IT is the best holiday of the year, that charming, lazy hiatus between Christmas and the New Year. Late mornings, lingering breakfasts, long lunches, then time in the afternoon to plan something special for dinner.
Here are some suitable special recipes: a luxurious egg dish for brunch to accompany your Bloody Mary, a great dish of beans with tuna to accompany some good Belgian beer, an earthy Lebanese dish to accompany your feisty white or red wines, and then a complicated dessert for those of you with plenty of time and energy - this one is something rather special, so drag out the good Sauternes and the orange muscat to bring the dinner to a show stopping climax.
EXTRAVAGANT EGGS
Baking eggs with cream is an age old delight, but here, in imitation of the Italian way, we have added some grated Parmesan to the cream, and then topped the dish with some white truffle oil, in place of the fresh - and impossibly expensive - truffle itself. The oil is quite important, I think, as it adds a strong savoury note. If you don't have it, then consider melting a knob of butter in a pan and slowly dissolving a couple of anchovy fillets in it. Then, drizzle this over the eggs.
To serve two:
2 fresh eggs
3 teaspoons grated Parmesan
4 tablespoons thick cream
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
White truffle oil
Preheat the oven to 400F. Generously butter two ramekins. In a bowl, mix together the grated Parmesan, cream, salt and pepper. Divide between the ramekins. Crack an egg into each ramekin, place in a baking pan and bake in the oven for about 12 minutes, or until the white is just set and the yolk is still runny - don't overcook it or you will have no delightfully dribbly yolk to mop up with a finger of toast. Pour a soup con of truffle oil over the egg and serve with the Bloody Marys and, perhaps, the sound of Miles Davis and Gil Evans snaking from your speakers.
Here is a wonderfully simple recipe which depends, for its success, on a few essential details. When you dress the beans, you must use extremely good olive oil - the very best you have - and you must be generous with it, and you must dress the beans when they are still warm.
The effect of the heat lifts the entire dish, rushing out the aromas of the oil and making it wonderfully appetising. You can use tinned beans, but dried beans soaked overnight are much better. Simply cook them with a carrot, bay leaf and an onion studded with cloves for an hour or so; the time needed depends on the age of the beans, so it is difficult to be precise. Whatever, they should still be ever so slightly toothy. This recipe for the Italian classic comes from Alastair Little's Italian Kitchen (Ebury Press). At the end, Mr Little says "Drizzle with a little more oil". I think you should drizzle with a lot more oil.
TONNO E FAGIOLI
250g best quality tinned tuna
250g cooked cannellini beans
Juice of one lemon
Handful of parsley, chopped
Salt and pepper
Very good olive oil
1 red onion, peeled and sliced
Open, drain and flake the tuna. Put the beans in a salad bowl. Add half the lemon juice, then half the parsley. Season, then dress with enough oil to coat the beans lightly. (If you have just cooked the beans, dressing them warm adds a whole new dimension to this dish).
Arrange the beans on a serving platter. Slice or flake the tuna and scatter on top. Scatter the red onions and the remaining parsley over. Drizzle with a little more oil and serve immediately.
The following recipe comes from an interesting book called Fragrance Of The Earth - Lebanese Home Cooking, by Nada Saleh (Saqi Books). It is full of, very simple and very effective dishes. The chickpeas with yoghurt and minced lamb is a delight. Have the ingredients hot when you assemble the dish, as this allows for a nice contrast with the cool yoghurt.
CHICKPEAS WITH YOGHURT AND MINCED LAMB
3 slices good quality bread, cut into 3/4 inch squares, toasted or deep fried
115g (4 oz) chickpeas, soaked overnight
850m1 (30 fl oz) water
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
30g (1 oz) pine nuts
285g (10 oz) ground lamb
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Salt
1 large clove of garlic, peeled
About 575ml (20 fl oz) yoghurt
Cayenne pepper to taste
Spread the bread evenly over a deep serving dish and reserve. Rinse chickpeas, drain and place in a pan with the water, skim any foam forming on the surface and bring to the boil over medium high heat, reduce heat to moderately low, cover and simmer for about 1 1/2 to two hours or until chickpeas are very soft.
Set a heavy bottomed pan over medium high heat, add the oil: when the oil is hot but not smoking, fry the pine nuts for a few seconds or until golden in colour remove with a slotted spoon, allowing the oil to drip back into the pan; reserve.
In the remaining oil, cook the meat for about six to eight minutes or until nicely browned and crisp. Season with the allspice, cinnamon, black pepper and remaining salt, stir for a few seconds; turn off heat. Reserve.
In a bowl, crush the garlic with 3/4 teaspoon salt, add the yoghurt and whisk until smooth. Reserve.
To assemble the dish, place the chickpeas with three tablespoons of their cooking liquid over the bread and spoon the yoghurt over them; top evenly with the meat. Garnish with the nuts and sprinkle with cayenne pepper.
And now something a little complex. Gordon Ramsay is chef at The Aubergine restaurant in London, quite a hot ticket right now. His food, on the evidence of his book, Passion For Flavour (Conran Octopus), is very lush, very cheffy, and very modish for Mr Ramsay a cappucino is actually a soup (!), and a terrine is what you do with fruits, as in the following recipe.
Nevan Maguire, of MacNean Bistro in Cavan, cooks a version of this terrine, which he serves with a raspberry coulis.
Mr Ramsay points out that this dessert is very popular with children, so, unless you are fond of hard work, keep it to yourself.
TERRINE OF PINK GRAPEFRUIT, ORANGE AND PASSION FRUIT
The fruit:
6 pink grapefruits
8 large seedless oranges
6 passion fruits
5 leaves gelatine or 1 sachet gelatine crystals
2 large bananas
125g (4 oz) fresh strawberries, hulled
200ml (7 fl oz) stock syrup (see below)
Stock Syrup:
550g (1 1/4 lb) granulated sugar
1 litre (1 3/4 pints) cold water
Grated zest of 1 lemon
Put the sugar, water and lemon zest into a heavy based saucepan. Bring slowly to the boil, stirring occasionally. When all the granules of sugar have dissolved, boil the syrup for about five minutes.
Cool, and store in the refrigerator in a sealed container until required.
The Terrine
. Using a small serrated knife, cut the tops and bottoms off the citrus fruits. Cut away the remaining peel, removing with it all the membrane. Holding each fruit in your hand, and working over a bowl, cut out each of the segments leaving the inner membranes behind. Discard any stray pips.
. Place the segments on a clean tea towel to drain the juice and chill for two hours. Then place the segments on a fresh teatowel to drain further and chill again for another hour. This is necessary as the segments must be sufficiently dry not to leak into the jelly while setting.
. Meanwhile, make a passion fruit syrup: halve the passion fruits and squeeze their pulp and juice into a sieve placed over a bowl. Rub the pulp and seeds through using a wooden spoon. Discard the seeds and mix the juice with the stock syrup.
. If using leaf gelatine, soak the leaves in a bowl of iced water until softened, then remove and gently squeeze out the excess water.
. Heat half of the passion fruit syrup until it boils. Remove from the heat and stir in the soaked gelatine until dissolved. If using gelatine crystals, sprinkle directly into the boiled syrup, whisking until dissolved. Mix in the remainder of the passion fruit syrup, then strain the mixture through a sieve.
. Line a one kilogram (twopound) loaf tin with cling film, leaving an overhang of about 13 centimetres (five inches) all round, which can later be folded over the top.
. Mix the syrup with the citrus fruit segments then spoon about a third into the base of the loaf tin. Peel the bananas and arrange one of them, whole, lengthwise down one side of the tin; place half of the strawberries down the other side.
. Spoon over more segments and syrup. Arrange the second banana lengthways down the opposite side from the first one. Add the remaining strawberries, again on the opposite side. Finish by adding the remaining segments and juice. If you have any leftover syrup, carefully pour it in, tapping the whole tin gently and allowing the syrup to find its own level within the tin.
. Tug the sides of the overhanging cling film gently to straighten then fold it gently over the top. Place in the refrigerator to chill overnight or until firm.
. About 15 minutes before you are ready to unmould the terrine, transfer it to the freezer. Just before serving, unfold the cling film on top then invert the terrine onto a serving platter or board. Carefully remove all of the cling film.
. Cut into slices about two centimetres thick, ideally with an electric carving knife, although a large serrated knife will do. Lift each slice onto a serving plate using a fish slice.