Easy Christmas Recipes | Finding Feasts

Chai Spiced Cherry Compote in Port Syrup

Chai Spiced Cherry Compote in Port Syrup… Tis’ the season to be cherry!

Thanks to Bella’s parents, who went cherry picking near Orange over the weekend, we have mounds of these glorious red baubles. This means you will be seeing quite a few cherry recipes this year.

Using my Chai Whole Spice Mix (see below) I have made a delicious Chai Spiced Cherry Compote in Port Syrup that can be used in numerous ways. Have it drizzled over ice-cream, you can puree it and make it as a filling to use in your biscuits (use it instead of the prune jam in the Finnish Tarts – Joulutorttu) or put a couple of cherries with some syrup in the bottom of your champagne glass… it’s limitless!

Cheers… Blondie

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How to make the perfect pork crackling

How to make the perfect pork crackling… Pork crackling is as important a part of my Christmas dinner as the ham or the pudding.

Every year my dad makes a delicious Christmas cocktail to greet all the family when we arrive, each year it’s different and sometimes quite experimental, but this is generally when the crackling gets eaten as no one can wait till dinner time – cocktails and crackling what better way to start a beautiful Christmas evening…

Since most of us in Australia will buy a Smoked Leg of Ham – and you can’t use the skin off this, you will need to buy the pork skin separately from your butcher. It is so cheap, if not free if you are lucky, so buy up big.

There are some vital elements to making this that will determine whether you succeed or fail…

Firstly, get pork skin that has quite a bit of fat still under the skin, at minimum there needs to be .5cm. It’s the the contrast of the juicy fat under the crispy skin that makes pork crackling perfect!

Secondly, get your butcher to score the skin. You may think you can do it yourself but trying to score skin that’s flat on a bench is really hard. They have super sharp knives and can do it seconds flat!

Finally, the pouring over of the boiling water is what will open up the scored skin, which will then let in the salt, which then forms the crispy skin. Without one process the others won’t work.

Happy crunching! Blondie.

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Prunes in Port and Spice Syrup

Finding Feasts - Prunes in Spiced Port Syrup — Click image for recipe

Prunes in Port and Spice Syrup, Christmas is only 10 weeks away so Bella and I are going to start getting our traditional Finnish and Polish recipes together.

This one is in preparation for the Finnish prune tarts that are eaten at Christmas time, although I have done it slightly different to traditional recipes, in that I have added some traditional Christmas spices to the port.

Finnish Christmas’ are celebrated on the 24th of December (in case you were wondering, Santa generally sneaks into the house while we are all around the dinner table, or conveniently distracted by something amazing) with huge feasts of hams and other roast meats, casseroles and salads – mum does an incredible beetroot and herring salad that’s just so scrumptious and works perfectly with the heat of the Australian Christmas. There are also lots of sweet dishes eaten but the main two that we grew up with are gingerbread biscuits and Finnish prune tarts – joulutorttu.

This prune in port syrup recipe is for making the prune jam that goes into the centre of the tarts – the jam is normally made with just prunes, sugar and water then pushed through a sieve or blitzed in a processor till it’s to a jam consistency. I have decided to have the prunes soak in the port and spice syrup till I make the tarts, which will be in a couple of weeks… I was also craving the syrup, warmed up, on ice cream – a girls to satisfy her cravings!

Don’t be put off with the idea of prunes as once you have tried them this way there’s no going back…

Blondie 🙂

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