Festive Recipes from OfficeTribers
The holiday season has officially started which means time for some indulgence – rest, seeing family and friends and feasting! Food is such a lovely way to socialise and cooking together can be a great way to connect – children, parents, friends, partners – be it stirring the pot or making biscuits, ‘discussing’ the correct way to cook a turkey or sharing the secret to plaiting challah bread, successfully.
We asked the OfficeTribe members for some of their favourite holiday season recipes and they did not disappoint. This is a real smorgasbord of European culinary delights – don’t forget to print off the recipes to try and send us photos of the finished delicacies!
Tom Olden, co-founder OfficeTribe
Spiced Beef
Tom’s dad used to make spiced beef in his butcher shop in Cork – Olden’s at 9 Princes Street if you have older Irish relatives visiting!
It’s a famous Cork dish mainly eaten around Christmas. It’s a typical centrepiece for a main meal but the Oldens used to love having it in sandwiches. Sadly, Tom doesn’t have the original recipe but this one is from a Cork hotel and Irish celebrity chef, Darina Allen’ s book ‘A Simply Delicious Christmas’.
Ingredients
For the Ballymaloe spice for beef
· 350g salt
· 225g demerara sugar
· 75g whole black pepper
· 75g whole allspice (pimento, Jamaican pepper)
· 75g whole juniper berries
· 106 saltpetre (available in chemists, Amazon; used to cure meat)
. 1.3k6-1.8kg lean flank of beef
Method
1. To make the Ballymaloe spice for beef: grind all the ingredients, preferably in a food processor and store in a screw top jar. It will last for months so make the whole amount even if you don’t need it at the time.
2. If you’re using flank of beef, remove the bones and trim any unnecessary fat. Rub the spice all over the beef and into every crevice. Transfer to an earthenware dish and place in the fridge or a cool place for 3-7 days, depending on the thickness of the meat, turning occasionally. The longer it’s left, the spicier it will be!
3. Before cooking, roll the meat and tie it, using string, into a compact shape. Place it in a saucepan and cover it with water (the meat should always be covered with liquid throughout cooking), simmering for 2-3 hours or until it’s fully cooked and soft.
4. If it’s not to be eaten hot, press it by placing it on a baking sheet or in a loaf tin, and covering it with a board and a weight overnight.
5. If eating cold, slice thinly and serve in sandwiches like Tom’s family or as part of a charcuterie board with chutneys and relishes. Spiced beef can keep in the fridge for about 3-4 weeks.
Julia Olden, co-founder of OfficeTribe
Danish Apple Slices, Aebelskiver
These are like mini doughnuts, warm and comforting. Bring a little hygge to your holiday season.
This recipe has been adapted from the website Dan Sukker and incorporates this recipe which is handy to watch! It requires an apple sauce which you can make quite simply by peeling, coring and finely chopping up some apples and then caramelising them in some butter and sugar with a sprinkling of cinnamon. Yum. (Bought apple sauce would work too!)
Ingredients
100 g butter
300 g plain flour
4 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar
1 tsp crushed cardamom
5 tsp baking powder
300 ml milk
3 egg yolks
Grated zest of 1/2 untreated lemon
3 egg whites
Melted butter to grease the donut pan, icing sugar to sprinkle over and a tasty jam to dip them in.
1. Melt the butter and leave to cool slightly.
2. Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Whisk in the milk, egg yolks, melted butter and lemon zest.
3. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold carefully into the batter.
4. Heat a donut pan (Trevor Mottram will definitely have one, we’re sure!) and grease with a little melted butter. The pan needs to be very hot before you add in the mixture.
5. Drop in the mixture until it almost fills the hollow in the pan.
6. Give them a minute or so and then add the apple sauce. Top with more mixture.
7. Turn them over so that the cooked underside is on top, allowing the rest to cook through. It’s a good idea to use a fork to turn them.
Once cooled, sprinkle with icing sugar, cosy up and enjoy!
Zoe Grasby, Content Creator, Social Fireworks Ltd
December brekkie eggs
A warm breakfast is always a good way to start the day during the winter and eggs are nutritious and healthy too! As Zoe says, though, everyone likes their eggs cooked a particular way. Here’s Zoe’s intro and tasty recipe to follow, which is based on cooking maestro J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s recipe here: Really Good Scrambled Eggs
How you prepare your eggs might be one of the most controversial topics in the culinary world; to poach or not to poach? Do salt and pepper alone suffice? And so on! In that spirit, I’d like to offer up my own scrambled eggs recipe, a classic toast-topper for those cold mornings in December.
Ingredients
· 2-3 eggs
· 1.5 tbsp butter (or alternative!)
· 5 tbsps milk
· Seasoning: salt, pepper, thyme, garlic
· And if you’re fancy: some grated cheese and cooked bacon bits
* Disclaimer: my preferred method of measurement is to ‘eyeball’ it and taste as you go!
Method:
1. Get yourself a regular saucepan and a spoon. On a low heat, melt your butter until runny, then splash in your milk. Stir.
2. Crack your eggs into the pan. I like to do this directly, as I enjoy the slightly runny yolk in my eggs, but you can also crack them into a bowl and whisk them well first. Turn to a medium-low heat.
3. You really only need to cook your eggs for 1-2 minutes from here - Make sure you don’t over-cook them! Stir sparingly, and mix in your seasonings: salt, pepper, thyme and (trust me on this) the slightest pinch of garlic!
*** At this stage, feel free to add in some cheese and bacon if you like!
4. Plate up your eggs, preferably on some warm buttered toast.
That’s it! Don’t knock it until you try it!
Thanks Zoe!
Alberto Arcidiacono, Lastminute. com
Roast capon with pork stuffing, served with mostarda di frutta
If you feel like something italiano this festive season, then look no further. This sounds absolutely delicious and will make a stunning centrepiece for a family or friend gathering – colourful and fragrant. Alberto took this from www.greatitalianchefs.com – a website we’ve bookmarked!
Ingredients
· 1 capon, weighing approximately 3–3.5kg – a good butcher should be able to help with this
· olive oil
· salt
· pepper
For the stuffing:
· 1 small onion, finely chopped
· 1 stick of celery, finely chopped
· 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
· 250g of pork mince
· 1/2 tsp dried oregano
· 1/2 tsp dried basil
· 1/2 tsp dried sage
· 1 egg
· 50g of fresh breadcrumbs
· 50g of mortadella, diced
· 30g of Parmesan
· 1 orange, zested
· salt
· pepper
Method
1. Begin by making the stuffing. In a frying pan set over a medium heat, sauté the onion, celery, and garlic in a dash of olive oil until soft but not coloured. Remove from the heat and leave to cool. Preheat the oven to 175°C/gas mark 4
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2. Place the mince in a bowl with the rest of the stuffing ingredients and the (cooled) celery, onion and garlic and mix thoroughly. Season with salt and pepper
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3. Stuff the mixture into the cavity of the capon and tie the legs together with butcher's string. Lightly oil the bird and season with salt and pepper, then place in a deep roasting tray with 150ml of water.
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4. Place in the oven to roast for 2 1/2 hours, or until the thickest part of the thigh reaches 75°C on a meat thermometer. Baste regularly with the juices from the bottom of the dish throughout the cooking time. If the skin starts to darken too much, cover with foil.
For the mostarda di frutta
This is an Italian take on a fruity relish. It comes from Lombardy and is definitely a tasty way to hit your festive five a day.
Ingredients
· 1 kiwi fruit, peeled and cut into 16
· 1 fig, sliced into 8
· 1 tangerine, peeled
· 1 small pear, peeled and sliced into 8
· 1 apple, peeled and sliced into 16
· 8 cherries, pitted and halved
· caster sugar
· 1 lemon, juiced
· 1 tbsp of white wine
· 4 tbsp of mustard powder
Mustard Syrup
· 1 tsp mustard seeds, (optional)
Method
1. Weigh the prepared fruit, then weigh out half the amount of caster sugar. Place both in a bowl and stir to coat the fruit.
2. Cover the bowl in cling film and place in the fridge for 48 hours, stirring each morning and evening to redistribute the sugar.
3. After two days, the sugar should have dissolved into a syrup. Drain the fruits in a sieve, collecting the syrup in a pan.
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4. Add the lemon juice, white wine, mustard powder, and seeds (if using) to the syrup. Stir and simmer until slightly thickened.
5. Place the fruits in a sterilised jar and pour over the syrup. Seal the jar and leave for at least a week at room temperature before eating. Once opening, store the jar in the fridge.
Serve alongside the capon and stuffing.
Wow these recipes are very tempting – will you give them a try? You might also like to try the epitome of an Italian Christmas, panettone as suggested by Alberto, and Daniela Morgoi from Manventure UK Ltd who is Romanian, kindly shared these recipes found on YouTube with us: cabbage rolls known as samale and cozonac, an enriched sweet dough with chocolate and walnuts.
Remember, indulge, and enjoy as much as you can. See you on the other side – happy holidays!