Nigella's Christmas Kitchen 🎄 Episode 4 - BBC Series 2008 (Complete episode)

[Music] now some people are just so boringly cynical about christmas but i just love it every last twinkling light i am drinking in christmasiness i mean there's the market there and my glue by my mulled wine here and there's something about the smell of this it has the trifecta of aroma that is christmas the fruits the cinnamon the cloves and i suppose it's this really that runs through all my christmas cooking i mean if i think really when i make my christmas cake i get the scent of this [Music] and my spiced aromatic ham as i pour the christmas colored glaze all over it that is christmas and that is inspired by the mild wine really this is what it's all about not just the smells but also about relishing tradition but feeling you can play with it too [Music] you know much as i love that and i really did this for me is where christmas really begins it's being at home and filling the house with the smells of christmas all those gorgeous spices and everything that just makes you feel cozy makes your heart lifts and obviously for me that has to be in the kitchen and i'm inspired a bit by all that rather delicious glue vine but i'm also going to deviate which is to say i'm going to mull some cider if that is the right way to describe it put the heat on i do love mulled wine but i do think sometimes you can get a slight cough link to see thing going some cinnamon i like to break them into gorgeous aromatic barky shards now some cardamom i just love cardamom there's something so hostilely evocative about it and it's somehow both scandinavian and middle east at the same time and this is probably the best way to crush the pods i do sometimes use my teeth i have to say but not when anyone's watching some sugar this dark sugar kind of brings its own treatly flavor beautiful and now i like this bit some clementines wouldn't be christmas without them just to get them in my stocking when i was a child too many of those not much else really if i'm being honest trying to be just a little bit artistic i'm going to impale each clementine half with a clove and actually it's not just you know being fancy putting the clothes in like that because i love the warmth the heat almost of clove but i don't want to feel like i've been to the dentist so this just makes it milder now some bay beautiful fresh green leaves a couple i always use tea when i make mild wine but what i use then is earl grey and here i've gone for what you could call the vegetarian option it's apple and ginger the ginger really gives warmth again like the clove a lot of heat in it goes and one last but very important touch some rum good splash or two that's more or less hot now i don't want all the alcohol to boil away i want it to be diffused but not dissipated smells so heavenly and my little orange is there bobbing about i think i'm ready to ladle up my own ah that's it christmas [Music] what i love about this apart from the fact that i get to drink it is also that the smells are just wafting through the house and i feel christmas has arrived so [Music] there's something i love doing at this time of year just to get myself in the mood and somehow wallow in the atmosphere and that's i go to the shelves and i rummage about and i get out just about every christmas book i can find and any magazines that i've managed to keep over the years but a few of them actually well this book tells you an awful lot tells me an awful lot about christmas and how people feel about it it's called coping with christmas and all favorite of mine fanny and johnny krabic what is really interesting about this book is that it really lets you know what it is that's so terrifying about christmas cooking and always has been and there are so many recipes there's so much small print i mean such complicated recipes cold oxtail and aspect anyone it's as if this is a huge military campaign i mean look at this it's our calendar january make christmas puddings for next christmas now this is a magazine that i've kept for about 20 years so it's 80s territory and we know what that means about food it means elaborate effortful if it sounds inedible hey let's try it i mean here plum pud souffle i want christmas pudding gourmet turkey i want proper christmas dinner turkey i mean this time of year food has to be familiar and cozy and it has to be welcoming and for me right about now what i have to have on the stove is a ham because christmas isn't christmas for me unless there's a ham in the fridge sandwiches to be had deliciousness always [Music] until really recently i've always followed my mother's method for cooking ham i mean absolutely slavishly as one does that's to say put the ham in a pan cover it with water let it come to the boil and once it boils just chuck out the water start again now the reason she did that and i copied her was to get rid of excess saltiness but i have come to the late conclusion that it's really not necessary anymore you see i don't think when butchers cure gammon they put so much salt in it so i don't bother if you want to be my guest or else just leave some ham in a basin of cold water overnight otherwise it's so simple you just start off with a pan i'm going to pop this inside a snug fit is always good because you don't need as much liquid and now all i need to do is have a lazy stretch for my aromatics and it's a funny thing to say but this is my lead aroma red wine i always have a sort of amount of disdain for those wine writers who talk about you know the blackberry smells and the new car leather and so on but actually there really is something incredibly aromatic about wine and especially when it's heated i would say i'm going along the more sort of macho spectrum of aromas and i'm going to do some fennel which is just extraordinarily well i'd say it's like licorice but it's not as strong as that it's like it's like a leafy form of celery and even if you don't like this kind of thing normally i've been told this is still delicious but just as well and an onion i'm not peeling it just halving it and plonking it in and the skins will tint the liquid the ham cooks in slightly to make it brown a couple of cloves of garlic and now i'm just going to add some fennel seeds and mixed peppercorns i mean it doesn't matter you could use black peppercorns white but i love the mixture last i know it seems as if i got licorice in the brain but these starinis i'm putting in these two beautiful flowers of it really do have a kind of deep licorice intensity god i mean you couldn't use more than two i think here just need it covered with water and heat on this can just be left here to cook for around three hours bubbling with its heady aromas heavy in the air and come with me i've been shopping i mean obviously for food actually i did this a long time ago but got excited for christmas and i had to hide everything so no one started eating them and pilfering because the thing is about this time of year i mean what i really like is to set up my store cupboard and the whole ladder ready because i love cold cuts i mean cold turkey cold ham i mean what's better i mean i know everyone always complains about leftovers but for me at christmas it's really the best part but i do have to eat certain things with my leftovers or the whole sort of panoply of the cold cuts and chief among those uh some gherkins you can see i'm frightened of running out um this is just mine and that with sandwiches just hot bacon cold turkey white bread gherkin pickled onions i like to have really strong cheddar watch tv strong cheddar pickled onions and a baguette i love look how beautiful this is i like a bit of pickle red cabbage but you haven't lived until you've had this with some cold roast potatoes and some cold brussels sprouts so this is what i go shopping for but i also like to make a bit of chutney myself i mean one chutney i have to have especially with cold ham is my apple and dry cranberry chutney and believe me it's so simple to make that frankly it's easier than going to the shops and lugging this stuff back start with some granny smiths peel them quarter them chop them don't be too exact about how but fairly finely add them to the pot and i'll do exactly the same to an onion put that in as well tumble in some dried cranberries and on top of the cranberries snow over your sugar chutneys shouldn't be too fiery but they certainly need spice and i start off with turmeric because that also gives a great golden color next comes all the grassy pungency of cumin and then the same with coriander and my last spice some ground ginger to give wonderful warmth good sprinkling of coarse salt and finally a really healthy dousing of cider vinegar then all you need to do to make sure this cooks is put the heat on let everything bubble up for about 45 minutes and what happens is some of the liquid is evaporated some is absorbed by the dry cranberries and the apples turn a sort of ochre golden yellow color because of the spices and then you're ready to put it into some jars label it and either save it for christmas or even give it as presents the ham has been cooked and it's cooled slightly not cold just so i can handle it i know it's got a slightly somber look at the moment this ham but just you wait once it's got its glaze on it's going to be as christmassy as all get out i mean really fabulous here red currant jelly i love red carrot jelly it's incredibly useful it's saved many a two bitter gravy of mine some smoked paprika look this incredible color keeping everything bright and festive and now a bit darker in tone but really magnificent in flavor some cinnamon i think people always think cinnamon is really pudding but it really isn't and you'd be surprised how well it goes with meat just to counter the sweetness here and to intensify the redness a little red wine vinegar and while the jelly is melting down quick whisk first i'm gonna get on with some minor but still pleasurably absorbing surgery on the ham i strip off the rind and a little of the fat layer if it's very thick [Music] and cut a diamond pattern into the remaining fat and start each intersection with a clove the glazed ham will take about 15 minutes to become burnished and rosaly gold in the heat [Music] this just needs to go in the oven to turn this into a kind of full-on christmas feast and i'll be happy and it can preside over my table [Music] myself [Music] that's [Music] christmas is a way of lighting a fire in the middle of the darkness of winter so it's about celebrating wintriness not fighting against it and for me i would take any day an alpine scene over a caribbean beach i adore winter [Music] every year i make with my children the same gingerbread hanging christmas tree decorations it's our way of saying christmas starts here you start off with a good bit of flour dump in some butter and a good shaking of brown sugar next a little baking powder and a good bit of cinnamon to make the whole house smell of christmas lucky you like cinnamon isn't it and then i grind in some black pepper and this is to stop the children from eating all the decorations off the tree you can start mixing all that up and while that's going on beat together an egg with some lovely runny honey add that to the dry ingredients [Music] when the mixture begins to cohere you can squish it into two fat discs cover it with cling and stick it in the fridge for a while when the dough has had about 20 minutes in the fridge roll it out neither thick nor thin and cut out whatever christmas shapes you like and use a pointy icing funnel to make a little hole at the top so you can hang these from the tree later very good here remember the hole when they've had about 10 to 15 minutes in a moderate oven let them cool on a rack and then you can ice them as you desire i like white icing and a myriad of silver or gold baubles [Music] now the gingerbread decorations are an essential ritual of christmas in our house but i need more than that and i do need a fruitcake i mean for me it is necessary we're talking about a really fruity full-on christmas cake here and i'm going for the full fragrant immersion everything is cooked in one pot that's the raisins you can see there are a lot and currants after the currants some prunes and it's these prunes that make sure the cake is dark squishy and moist i love the way these look like rather squished teddy bears noses and i take a perverse pleasure now in massacring them i hold two country views about christmas cake one is i always think of something sort of slightly desiccated with dry little fruits in it and topped with an icing slightly dusty and so hard it's going to break your teeth but the other thing i believe is you've got to have christmas cake it cannot be something which is so stressful to make all your joy at thinking oh this is so christmassy goes out of the window so this is my version of it you just put everything in a saucepan and melt together it used to be called foiled christmas cake which i always think sounds rather unappetizing and this is just not boiled but sounds aromatic perfect and to help this intensity along i have been into my declasse drinks cabinet and got some tia maria but you could use any coffee liqueur but what i like about this is that it promises to be uniquely dark and intriguing it's now some butter just a small amount you need that that's going to melt and be more gorgeously absorbed by the fruit in the pan some spice i just use mixed spice there's something about the fruits and the liqueur in here which makes it taste anyway spicy and i've got dark moscovado sugar and actually the molasses in the sugar there's a strange feeling of spice anyway it's like licorice almost it's so intense and now a gorgeous amber glossy slick of honey now i feel that honey is just something that so reminds me of this time of year but i also feel the same way about oranges the way their smell sort of permeates everything and i'm using two zest and juice and it's a lot of juice i know but that's what keeps this so liquidy and the heat means it's absorbed all in one go actually going to flay these fruits forget a scented candle with this cake mixture i'd be happy the thing that makes this fruitcake really special and i didn't tell you this earlier because it made it sound somewhat sort of vulgar and immature is that it's a chocolate fruit cake and the chocolate in this is not instantly obvious and it's not sweet it just gives a gorgeously haunting like ghost of chocolate flavor real depth just gonna turn the heat on and help everything melt together then i'll just leave it for a while and get on with a bit of blue pizza work with a cake tin i find it easiest to line the tin with reusable baking parchment the trick is that the paper should come up higher than the sides of the tin to insulate the cake and protect the top from burning well i know i've talked about this as if it's a cake batter and it will be but at the moment it's just like a rather wonderfully decadent ice cream sauce very seasonal but not yet cake and this is what's gonna make it cake some eggs some flour and then to aid the flour some ground almonds and some bicarb and baking powder really not much and in goes just need to stir it all together and this really is my christmas miracle because the heat has done months of steeping work this is the easiest way of getting that sort of christmas spirit you will ever find this treacly batter needs around two hours in a pretty low oven and then that's it done this for me is the magical moment of christmas it's time for the cakes unveiling but more important it's crowning now it's my method of getting the cake which is fully cooled now and it's tin out there we are leave it like that it looks beautiful enough perfect i'm going to take it off its base peel off this reusable baking parchment this is such great stuff and now there it is so this is a really simple way of decorating the cake but fabulous in the middle this is especially useful if your cake has sunk a little some chocolate covered espresso beans some disco gold glitter edible i'm told can you hear choirs of angels singing i've got some gold stars which i want to stud around the outside and finally i want to drop some little gold baubles in amongst the coffee beans when you see this you realize there really is no turning back now when away from home i don't mind taking in the odd church or museum but what really lures me are those street markets with stalls laden with food [Music] how could i resist the smell of gorgeous cured hams or a pile of smoked sausages in the old days people would spice and herb their food and they needed to they had to preserve it now we don't need to but you know i think a little bit of that preserving action feels really good and cozy i'm not that bad i haven't started preserving and curing my own hands but instead of getting smoked some and i do like to cure my own salmon it's the work of moments i should say it's delicious as well [Music] i know the idea of gravlax sounds kind of daunting but i have to say this is about the easiest version you'll ever come across now i'm quite aware that it may not be a swedes version of gravlax but it's my version my way right so this is how easy it is i want some salt about four tablespoons i do think it's important to use good coarse salt this is molden and i want the same amount of sugar i'm going to use my coffee scoop this because i know that's two spoons in there my snowy scene but actually what this becomes is the most glorious golden ointment instead of the crushed peppercorns that the swedes use i'm using english mustard great advocate of english mustard and i mean quite simply because i don't really have the energy to start crushing peppercorns and i get the same heat from the mustard and glorious golden color last of all another english touch some gin gives a wonderful scent and flavor of juniper that's two spoonfuls see this is how easy it is just stir together the sound of a step crunching on snow and spread this glorious golden paste over coral salmon i mean it's possibly psychedelic you know if you were to tell someone you were curing your own salmon they would think you'd gone mad and i mean i would if i didn't know how easy this was and actually it tastes so much better than smoked salmon it is a joy and this is the best bit especially at christmas some fresh dill if i could sing i'd be singing oh tannenbaum tannenbaum too because look christmassy or what all that will become part of the cure and you'll taste it as you have each delicious silky slice now i'm just going with an extraordinary sleight of hand to turn the salmon round i might put a few bits on top for the beauty of it now this is the hardest thing of the whole enterprise for me covering with cling film [Music] so i'm going to attempt to do is cover it but make sure i'm going down into the corners and then over the sides like this and i'm making myself at all clear simply that i want to be able to press right down on top of the fish and the last bit this needs to have weights put on top and don't be alarmed i don't mean anything particularly technical item one an out of date jar of sauerkraut and two of my absolute favorite giant marrow fat peas so this just goes in the fridge for about three days two if you just can't wait and all the flavors mingle and it becomes cured waiting for your very sharp carving knife [Music] you

Channel: Nigella Christmas

Views: 212,860

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Id: 0MWgoRFVzY8

Length: 29min 10sec (1750 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 28 2020