Do it yourself …

Eating in? Here are some Christmas recipes to make your Christmas even tastier.

Christmas pudding

Christmas pudding is mostly a British phenomenon, and difficult to find here, but it is possible to make.

Usually they are cooked in advance and heated up on the day but this one can be eaten straight away. Most recipes call for suet, which is not really available in Korea, so this is a non-suet version, which also makes it suitable for vegetarians. You can cook it by steaming in a pan but the instructions are for a reasonable-sized rice cooker.

The recipe will fit in one of the smaller standard black “jjigae” pots that mom and pop restaurants use and can be bought cheaply from lots of places. It makes for a slightly odd-shaped pudding, and there are the usual problems of getting it out once you’ve cooked it. The disc of paper inside the pot is designed to help, and you can ease the pudding away from the sides with a knife if things are tricky.

For peel, I used the tart solid pieces from Yujacha ― Korean citron tea. You can change the relative amounts of fruit, or use different kinds ― cherries, figs and dates are all popular ― but apricots are easy to find and they work well.

Some people like to add Brazil nuts or other nuts. You can do this without changing the rest of the recipe.

Ingredients

● 150g raisins

● 90g dried apricots, cut into pieces, 60g prunes, chopped

● 130g flour, 75g butter

● 40g sugar, 30g almonds

● 4 tbsp brandy, 2 tbsp carrot

● 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 tsp ground cloves, 1 tbsp tea rind

● Grated zest and juice of half an orange, 1 egg

1. Cut up the apricots and prunes. Put in a bowl with the raisins carrot, almonds, orange zest and sugar. If sugar is packed in lumps break up before adding.

2. Add the spices and flour. Mix until the fruit is coated.

3. In a separate bowl, melt the butter in the microwave, and add brandy, orange juice and egg. Make sure the mixture is not too hot or the egg will cook.

4. To get the rind, squeeze the juice from the solid pieces of peel and chop with scissors. Add two tablespoons of this to the liquid mix.

5. Add the liquid to the dry ingredients. This should look a little like cake mix.

6. Cut a circle of greaseproof paper and use it to cover the bottom of a small earthenware jjigae pot. Grease the sides of the pot with butter and add the mixture.

7. Cut another circle large enough to cover the pot and fold over the sides. Put this in place and take a large piece of foil and wrap completely around the pot, holding paper in place. Take another large piece of foil and wrap around at 90 degrees to the last time. Be generous with the wrapping: The idea is to keep the water out when the pudding is being cooked.

8. Put in a rice steamer on a makeshift stand ― you could use a small sauce dish or a cookie cutter ― and pour water down the sides. Set the cooker going. The longer you cook it for the better, but a couple of hours will be enough. If the cooker stops you will need to top up the water and set it going again.

9. Unwrap the package (but take care: it will be hot). Turn the pot upside-down and tap the pudding out. For the classic Christmas tradition, pour brandy on top and set light to it just before serving. 

Stained glass cookies

These cookies use crushed hard candy to create a stained glass window effect, and work well as tree ornaments.

The dough is a basic cookie recipe, and there are others that can be used. The main thing is that the dough does not expand while cooking and close up the “window,” and that it doesn’t take long to cook. The tricky thing about these biscuits is that it is very easy to burn the candy ― you want it to melt, but not boil ― so keep a very close eye on them while they are in the oven. Makes 20-24

Ingredients

● 200g flour, 100g sugar

● 100g butter, 1 egg

● 1 tsp nutmeg

● Fruit flavored hard candies, crushed

1. Rub the butter and flour together, add the sugar and nutmeg and bind with the egg. You should have a pretty soft dough that holds its shape and is not too sticky.

2. Flour a work surface and roll out the dough.

3. Cut out using a large cookie cutter and make windows in each cookie with a smaller cookie cutter. If you are planning to hang them, make a hole using a chopstick.

4. Line a baking tray with greased baking paper and arrange the cookies on it. Fill each window with crushed sweets (you can crush them by putting them in a bag and hitting with a hammer, or by cutting with a knife). You want to fill the windows as much as possible without going over the sides.

5. Cook at 180 Celsius for about 7 minutes (160 C for fan-assisted ovens). Keep an eye on them and if the candy starts boiling take them out.

Chestnut stuffing

Chestnut stuffing is a classic Christmas dish that is usually a chore because of all the peeling involved. Seeing as you can buy peeled chestnuts quite easily in Korea, this should be no excuse. After that the method is quite simple ― it’s basically mashed chestnuts. This is for a standard pack of 200 grams, and makes enough for four people.

● 220g peeled chestnuts

● 1 tsp garlic

● 1 tsp finely chopped celery

● 1 tsp grated carrot

● 1 tbsp butter

● Salt and pepper

1. Fry the garlic, celery and carrot on low heat in a little butter

2. Add the chestnuts and fry for a minute or two. The chestnuts should turn yellow.

3. Add enough water to cover and boil for 25 minutes or until soft

4. Drain off excess water and mash, adding tablespoon of butter and seasoning.

5. Finish off buy browning in the oven (180 C), if preferred, but probably best for larger amounts.

By Paul Kerry (paulkerry@heraldcorp.com)