NEW YEAR CANAPéS

Ingredients

12 chipolata sausages

A couple of large Maris Piper-type potatoes

A little butter

A little orange marmalade

A splash of fresh orange juice

One small red onion

Sunflower oil, for deep-frying A little finely-chopped curly parsley 12 small pastry cases (Rahms croustade cases are the best)

One small banana shallot, finelyminced

200g black pudding

A little olive oil

Ground cumin

12 quails’ eggs

Maldon salt and freshly-ground white pepper

A little smoked paprika until very smooth. Season with salt and beat in a generous knob of butter. Set aside to cool, then decant into a piping bag with a small nozzle.

Heat the oven to 180ºC / Gas 4. Roast the sausages in a splash of olive oil until cooked and nicely browned. As they roast, let down the marmalade with a little orange juice and warm gently in a small saucepan.

Pass through a sieve into a small bowl, then brush the strained marmalade over the sausages, and roast, tossing occasionally, allowing them to caramelise and become sticky.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool a little before slicing almost all the way through lengthwise. Pipe in the mash neatly, and heat through in a medium oven. Top with a few crispy onions and a dusting of chopped parsley to serve.

For the spinach puffs, finely chop the spinach. In a wide pan, sweat the shallot in a little olive oil until golden and softened, then add the garlic and sizzle for a couple of minutes.

Add the spinach and wilt it down over a gentle heat for a couple of minutes. Finely chop the dill and add, removing the pan from the heat. Allow the spinach to cool completely.

In a bowl combine the three cheeses, then fold in the spinach mixture, along with the egg yolk.

Unroll the pastry sheet and cut into nine equal squares.

Brush each square all over with the egg yolk and milk, then carefully place a dessert spoon of spinach mixture in a vague corner-to-corner fashion on each square.

Then, take the two opposite corners and bring them together, and crimp the pastry together down to one corner, making a cornucopia-shaped parcel, open at one end. Make sure the fold is well crimped.

Brush the finished pastry all over and dust with a few onion seeds and pop onto a floured baking tray. Chill the pastry for about half-an-hour.

Heat the oven to 200ºC / Gas 6 and bake the puffs about for 20 minutes Finally, the quail egg tartlets; to make the morcilla, crumble the black pudding as finely as possible.

Heat a little olive oil in a pan and sweat the shallot until soft and caramelised. Add the black pudding and sizzle until it’s all cooked and crispy, then add a generous pinch of cumin.

Remove from the heat and spread over some thickly-folded kitchen roll to drain off as much oil as possible.

Arrange the croustade cases on a baking sheet lined with non-stick parchment. Spoon a little black pudding into the bottom of each case. Carefully break a quail’s egg into each case. Top each egg with a few crystals of Maldon salt, and a grind of white pepper.

Bake for about six minutes, until the yolks are just set, then sprinkle with a little pimentòn and serve. Keep warm in a low oven if necessary.