Bonfire Night is a great excuse for outdoor food in a different atmosphere. The idea of being out in the dark, the smell of smoke and gunpowder, and the noise and light of fireworks is intensely exciting for children, and for quite a lot of grown-ups as well.
As a child growing up on a West Riding farm, Bonfire Night always seemed very special. The hedges provided ample cuttings and dead wood for the fire, which was built in a spot that was suitably remote from any buildings and properly dark at night. There were special foods associated with this time of the year, including ‘plot’ or bonfire toffee – a hard, crunchy, buttery toffee – ‘parkin pigs’ and men cut out of ginger biscuit dough, and Parkin itself, a sticky oatmeal-based gingerbread.
A Bonfire Night picnic needs to be warming and substantial, especially if it’s expected to stand in for an evening meal. The Minestrone Soup suggested here is a meal in itself (Tomato, Red Pepper and Lentil Soup, is a good alternative). Some foods have acquired a status of ‘traditional’ to the event, especially jacket potatoes cooked in the embers of a bonfire (see Potatoes in Tin Cans, for a version of this). Sausages are also sometimes suggested for cooking over the fire, but the heat is too intense in the early stages, and everyone is too hungry to wait when it has died down. It’s better to cook them over a barbecue or in the oven, and bring them out to eat with bread rolls and mustard or ketchup; alternatively, make Sausage Rolls.
Makes 8 large scones
300g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
2 sweet potatoes, total weight 500g
½ teaspoon salt
60g cold butter, cut into pieces
60g soft light brown sugar
the seeds from 4 cardamom pods, crushed
50ml milk, as needed
1 medium egg, beaten
butter, to serve
These scones have a warm, slightly spicy flavour, and a lovely pale orange colour, perfect for autumn. You can use pumpkin instead of the sweet potato, if you prefer, although the scones will have a yellower colour and the flavour will be less assertive.
Preheat the oven to 200ºC, and dust a baking sheet with flour. Bake the sweet potatoes for 35 minutes or until soft. Scoop out the flesh into a bowl and mash well – you should have about 300g.
Put the flour, salt and butter in a bowl and rub together using your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar, then add the sweet potato and the cardamom seeds. Gradually mix in the milk to make a soft, rather sticky dough.
Dust the work surface with plenty of flour. Roll out the mixture gently to about 2cm thick, using flour to prevent sticking. Cut into rounds using a 7.5cm biscuit cutter. Transfer to the prepared baking sheet and brush the tops with beaten egg to glaze. Bake for 20 minutes or until lightly golden on top.
These are best eaten soon after cooking, preferably warm with lots of butter.
Serves 6–8
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, coarsely diced
2 celery sticks, coarsely diced
1 leek, coarsely diced
2 potatoes, peeled and coarsely diced
1 courgette, coarsely diced
½ fennel bulb, coarsely diced
leaves from the centre of 1 small cabbage, finely sliced
1 garlic clove, crushed
200g tinned tomatoes
1.5 litres chicken or vegetable stock
3 sprigs each of parsley, thyme and basil leaves chopped, or ½ teaspoon each of dried thyme and basil
500g cotechino sausage, skinned and cut into thick slices
200g tin cannellini or flageolet beans, or green lentils, drained and rinsed
100g frozen peas
lemon juice (optional), to taste
salt and ground black pepper
freshly grated Parmesan, to serve
Here is a version of the classic Italian soup–stew: a broth made with beans, chunks of vegetable according to season and cotechino, a coarse-cut Italian boiling sausage. If cotechino is not available, use 250g ham cut into small pieces, or try chorizo instead, remembering that it will add both salt and a spicy note to the finished soup. The soup can be kept hot in a wide-mouthed flask (try it also for a picnic lunch on a long journey or a cold-weather walk). It’s best served with some grated Parmesan and good bread or perhaps Cheese and Pesto Scones.
Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat and add the vegetables and garlic in sequence, stirring well in between. Add the tomatoes and stock, then bring to the boil. Add a scant 1 teaspoon salt (the sausage is quite salty) and pepper.
Cover and simmer very gently for 1 hour. Add the herbs, cotechino and beans. Continue to simmer for another 15 minutes. Add the peas, return to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes.
Taste and correct the seasoning, then add a little lemon juice, if you like.
Like many soups, this tastes better when allowed to cool and reheated the next day. Add a little Parmesan to each serving.
Makes 24 pieces
50g butter, plus extra for greasing
500g medium oatmeal
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoons ground ginger
500g golden syrup
3 tablespoons rum
1 tablespoon single cream
A northern version of gingerbread, Parkin is based partly or wholly on oatmeal and is a sticky and satisfying food. It is important to use medium oatmeal to achieve the correct texture, and it should be baked a couple of days before it is eaten.
Preheat the oven to 150ºC, then grease and base line a 24 × 24 × 5cm square tin. Mix the oatmeal, salt, bicarbonate of soda and ginger in a large bowl.
Put the butter and syrup in a small saucepan over a medium heat until melted, then stir in the rum and cream. Pour into the oatmeal mixture and stir well to combine.
Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 1½ hours or until the mixture feels set in the middle when pressed and is just beginning to pull away from the edges of the tin. Cool in the tin. Keep covered and store for 2 days before cutting into 24 pieces.
Serves 8
butter, for greasing
8 cooking apples, such as Bramley
2 litres apple juice
8 cloves
2cm piece of cinnamon stick
2 long strips of lemon zest, cut with a vegetable peeler
100g sugar, or to taste
freshly grated nutmeg, to serve
This old-English drink was originally made with ale and the pulp of roasted apples. It was popular in the 16th and 17th centuries; when Puck, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, refers to a ‘roasted crab[apple] in a gossip’s bowl’, he is talking about lambswool. Evidently it was a drink for all kinds of social occasions – a ‘gossiping’ being the gathering of women at the birth of a child.
The drink is good as a pick-me-up at the end of a bonfire picnic or a long winter walk. I prefer it made with apple juice, because modern beers tend to be too hoppy to be pleasant with the sweet spices, and cider gives a slightly bitter and unpleasantly acid edge to the drink. If an alcoholic version is required, try adding rum or brandy to a juice-based one.
Preheat the oven to 180ºC and lightly grease a baking tray with butter. Make a shallow cut around the circumference of each of the apples, then put them on the baking tray and bake for 30 minutes or until the flesh has cooked to a froth. Spoon out the cooked pulp, then discard the skins and cores. This stage can be completed 2 hours ahead, but no more than that.
Put the apple juice in a large saucepan with a lid. Add the spices and lemon zest, then cover and heat gently over a medium heat until it reaches a simmer. Turn off the heat and leave to infuse for 20 minutes. Strain into a jug and discard the spices and lemon.
Return the liquid to the pan and add sugar to taste, then stir to dissolve. Reheat gently to simmering point, then add the apple pulp. Blend with a stick blender to make a smooth mixture. Ladle into glasses and grate a little nutmeg over the top before serving.
