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Mince pies and other festive comestibles

Made the puddings and cakes a few weeks ago and we've still got a pandoro from last year.

Neal's yard and Majestic orders done and we're on last year's turkey so most of the way there.

I eat sprouts about 360 days of the year so life is always festive.

Had to go a long way for sloes this year so we've done a few bottles for presents. Far too sweet for me.

Biggest present this year will be PCR tests for my French family, bit of a farce as nothing was checked last time they went back.
 
Weekender said:
I prefer tangerines to the other small orange fruits:
http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/crg/adve...ntine-satsuma-tangerine-whats-the-difference/
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Yes for taste and juiciness but they're too hard to peel and too full of seeds for me to eat as a raw fruit.

There’s something we get sometimes from Marks and Spencer’s called something like Mandoras - that’s not right, but it starts with an M and it’s not mandarin. Seedless, easy to peel. For me, they’re an acceptable tangerine substitute.

In Rome once, a cold December day when the city had emptied out for Christmas and you could walk around the coliseum with no tourists, I had a pastry made with some little citrus - can’t remember if it was tangerine or mandarin or satsuma, but it was one of them. It was so aromatic, the memory of it will stay with me all my life. Whenever I see one of these little citruses in the UK I sniff to see if it smells the same, but no, never.
 
mandryka said:
What is the name of that fruit which I've only seen in Italy but I'd like to make an effort to get here. It's either a mandarin or a satsuma or a tangerine but it's distinctive trait is that it is incredibly aroma



Yes for taste and juiciness but they're too hard to peel and too full of seeds for me to eat as a raw fruit.

There’s something we get sometimes from Marks and Spencer’s called something like Mandoras - that’s not right, but it starts with an M and it’s not mandarin. Seedless, easy to peel. For me, they’re an acceptable tangerine substitute.

In Rome once, a cold December day when the city had emptied out for Christmas and you could walk around the coliseum with no tourists, I had a pastry made with some little citrus - can’t remember if it was tangerine or mandarin or satsuma, but it was one of them. It was so aromatic, the memory of it will stay with me all my life. Whenever I see one of these little citruses in the UK I sniff to see if it smells the same, but no, never.
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Bergamot?
 
mandryka said:
Yes for taste and juiciness but they're too hard to peel and too full of seeds for me to eat as a raw fruit.
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I find them easy enough to peel and often only one or two seeds. Had a few dry ones this season which have been good for juicing only.
 
mandryka said:
Yes for taste and juiciness but they're too hard to peel and too full of seeds for me to eat as a raw fruit.

There’s something we get sometimes from Marks and Spencer’s called something like Mandoras - that’s not right, but it starts with an M and it’s not mandarin. Seedless, easy to peel. For me, they’re an acceptable tangerine substitute.

In Rome once, a cold December day when the city had emptied out for Christmas and you could walk around the coliseum with no tourists, I had a pastry made with some little citrus - can’t remember if it was tangerine or mandarin or satsuma, but it was one of them. It was so aromatic, the memory of it will stay with me all my life. Whenever I see one of these little citruses in the UK I sniff to see if it smells the same, but no, never.
Click to expand...


Quim?
 
Lidl mince pies this years are a bit meh. But their stolen (that's the cake not nicked) bites re excellent. Their Florentine mince pies are very nice too as they taste like Ecclefechan Tarts.
 
Euan said:
Lidl mince pies this years are a bit meh. But their stolen (that's the cake not nicked) bites re excellent. Their Florentine mince pies are very nice too as they taste like Ecclefechan Tarts.
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one year at Lidl they had a whole pallet of said Stollen on the shop floor it was so popular… Their extra-thick cream is just a quid too. The equivalent (ie: I can’t tell the difference) is £1.30 at Tesco. If yer picky they are great on some lines. Sadly they have dropped the tray of proper anchovies for under two quid. A smaller equivalent costs £3 at Tescos.
My local Lidl’s has some quite nice trout fishing alongside so I’m a bit of a fan with two hours free parking….
 
MUTTY1 said:
Sadly they have dropped the tray of proper anchovies for under two quid
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Anchovy fillets marinated with ‘pink onion’ at Lidl Sunday so I bought a couple of packs - yet to try them. See through (but sadly, plastic) pack and they look the real deal.

P.s. also octopus carpaccio.
 
MUTTY1 said:
one year at Lidl they had a whole pallet of said Stollen on the shop floor it was so popular… Their extra-thick cream is just a quid too. The equivalent (ie: I can’t tell the difference) is £1.30 at Tesco. If yer picky they are great on some lines. Sadly they have dropped the tray of proper anchovies for under two quid. A smaller equivalent costs £3 at Tescos.
My local Lidl’s has some quite nice trout fishing alongside so I’m a bit of a fan with two hours free parking….
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You won't tell the difference between 2 types of thick cream. I have, inevitably, manufactured the stuff. The composition of single cream and double cream are laid down in law, the manufacturers all know to raise the homogenization temp and pressure for the XT variant. It's a well known trick, the tricky bit is getting anything in between too thin standard and very thick XT. That's a bit of a dairy industry holy grail. In any case the stuff comes out of the same superdairies by the tonne, so it's only ever a label change, the ability to fine tune specials just isn't there.
 
mandryka said:
There’s something we get sometimes from Marks and Spencer’s called something like Mandoras - that’s not right, but it starts with an M and it’s not mandarin. Seedless, easy to peel. For me, they’re an acceptable tangerine substitute.
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Kishu Mikan? (or cherry orange, smaller than mandarin or clementine)
mandryka said:
In Rome once, a cold December day when the city had emptied out for Christmas and you could walk around the coliseum with no tourists, I had a pastry made with some little citrus - can’t remember if it was tangerine or mandarin or satsuma, but it was one of them. It was so aromatic, the memory of it will stay with me all my life. Whenever I see one of these little citruses in the UK I sniff to see if it smells the same, but no, never.
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Were they orange or green?
 
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