RECIPES FOR A FAMILY FEAST

Prepare a delicious meal in advance with these showstopping in-season sharing dishes, taken directly from the Water Lane kitchen…

THE COCKTAIL

SLOE AND WOOD SORREL SOUR

(Makes enough for 8 martini glasses)

Wood sorrel has a green apple and lemon flavour and is refreshing in this woodland-inspired cocktail. Advice on how to forage wood sorrel is available at wildfooduk.com or you could order via the Bello Wild Food app, which will deliver directly to your door.

Ingredients

300ml sloe gin

100ml lemon juice

20g wood sorrel heads, plus 8 heads to garnish 4 egg whites

Method

1 Pour the gin, lemon juice and the wood sorrel (about 30 heads) into a cocktail shaker.

2 Stir the egg whites with a fork to loosen and add it to the shaker.

3 Shake hard to froth up the egg white, add a good handful of ice and shake again.

4 Once the outside of the shaker is cold, strain into a chilled glass filled with ice and garnish each glass with a wood sorrel head.

THE CANAPÉ

CHICORY WITH HEDGEHOG MUSHROOMS

AND DRUNK CRANBERRIES WITH A BLUE

CHEESE AND HAZELNUT CRUMB

(serves 8)

Festively hued red chicory is a perfect boat shape, ready to be filled. One of our favourite blue cheeses at Water Lane is Pevensey Blue from nearby Heathfield in East Sussex. A creamy, Gorgonzola-style cheese, it is delicious with the fruit and nuts against the bitter foil of the chicory. Ingredients

60g butter

60ml light olive oil

1 large onion (thinly sliced)

500g hedgehog* mushrooms (cleaned, diced) (*known to local greengrocers as

3 cloves garlic (crushed with skins on)

Salt and pepper

50g parsley (finely chopped)

150g hazelnuts (roasted and crushed)

150g fresh breadcrumbs

150g Pevensey Blue cheese (available from Neal’s Yard Dairy)

200ml Cointreau

150g dried cranberries (unsweetened)

3 heads of red chicory (separated into leaves Method

1 Preheat your oven to 190°C.

2 In a small saucepan, melt 30g butter and 30ml of olive oil and slowly caramelise the onion with a pinch of salt until golden brown and soft.

3 In a roasting tray, mix the mushrooms, garlic, salt, pepper and the remaining butter and oil. Roast in the oven for 20 minutes, mixing regularly until golden. When cool, add the parsley.

4 Turn the oven down to 160°C and roast the hazelnuts for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Crush to a crumb.

5 Roast the breadcrumbs until golden, combine with the hazelnuts and then sprinkle the Pevensey Blue cheese over the top. Roast for a further 5 minutes, mixing well from time to time.

6 While the nuts, breadcrumbs and cheese mixture is cooling, add the Cointreau to a small saucepan and heat until hot, but not boiling. Add the dried cranberries and simmer for 2 minutes, then remove from the heat to fully absorb the alcohol.

7 To serve, place the chicory leaves in a single layer on a platter. To each leaf add the caramelised onion, mushrooms, drunk cranberries and finally the Pevensey Blue cheese and hazelnut crumb.

THE STARTER

SCALLOP, CELERIAC PURÉE, APPLE AND

PEPPER DULSE

(serves 8)

A little seafood decadence can never go amiss over the festive period. Serve these delicious scallops in their shells piled high on your favourite platter. They can be made ahead of guests arriving. Keep them in the fridge after stage 7 below, then just blast them in the oven ahead of serving. Pepper dulse (a type of seaweed known as the truffle of the sea) adds a tang to the scallops, but if you can’t source it, try a sprinkle of seaweed salt, or even crispy fried chorizo. Ingredients

50g butter

20ml light olive oil

1 medium celeriac (peeled and diced into

2cm pieces)

150ml double cream

24 scallops (in their shells, ask your local fishmonger to gut and clean them)

3 red eating apples (cut into matchstick-sized pieces)

1 lemon, juiced

50g pepper dulse (cleaned and chopped) Method

To make the celeriac purée

1 Melt the butter in a large pan with the olive oil. Add the celeriac with a large pinch of salt and cover with a cartouche or scrunched-up baking paper, then put the lid on.

2 Cook gently for 20 minutes, stirring regularly, until the celeriac is very soft and starting to collapse. If it starts to stick, add a splash of water to the pan.

3 In a separate pan, bring the double cream to the boil. Combine the cream and cooked celeriac in a blender and process until smooth.

To cook the scallops

4 Preheat oven to 240°C.

5 Prep the apple into matchsticks, adding drops of lemon juice to prevent discolouring.

6 Rinse the dulse, then roughly chop. Brush the scallops with a little oil and season.

7 Spoon a tablespoon of the celeriac purée onto the bottom of each reserved scallop shell and bed the seasoned scallop meat into the purée.

8 Roast in the oven for 10 minutes.

9 To serve, garnish with the apple pieces and a sprinkle of the chopped pepper dulse.