The Christmas Chronicles: Notes, stories & 100 essential recipes for midwinter. Nigel Slater

after dinner, is when this treat comes out in our house. My version of my parents’ habit of bringing out a box of After Eight mints. Except the mints got more takers. The chewy disc of nuts and dried figs, honey and spice is best consumed in a room glowing with candlelight and served in a tiny wedge at the foot of a small glass of equally glowing vin santo. To eat it straight from its white paper wrapper in daylight is to indulge only in its curiously chewable compounded figs and nuts. You need a certain sense of occasion to understand its charm, which is probably why it only really comes out at Christmas. Much the same could be said of advocaat.

      Panforte has been made in Siena for centuries. Think of it as compressed fruit cake. And made to a secret recipe. I can’t imagine anything like as much gets eaten as is brought back in suitcases. Tradition has it that panforte must be made of seventeen ingredients, one for each of the small districts, the contrade, of Siena. Panforte means strong bread, referring to the spices in the recipe. Dating from the early thirteenth century, it once contained so much pepper it was known as ‘panpepato’. References to the Crusaders carrying it with them for sustenance are probably true, as it is a compact way of carrying high-energy, imperishable survival food. Like a medieval Kendal mint cake.

      Between its compacted icing sugar crust or sheets of snowy rice paper are sugar, honey, hazelnuts, almonds, candied peel, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cardamom, salt, cocoa powder, cloves, dried figs, raisins, flour and occasionally walnuts. Recipes abound – it is a doddle to make despite the everlasting shopping list – and many of them are worth making, but none seem to have quite the same chewy, seed- and nut-laden texture as that commercially made in Siena. There is also something ancient about this shallow, fudge-coloured sweetmeat. As if you are chewing a medieval manuscript.

      After all the sweetness, something for dinner that has brightness and spirit, a welcome antidote.

      Pork, miso and pickled pears

      Strips of pork belly, sold without the bone, will work nicely here. I look for those with plenty of fat to meat. I use white miso for the dressing. Use dark miso if that is what you have, but expect the flavour to be saltier and more intense.

      Serves 4

      pork belly strips, without bones – 700g

      liquid honey – 2 tablespoons

      white miso paste – 3 tablespoons

      grain mustard – 2 tablespoons

      salad leaves – a handful

      For the pears:

      white wine vinegar – 4 tablespoons

      black peppercorns – 8

      caster sugar – 1 tablespoon

      salt – 1 teaspoon

      pears – 2

      Put the vinegar, black peppercorns, caster sugar and salt into a saucepan with 100ml of water and bring to the boil. Peel the pears, halve them, then cut out the cores with a teaspoon. Lower the pears into the pickling liquid, lower the heat and leave the pears to cook until tender to the point of a knife. Remove from the heat, cover with a lid and leave to rest. Set the oven at 200°C/Gas 6.

      Place the strips of pork on a shallow grill pan, season with salt and black pepper, and roast for thirty minutes, until golden and sizzling. In a large shallow pan, warm the honey, white miso paste and mustard until you have a thick paste.

      Tear the pork into short, finger-width strips, then toss with the hot dressing. Return the dressed meat to the oven for seven to ten minutes, until the surface is sizzling and starting to caramelise. Wash and dry the salad leaves and place them on a serving plate, then pile the pieces of hot pork on top. Place half a pickled pear on each plate.

      Toasted mincemeat sandwich

      I am not going to make my own panforte. That would feel a bit like doing something just to prove you can. The stuff in the shops, straight from Siena, is what the Italians eat. And if it’s good enough for them…

      Instead, James has an idea to make a mincemeat-stuffed panettone, the soft cake sliced and stuffed with mincemeat, then toasted. We eat it, slightly too hot for everyone’s lips, with vanilla ice cream. A jug of old-fashioned double cream would no doubt have hit the spot too.

      mincemeat – 10 heaped tablespoons

      panettone – 2 thick slices, 2cm thick, from an 18cm diameter cake

      butter – 40g

      icing sugar – 2 tablespoons

      Warm the mincemeat in a small saucepan, stirring regularly. Place a slice of panettone on the work surface. Cover it with the mincemeat, then place the second piece on top and press gently to make a large, round sandwich.

      Melt the butter in a small, non-stick frying pan. Place the sandwich in the pan and let it cook over a low heat for two minutes, checking the underside is turning gold by lifting it occasionally with a palette knife. As soon as it smells warm and buttery and the underside is golden and toasted, place a plate over the pan, turn the pan and plate over, firmly and confidently, let the sandwich turn out on to the plate, then slide it back into the pan to cook the underside.

      Lift out, dust with icing sugar and cut, cake-like, into slices.

      18 NOVEMBER

      Surf and turf

      It is a rare day when I don’t make something to eat. If I am going out to dinner then I will make lunch, because I can’t get all the way through to eight in the evening. My fishmonger has pieces of hot-smoked salmon cut from the thick end of the fillet. I bake them with new potatoes and dill.

      While the oven is on, I test a quick recipe that I feel might be fun. A sort of toad in the hole for two, with chubby cocktail sausages and a handful of sour red cranberries from the freezer to offer a sharp contrast. A keeper.

      Hot-smoked salmon, potatoes and dill

      Serves 2

      new potatoes – 300g

      dill fronds – 2 heaped tablespoons

      white wine vinegar – 2 tablespoons

      olive oil – 4 tablespoons

      hot-smoked salmon – 2 × 200g pieces

      Set the oven at 200ºC/Gas 6. Bring a deep pan of water to the boil, and salt it generously. Wash the new potatoes, cut in half lengthways, then cook them in the boiling water for fifteen minutes, until they are tender. Drain them.

      Finely chop the dill fronds and put them into a small mixing bowl. Stir in the white wine vinegar, olive oil and a little salt and pepper. Put the potatoes in a roasting tin or baking dish, then add the dill dressing and toss them together. Bake in the preheated oven for fifteen minutes, until they turn pale gold. Place the hot-smoked salmon on top of the potatoes, spoon some of the dressing from the dish over the fish, then return to the oven for ten minutes and serve.

      A new toad-in-the-hole

      A nod, perhaps, to Thanksgiving. My butcher always uses the same herb-flecked recipe for his cocktail sausages as he does for his breakfast bangers. This isn’t always the case when shopping in supermarkets, and the smaller the sausage the less likely it is to be of interest. If you can’t find a decent one, use larger breakfast sausages cut into short lengths.

      Serves 2

      eggs – 2

      full-fat milk – 300ml

      plain flour – 125g

      thyme – 5 sprigs

      cocktail chipolatas – 350g

      a little oil