Christmas Feasting

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas! We’re not religious at all but I’ve embraced the whole idea of Christmas and the fact that we get an enforced break from work and well, all of that eating, of course! Our feasting started Christmas Eve with a big Chinese meal for the three of us (Blai joined us this year for his first Christmas in London).

My brother had brought over a roast duck from Four Seasons (our usual duck of choice comes from Gold Mine but they had closed early the day before!) and I added a steamed fish, wontons in chilli oil, kai lan with oyster sauce and mapo tofu (I added some pork to that last recipe).

A couple of the recipes came from Fuchsia Dunlop’s book Every Grain of Rice – and I highly recommend this book! I feel I ought to be cooking more Chinese food and I’ll certainly be using her recipes often.

Afterwards, there were slices of Heston’s Black Forest Buche (bought at Waitrose) for dessert. We’re still eating our way along the length of this excellent chocolatey buche.

On Christmas Day, we rose late and started with a breakfast of smoked salmon and crème fraîche on blinis along with scrambled eggs.

Soon after breakfast, I set out a few bites while the main course was cooking. A bit of cheese, A bit of charcuterie, a bit more salmon. It’s what the Catalans call pica pica, all these little bites.

And the main course? Well, we can’t go wrong with another slab of pork belly – it always goes down well in this family. This year, I roasted it with apples and onions and I loved the sweetness and slight tang the apples gave. For a recipe, start with this one and instead of fennel, use a couple of sliced onions and a couple of sliced, peeled green apples and a bit of dried or fresh thyme.

Very buttery mashed potatoes, pigs in blankets, sauteed sprouts, roasted carrots and parsnips and, of course, that pork and there’s my first plate made.

And now it’s Boxing Day and that’s all about using up the leftovers… but first, I’d like to hear what you’ve been eating this Christmas! Have you tried new recipes this year or is this a time for sticking to tradition?

 

A Julbord at Styrsö Skäret

I didn’t know much about the Swedish smörgåsbord tradition and even less about the Christmas variant, the julbord. What I’ve been told is this – everyone in Sweden sits down to at least one julbord every year, once with family on Christmas Eve and possibly another with work. It’s quite the institution and one that I hoped to experience while I was in Gothenburg.

As if they were reading my mind, the Gothenburg Tourist Board very kindly arranged a julbord dinner for both me and Jeanne on our second night but the restaurant they’d booked wasn’t actually in Gothenburg but on an island in the Gothenburg archipelago – on Styrsö. It sounded like a bit of an adventure involving a tram ride from the centre of Gothenburg to the end of the line and then a ferry (all transport covered by the Gothenburg Card). It did turn out to be a bit nerve racking to get there with everything being quite dark and the ferry running late but the restaurant at the Pensionat Styrsö Skäret was lit up like a Christmas tree, making it easy to find on the island.

We received a warm welcome inside and after being shown to our seat, we were offered hot glögg (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic versions were available) and pepparkakor. Raisins and slivered almonds had already been set out on the table to place in your hot glögg – the plumped up raisins and crunchy almonds making the drink, well, more than a drink. That warmed us up nicely and got us ready for the eating.

To drink with our julbord meal, we were offered Christmas beverages – Julmust is a Christmas beverage like a spiced Coke while the Christmas beer was a dark ale and both are only available at this time of the year. I knew Sweden took Christmas seriously!

There is an order in which a julbord (or smörgåsbord in general) is tackled and it’s probably best to follow the rules (I also noticed that the julbord was cleared in this order too…so don’t follow the order and you risk missing out on a whole course!). The restaurant was packed that night but seatings had been staggered, making trips to the julbord not overly crowded.

The first round should be the herring and gravadlax and other cold seafood. I’ve got a book on Scandinavian cuisine dating back to the 1960s that states that herring should be a course by itself, followed by the rest of the fish and seafood. I don’t know what approach is more common today but there’s nothing stopping you from just eating lots of herring.

Of the herring, my favourites were in a creamy white and dill sauce, one with lingonberries and another in mustard. Some preparations were a bit too salty but most were excellent. I can never turn down gravadlax too but I passed on most of the fish mousses. This being the west coast, there was a good variety of shellfish on offer too (prawns, crabs, langoustines) and we were most taken with the smoked prawns. In addition to the fishes, there were eggs topped with caviar, baked herring, hard cheeses, boiled potatoes and breads and whipped salted butter.

After you’ve had your fill of foods from the sea, move on to the cold meats. Salamis, sausages, pates, hams and other cured meats were all laid out invitingly. And as there should be on every julbord, there was julskinka, a Swedish Christmas ham, already sliced up. Pork, beef, lamb, duck – almost all the major meat groups were out in force on the table. In addition, there were lots of condiments – pickles, chutneys, a whole array of mustards and a mysterious mimosa salad, which I discovered later was mainly fruit in mayonnaise.

I loved the julskinka with its coating of mustard and breadcrumbs and also the sliced cooked pork belly. My favourite though was a smoked duck “ham” that had been cooked with cinnamon and cognac – gorgeous! And their red onion confit was wonderful.

The hot foods are the last savoury course. Swedish meatballs, pork ribs, prinskorv (little sausages like Vienna sausages), boiled sausage, creamed spinach, brown cabbage, green cabbage, lutfisk and poached fish with all the fixings (peas, bacon, melted butter, white sauce) and, of course, Janssons frestelse (Jansson’s temptation – a baked potato gratin with Swedish anchovies). My book from the 60s suggests that one should eat Jansson’s temptation with the first herring course but I pay attention to this combo on anyone’s plates that day.

Our lack of vegetables had us hitting the peas, spinach and cabbage pretty hard – the spinach and cabbage were sweetened. The Jansson’s temptation was delicious though salty and the lutfisk was jellylike and flavourless, necessitating the stuff on the side. Strangely, this was the least exciting course to me – I think the strengths of the julbord and smörgåsbord lie in the cold and room temperature courses or perhaps my thoughts were a bit skewed because I was already quite full by this point.

Finally, the desserts and sweets. Swedish cakes and desserts aren’t particulary sweet and these were no exception. I skipped the ris à la Malta (a creamy rice pudding) and tried a dry cheese cake (it tasted like unsweetened pressed ricotta), an almond biscuit that I topped with cream and preserves and my favourite, a delightfully light and crisp fried biscuit topped with sugar. There were a few other biscuits and a selection of soft cheeses but those I skipped.

I was really saving myself for the sweets! There was a whole cupboard full of bowls of the most delectable looking titbits. There were homemade fruit jellies, chocolates, truffles, marshmallow santas (they appear to be very popular in Sweden at Christmas time), candied nuts, caramels and knäck (a Swedish Christmas toffee). The variety was enough to make anyone gasp in awe.

We were utterly stuffed after making our julbord rounds (there were definitely some repeats) but saved room for some tea and coffee to aid digestion. More popular in the room was the drinks trolley that was making the rounds.

It was a fantastic experience. The staff did everything to make us feel welcome, explained to us how to approach the julbord… and my apologies for rushing them at the end! We were having such a fab time that we almost lost track of time and found that we only had 10 minutes to run to the dock in time for our ferry. We made it!

I would definitely highly recommend everyone going to Sweden to try a julbord (or at any other time of the year, a smörgåsbord) – it’s very obviously a big part of Swedish culture and it’s good fun! It’s not cheap (this one was 535 SEK, not including drinks – and we were invited) but I’d definitely save up to have one. but Reservations are essential at this time of the year – book in advance.

Pensionat Styrsö Skäret
Skäretvägen 53
430 84 Styrsö
Sweden

Thank you again to the West Sweden Tourist Board (Facebook page, Twitter, Blog) and Visit Sweden (Facebook, Twitter) and also to the Gothenburg Tourist Board for organising this wonderful Christmas trip for us. Our flights were provided by SAS and a return trip to Gothenburg from London Heathrow is £103 including all taxes and charges.

That brings my Christmas in Gothenburg series to an end – all my photos from Gothenburg can be found in this Flickr photoset. Now it’s time for Christmas in London. Merry Christmas, everyone!

 

Christmas in Gothenburg

Christmas is taken very seriously in Sweden and luckily, Jeanne and I were able to experience it in Gothenburg when the weather cleared the next day. Absolutely everything was decked for the holidays, even our hotel (the Hotel Royal – highly recommended for their excellent breakfast, warm rooms and friendly staff) had numerous jultomten (Christmas tomten) scattered about and gingerbread scenes (including the front desk!) next to the breakfast buffet. Gingerbread features heavily everywhere and the most common Swedish form is pepparkakor, the thin ginger snaps you can get easily in Ikea. Every shop, hotel, market counter seems to have an open tin of them for their customers (um… I ate a lot of them). Every cafe and bakery seems to sell their own homemade pepparkakor and gingerbread.

At Stora Saluhallen, the city’s centrally located covered market hall, patisseries, bakers, butchers, fishmongers, and grocers were all arranged neatly in stalls while that day, farmers set up smaller stands outside. There were lots of Christmas goods inside and Christmas trees and plants available to buy from the stands outside.

We found very good chocolates at Flickorna Kanold, including special Christmas season flavours. I took a boxful of them back to Blai and we loved the saffron one and the cinnamon and orange one but haven’t yet tackled the cuteness that is the Jul Marsipan chocolate.

Every sweet shop and patisserie was also selling marzipan pigs, which I think are associated with luck. These ones were my favourite as they looked somewhat insane.

We were actually in Gothenburg just before St Lucia’s feast day (13 Dec) and a saffron bun called a lussekatt is traditionally eaten on this day. These were gorgeous and tasted even better – it’s made with a rich brioche-like dough flavoured with lots of saffron.

On St Lucia’s Day, one girl is chosen to be Lucia for the city of Gothenburg (and other cities in Sweden and even in homes and other smaller community events). In the spirit of all things modern, you could vote for the one you wanted – the photo below was taken the next day in Nordstan, a shopping mall in Gothenburg. The Lucias wear a candle wreath in her hair and from what I understand, there’s a procession involving other girls and boys and singing.

At the nearby Feskekôrka (fish church – nothing religious about it apart from the market’s resemblance to a church), we gawped at the marvellously fresh fish and seafood on offer and sampled all variety of pickled herring. I wonder if some of that seafood will show up on Christmas tables. It was here too we discovered the combination of pickled herring and gingerbread – it sounds a bit odd but they really are delicious together (I’ve been recreating it at home with soft gingerbread and mustard herrings I brought back from Sweden).

A stand had been set up in the middle of the hall with glögg and Christmas treats for shoppers and vendors alike.

We strolled over to Haga, a particularly pretty district of Gothenburg and found a Christmas Market taking place on the main street (Haga Nygata). There were lots of craft stands and food vendors set out along the cobbled streets and it is certainly good for Christmas shopping. We were surprised to see that everything sold was beautiful and of good quality, not like the tat commonly found at Christmas markets in London (wooden ties, anyone?).

There was quite a bit of music too that Saturday with carollers setting up along the street and a grand ol’ marching band complete with festive cheerleaders and flag girls continually marched and played up and down between the stands.

The biggest and possibly most famous of the Christmas Markets in Sweden can be found in Gothenburg and it’s at Liseberg, the big amusement park in the city. Using our Gothenburg City Cards (provided by the Gothenburg Tourist Board), we hopped on an old-fashioned wooden tram in the centre of town that took us directly to the park and then gained entry to Liseberg. This was exciting – both Jeanne and I are big fans of Christmas markets and here we were at Sweden’s largest. It was hard to get in the festive spirit with everyone else there equally excited.

Most of the rides were closed but a few were still open for those who enjoy being flung about in the cold.

The whole park looked wonderfully festive with its beautiful lights and Christmas goods on sale. While it took a lot of willpower to not buy a little candle powered angel chime, we happily handed over our money after sampling some gorgeous hot smoked salmon.

There were even reindeer and a whole section of the park dedicated to Lapp culture (they had the most delectable looking flatbreads and reindeer kebabs). They say that almost 5 million lights are strung up in Liseberg at Christmas time; I believe them. I’d recommend going when it’s dark as it’s difficult to see them during the day and also make sure you allocate at least a few hours to see everything!

I was particularly tickled by the numerous Wheels of Fortune in Liseberg. I’m not sure if giant bars of chocolate and humongous bags of crisps are normally the prizes at other times of the year but they were out in full force at Christmas and people were going crazy over them. You buy a number or range of numbers, wait for the wheel to spin and if your number comes up, you win a prize – I only saw regular sized bars of chocolate being handed out. I suspect that you must collect quite a few of these before you can trade them in for a giant bar. There were a surprising number of people with multiple giant bars – I don’t even want to think about how much they must have spent on the wheels. It became my mission to take photos of all the wheels we encountered and this is just a selection of them. And no, I didn’t have a go at them.

Sadly, we didn’t eat much while inside as we had a big dinner that night and we had to leave the park early when we were hailed on but the Swedish are tough! We passed lots of them watching a outdoor show on ice, paying no attention whatsoever to the rain and hail.

That night, we sat down to one of the most epic of Swedish Christmas feasts – a julbord. That’s in the next and last post on our trip to Gothenburg.

 

Catalan Meals to Celebrate Christmas and St Stephen’s Day

We made it to Barcelona! There was no trace of snow on the runways or near the terminals at Heathrow when we left and when the plane made it off the ground (only one hour delayed), there was indeed a sigh of relief from me. This year, we were joined by my brother and it being Christmas, there was much family feasting together. I’m still trying to recover from all the wonderful overeating.

I just asked Blai’s mother about what is traditionally eaten here in Catalunya over the holiday season; this was only my second Christmas in Barcelona as I usually visit for New Year’s. Well, Christmas Day eating traditionally includes escudella i carn d’olla, a two part meal that comprises the first part of the meal. Part A is the escudella, a rich meaty broth in which galets, the traditional pasta shape, are cooked; Part B is the boiled meat and vegetables that were cooked to make the broth. The second course is usually a roast bird of some sort. The next day (that’s Boxing Day to most of us but it’s also the feast day of Sant Esteve – aka St Stephen), the meal would include canalons, a dish of Italian origin that the Catalans have taken to their hearts, and the filling would be made of the leftovers from the day before. I was looking forward to it all!

On Christmas day, the big lunch was with Blai’s extended family in their village outside Barcelona; Blai’s aunt had gone all out for the delicious meal. We started with homemade wild boar fuet (a type of dry cured sausage particular to Catalunya) and home cured olives (I think they were arbequina, judging from their size).

For the first course, there were the most delicious canalons (yes, on Christmas Day. This family switches things up!). The Catalan canalons are always served in bechamel – there’s no tomato sauce here. The filling is of meat lightened a bit with bechamel. It is rolled within canalon wrappers and then drenched in plenty of bechamel; Blai’s aunt added fresh wild mushrooms to the topping. Gorgeous!

For the second course, a roasted bird; that day, it was a duck, served with delicious pan-fried pears, plump prunes and toasted pinenuts.

Finally, for dessert, among all the other sweets was a large platter of torrons. I always overdo it with torró (the very sweet and rich confections made mainly with almonds) in Barcelona and so never bring any back to London!

The next day, St Stephen’s Day, or Boxing Day, was celebrated back in Barcelona. As we had canalons the day before, this was the day we would have escudella i carn d’olla. The delicious broth with galets was made all the more exciting by its being served out of a tureen that was at least 150 years old.

That was swiftly followed by the carn d’olla (the literal translation is meat of the pot). The huge platter of boiled meats included chicken, pork, lamb, botifarra negre (black/blood sausage) and a huge pilota (a big meatball of pork that’s divided up between the diners). The equally huge platter of boiled vegetables held leek, carrot, turnip, parsnip, potato, cabbage and chickpeas. Boiled meat may sound boring but it’s all quite delicious and I love the variety involved.

That’s my serving there.

The second course (though it already feels like the third by now!) was a most delicious vedella amb suc, a kind of beef stew. Here, Blai’s mother stewed roast beef slices with the most meaty mushrooms I’ve ever encountered, all in a gorgeous thick sauce. I must learn to make Catalan stews!

A fruit I always seem to associate with Catalan winter feasts is pineapple; slices of the most perfectly ripe pineapple always seem to end most Christmas meals. That and torrons, of course. One is never far from torrons during the festive season.

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas celebration too, wherever you were. Now, what are your plans for New Year’s?

ETA: If you’re in London and are keen to try escudella i carn d’olla, Rachel of Catalan Cooking is hosting a pop up supperclub event on January 15 where you can try it. The menu looks good!

 

Christmas Day Eating

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas day! It was a quiet day for us, just me and my brother this year, but we still feasted on a roast spiced pork belly roll, Indian-spiced mashed potatoes, cavolo nero, bacon-wrapped cocktail sausages and much much much later that evening, a tiramisu. The pork belly was rubbed with salt and fennel and chili and cooked on a layer of onion and garlic, pretty simple and inspired by Niamh’s version. It was fabulous but if it’s one thing I learned this year, I prefer a flat slab of pork belly as the crackling crisps up more evenly. The cavolo nero was cooked with garlic and chili and a touch of chicken stock. The mashed potatoes were gorgeous with lots of fried onion throughout and that idea came from the Amateur Gourmet’s description of aloo bhurta (that’s a great post, by the way – do read it!), though I’m going to increase the spice content next time. There were plenty of leftovers which we turned into a lunch of bubble and squeak with sausages today.

We barely made a dent in dessert yesterday and when I finally had a taste (yummy!), my stomach expanded to a new level of bloat. I wanted to make a tiramisu similar to that I had in Rome – no alcohol involved and with bits of chocolate inside. Chocolate shavings were used but they just ended up being a pleasant chocolate layer rather than bits. I’m going to have to chop it up and add a layer of it in the middle next time.

What did you feast upon yesterday?

Indian-Spiced Mashed Potatoes
serves 4.

mashed potatoes for 4 (with butter and cream and seasoned to taste)
1 small-medium onion, very thinly sliced
3 tbsps sunflower oil (or other neutral oil)
1.5 tsps cumin seeds
1.5 tsps mustard seeds
0.5 tsp crushed chili flakes
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and minced

Heat the sunflower oil over medium high heat. Add the very thinly sliced onion and fry, stirring often, until they’re brown and crispy. Drain from the oil and set aside. Leave the oil in the pan and reduce the heat to medium.

Add both the cumin and mustard seeds to the hot oil and fry until the mustard seeds start popping. Throw in the chili flakes and continue frying for another minute. Add the garlic and ginger together, stir for a bit until the garlic is fragrant and then dump the whole lot into the mashed potatoes. Stir through. Add the fried onions and stir through again. Serve.

Tiramisu
serves 4-6.

3 large egg yolks
1/3 cup milk
2 tbsps sugar
200g mascarpone
12-16 lady’s fingers
espresso/moka coffee, slightly sweetened
dark chocolate shavings

Make the non-alcoholic zabaglione first. Whisk together the yolks and sugar in a heatproof bowl. Add the milk and whisk together again. Place the bowl on top of a pot of simmering water (yes, a double boiler) and continue whisking until the volume of the mixture triples and then thickens. It should resemble a thick, airy custard. Take it off the heat. Let cool for a few minutes and then whisk in the mascarpone until well combined.

Get out your tiramisu container – I used a tupperware container as it was the right size. You can also make individual tiramisus – you’ll probably need to break the lady’s fingers so they fit. Dip half the lady’s fingers in the coffee (careful, they go soggy quickly) and make a single layer at the bottom of your container. Add a thin layer of chocolate shavings and then spread half of the mascarpone mixture on top. Repeat again with everything and then top with a final layer of chocolate shavings.

Cover the container (with the lid or some cling film) and place in the fridge for a few hours to set. Serve. This will keep in the fridge for up to two days.