Partridge with garlic, sherry and saffron

This is pretty much a Spanish pollo al ajillo, chicken with garlic, done with partridge instead of chicken.

I browned the partridges (1 each) in olive oil in a Le Creuset dutch oven, and added a head of garlic, separated into cloves and peeled. When the garlic cloves and partridges were nicely golden, I added a good pinch of saffron threads (which a friend had kindly brought me from Spain a month or so ago) and a good slurp of dry sherry, seasoned with salt and pepper, put the lid on and put it in a 180C oven and left it alone until the birds were cooked through and the sherry had reduced to a rich and delicious sauce.

The vegetables were an exercise in clearing the fridge - leek, pointed cabbage and broccoli, sauteed with a little Spanish ham.

The partridge breasts came off a bit dry. I think I should have cooked it breast side down, to take advantage of more of the sherry juices. But aside from that the flavour was fantastic and it ended up being a very pretty and luxurious-tasting dish.

Pappardelle with Oxtail Ragu

This recipe (the second one on the page), from Skye Gyngell, is pretty good. I assumed it was an error when it called for 30g of chopped tinned tomatoes, because what would be the point? and added a whole can.

Is it better than our usual meat sauce? I don't think so. One of Paul's many virtues is that he makes a really amazing meat sauce, so it's pretty hard to beat. The oxtail did its slow-cooked thing and fell to delicious gelatinous threads, but I just wasn't convinced.

Still, if you happen to have an oxtail lurking in the freezer, you really could do worse. Especially at this time of year when it is quite nice to have the stove on for about 4 hours.

Ham & Cheese Croissants

This is one of those very useful things - a brunch recipe that you can prepare in advance, make for large numbers and is very simple, but tastes brilliant and is a real crowd-pleaser. They contain about a million calories, so I would recommend only having this for special occasions. And have some orange juice in your champagne, to make you feel more virtuous.

Because it is so simple, it pays to use some nice ingredients.

Ham & Cheese Croissants (serves 2)

4 croissants (all butter ones, not the ones with weird fats and shortening in them, and not the absolutely huge ones)
Dijon mustard
4 thick slices of good ham (this was a dry-cured, cherrywood smoked ham)
4 thick slices of gruyere cheese

Preheat the oven to 160C. Cut each croissant in half. Smear the cut surfaces with a little mustard. Fill each with a slice of ham and a slice of cheese. Put the top of each croissant back on and place them on a baking parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for about 10 minutes, or until the croissants are browned and the cheese is oozy and beginning to take a bit of colour. Allow to rest for a couple of minutes before serving, just to avoid all your guests burning their mouths.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I hope everyone has a very lovely Christmas Day, and that no one mentions That Thing That Aunty Marge Said.

Last year, some friends in the Caribbean sent me a Black Cake. This is a very moist, dark, extremely boozy cake served for weddings and Christmas and it is absolutely gorgeous. The things that make it different are the very finely chopped fruits and the use of caramelised sugar "browning" to give depth and colour. I was determined to make it for Christmas this year. I read a bunch of different recipes and came up with my own.

Caribbean-ish Black Cake

500g currants
500g dried figs (this should have been 250g prunes and 250g figs but my grocery delivery subbed the prunes for another pack of figs and I couldn't be bothered going out for prunes)
1 tin pitted black cherries, drained
100g mixed peel
100g blanched almonds
350ml dark rum
2tbs angostura bitters
1tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
180g caster sugar
100ml boiling water
Grated rind of 2 limes
2 cups plain flour
2tsp baking powder
250g butter
300g dark muscovado sugar
5 eggs

Some time beforehand - a day, a week, a month - put the fruit, almonds and spices in a large bowl. Pour over the rum, vanilla and angostura bitters. Cover tightly and leave until cake baking day.

On cake baking day, combine the caster sugar with a little bit of cold water in a heavy based saucepan. Stir until the sugar dissolves, then watch like a hawk while it boils and begins to caramelise. When it is dark brown and just before it burns, take off the heat and - with care, because it splutters and spits - stir in the boiling water. Allow to cool.

Preheat oven to 120C (ish - I will explain further).

Line cake tin/s with buttered paper. I used a large loaf tin and 5 chickpea tins (emptied and washed of course, and with the cut rim squashed back with pliers so I didn't cut myself and could get the cakes out), because I wanted to give some mini cakes as gifts.

Put the boozy fruit in a food processor (I had to do it in 3 batches because my processor is very small) and pulse briefly until chopped quite small, but not a homogenous paste.

In a very large bowl, or in fact my large pasta-cooking saucepan, cream together the butter and muscovado sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time. Sift in the flour and baking powder, mix well, then stir in the fruit, lime zest and caramelised sugar.

Pour batter into prepared tins and place in water baths.

Bake until the cakes shrink from the sides of the tins and test done. For the small ones it was about 1 1/2 hours and I confess I got bored and increased the temperature to 140C. For the large one it was 3 hours.

Cool cakes in the tin for at least 24 hours before turning out. You could do the marzipan and royal icing thing, but these cakes are so moist I don't think it is necessary. I bought some silver ribbon and silver icing stars, and some cute cardboard presentation boxes for the little ones, and glued the stars on with a blob of apricot jam.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

I tried a couple of other recipes, in preparation for The Hurricane's birthday party, but I ended up back with Paula Deen's red velvet cupcakes. I increased the cocoa powder to 1 heaped tablespoon per batch and decreased the oil to 1 cup. They came out beautifully! Tender, a good flavour and they turned out of the moulds very obediently.

I drizzled them with melted white chocolate and dusted with edible red glitter. I think the party is sure to be a success!

Indian Beetroot Saute

We were having curry. We needed a side dish. We had beetroot. I found this recipe. It was really delicious.

Autumn Vegetable Lasagne

I'm a bit smug about this one. My original idea was to make pumpkin ravioli, using bought fresh lasagne sheets. But of course, "fresh" pasta like that just isn't soft enough to stick to itself, even with a good brushing of eggwhite. And I had an enormous amount of the pumpkin filling - far more than I would have needed for ravioli.

The pumpkin filling (which went on the top and bottom layers, was roasted onion squash, ricotta and parmesan, seasoned with nutmeg, sage and rosemary. The middle layer was red onion, mixed mushrooms and spinach, bound with a few spoonfuls of intensely-flavoured porcini and truffle puree. The bechamel wasn't as cheesy or highly-seasoned as I would normally do it, because I wanted the vegetables to have a good go at shining.

It turned out beautifully! We had small portions as a side dish with pheasant breasts, stuffed and wrapped in bacon, but it would make a pretty fab offering for the vegetarian guest at Christmas. Late Autumn in Britain on a plate.

We're off on holiday for a bit, visiting Paul's parents in Cape Town. But I've scheduled lots of posts of delicious things while we're gone, so you won't even notice!