Cooking in:Risotto followed by rare beef . . . Yule gobble it up, writes Hugo Arnold
Amid all the festivities at this time of year it is the time spent around the table that I most enjoy. If we are no more than six sitting down over the next month my dinner party choice of first course is inevitably risotto, a great comfort food.
It's so simple to prepare and yet it can be the most sublime of dishes. This is the time to use that hoard of carefully frozen stock, or to consign a carcass to the pot. Porcini are among my favourite ingredients, along with pumpkin, saffron and Parmesan. Seafood is good too - oysters if possible, mussels if not. The choice is wide, from rocket to asparagus, from pigeon to pork. The rule is to have no more than three main ingredients, or they start to cancel one another out.
If you are going to start with risotto, why not keep the main course simple too. Beef is both traditional and welcome, as there will be plenty of time later in the month to enjoy the paler meat of the ever-popular turkey.
Keep the beef rare and serve with little more than its own juices and a salad of rocket or watercress. And maybe horseradish, freshly grated into just-whipped cream, and astringent enough to make you weep. Some things are worth crying over.