Lady Claire Macdonald: A recipe for a chilled-out festive dessert alternative

Lady Claire Macdonald shares a chilled version of the traditional Christmas dessert.

Christmas is my most favourite time of the whole year. I start to Christmas shop in January, and shop the entire year, which works – providing I write down what I have bought for whom, and more to the point, where I have put what I buy!

I have just finished wrapping everything up and today we will post our presents for the German part of our family.

I also spend a great deal of time thinking what to eat, and when, over Christmas and New Year. The danger is to over-cater, I find. And I need to restrain myself when planning, and to avoid multiple course repasts…

We really do not need them, and it is far more fun to serve roasted almonds or small cheese biscuits with a glass of fizz or whatever your choice before sitting down to the main lunch or dinner.

I maintain, and always have done, that our traditional Christmas feast, whatever time you choose to eat it, is the simplest special meal of the whole year. So much can be prepared in advance.

For us, it is always roast turkey. There are those who sneer at turkey. These are people who buy their birds in a supermarket.

We order ours months in advance from Barra Bronze in Aberdeenshire who raise the most delicious turkeys year after year.

I make only one stuffing for our bird – a lemon and parsley forcemeat stuffing with diced fried onions, breadcrumbs and pinhead oatmeal. This cooks within the bird cavity, giving its subtle flavours to the meat.

I always make giblet stock from the giblets which come with the bird, and this makes the best gravy. I roast potatoes in goose fat. I buy the best pork chipolatas I can find, usually from Frasers, the butcher on Dingwall’s High Street. I steam Brussels sprouts and fry them in butter with chestnuts.

Bread sauce is an essential part of this feast and it can be made in advance and frozen, in its well-buttered serving dish, ready to thaw overnight then be popped into the oven.

When it comes to Christmas pud, our family is divided. There are those – Godfrey and me – for whom a flaming Christmas pud is a must, but there are others, our Skye grandsons, who far prefer something chocolatey instead. Or if not chocolatey, then anything other than traditional Christmas pud!

So today, trying to decide just which recipes to share with you, I have decided to give you an alternative Christmas pud suggestion, but it has to be made in advance because it is frozen. Take it from the freezer and turn it out, then put it on its plate into the fridge up to two hours before serving.

Also, a salad, which will be easy and delicious to serve on Boxing Day with leftovers and baked jacket potatoes.

All that remains is for me to wish you all, wherever you may be this Christmas, a happy Christmas. And may we all have a peaceful and virus-free 2021 when it comes.

Iced Nesselrode pudding

(Serves 6-8) 

Ingredients

• 300ml brandy
• 500g plump sultanas
• 200g soft dried apricots, chopped
• 4-6 pieces of stem ginger, drained of syrup and diced
• Toasted flaked almonds
• Finely grated rind of 1 orange and 1 lemon
• 4 marrons glaces, broken into bits
• 300ml double cream, whipped but not too stiffly
• 300ml top-quality custard, either bought or homemade

If making your own custard you’ll need:

• 3 large egg yolks
• 150ml single cream
• 1 heaped tbsp caster sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Put the brandy into a pan. Bring to the boil then simmer for 30 seconds.
2. Put the sultanas, chopped apricots, diced ginger, broken-up marrons glaces and orange and lemon grated rinds into a bowl. Add the hot brandy once it has been boiled and mix all together thoroughly.
3. Cover the bowl with a plate, and leave to steep for 24 hours, remembering to stir the contents of the bowl from time to time. Add the toasted flaked almonds towards the end of the 24 hours.
4. For the custard: Tip the single cream into a small pan and heat over moderate heat.
5. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks, sugar and vanilla extract. When the cream is hot, turn the heat down beneath the pan, and pour the cream in a thin, steady stream into the whisked yolks and sugar, mixing well as you do this. Then pour the contents of the bowl back into the pan.
6. Over a gentle heat, stir continuously until the custard coats the back of your wooden spoon thickly. Take the pan off the heat and, stirring from time to time to prevent skin forming, cool the custard.
7. Fold the cool custard (either homemade or ready-made) into the whipped double cream. Mix the cream/custard, marinated fruit/nuts together thoroughly. Pack into a polythene pudding bowl. Bang it a couple of times on a work surface to dislodge any small air bubbles there might be. Cover and freeze.
8. To turn out, take the bowl from the freezer and dip it into a sink filled with very hot water, counting to 10. You may need to repeat this. Loosen the iced pudding around the edges with a knife; invert on to a serving plate and dislodge the pud.
   It comes out quite easily. Put the plate and pud into the fridge till you are ready to serve it.
9. If you like, very gently warm brandy in a saucepan. Ignite it in the pan and pour the flaming brandy not over the pudding, but around the base.

To watch Lady Claire’s video and more, visit pressandjournal.co.uk/connect-at-christmas

Chicory, orange and date salad with walnut dressing

(Serves 4-6) 

Ingredients

• 3 heads of chicory, trimmed at the root end and sliced across finely
• 75g shelled walnuts
• 5 tbsp olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, skinned and finely chopped
• 1 tsp salt
• 12-15 grinds of black pepper
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 3 oranges, ideally blood oranges
• 6 plump dates, stones removed and the dates chopped

Method

1. Put the thin slices of chicory into a salad bowl. Dip a knife into very hot water between chopping the dates as this removes the stickiness.
2. Add the dates to the sliced chicory in the salad bowl.
3. Heat the olive oil and, over moderate heat, fry the garlic but take great care not to scorch it. Add the salt, pepper and walnuts to the frying pan.
4. Fry over a moderate heat for 5-7 minutes, to toast them slightly and to refresh their flavour.
5. Add the lemon juice to the pan, stir well, take the pan off the heat and cool for several minutes. Then, tip the contents of the pan into the salad bowl.
6. With a sharp serrated knife, slice the skin and pith from each orange. Slice in towards the centre, slicing between the dividing pith between each segment. Do this over the salad bowl so the orange juice goes into the bowl as well as the pithless segments.
7. Carefully mix together the chicory, walnut dressing, orange segments and chopped dates.

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