Roast quail with apple and black pudding

Ingredients

4 oven-ready quail
4 sprigs thyme or lemon thyme
Juice of 1 lemon
2 Jazz apples
4 slices black pudding
1 glass white wine or dry sherry
2 tbsp crème fraiche

Preheat oven to 200C, 400F or gas mark 6 and put a roasting tin in to heat. Place a sprig of thyme in each quail, brush with half of lemon juice, rub with a little butter and season with salt and pepper. Heat a frying pan and fry each quail for 5 minutes, turning, to brown. Place quail in roasting tin with black pudding and roast for 15 to 20 minutes, or until juices run clear when pierced in thigh with a skewer. Remove from oven and cover tin loosely with foil. Leave to rest for 5 minutes. 

Meanwhile, cut tops and bottoms from apples then slice horizontally through cores to make each apple into 2 thick slices. Remove cores. Dip slices in lemon juice and rub with a little butter. Pan fry until browned and soften a little. 

Cut legs and wings from each quail and remove breasts. Stack apple and black pudding slices onto hot plates and top with quail meat. Place roasting pan over heat, add wine or sherry and bubble quickly to reduce. Stir in crème fraiche. Spoon sauce around quail stacks.

(Serves 4)

Chestnut and mushroom pie

Ingredients

8 shallots
400 g (14 oz) mixed chestnut and button mushrooms, sliced thickly
200 g (7 oz) cooked chestnuts
2 bay leaves and 1 sprig thyme
100 ml (4 fl oz) each of red wine and vegetable stock
2 tsp Dijon mustard
3 tbsp Kikkoman Soy Sauce
150 g (5 oz) cranberries
225 g (8 oz) puff pastry
1 egg, beaten

Preheat oven to 200C, 400F or gas mark 6. Melt a knob of butter in a frying pan and sauté shallots until lightly browned. Add mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes. Add chestnuts, herbs, wine and stock. Simmer gently for 30 minutes. Stir in mustard and soy sauce. Cook for a further 5 minutes. Spoon half of mix into a 23 cm (9 in) pie dish. Top with cranberries and spoon over remaining mushroom mix. Roll out pastry and use to top pie. Brush with egg. Make 3 slits in pie top. Bake for 25 minutes.

(Serves 6)

Ice cream bombe

Ingredients

1 x 284 ml carton double cream
1 x 200 ml carton crème fraiche
200 ml (7 fl oz) milk
4 egg yolks
125 g (5 oz) Tate & Lyle Fairtrade Caster Sugar
350 g (12 oz) Christmas cake
Redcurrants to garnish

Place cream, crème fraiche and milk in a pan and bring gently to a simmer. Whisk eggs and sugar together. Pour hot cream mix into eggs, beating. Pour back into pan and continue to heat, stirring, until mix thickens enough to coat back of a spoon. Cool. Pour into a shallow freezer-proof container and freeze for 1 hour. Beat mix to break up any ice crystals. Crumble in cake and mix gently. Spoon into 6 small pudding moulds or ramekins. Freeze until solid. Before serving, dip each mould into hot water to loosen pudding and turn onto plates. Garnish with redcurrants.

(Serves 6)

Pork, feta and walnut stuffing

Ingredients

500 g (1 lb 2 oz) pork sausage meat
1 egg
50 g (2 oz) walnuts or cooked chestnuts, chopped
1 tsp each of chopped parsley and sage
100 g (4 oz) Total Feta Cheese, grated

Preheat oven to 200C, 400F or gas mark 6.

Mix sausage meat, egg, nuts and herbs together with a grating of black pepper. Lay one 45 x 30 cm (17 x 12 in) sheet of clingfilm on your work surface. Lay another sheet directly on top, brushing out any air bubbles. Repeat until you have 5 layers. Spread pork mix evenly on clingfilm, leaving 4 cm (2 in) borders at top and bottom and 5 cm (3 in) at sides. Sprinkle feta along centre of sausage meat and use clingfilm to roll meat around cheese, forming a Swiss roll shape. Tie clingfilm securely. Place in a tray half filled with water and bake for 30 minutes. Remove clingfilm and slice stuffing.

(This mix is enough for around 10-12 when served with turkey.)

Spiced shortbread

Ingredients

This recipe calls for two sets of ingredients to be weighed separately.

2 x 125 g (5 oz) butter
2 x 55 g (2 oz) Tate & Lyle Fairtrade Icing Sugar
2 x 1 tsp mixed spice or cinnamon
160 g (5 ½ oz) plain flour
15 g (1 oz) Fairtrade cocoa powder
175 g (6 oz) plain flour
Tate & Lyle Caster Sugar, to dust

Preheat oven to 180C, 350F or gas mark 4. Line an 18 x 23 cm (8 x 11 in) tin with baking parchment.

Place one quantity of butter and sugar in a bowl and cream together with 1 tsp spice. Sift in 160 g (5 1 / 2 oz) flour and cocoa. Bring mix together with fingers to form a dough. In a second bowl, cream remaining butter, sugar and spice. Add flour and make a dough as before. Roll out first dough until large enough to fill half of tin. Repeat with second dough. Place in tin and score into fingers. Bake for 15 minutes, or until lightly golden. Cool slightly in tin then on a wire rack. Dust with sugar.

Honey, orange and yoghurt trifles

Ingredients

1 sponge cake approx. 20 cm (8 in) in diameter
120 g (4 oz) Greek honey
3 oranges, segmented, with pith and membrane removed
50 ml (2 fl oz) brandy (optional)
1 x 1 litre pack orange jelly
1 x 500 g tub Total Greek Yoghurt
Mint and orange slices to garnish

Cut through sponge lengthways to make 2 rounds. Spread each round with honey and cut into cubes. Place into 8 serving glasses or one large bowl. Top with orange segments and drizzle over any remaining honey. Sprinkle on brandy, if using. Make jelly according to pack instructions. Cool a little then pour over sponge and leave to set in fridge for 4 hours. Top with yoghurt and garnish with mint and halved orange slices.

(Serves 8)

Hot to choc 

Ingredients

2 vanilla pods, split lengthways
8 tbsp double cream, whipped
800 ml (1 pt 8 fl oz) milk
4 heaped dessertspoons drinking chocolate
4 single measures Baileys Original

Scrape seeds from vanilla pods and mix them gently into cream. Heat milk with drinking chocolate in a pan. Once boiling, remove from heat and whisk in Baileys. Pour into mugs and top with cream.

Mocha smoothie 

Ingredients

4 tbsp whisky cream liqueur
250 ml (9 fl oz) Yeo Valley organic whole milk
300 g (10 oz) Yeo Valley organic Greek yoghurt with honey
4 tbsp strong black coffee
50 g (2 oz) plain chocolate, grated
Cocoa powder, to dust

Blend all ingredients except cocoa powder together in a blender until smooth. Pour into 2 tall or 4 short glasses and dust with cocoa.

Christmas cream truffles

Ingredients

175 g (6 oz) plain chocolate, broken into pieces
50 g (2 oz) muscovado sugar
25 g (1 oz) butter
2 egg yolks
1 / 2 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp brandy
2 tsp single cream
40 g (1 ½ oz) cake or biscuit crumbs
Chocolate vermicelli, cocoa powder and icing sugar to coat

Melt chocolate in a bowl over simmering water. Add sugar and butter. Heat, stirring, until melted and combined. Stir in egg yolks, vanilla, brandy and cream. Continue to heat for 2 minutes, stirring. Remove from heat. Add cake or biscuit crumbs and beat together. Chill until cool enough to handle. Form mix into 20 balls then roll in vermicelli, cocoa or icing sugar.

Mandarin butter

Ingredients

8 oz (225 g) unsalted butter, softened
4 oz (110 g) Billington’s Unrefined Golden Caster Sugar
Juice and zest of 3 mandarin oranges
1 ½ tbsp mandarin or orange liqueur

Cream all ingredients together until smooth and fluffy. Spoon into a freezer-proof container and freeze. Remove from freezer 4 hours before serving.