slick with egg white. Not too much at all, I loved this, and it was necessarily light, as the main course, and cocktail were quite meaty.

Bath chaps, boiled potato bones with mushroom marrow and chestnuts with fried salsify, Hendrick’s mustard and Hendrick’s picallili

Hendrick's Bullshot - Hendrick's Gin with Beef Consommé

Mains were bath chaps, boiled potato bones with mushroom marrow and chestnuts with fried salsify, Hendrick’s mustard and Hendrick’s picallili. A wonderful play on food with the potato looking like a bone complete with marrow. The bath chaps were a resurrection of an old recipe from, yes, Bath, are the lower half of pig cheeks, and these were tender, falling apart at the touch of a fork. The star of the show though was the carnivorous Bullshot, billed as a Matador’s Dream of Hendrick’s Gin with beef consommé. The rich, oily beef consommé provided an intense partner for the Hendrick’s gin and the meal. It was delicious but intense, almost too much. I loved it though, and it sparked the table, polarising opinion as it went.

Bompass & Parr

Er... some scientists :)

We retired to another room for dessert and indulged in a selection of Bompass & Parr gin jellies, and candyfloss Hendrick’s gin cocktails.

Hendrick's Candy Floss Cocktails

Bompass & Parr Jellies

Piper

It was a wonderful evening, so much fun, so much great food and drink. And I am sorry that I can’t share it further by letting you know how you can go sometime soon. BUT, I did get some of the recipes and I will blog some tomorrow. One will be perfect for this weather, Hendrick’s Hot Gin Punch. :)

Thanks to Hendrick’s and Bompass & Parr for a wonderful evening. Do keep an eye out for the events they host in London, like the recent Hendrick’s Horseless Carriage.

I’ve been ill again. I don’t ever remember a time in my life where I have had such a succession of bugs and annoyances. This time, the visitor was a most unwelcome norovirus, commonly known as the winter vomiting bug. I am sure there are much better ways of describing it, it is the most vicious, invasive, overwhelming bug that I have had the misfortune to be slayed by. It brought me around to thinking about the food that we eat when we are sick, to get better.

Everyone has their particular favourites, some offer comfort from childhood, most are family remedies. Often they make no sense at all. Almost everyone seems to turn to fizzy drinks when ill. Even me. And I won’t touch them when I am not ill, unless they are partnering a spirit. The sugar is good, and some like ginger ale have ginger, but isn’t it better to go straight to source and make a fresh ginger tea?

Now, I know it sounds laborious, and when your sick, struggling to the loo is probably the most you can manage, but it’s easy, quick, delicious, and it’s of enormous benefit in times of tummy upset. Ginger relieves nausea, stimulates digestion, relieves gas and bloating and helps stop diarrhoea. Lemon juice with honey aids bowel movement. Honey is soothing for distressed throats and oesophaguses. Lemon is alkalinizing for a poor acidic stomach, this means it neutralizes the acid, or at least starts to.

This is not insipid like a herbal tea from a tea bag, it’s full of flavour and texture. I drink this regularly, as it’s really tasty and comforting,  I find it especially soothing at times like these.

Want to make it? Per mug I make mine with fresh ginger, peeled and sliced, about an inch of it, the juice of half an organic unwaxed lemon and a teaspoon of honey. I top this up with hot water, leave to infuse for a few minutes and drink slowly.

Everything that passes my mouth now has intense diplomatic negotiations to face once they hit the stomach, and the folks down there are slow and gurgly. They like this lemon, ginger and honey tea though. It seems about the only thing that has diplomatic immunity at the moment!

What do you eat and drink when ill?