The sprout. There's more to it than you realised.

People can be very rude about sprouts, but I love them and, with a bit of frost on them, they'll taste even better. I like them with just a little bite in the centre, but this is not a vegetable that, when cooked whole, takes well to undercooking. I actually like sprouts when they have been almost boiled to death -- you know, like in a hospital canteen. I can vouch for the hospital canteen because I ate in one not very long ago and the sprouts were, indeed, done to death and possibly over-salted. But I liked them. I realise I will not be selling this to may people. so I'll move on.

The secret, if there is one, is that you are best advised to cook your sprouts in the minimum water possible, but keep an eye on them. I also abide by this rule if I am cooking cabbage (although, as with the hospital canteen sprouts, so with the cabbage: one of the joys of my confinement after a labour that appeared to take about three days was the appearance of a Sunday lunch with the overcooked cabbage). Serve your sprouts with a celebration meal of a roast chicken, bread sauce, roast potatoes, mashed swede and proper gravy. That's my choice for the last day of Christmas --the Feast of Epiphany on the 6th of January. Oh yes: my tree is still up. Just pull any withered leaves off the sprouts, having avoided the purchase of any sad and yellowing specimens, cut the toughest end from the stalk of the sprouts and put them in a modicum of lightly salted water. Bring to the boil and simmer until tender. My mother always made little crosses in the bottom of a sprout, but I can see no rhyme or reason to this. However, if tradition dictates....

That's the roast dinner route. Now try this. BUBBLE AND SQUEAK.

If you have been clever enough to make extra potatoes and sprouts a part of your dinner, you have a feast in store for tea that day or a meal the next day. This works with either boiled or roast potatoes. Just mash your leftover potatoes and sprouts with a fork, amalgamating them as you do so.Keep them roughly mashed though: you are not after a puree here. Now cook the lot in a well oiled frying pan until your mixture, well, bubbles and squeaks. Try to let it brown in places. Serve this with a fried egg and a big mug of tea. Builder's tea, that is. Good Sunday breakfast, this. Or a Boxing Day tea. I'd even cook the potatoes and sprouts especially for it.

AND FOR A CHANGE...

A rapid supper for me goes as follows. Spiced, quick-fried sprouts

Just prepare the sprouts as before and then slash them into strips -- however they come. Get a wok (or a pan you can get really hot and move about easily) ready with a light film of sunflower oil into which you will put two finely chopped cloves of garlic and perhaps a finely chopped small nut of ginger root. Toss these in the oil until they begin to soften and brown and then add the sprouts. Stir them around with as much of a flourish as you dare; when you see them just beginning to soften, add some substantial splashes of Kikoman sauce. This is the only brand I use, the important thing being that it has some depth of flavour and it is naturally brewed. Toss the lot around for a couple of minutes and then add a couple of pinches of Chinese five spice powder and, perhaps, a pinch of dried red chilli flakes. It's done. You could serve this with rice, noodles or as part of a Chinese meal. If you want to make it more substantial, may I suggest that you start off with thin strips of chicken or pork and then add the sprouts as the meat begins to brown? I promise you this much maligned vegetable will taste sweet and nutty but with just a hint of brassica bite to tell you that it won't take being disparaged lying down. Ha!

srqpix and celesteh at flickr for the sprouts: thank you.

Christmas dinner

Gentle snow (still) and ice on the ground, I got snow-bound (well, ice-bound) in Wales, there is a merry fire in the grate and the boys do not want the day to end. Here, with a Merry Christmas to you, is what I made for dinner. Just a small affair this year, to please two grown ups and two young children. As we had had turkey for Thanksgiving, this year I allowed it to be ousted by a a dinner of a slightly different kind -- but festive withal. Also practical, as you will see from the leftovers.

Above is Virginia, last Christmas. That's what I call ice. Below that would be the comedy mouse snowman, to cheer you up if you are apprehensive about the new year.

A brace of pheasants, stuffed with pork sausagemeat, garlic and apples, with roasted apples to one side and wrapped all in back bacon. Just find some local pheasants if you can and get someone else to prepare them if you are squeamish. I'm not, but it should be fairly easy for you to find ready-prepared pheasant. £6.95 for a brace. Not bad.Take the pheasants out of the fridge a good half an hour before you start to prepare them for the oven: you want them to be at room temperature befeore they go in. Now, stuff them with some decent sausagemeat (or undress some decent sausages), fill the cavity with this plus some large chunks of apple and four or five unpeeled garlic cloves. Wrap the birds well in good back bacon. Cook until the breast is burnished and --really this is the only kind of occasion where I use a meat thermometer-- the sausagemeat is done. I'd allow two hours at 200c, remembering to baste frequently and your pheasant shoulld not be dry. Well, it  will be dry -er than some other birds.

Lots of chicken drumsticks, wrapped in bacon and cosied in with lots of unpeeled garlic cloves. Just as it sounds. I had got my hands on a large consignment of Halal chicken (no, nothing dodgy: this was, rather marvellously, in Asda in Hicksville Wiltshire). Halal meat has, appropriately I thought, a slightly gamier flavour which seemed apposite here. Just make sure the chicken is at room temp, as with the pheasant, before it goe to the oven and wrap it --not Halal: please note!-- with some well-flavoured back bacon ajnd sprinkle lots of unpeeled garlic cloves all around. Takes about an hour at 2oo.

Why the two? Because, this time of year, pheasant is reasonably priced (I am speaking of £6.95 for two, locally shot pheasants) and I was not sure how well the children would take this game, so cooked an alternative. They ate both and scraped at the dishes afterwards.

Sage and onion stuffing with apple, cooked to one side. Dressing, then, as they would say in Georgia. Just grate, finley chop or process --I'm not giving specifics here-- plenty of brown and white breadcrumbs, add sea salt, lots of freshly-ground black pepper, three fresh sage leaves, finely minced and some chopped red apple. Experiment until you have the mixture you like. Moisten it with water, a little olive oil and a generous dot of butter and bake for about half an hour.I cook it all of a piece in a tin, but you could form it into little stuffing balls, I suppose. If you want, a few chopped dried apricots are good here. A good grating of nutmeg would also work. And a note on sage: I don't use dried because there is always plenty of fresh in the garden. I find that dried commercially available sage seems to acquire a rather overpowering musty smell and taste. If you wanted, you could substitute rosemary for the sage.

Roast parsnips and this year, in another departure, I cooked whole carrots in with the parsnips. Just a little sunflower oil and lots of freshly ground black pepper. Peel the carrots, top and tail. Done. Same for the parsnips and then cut them in half lengthways. Cook them in blisteringly hot oil for about 45 minutes, by which time they will be sweet and irresistible and have caught the heat in places so that you get little stucky burnished bits.

Sprouts. I love them; always have.I like them quite well done here.

Roast potatoes. This year, I parboiled the potatoes --make sure you choose good floury ones-- the night before and roughened them up well against the side of the pan and then chucked them into hot sunflower oil. Goose fat, as you may well know, gives them a sublime flavour, but I'll be writing more about roast potatoes in a separate entry. Stay tuned. Cook them until they are crisp and then blitz them under a higher heat when the meat is out of the oven. Should take 45 minutes to an hour. I also added a couple of tablespoons of the sublime juices from the pheasant as they were about half way through cooking.


Mashed swede, with lots of butter and black pepper. Cook it well, in large chunks. And stunt ye not on the butter and black pepper. Salt to taste. Bashed neeps. For Kathleen from Dumfries, if she is readiing this. Also great with Haggis on Burns' Night!

Gravy. I had a little vegetable stock to one side. I had made this with half an onion, some sticks of celery and about a third if a red pepper plus four or five whole peppercorns. For additional liquid I used the water from cooking the swede and the whole thing was started off with a roux made from the juices and a little of the fat from the pheasant roasting dish. That wasn't hard, was it?

AND -- now this is peculiar-- I made unseasonal Yorkshire pudding because that had been requested by the children.

Pudding: didn't have it, really, Just the odd Clementine, hazlenuts and pistachios a little later.And then, obviously, we picked at hazlenuts, walnuts, cashews, mince pies and the Christmas cake made by an excellent aunt. This year we had no Christmas pudding, because no-one likes it apart from me. I'm not entirely happy with this state of play.

And what of dinner? I mean Christmas tea or supper. Still, confusion reigns in our Anglo-Cymric-American household.

A bubble of squeak of sorts. So, all the leftover vegetables --plenty of potatoes and sprouts-- mashed just roughly and then fried until they developed a rich, crisp crust. We had these with two pickles made in the first place by an inspirational neighbour --pumpkin chutney-- and in the second place by an inspirational parent of a child I teach: this was a tart apple and blackberry chutney. Both were received with uncommon joy and both were made from home-grown produce. We also had a piece of Somerset Brie and a slice of Dolcellate with this. A telly-side supper, while I grieved the soon not-to-be- regenerated Doctor Who. Oooh! David Tennant. There's something about his shift from tragic to comic on the turn of a dime.... Oh and we had the leftover pheasants and chicken in sandwiches with mango chutney the next day.