In Good Taste #72: Tomato & olive salad with preserved orange dressing/Gingerbread Rocky Road
Let’s get some more use out of those preserved oranges; plus a family tradition and my favourite way to repurpose gingerbread houses; Ball & Boe (sort of...)
(Not up for the chitchat? Completely get it. Click the email title to go to a web-based version then jump straight to the recipe or Cultural Fun.)
I am well and more-or-less on top of festive preparations. Cards have been sent. Stuffing balls, nut roast, red cabbage and cranberry sauce are made and in the freezer. Presents mostly bought and partially wrapped.
The beautiful kitchen and the veg field at Home Farm House in Oxfordshire
If your recipients are based outside London or Oxfordshire, I’m also going to be running a couple of workshops in Newcastle next year at the Hut on the Green in Gosforth. Friday 28th February sold out so quick that we’ve added another date on Saturday 1st March and I’m really looking forward to both.
This but cosy and wintry…
It’s been a busy week of workshops, mainly private events for company Christmas parties which were loads of fun. I’m just on my way home from teaching the absolutely delightful team at Mother Root to make kimchi and more.
What a joy. One guy even went full Christmas stars on his daikon.
I’ve got a final event tomorrow and then I’m done for the year! (Incidentally, if you’re in the market for workplace wellness or alternative team bonding activities for the new year you can find more info about these event on my website.)
So. I have a last couple of recipes for you before taking a break.
Firstly, a salad because I find it important to eat some salads at this time of year. I like chocolate and cheese straws and mince pies and sausages and all the rest. But the treats need some space surrounding them or they all merge into one mass of indulgence and I feel bilious and don’t really enjoy anything.
I also wanted to give you a way of using the preserved oranges that wasn’t sweet but if you didn’t make any, no worries, you can sub for orange zest.
Recipe: Tomato & olive salad with preserved orange dressing
Although tomatoes are generally associated with summer there are some really nice winter varieties about too. They make a nice change from all the root veg and brassicas. This serves two as a side.
half a small red onion, sliced as thinly as possible
250g tomatoes, sliced
Method
Make the dressing. Put the preserved orange, garlic, vinegar and oil in a bowl. I’d use the one you’re going to serve the salad in since why create extra washing up? Add the black pepper, chilli flakes and salt and whisk to combine. Go easy on the salt since the olives will bring nearly as much as you need.
Add the other ingredients and leave to develop. Add the olives, onion and tomatoes and leave for about half an hour for the flavours to mingle and the tomatoes to give some of their juices to the dressing. Then eat.
Notes (If Ifs And Ands Were Pots And Pans…)
For a sweeter finish use orange juice instead of the vinegar.
I also used this dressing on a very simple salad of shredded white cabbage and chopped, toasted pistachios and it was lovely. I suspect it would be very nice tossed through roasted carrots too.
You could also stir it through yoghurt, similar to this preserved lemon dip.
Recipe: Gingerbread Rocky Road
My husband James’s family have a Christmas ritual. His Aunty Joan (aka "AJ") has a cardboard model of a house. It's covered in tinfoil and each year sweets - marshmallows, jelly tots etc - are fixed to the surface with icing. Envelopes are hidden around the house, one for each member of the family. Once you've found the one with your name on it, inside will be a picture of the house with an 'X' over one of its windows. Open the indicated window to find a number. Then the roof of the house lifts off and numbered gifts are handed out. Then - and only then! - can you start picking at the candy on the house, ruining you appetite for whatever yuletide blowout is next on the agenda.
This tradition was still going strong the first Christmas I spent with my in-laws when my husband James was 36. At the time my own family had been flailing around, slightly traditionless, since the death of my grandparents a few years earlier and the relocation of seasonal festivities from their house in Yorkshire to my mother's place in Cambridge. I seized on the sweetie house as something that could provide focus. But of course, being a chef, I had to make the house edible too.
A gingerbread house from a couple of years ago
Following a couple of structurally unsound pieces of gingerbread architecture I now use Stella Parks’ very reliable recipe for “construction gingerbread” from the Serious Eats website) instead of cardboard. The other twist I’ve introduced is that whoever finds their envelope first gets to smash the house, revealing the (very small) presents inside.
Can you spot the envelope hiding in plain sight that eludes my father, nephews and niece?
Even with children picking at gingerbread rubble there is still plenty left over. My friend Helen Zaltzman used to have her own tradition of a pre-Christmas gingerbread decorating party. Much fun! Many years ago she gifted me some rocky road made with the leftovers and it was delicious so I have been making my own version ever since.
Anyway. That was a very long intro to this recipe. Here it finally is.
Ingredients
200g dark chocolate
100g milk chocolate
100g butter
50g golden syrup
250g (ish) broken gingerbread including whatever sweets were used to decorate
75g (ish) mini marshmallows
couple handfuls sultanas
handful crystallised ginger
Method
Line a tin with greaseproof paper. Something approximately 9” square. There’s no baking so it doesn’t need to be oven proof. I have previously used a brownie tin and a 2 litre ice cream tub.
Melt the chocolate. Put the chocolate, butter and golden syrup together in a heat-proof bowl and microwave on 1 min intervals until melted. Stir to combine.
Add the bits. Add the gingerbread, marshmallows, sultanas and ginger. Stir everything around until evenly coated with the chocolate mixture. Transfer this mixture to the tin, cover with more greaseproof paper and press down firmly all over to compact.
Refrigerate. Put in the fridge until set firm then cut into small slices or cubes. I prefer the texture of this when it’s stored in the fridge but it will keep at room temperature too.
Notes (If Ifs And Ands Were Pots And Pans…)
This is very much a use-what-you-have situation. Chuck in any of the less popular selection box chocolates that are hanging around outstaying their welcome. Crumbled Christmas pudding, smashed up mince pies, glacé cherries or candied peel left over from festive baking projects, meringue nests, amaretti. Anything goes although you do need some spice in there to cut the sweetness.
Use all dark chocolate for a fractionally more refined take.
Cultural Fun
Still on the subject of gingerbread, I haven’t been to The Gingerbread City yet this year but the collection of buildings designed and constructed by actual architects is usually a highlight.
And speaking of Helen Zaltzman, I have recommended her podcast about language before but the last couple of episodes of The Allusionist were particularly great. Lexicat Parts 1 and 2 were about people who “talked” to their pets using buttons and absolutely blew my mind.
We went to see Ball & Boe at the Soho Theatre on Tuesday. Not actual Michael Ball and Alfie Boe but comedians Adam Riches and John Kearns pretending to be the light entertainment singing duo and it was very silly and very funny. I think the run is sold out but if you can get returns it’s a perfect piece of seasonal merriment.
Bye! See you next year!
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