She may be the original domestic goddess but, as our special interview reveals, when it comes to festive feasting, Nigella isn’t too grand for a cocktail sausage. Just don’t ever serve her green peppers...
What are the Christmas food must-haves in your family?
I’m very traditional, so we always have cocktail sausages while waiting around in the morning, then the turkey and everything that goes with it. I still do this thing I did when my children were little, which is making decorations to hang from the tree. It makes everything smell of Christmassyness. You don’t need a scented candle when you have a hanging gingerbread cookie. I also always have Quality Street – they look so pretty with all their different colours! Although they took away my favourite colour: the brown one.
Q Would any roast other than turkey make it to your Christmas table?
A Well, I did do pork the year before last in lockdown because I didn’t have very many people to cook for and I thought turkey would be wasteful.
Q Talking of waste... Do you have any top energy-saving tips for this Christmas?
A About 30 years ago, Anna Del Conte taught me to cook pasta with the flame off. You bring water to the boil, add the pasta and cook it for about two minutes, stirring it around to release some of the starch. You then cover the pan with a lid, switch off the flame and leave it for the same amount of time as you would if you were cooking with heat. She taught me about it because, when you have people over, you don’t want water spilling everywhere – and you don’t want to overcook the pasta.
Q What’s the one recipe you can’t live without?
A Well, it’s not the ONLY one – that would be too cruel – but there is something I love… I wrote about it in my second book: a steamed syrup sponge. You always assume people want new recipes, but really it’s those old classics that are so good.
Q And is there a food you absolutely hate?
A I don’t like green bell peppers. To say I hate them may be too aggressive, but if anything came with them, I’d push it away. Also, I always have to steep onions – I can no longer tolerate them raw. There it is… It’s a cruel world! But there are many, many wonderful things still left to eat in it.
Who has inspired your Christmas cooking most? It has to be my mother. It wasn’t always a positive memory for me, as she often used to cry on Christmas Eve with the sheer stress of it all. So for me, Christmas cannot be a tense time – there’s no point. But I suppose, in part, I do cook like my mother and, as she died very young, it’s nice for me to be able to share her food with my children.
