I absolutely love Two Greedy Italians. Not only are Gennaro Contaldo and Antonio Carluccio the most avuncular and affable guys on TV, joshing and fondly trading insults, they also serve up some jaw-droppingly good Italian food. In the series where they tour Italy, revisiting places of their youth and being tourists everywhere else the former colleagues eat their way through just about every culinary region of the Old Boot.
In this episode traversing the Alps, they went to a region where they historically couldn’t grow wheat so used chestnuts for all their flour. Gennaro then used this to make a delicious chestnut gnocchi with mushrooms. I had to give it a go myself, but all my previous attempts to make gnocchi have been messy, hideous and not worth the effort. The recipe also isn’t listed on the site. So I bought shop-made gnocchi and improvised a sauce. This was fab, I’m definitely doing it again and I hope I’ve paid enough tribute to Gennaro’s original recipe. Watch the sweetness, you will probably need a good dose of salt to balance it out.
In a small saucepan heat some oil over a medium heat. Add the garlic, Worcestershire sauce, a pinch each of salt and sugar and cover the pan. Cook for 3-4 mins, stirring regularly until the garlic is starting to brown. Add the Marsala and allow to reduce by half. Then add the beef stock and reduce this by half. Add the chestnut puree and check for seasoning. Keep warm while you do everything else.
Into a frying pan add a knob of butter and the mushrooms. Fry for 8-10 mins until the mushrooms are browning, then add a good whack of black pepper. While the mushrooms sizzle, cook the gnocchi for 2-3mins in salted boiling water until floating at the top. Drain until needed.
When the mushrooms are ready, add the sauce and gnocchi to the pan and toss vigorously to combine. Give it a final check for seasoning and top with parsley and parmesan for serving.
Sunday lunch is when you want to just go for it. I grew up in one of those lucky houses where my Mum cooked a Sunday roast every week without fail, and recently it’s been nagging at me to do this much more regularly for my own family. But my Mum didn’t have Twitter to distract her. Or Facebook. Or Dave Gorman’s Absolute radio show. But I’m trying.
This is a fairly typical roast for me, and when you do more involved roasts with a few side-dishes, I think you should forgive yourself a few shortcuts. Why not use packet stuffing, or frozen yorkies? We all know you can make them, but the extra timing, oven space and graft is more worthwhile concentrating on getting the big stuff right. So I took a few liberties.
And I know what some of you are thinking. “Yorkies? With chicken?” Yes. They were made to float on gravy of any description. Try and stop me.
The chicken here was excellent, from those fine chaps at Farmers Choice. It gave brittle, savoury skin with plump and flavour-packed meat. A real treat.
If the thought of making a Sunday roast scares you, and just seeing that list of things is too daunting, don’t panic. I bet you could cook all those things on the list individually. So it comes down purely to timing. If it helps, write a list. Start with the thing that takes longest to cook, and count things in from then – see below for a guide. Don’t forget to allow the roast time to rest. But be bold, and always remember that the gravy will heat everything back up again 🙂
Sunday roast chicken with roast potatoes, carrots and brussels sprouts (serves 4 – 6, + leftovers):
1.6kg chicken
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1 onion, quartered
20g butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon parsley, finely chopped
500g white potatoes, peeled and diced into golf ball-sized chunks
1 tablespoon fine polenta
25g butter
2 bay leaves
Dash of red wine vinegar
3 carrots, peeled and sliced
250g brussels sprouts
100g cooked chestnuts
4 rashers back bacon, rind removed and reserved and sliced
1 tablespoon maple syrup
A few hours before, sprinkle the marjoram over the bird. Spread it all over generously with salt and black pepper, then place on a rack over a roasting dish and pop in the the fridge for about 3 hours. This step draws flavours down into the chicken, while at the same time drying out the skin to make it super-crispy.
Pre-heat the oven to 220°C. This temperature will really blast the skin and make it golden.
Get the chicken out of the fridge and add a few more flavourings: put 2 quarters of the onion inside the carcass and the other two on the base of the roasting dish you’re going to use. Mix the butter, parsley and garlic together. Work your fingers under the skin of the chicken to release it from the meat, then slowly push the butter into this little pocket you’ve created. Put into the oven and leave there for 15 minutes, before turning the heat down to 180°C.
Meanwhile, get the potatoes on. Get a large pan of boiling water on and salt generously. Par-boil for 10 or so minutes, until a knife can slide in and out easily (I usually jab a knife into a wedge then suspend it above the water – when it can fall off within a few seconds they’re ready). Drain well and leave to sit in the warm pan without a lid for a few minutes to steam dry. Put the butter with a splash of rapeseed oil into another baking dish and place in the oven to heat up. Toss the potatoes in the polenta and then tip out into the now hot fat. These are going to need about 45 minutes, which will cross over with removing the meat from the oven. When you remove the meat, turn the heat back up to 200°C for the potatoes’ sake.
When the chicken is cooked (look for juices running clear when probed), remove to a wooden board and cover loosely with foil. Pop the roasting dish on a high hob and add a tablespoon of flour, stirring well. After a minute add about 300ml boiling water to cover the bottom of the tray and get scraping to get all that good stuff. Sieve into a jug for serving, and give it a short blast in the microwave to keep the heat up right at the end.
If you’re using packet stuffing like me, you’ll probably need to do the boiling-water-and-stick-in-the-oven thing here. Let the instructions on the box guide you.
When the potatoes have had about 20 minutes, add sea salt, a little white pepper, the bay leaves, red wine vinegar and the bacon rind. Return to the oven.
Get the carrots and sprouts on to cook. When you are cooking multiple veg I recommend a multiple-tier electric steamer. It gets everything going at once and frees up a space on the hob. The carrots will need around 15 minutes.
While the sprouts cook, get a frying pan on medium hot and add a little oil. Throw in the bacon and wait til it colours on one side before adding the part-cooked sprouts and chestnuts. Stir fry well for five minutes.
The potatoes might need a final blast of seasoning, otherwise they’re good to serve. Take the chicken to the table, pouring any spare juice into the gravy jug, and get someone else to carve. You’ve done enough.
If you’re using frozen yorkshire puddings, they’ll need their 2 minutes in the oven now.
When the sprouts are tender, take them off the heat and add the maple syrup. Toss well to coat and serve, and don’t forget the carrots!
Merchant Gourmetthrew down the gauntletagain: use their chestnut products in a really festive way. I’m a fan of chestnuts at any time, not just Christmas, whether it’s fried with bacon and sprouts, stuffed into a chicken, giving body to a soup, or dressing a hearty pasta dish.
But how to give them a real Christmassy twist? I racked my brains and brought in as many festive foods as I could: that boozy treat Brandy butter, juicy sharp cranberries and just a whiff of clementine. The result is a rich, dark torte, with a fudgy centre and citrussy base. The real kicker is the cranberry, providing a sharp tang against all the sweetness.
Give it a try this Christmas. I think you’ll like it.
Mix the crushed biscuits with the cranberries, cinnamon and clementine and stir in the butter. Pack the biscuit mix into a 15cm springform tin and pop in the fridge to firm up while you get on with the filling.
Whizz the chestnuts in a food processor and gradually add the sugar. If the mixture looks a little rubbly at this point add a tablespoon of water to form a paste. Add the brandy butter and blend until smooth. Pour this on top of the biscuit and chill for another hour. (If you have some handy, you could use chestnut puree blended with sugar and brandy butter instead).
For the chocolate topping, put the butter and chocolate in a bowl over a gently simmering pan of water. Allow to melt together very slowly until smooth, then add a tiny sprinkle of sea salt. Pour this on top of the torte filling and chill for another hour until the top has set hard. When ready slice with a damp, warmed bread knife to get a clean cut (unlike the one in my picture!).
A real pot of leftovers, this one. Tons of stuff in the cupboard, fridge and freezer that all needed using up. Leave it in the casserole, come back hours later… lovely.
Pork and chestnut casserole:
500g pork shoulder, chopped
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, sliced
2 carrots, diced
2 courgettes, diced
100ml marsala wine
1 teaspoon paprika
2 sprigs rosemary
50g chorizo
250g cooked chestnuts
2 tins tomatoes
500ml chicken stock
For the polenta:
100g quick-cook polenta
400ml vegetable stock
5 dried wild mushrooms
Preheat the oven to 140°C.
In a large casserole, fry the pork in batches until browned. Remove to one side while you gently fry the onions and garlic in the same pan.
When softened, turn the heat up, add the marsala wine and bubble furiously. When the wine has reduced, add the pork, carrot, courgette and paprika and give a ruddy good stir. Throw in the rosemary, chestnuts, chorizo, tomatoes and stock and stir thoroughly. Pop the lid on and leave in the oven for three hours. Check on it from time to time and add hot water if necessary.
For the polenta, first grind the mushrooms to a powder in a pestle and mortar. Get the stock to the boil in a saucepan and gradually add the polenta and mushroom dust in a steady stream, whisking all the time. Continue stirring for another two minutes and turn on to a cold plate.
When cool, cut the polenta into pieces and fry until browned and crisp. Serve with the casserole, drizzled with balsamic vinegar.
