Christmas nibbles - Stracciatella, brown butter and crispy sage toasts, a giant sausage roll and a retro vol au vent.

Hey pals, welcome back to The Good Home Cook, where we’ve suddenly found ourselves in the festive season. Ah Christmas, I do love it. Mainly because it’s the time of year when I get to hang my work apron for a couple of weeks, slip into my home apron and hunker down in the kitchen sipping negronis, rolling out orange laden pastry, eating bread sauce out the pan and just generally cooking whatever I wanna cook.

First up I'm giving you some top notch, easy Christmas nibbles - good for entertaining friends, taking as a contribution to your work Christmas party or rustling up to tame rowdy family members whilst the Turkeys taking 4 hours to cook. I’ve got a cracking and extremely easy toast laden with creamy Stracciatella cheese, sage crisped in brown lemony butter and topped with anchovies. So good and on the table in 15 mins. I’ve also got a giant sausage roll which is way less fiddly that those little fellas and much more impressive, with dried apricots and aniseed scented fennel seeds. And finally my pal Rosie Reynolds (Author of the shortcut cook and the shortcut cook all in one) has written you a retro-tastic mushroom vol au vent, laden with Boursin cheese and wonderful alongside a tipple.

This month I’ve got two main issues for you. Todays Christmas nibble feature and a very good alternative Christmas dessert issue (out on the 17th and including a damn fine trifle). Not only that but I’ve got bonus content coming for my paid subs this month including a jam-packed modern home cooks gift guide, a very delicious mid-week sprout pasta and a ridiculous all butter, boozy ginger mince pie issue with homemade honey whisky ice cream.

I know Christmas can feel like a stressful time to cook but I hope the recipes this month will inspire you and give you the confidence to really enjoy cooking at this time of year wether that be for friends, family or just for yourself!

Esther x

Picture by Tara Fisher - props by Faye Wears

Stracciatella, brown butter and sage toasts

Scracciatella de burrata is a shredded, soft stringy mixture of cream and curd. Its essentially what you’d find in the centre of a ball or burrata. You can buy it in Italian delis and on Ocado. If you can’t find it, just use burrata and mash with a fork.

PREP 10 mins COOK 3 mins MAKES 12 toasts

6 large slices of good quality white sourdough - I like the Dusty Knuckle potato sourdough

70g unsalted butter

12 sage leaves

1 small unwaxed lemon, zest and juice

250g stracciatella de burrata or the same weight in normal burrata

6 anchovies in olive oil - Ortiz are the best

Cut each of your bread slices in half. Lay them on a flat baking sheet and heat your grill.

Melt your butter in a frying pan over a medium heat. Once melted, throw in the sage, raise the heat and fry for 3-4 mins, swirling the pan regularly until your butter is a deep-golden brown and has a nutty, biscuity smell. Remove from the heat as soon as its turned brown, squeeze in the lemon and season with a scrunch of salt.

Grill the bread on each side for 1 min or until toasted. Lay the toasts on a sharing plate, spoon over the cheese, drizzle over the butter and sage and grate over the lemon zest. Top with the anchovies if you like and serve immediately.

GOOD TO KNOW -

• Swap your Stracciattela with burrata but make sure you mash the burrata well with a fork before spooning onto the toast.

• Experiment with the toppings - swap the anchovies for Calabrian jarred chillies (Seggiano and castlingo do a good one), prosciutto, crispy pancetta or n’duja.

• I use a fine grater for any kind of finishing of lemon or cheese - invest in a good fine Microplane zester if you can.

• Be careful not to take your browned butter too far - once the milk solids in the butter start to burn you’re left with a bitter taste.

• Stracciatella and burrata are unseasoned so essentially season them well - salt is always necessary with these cheeses.

Giant sausage, apricot and fennel seed sausage roll