Christina McElhinney is a racing producer for Racing TV who has previously written for The Wine Tipster’s blog. Her own blog, The Food Waffle, is a place where the musings of an amateur home gardener and resourceful cook join and result in delicious recipes and accessible tips. Here, The Wine Tipster adds wine pairings to Christina’s Christmas Salad. Enjoy!

Christmas Salad: Maple Syrup & Whiskey Bacon and Warm Chestnuts with Blue Cheese Dressing

Obviously, Christmas is great. There’s food everywhere, plenty of wine around, generally speaking everyone’s in a good mood until the first row over sprouts kicks off and there are probably several million repeats of The Vicar Of Dibley that are virtually mandatory to watch whilst constantly shoving chocolate in your mouth because at Christmas, calories don’t actually exist.

Except unfortunately they do. And for all it’s great, Christmas can be a bit of an ambush on your body and while the first few days of carefree – or even deliberately headstrong – indulgence, I know I end up waving the white flag and needing something a bit lighter. Sort of like hitting the turkey wall – you suddenly realise that you’re not far off being unable to get off the sofa not because you don’t want to but because you would need at least three people and a JCB to help you actually do it.

But any day over the Christmas period that doesn’t involve the sort of ingredients and flavours you associate with the holidays feels like a criminal waste. So this year I decided I’d prep a recipe that not only uses things that are always so abundant in the days around the 25^th but also embraces that they are flavours that are so often associated with the time of year, whilst also shoehorning in something green, light and actually presenting some degree nutritional benefit.

Salad at Christmas…it sounds almost wrong. Almost as if you’d have to psych yourself up for it. But for me, I always find that once you muster the willpower to pick up the fruit rather than the chocolate bar, you’re instantly rewarded by realising how truly delicious the healthy option usually is, and I’m hoping this Christmas this recipe will offer that same benefit whilst also embracing the flavours of the festive season.

So which flavours? For me, chestnuts are the taste of Christmas. I love them for their earthy sweetness, and there are almost always some of the pre-cooked ones in a packet hidden away in the pantry. Something that I always have in the house in abundance in December – to cover and protect that crucial turkey and wrap those pigs in their required blankets – is top-quality, free range smoked streaky bacon. Stilton is always a staple of the cheese board, there’s always a bottle of whiskey (or two) around and Christmas spices are never complete without cinnamon.

This may be a salad…but it IS still Christmas, so you still have to make it special. Which is where soaking that beautiful free range bacon in a mix of maple syrup and whiskey comes in. Trust me, it’s delicious. When cooked, it will look very dark, but that’s the natural sugars intensifying the flavour of the one of the key stars of this salad – the others being the lightly spiced, warmed chestnuts and a blue cheese dressing.

You can do a fast(er) version of this – marinating the bacon for just a few hours will still impart some flavour of the blend – but if you feel like being organised enough, letting the bacon take on that flavour overnight is even better.

INGREDIENTS

• 5/6 rashers of top-quality, free range smoked streaky bacon
• Salad leaves – I like a mix of baby spinach, rocket and chicory but any would work
• 100g chestnuts, very lightly chopped and drizzled with a little olive oil and a dusting of ground nutmeg and cinnamon, a grating of black pepper and a pinch of brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons of maple syrup and 1 tablespoon of whiskey or bourbon, mixed together

Dressing:

• 100g Stilton or preferred blue cheese
• 150ml buttermilk
• Salt and pepper to taste

METHOD

• Lay the bacon out on baking parchment on a tray and brush over the maple syrup and whiskey mix – pour any left over on to the tray (use the parchment to stop it running off at the edges) and leave for a few hours at least.

• When ready to cook, put another layer of parchment on the bacon, put another baking tray on top and weigh down lightly. Cook slowly on low temperature like 180 degrees (fan oven) until the bacon is dark and bordering on crispy.

• Wash and mix the salad leaves and arrange on plates or a platter for sharing.

• Crumble the Stilton into a bowl, add the buttermilk and whisk gently – you want to keep a little texture so that now and then you get a bite of salad with a real punch of blue cheese flavour. Season to taste with salt and black pepper.

• When the bacon is cooked, set aside and add the lightly chopped chestnuts and a small wedge of butter to a frying pan and warm through.

• Once cooled slightly, slice the bacon diagonally and scatter the shards, along with the warm chestnuts, across the salad leaves. Drizzle the salad with a little high-quality olive oil. Pour the dressing into a serving bowl and serve alongside.

As well as being smug that you’re having a salad at Christmas, with this recipe you get to enjoy so many festive flavours and despite their contrasting qualities they work together so well. Smokiness with sweetness and that earthy hint of whiskey with the almost caramelised bacon, fresh, crunchy cool salad leaves against sweet and almost melting chestnuts with a hint of festive spice, and then the sharp zing of blue cheese and buttermilk in the dressing… combined they tick off so many flavour profiles and yet despite being a lighter meal, there are many elements here which bring the richness you need at Christmas so you don’t feel that you’re missing out on an opportunity to embrace all the indulgence.

Wine Pairing

To go with this fabulous Christmassy salad, The Wine Tipster is pairing a Pinot Gris Grand Cru Spiegel 2018 Domaine Schlumberger, Alsace, France £17.99 save £2 in mixed case Majestic or Yealands Reserve Grüner Veltliner 2019, Awatere Valley, Marlborough, New Zealand £12.99 down to £9.99 in Waitrose both of which have the palate weight, vibrant flavours and punch to marry up to its fabulous array of tantalising flavours and textures. Both of these wines have their own delicate spiciness, clean acidity, palate weight and a touch of just-right ripeness to complement this magnificent dish, bringing out the smoky, sweet and salty highlights which make this dish such a winning combination.

Thank you again to Christina McElhinney of The Food Waffle for sharing such a great recipe for the festive season, share pictures of your attempts with her on Twitter and Instagram, and don’t forget to tag The Wine Tipster on Twitter and Instagram too. Cheers!

Christina McElhinney is a racing producer for Racing TV who has used the 2020 Lockdown to finally give her second passion a platform in the form of The Food Waffle blog – a place where the musings of an amateur home gardener and resourceful cook result in delicious recipes and accessible tips. Here, she debuts on The Wine Tipster Blog with a pasta recipe to solve your courgette cravings and perhaps your abundance of Lockdown garden produce. Tuck in…

It’s fair to say 2020 has been a learning curve; all the things we’ve had to adjust and adapt to, plus a lot of us have had some downtime to work on things that we have perhaps meant to for some time. In my case, this was finally launching The Food Waffle in which to spread a bit of happiness, focussing on fresh produce, varieties of plants, great producers and ingredients, healthy options as well as indulgent ones, and a general love of food, wine and everything that comes with them.

Things have been very difficult for us all, but equally if you’re determined to see the positives, there are things to celebrate. Some of us have spent more – or less! – time with family. Some of us have spent more time in the garden and probably, like me, been very grateful for it. More time to cook, think about our health, seasonality, local producers. I’m certainly not trying to trivialise the overall experience and the trauma it’s caused so many, but it is important to find individual positives.

For me, the garden was a lifesaver for a couple of months. Nurturing young plants, preparing their ultimate homes, indeed enjoying giving some away to people who were trying their first season of growing vegetables like my neighbours or whoever was passing the driveway and helped themselves to a free plant…thinking of all the fresh produce I’d be cooking in the coming weeks and months was a calming mental influence and made me feel that I wasn’t wasting time spent in lockdown, but also that I was producing something that was not only good for me physically, in terms of both food and exercise, but also mentally.

But of course I over-seeded plants as I always do in case nothing germinated, and everything did. So then the courgettes arrived.

So. Many. Courgettes.

They get a bad reputation. The allotment joke every summer. For being a glut of bland, dull things that sit on the side and go to waste and that even if you do use them don’t taste of anything.

Nonsense.

First of all, there are some great varieties out there that just don’t hit the supermarkets. But secondly, treated with a bit of care, or creativity, or both, they’re delicious, they’re not exactly bad for you and they’re a celebration of good old British summer time – along with wasps and either having too much or too little rain – so they’re actually coming out on top.

And I currently have dozens of the things (there’s only so much you can offload to a neighbour), so there have been a few recipes of the more creative variety going on. Courgette fritters currently on foodwaffle.co.uk, a work-in-progress courgette bread that’s really good, but I also wanted to do something that simply, elegantly and lightly showcased the pure, good old courgette for what it can carry on its own. And the obvious plate-fellow for me had to be basil pesto (my recipe will be landing on foodwaffle.co.uk soon).

Not a huge hit of it though – and coupled with double cream to make a light sauce. Just enough of that lovely bright summery basil flavour to still let the courgettes be the star – whatever variety you end up using.

Two of the best ingredients summer throw at you, combined with the incomparable flavours you can only get with goats cheese, toasted pine nuts to enhance that light hit of pesto brought down to a mellow softness with double cream, pumpkin seeds for an earthy texture hit and carried together with a sauce-grabbing pasta. Light enough that it’ll be enough for a hot summer day but equally could be doubled up for a bigger serving on a cooler evening, this is my favourite way to celebrate these gorgeous courgettes that are currently rampaging into the kitchen.

And any meal that can do that needs some beautiful wine with it – and I’ll let Neil do the talking on that front because I’m sure he’ll come up with something ideal.

INGREDIENTS (SERVES TWO AS A LIGHT MEAL)

• 3 tbsp double cream
• 2 tbsp traditional basil pesto – ideally fresh made although store-bought would work fine
• Small squeeze of fresh lemon juice
• Fresh ground black pepper
• Sea salt and olive oil to season pasta water
• 1 x medium courgette, sliced 5mm thick and cut into crescents, lightly oiled
• 200g pasta of choice – I used tortiglioni
• 50g goats cheese, sliced / crumbled
• 1 cup reserved pasta water
• Grated Parmesan or Grana Padano, about ten grams
• Small basil leaves, to serve
• 20g each of pine nuts and pumpkin seeds, lightly toasted, to serve

METHOD

Gently heat the double cream over a low heat. When warmed, add the pesto and the grated cheese. Keep an eye on the mix and keep warm.

Meanwhile, cook pasta according to instructions depending on what you choose – something ideal for catching sauces is best here. Make sure the water is generous and well salted – if it doesn’t taste like the sea, it’s not salty enough. Remember, you’re not going to eat it – but what cooking water you reserve is going to help season your final dish. Also add generous olive oil to stop the pasta sticking.

Heat a griddle pan over a medium-high heat. Take the lightly oiled, crescented courgette slices and, when the pasta is near al dente, add to the pan in a clockwise pattern so you know when to turn each one – look for light charring, but leaving the flesh firm and fresh.

Retain a cup of pasta water, drain and add the pasta to the cream, season well with fresh black pepper, loosen with a little of the water as needed.

Serve straight away, scattering with goats cheese, basil leaves and the toasted pine nuts and seeds (lightly toast them on a low heat while the pasta is cooking to have them warm, although cooled is fine – the texture they bring is as key as their temperature and flavour).

Drizzle with a good Extra Virgin Olive Oil for a last hit of summer flavour and enjoy the subtle blend of just-there pesto, soft and mellow goats cheese, sweet courgettes and pungent basil against the crunch of the nuts and seeds for a beautiful and light small plate dish.

With Christina’s delicious seasonal dish The Wine Tipster has selected a couple of fabulous whites to enjoy. The Yealands Reserve Sauvignon Blanc 2019, Marlborough, New Zealand, £11.59 in Waitrose has the pure fruit flavours, important crisp acidity and mineral character to pair with the courgettes, goats cheese – a great pairing with Sauvignon Blanc – and the pesto too. Given, white wines work more harmousily with the pesto and the rest of the ingredients in Christina’s lovely dish The Wine Tipster has also chosen another high class white, this time from Lugana in northern Italy, with the fresh and Sauvignon Blanc like Buglioni Musa Lugana 2018, Italy £14.95. Enjoy making Christina’s dish and the wines too. Cheers!

You can find Christina on Twitter and Instagram as well as checking out The Food Waffle for more great recipes.

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