Late last year I took a trip to Vienna. I ate well enough – simply, heartily even – choosing my daily restaurant purely by the length of its queue. The most memorable meal of all was a straightforward plate of black pudding with mashed potato and apple sauce. It was a Viennese version of the much-loved German himmel und erde, the “heaven and earth”. I have cooked it at home, both in its classic form and, more often, as a rearrangement of its ingredients.
Sometimes I slice the apples and brown them in butter rather than make them into a sauce. On another night, I will cook all three elements in the same shallow pan – a black pudding, potato and apple fry-up. I remember, too, a red apple and new potato salad with hot slices of pudding straight from the pan.
Home from Austria and on the chilliest of nights, I had a go at a heaven and earth-inspired dinner. I added celeriac to the potatoes and worked them into a creamy, mustard-freckled mash and roasted the apples whole. I kept the mash on the soft, velvety side by using a substantial amount of butter, folding the fluffy flesh from the baked apple through it with my fork as I ate.
There is precious little locally grown fruit about right now, but many varieties of pear are still in fine fettle. They poach sweetly, either in white wine or, as I prefer, in orange juice with a few sweet spices. Blood oranges are particularly good here. I poached some Comice pears this week, their cooking liquor spiced with cinnamon, a little sugar and cloves – winter scents – and made a sparkling amber granita from the juice.
Black pudding, baked apples and celeriac mustard mash
Food to keep the cold out. If black pudding isn’t your thing, try fat, herby butcher’s sausages instead, but cooked whole rather than in slices.
Serves 4
black pudding 500g
dessert apples 4, small butter a little
For the mash:
celeriac 750g
potatoes 350g
lemon 1
bay leaves 3
parsley a small bunch
butter 60g
grain mustard 1 tbsp
Set the oven at 180C/gas mark 4. Peel the celeriac, discarding the whiskery roots at the base. Cut the flesh into large pieces then put them in a saucepan and cover with water. (A squeeze of lemon juice will prevent the celeriac discolouring.)
Peel the potatoes, cut them into similar-sized pieces to the celeriac and add them to the celeriac. Bring to the boil, add the bay leaves and a decent pinch of salt then lower the heat and leave to cook at a gentle boil for about 20 minutes till tender.
Score the apples around the middle, cutting just under the skin, then put them in a roasting tin. Place a knob of butter on each and bake for 15 minutes. Slice the black pudding into 4 and place the slices into the roasting tin next to the apples with a knob of butter over each. Return to the oven for a further 15 minutes until the black pudding is sizzling and the apples are fluffed up.
Meanwhile, chop the parsley. Drain the vegetables then tip them into the bowl of a food mixer fitted with a beater attachment. Add the butter then beat till soft, light and creamy. Fold in the parsley, the grain mustard and a seasoning of black pepper.
Put generous scoops of the celeriac and potato mash on warm plates, place a slice of black pudding and an apple on each and serve.
Pears, clove and orange granita
A refreshing dessert for a crisp winter’s day, scented with sweet spices. The timing is tricky, with pears taking anything from 15-50 minutes to soften. Check them regularly with a skewer as they cook – they are at their most delicious when on the edge of collapse and so tender they require a careful hand to transfer them to the serving plate.
Serves 4
orange juice 1 litre
caster sugar 100g
cloves 4
cinnamon ½ stick
pears large 2
Pour the orange juice into a nonreactive saucepan, then add the caster sugar, place over a moderate heat and leave until the sugar has dissolved, stirring occasionally. Add the cloves and cinnamon stick and bring almost to the boil.
Peel the pears, slice each in half from stem to base, then scoop out the cores using a teaspoon or a melon baller. Lower the pears into the juice and simmer gently until soft. Ripe pears will take about 20 minutes, hard fruit considerably longer. They are ready when they will easily take the point of a knife or skewer.
Lift the pears carefully from the pan with a draining spoon and place on a plate. Spoon over a little of the orange juice to keep them moist, then cover and refrigerate. Chill the juice as quickly as possible. (Pouring it into a bowl then resting it in a larger bowl of ice cubes will speed matters up.) When the juice is cold, remove the cloves and cinnamon, pour into a shallow plastic freezer box and freeze for at least 4 hours.
When the juice is almost frozen, pull the tines of a table fork through it, roughing up the surface, then do it again digging a little deeper, making large ice crystals in the process. Take care not to mash the crystals, leaving them as large as possible. Put the granita back into the freezer.
To serve, put a pear half on each dessert plate, pile some of the granita into the centre and serve immediately. You should have some granita over for the next day.
Email Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @NigelSlater
