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We made this for the family after Christmas, when we had all had a few too many turkey sandwiches and needed something with a newer flavour palette and a little lighter. Quick and easy to assemble, then happy to be left alone to cook, it was a hit with the whole family. We left the main pot relatively unspicy but then each added some homemade Scotch Bonnet sauce of my dad's to our own particular tastes. I was really happy with the flavourings in this, and hope you'll enjoy it too. NB the recipe is for a rather large batch that fed 6 adults double helpings and left the pot still half full, but the leftovers reheated great! Ingredients: 6 chicken legs (Oh! No! Mutant chickens!), separated at the joint 2-3 tbsp olive oil 2 cinnamon sticks + 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 12 cloves + 1 tsp ground cloves 6 threads of saffron 1 - 1 1/2 tsp cumin 6 cardamom pods, lightly crushed 1 tbsp paprika 1 tsp thyme 1 tsp turmeric 1 head of broccoli, chopped 3 carrots, chopped 2 zucchini, chopped 3 red onions, 6 white, chopped 2 c prunes 1 c raisins 3 400g tins of chickpeas 2 red peppers, 1 green, chopped 4 sticks of celery, chopped 500g mushrooms, chopped 2 tomatoes, chopped Juice and zest of 2 lemons 2 c tinned tomatoes 6 c chicken stock 500g couscous 1 c barley Salt to taste 1 c slivered almonds, toasted 1) Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed pan big enough to accommodate all the chicken in a single layer, and add the spices. Allow these to bloom in the hot oil for a few minutes, then add the chicken pieces. Brown these for a few minutes on each side. 2) Meanwhile, heat an oven-proof dish big enough for all the ingredients in the oven at 180°C.* When the chicken pieces are nicely browned, add them and all ingredients except the lemon juice, the grains and the almonds to the oven-proof dish. 3) Deglaze the pan you browned the chicken in using the lemon juice, and add this to the dish with the rest of the ingredients. Combine everything well and place in the oven, covered, at 180* for about 1 and a half hours, stirring occasionally. When the veg is almost tender, add the grains. 4) Cook for a further half-hour or so until the grains are cooked and the veg is tender. Serve sprinkled with the toasted almonds. *(I was going to use the same pan to brown the chicken and to cook the tagine but discovered after adding about 1/4 of the veg to the dish that it was far too small, so I used a metal soup pot instead... If you can, using the same one for both makes sense, in which case, skip the heating-the-dish-in-the-oven step.) I am delighted at how the flavours came out. It was quick and easy to throw together, and a very satisfying meal. The spices are all very warm ones. For those of us who wanted, an added dash of hot sauce added some heat, but it was not necessary, and allowing for individual tweaking like that worked well. It is veggie-packed but was not too heavy, which was a relief after all the rich food around Christmas. In my opinion, there are never enough raisins, chickpeas or prunes... Or chicken, carrots, celery either for that matter. Perhaps why the pot wasn't big enough? Dried apricot would have worked very nicely too, and I don't know if it is culturally appropriate to a tagine, but I had planned on adding some coriander leaves when dishing up, but forgot to put them on the shopping list. Very tasty without though!

In early December, a very good friend of mine was visiting us and we made Christmas Butterballs to celebrate. True to form, I didn't double-check my pantry first and it turned out that we were missing the necessary walnuts. I gave my friend the choice between almonds and hazelnuts to replace the walnuts. Her response was unequivocal. Hazelnuts! They are her favourite, and although ubiquitous here, since moving to the US, they are less common and harder to find. We made the Butterballs with the hazelnuts, and all enjoyed them greatly, but this got me thinking. A lot of our Christmas Cookies require almonds, but how much difference do these make to the actual taste and substance of the cookies. I enjoyed the hazelnut butterballs but missed the originals, whereas Hubby and my friend both liked them better, so clearly it does make a difference, but how much? So I decided to try the Cinnamon Stars, which have ground almonds as their base, using hazelnuts substituted in for the almonds. And then as I thought about it further, hazelnut and cacao seemed like such a natural pairing that I decided to try some chocolatey ones and some regular ones, each variety with and without icing. Ingredients: For the plain ones: 3 egg whites a pinch of salt 1 1/2 c powdered sugar 3 c ground hazelnuts 2 tbsp cinnamon 2 tsp kirsch For the chocolate ones: 3 egg whites a pinch of salt 1 c powdered sugar 1/2 c cacao 3 c ground hazelnuts 2 tbsp cinnamon 2 tsp kirsch 2 tbsp sugar for rolling 1) Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt to form stiff peaks. Fold in the powdered sugar and set aside 2 tbsp for the icing. If using, fold in cacao at this point. 2) Mix in the nuts, cinnamon and kirsch to form a stiff dough. Roll out 1 cm thick on a sugared surface and cut out shapes. 3) Lay out on a cookie sheet (preferably greased or with a silicone sheet) and ice with a little dollop of the icing. 4) Allow to rest for 5 hours or overnight. Bake at 250°C for 5 minutes. So the consensus was that these were good, and the hazelnuts worked well for this, including with the cinnamon, but... All the cookie cutters are at my house and we are at my parents' so these are all round, despite the name. Small wine glasses are perfect for this. I do recommend a silicone sheet because the plain batch I allowed to cool on the cookie sheet for a couple of minutes, and they were cemented to the tray. Also, I believe that this oven runs a little hot. Pulled out at time, and the second batch at 4 minutes, both batches were a little darker than would have been ideal. Next time, I would do them at 240°C for 4 minutes like the Basler cookies. I also rolled mine out too thin which compounded the problem, so I do recommend making sure they are thick enough. Further, the chocolate ones were too chocolatey and the cinnamon paled into insignificance behind it. the chocolatey ones worked better with the icing as the extra sugar balanced out the flavour of the cookie while the plain ones were better uniced and definitely did not need extra sugar. I would like to try these with only 2 tbsp or 1/4 c cacao instead of a full third of the sugar content - make them hazelnut and cinnamon biscuits with cacao and not chocolate biscuits with a bit of cinnamon and some hazelnuts for texture.

Since first trying to candy and then chocolate cover orange peels last spring, I have branched out to ginger and other citrus fruit peels. Ingredients: Citrus peel or ginger strips - generally about 1 c worth 1/2 c sugar plus extra for candying 100 g Chocolate Optional: Cinnamon, cloves spices etc. 1) Place the (clean) orange peel in a saucepan with enough water to cover it and add sugar. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer for about half an hour to an hour until the orange peel is tender but still retains its integrity and a little bite. 2) Remove and drain, spreading out on a drying rack to dry overnight. 3) Place the ones you want to candy in a jar with the sugar, seal and shake, coating them evenly. 4) For the chocolate coated peels, place chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water to create a Bain Marie. Stir regularly as the chocolate begins to melt. Dip strips of orange peel into the chocolate and lay on a cooling rack. (TIP: I find chopsticks very helpful in the dipping process!) The principles hold generally to the orange peels I did last year, but I thought I would share my thoughts and experiences. I have generally omitted the extra sugar shaken over the candied peels at the end, finding it unnecessary. I find that lime peel and lime slices work very well and have an excellent balance of sweetness and tartness to them when candied. I have also tried coating them in white chocolate, which worked excellently. Ginger, of course, works wonderfully. As with the others, I have not added extra sugar on top, but I have coated in dark chocolate, which is very tasty. Dark chocolate with a little orange oil added to it is especially delectable. On one occasion, I simmered ginger, orange and lime together. It worked nicely, but the citrus peel was done before the ginger, which had to go back in the pan for another go. Also, they shared flavours a little, the ginger imparting a little bite to the lime and orange peels. Not a bad experience by any means, but one to be aware of, depending on your intentions for the candy. Grapefruit peel was tremendously bitter. I tried adding a pinch of salt to the simmering syrup as salt counteracts bitterness a lot of the time, but it made for a weird bitter salty candied peel rather than anything else. I set it aside, therefore, and covered it in dark chocolate at a later date, some with a sprinkling of cloves over the top too, and the grapefruit peel was transformed! I highly recommend this form of candy! Orange peel with a little cinnamon over the chocolate works too. Candied lemon works very nicely coated in white chocolate with a little black pepper. It seems a little counterintuitive perhaps, but that is a combo I discovered when playing around with my chocolate tempering and flavouring. The black pepper's sharpness is mitigated by the lemon and the lemon's bitterness is evened out by the black pepper. I faffed about a little with tempering the chocolate properly before coating my orange and grapefruit peels, but I am not convinced of the necessity of this, and so have not included it in the description above. A caveat to bear in mind is that these keep extremely well in an airtight jar IF, and only if, you dry them long enough. If after the candying process there is any moisture left on the peels, it will go mouldy, which would be a shame... When they do keep, I am discovering that having candied peels around for use as ingredients in other things can be very handy, like in my updated Ginger Snaps. I really enjoyed making these (and eating them too) and prepped a whole bunch last week as Christmas presents for my parents. I didn't faff about with tempering all of the chocolate, and I have to say it is an incredibly sticky medium to work with, but it was certainly fun to play around with the different flavours and try different things out.

It is Christmas Cookie season again, and you may have noticed from some of my recent posts that I've been doing some baking. Along with the traditional ones, some of which I've tweaked a little this year) I had the idea, a little out of the blue, of trying to make roast pumpkin cookies. I started out with my snickerdoodle recipe as a base and then went from there, adding and tweaking as I went until I came out with something I could be happy with. Some of the ingredients, like balsamic, may seem a little weird at a glance, but believe me, they work! I added the apple cider vinegar initially as I needed an acid to activate the baking soda and was out of cream of tartar. The balsamic and the amchoor were added after successive trials in an effort to balance out the flavour of the cookies - not too sweet, a little depth, some brightness, and some spice. The recipe below is the result of trial five, I believe. I have made them with three different toppings, and they work plain too, so I will detail all three below and leave it up to you. Ingredients: 1 c pumpkin, roasted to a mush 1/2 c sugar 1 c brown sugar 2 eggs 3 c flour 1 tsp baking soda 2 tsp apple cider vinegar 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar 1/4 tsp almond extract 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp ginger 1/4 tsp amchoor (ground mango powder - skip it if you don't have any) 1/4 c cacao nibs 1/3 c ground hazelnuts Zest 1 orange For the glaze: 1/4 c powdered sugar 1/2 tbsp milk 1/4 tsp (scant!) almond extract For chocolate covered cookies 75 g dark chocolate (or milk, if you really must...) OR: 3 tbsp mascarpone (sweeten slightly if you want, but I liked it just plain) 1) In a bowl, beat together the pumpkin and the sugars until well combined. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well. 2) Gradually add the other ingredients, stirring to form a rather sticky dough. Drop by small teaspoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet and flatten with a knife dipped in cold water. Bake at 175°C for about 8 minutes. Cool thoroughly on a wire rack. 3) To glaze the cookies, mix the powdered sugar, milk and almond extract to form a thick glaze. When they are completely cool, dip the cookies' tops in the glaze and then leave to dry for about 20-30 minutes. To chocolate cover the cookies, melt the chocolate in a Bain Marie, stirring regularly. Remove from heat when the chocolate is all melted and silky to keep it from burning. Dip the cookies in the chocolate and leave to harden for about 30 minutes. If need be, place the cookies on a window sill or in the fridge for a few minutes to help the process along a little. Or: Spread a little mascarpone on each cookie. I am really happy with how these came out. They are a cross between cookies and cake, but after a couple of days become mini-cake bites. I love the balance of flavours in these cookies, the soft crumb and the fact that they didn't come out too sweet. I brought these to a games night with some friends and the consensus was that they are best with the glaze, between glaze and chocolate. Trying them later with the mascarpone though, that might be my favourite variation. If you try them, do let me know what your favourite is!

With citrus fruit now in season, one way of preserving them is in a curd - a custard-like jam that keeps in the fridge for about 4 weeks and in the freezer for about a year. It requires eggs and butter, making it rich and creamy, but less long-lived. I have experimented with making various curds at different times, and enjoy them all. Grapefruit curd is a particular favourite. It is also something that always seems like it will be more complicated and difficult than it is. Some recipes call for egg yolks, others for whole eggs. I've done it with both in the past and both work. The curd is maybe a little richer when made with egg yolks rather than whole eggs though. This time, going away a day later for Christmas, I didn't want extra egg whites hanging around, so I used whole eggs. Feel free to substitute though. As you cook until it thickens, I don't tend to change the proportions much, the curd just thickens faster with egg yolks than whole eggs. Ingredients: 5 eggs 1 c + 3 tbsp sugar (250g) 1 1/8 c butter, diced (250g) Juice of 1 1/2 grapefruits, reduced by about 1/3 Zest of 2 grapefruits 1) Place a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, making sure that the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the water, forming a Bain Marie. In this, whisk together the sugar and eggs until uniformly combined. 2) Add the zest and the juice and whisk well. Add the butter a cube or two at a time, waiting to add the next cube until the previous ones have mostly melted. Continue whisking and adding butter cubes until all the butter is added and melted, and the curd begins to thicken. (Optional extra step for a smoother curd: Strain the curd when it has begun to thicken, removing the zest and any other bits. I find this unnecessary and don't mind encountering bits of zest, but the choice is yours). 3) Meanwhile, sterilise jars in boiling water for 15 minutes. When the curd has begun to thicken, spoon the hot curd into freshly boiled jars and seal immediately, making sure the rims of the jars stay clean. As the curd cools, it will seal the jars. ( I needed three jam jars for this quantity of curd). The curd should keep in the fridge for about 4 weeks or in the freezer for about a year. Once opened, be aware that it is made with eggs, so consume it relatively quickly. I am pleased with how this turned out, and am planning on conserving more citrus this way as they come into season, so stay tuned for any variations!

The Domestika course I am doing introduces three different architectural textures to replicate in chocolate - terrazzo, marble and concrete. This was my first attempt at making bars at all, and more specifically my first attempt at making terrazzo bars, with contrasting main flavours and chips. It was also my first time using spirulina, chlorella and açai for colouring. I overdid the chlorella and spirulina a little, making for darker colours than I had intended, but I intend to learn from that next time and add the colours in smaller increments. I made three different bars using the previous chips I had made and a different base chocolate flavour and colour for each. The first was amchoor and spirulina with grapefruit and black pepper chips. The second was sumac and chlorella as the base, with orange peel and earl grey tea flavoured chips. The third was a black sesame and açai base with kafir lime and turmeric chips. All three of these went over very well with my test audiences, quite flatteringly so. The tempering succeeded and the flavours interacted very nicely. I found the bars a little busy though but was assured by others that this was not the case. The terrazzo chip idea was interesting, and matching up flavours has been a fun challenge, but I might stick more with one or two flavours in future instead of three or four. As this was my first time making bars, I also played around with some texturing using crumpled wax paper wrinkled in different directions, and a plastic baggy. I am pleased with the different looks and had fun testing the three methods. Making the moulds was fun, my first time playing with legos in years! I had intended to be further along in the course by now and had hoped to be able to give chocolates of my own making and design to people for Christmas, but alas I have been a bit sluggish and haven't moved my studies in this field along as fast as I ought. Oh well. Mayhap next year I will be ready!

Ginger Snaps are always a favourite at this time of year, and baking a variety of Christmas cookies is a joy of the season (as perhaps suggested by my 12 Days of Christmas Cookies last year). As part of it, I posted a Ginger Snap recipe (on the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me one ginger snap). They, of course, had to be on the roster for this year, but I wanted to tweak them a little, mainly with the addition of pieces of candied ginger and orange peel, and by increasing the powdered ginger. I didn't have quite enough molasses, so the 1/4 c of molasses was completed with some honey). Ingredients: 2 c flour 2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp ginger 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/4 tsp cloves 3/4 c butter 1 c sugar + 1/4 c to roll the cookies in after 1 egg 1/4 c molasses and honey (about 2 tbsp honey, the rest molasses) 2 tsp grated tangerine peel 2 tsp dried orange peel bits, briefly candied with the ginger 3/4 c candied ginger pieces 1) Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the egg and molasses (with honey) and mix until smooth. Add tangerine zest, orange peel and candied ginger. 2) Gradually add the dry ingredients, and stir to form cookie dough. Chill for 30 minutes at least. 3) Roll the dough into marble-sized balls and then roll in the remaining 1/4c of sugar. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet with at least double the size of the marbles between the balls of dough - these spread! Bake at 180°C for 10 minutes. I love these! The smell of ginger snaps baking is so reminiscent of Christmas time for me, and of baking as a family growing up, with friends, and now with my own little family. I really enjoyed this year's tweaks and hope you do too!

I first tried making these for myself last year, but as they are traditional here, I grew up eating them at this time of year, and they are a mark of the season. This year, I made them almost by accident. I was planning on making other cookies, but stumbled on these, and figured "Why not?" I followed a very similar recipe to last year but decided to play around with it a little and tweak it in places. Here is the updated version. Ingredients: 2 c ground almonds 3/4 c sugar 1 tbsp cocoa powder 2 tbsp flour 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/4 tsp cloves 2 egg whites, lightly beaten 150 g dark chocolate 1 1/2 tbsp dark rum 1 tbsp cream 1 tsp dried orange peel, crushed 1) Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl then stir in the egg whites. 2) Melt the chocolate in a Bain Marie and stir in the rum. Heat it and mix until they form a smooth mass. Add the cream and remove it from the heat. 3) Stir the chocolate into the almond mixture, then roll out on a sugared surface to 1 cm thickness. Cut into different shapes using a cookie cutter. 4) (Optional - allow to dry out for 5 hours or overnight). 5) Bake for 4 minutes at 240°C. Cool on a wire rack. This year's tweaks worked very nicely, adding a bit of a twist to old favourites. I would have used orange zest, but our last orange went into my Rabbit Stew the other day, and so was not available. I only had tangerines on hand for fresh citrus and didn't think the zest particularly worth it from that quarter, so used some of my dried orange peel instead. The dried peel didn't give as much flavour as the fresh zest would have done, so I would like to try this again with fresh zest instead. The rum worked well instead of kirsch but I didn't have much doubt about that. I tested the method of leaving the cookies to dry for several hours before baking. The batch which was cooked fresh and moist, as it were, had a fuller, more vibrant and complex flavour, but they were too soft. The ones left to dry had a more satisfying texture, but the flavours weren't as pronounced or as nuanced. Which is better, therefore, remains a bit of a toss-up. Maybe I need to make a new batch and leave them less long so they are in between? Also, beware that they are baking at a very high temperature for a very short time, so keep an eye on the time and don't let them go too long or they will be over-crisped! Last year, the initial assessment was that they were better hot and straight out of the oven than an hour later once they had cooled. Having one a day later though. I had to reconsider. They were even better a day old. The flavours had had a chance to meld, as it were. This held true this year too. Book Pairing: While baking these, I started listening to Pride and Prejudice. Reading or listening to it again is a pleasure I have given myself every year or two for the last decade or so. I initially didn't want to read it as my parents had listened to an audio version of Sense and Sensibility on a car trip when I was too young to appreciate it but old enough to use the experience to write off an author's entire collection. My sister finally convinced me to give P&P a chance when I was about 15 and read it aloud to me, and I have loved Austen since! This time was no different. The only difficulty with audio versions is finding a reader to do it justice! If only a certain someone would make up their mind to record a reading of it for me...

One of my parents' neighbours was raising rabbits in their horse stall. Ever since Little Bit was a very small Bit indeed, we've taken him in to go watch the bunnies. Especially when he was very small, taking him into the warm semi-darkness of the bunny stall, with quiet noises and the smell of hay calmed him almost immediately. He could be a very upset Little One, only a few months old, and yet almost as soon as we unlatched the door, he would quieten. I have liked rabbit meat for years (which has no bearing on enjoying petting them) and had meant to get a bunny from the neighbour, and then he mentioned that a lot more people said they liked the idea than actually followed through and bought bunnies from him, so he was going to stop raising them. Aside from it being a shame for Little One, suddenly my chance was slipping away, so I asked for one. It was a while before I was organised enough to actually follow up, but he dropped off a freshly butchered rabbit for us last weekend. With a friend coming to visit during the course of the week, I decided to cook the rabbit for dinner. Previously, on the few occasions that I've cooked or eaten rabbit at home, it's been buried in ratatouille and slow-cooked. It now being winter and not the season for courgettes, fresh tomatoes and aubergines, I decided to try a similar strategy but with winter veg: butternut, pumpkin and carrots. For the flavouring, for some reason I decided to go with a mulled wine profile, using red wine, an orange and warmer spices for the sauce. I wasn't sure how everything was going to go, but the proof is in the eating they say and we all had seconds, so I think that is a rather good sign of things going well! Ingredients: 1 rabbit, in pieces 4 red onions, in eighths 3 big carrots, roughly chopped 1/4 of a small pumpkin, chopped 1/2 butternut, roughly chopped 1 apple, chopped 2 c red cooking wine 2 - 3 c (ish) chicken stock 1 orange, halved 2 tsp cinnamon 4 cloves 2 tsp orange peel 1 - 1 1/2 tbsp thyme 1/2 tsp rosemary 2 - 2 1/2 tbsp honey 3 tbsp olive oil Salt and pepper 1) Salt the rabbit and leave it for about an hour. After that time, rinse off the excess salt. Heat a cast-iron skillet to medium-high with the olive oil and when it is hot, place pieces of rabbit in the skillet. Glaze with honey, and sprinkle thyme over the top. Brown about 5 minutes on each side, then remove to the oven-proof dish you will be using for the stew (I used my biggest one and was a little stuck for space...) Brown the meat in batches, ensuring that each piece has sufficient space in the pan, and when you're done, tip the juices and glaze run off into the stew pot. I deglazed the pan with half an orange, too. 2) Add all other ingredients to the pot and mix well. Squeeze the orange and drop in the halves. Place in the oven at about 160°C and leave for the next 3-4 hours, stirring occasionally to ensure everything has equal juice bathing time. 3) Remove and serve over rice, polenta or bread. We opted for polenta ( for a recipe, see here). We all really enjoyed this. It would also work very well with chicken, but the gamier taste of the rabbit stood up nicely to the red wine. The salting was an attempt to apply principles from some of the food science reading I've been doing, and from Salt Fat Acid Heat for example. Salt apparently helps jellify the muscle tissue, trapping more moisture and making for more tender, moister meat. Longer salting is better, but my Little Bit wrangling skills and time management didn't allow for longer, so I was limited to about an hour as I dealt with other bits. We had lots of extra juice, so a good bread didn't go amiss to mop up. All in all very successful, but I must say, rabbit has a lot of bones! The stew has also stood up well to multiple leftover meals (we had rather a lot left over from that first meal). I plan on using some of the leftover juice to make risotto, so stay tuned for that! Book Pairing: Making this, as Little Bit napped, I was listening to A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. It is a long while since I read it and I enjoyed revisiting it. Being shorter, too, I find that Dickens' wordiness bothered me less than it did in, for example, Great Expectations. Knowing the about-face that Scrooge was about to undergo, it was interesting hearing him be so entrenched in his grumpy misery and delightful to watch him turn. It was in keeping with the season, too, which is always a big favourite. Digesting our stew that evening, we lit the candles on our Christmas tree for the second time this year and watched them quietly glow as I caught up with an old friend. Candles, friends and good food (with some good books thrown in) do really make life - and Christmas-time more especially - delightful!

So this is a bit of a spin on last year's Potato and Cabbage Pie, using sweeter root vegetables and some greens. It is still quite dense but packed with flavour and super satisfying. Sweet potatoes and squash were on sale so they were the base for this pie. I like the cabbage leaves as the pie casing, steamed and then roasted with the pie. We put bacon over the top of this one, but really it would have been just as good without it. Ingredients: 6-8 cabbage leaves 4-5 sweet potatoes, chopped 2 apples, chopped 3 carrots, chopped 1/2 butternut squash, chopped 3 eggs 1/2 - 1 c cheese, grated 1 tsp thyme 1 tsp oregano 1/2 head broccoli, chopped 2 tbsp butter 1 tbsp chutney (I used last year's Green Tomato Chutney) 6-8 strips of bacon Salt and pepper to taste 1) Steam the cabbage leaves until pliant. Boil the sweet potatoes and apples until tender, about 10-15 minutes. Roast the butternut and carrots with the butter at 180°C until tender, about 20 minutes to a half-hour. 2) Roughly mash the veg together, and mix in the eggs, cheese, and herbs, salt and pepper. Add broccoli and mix well. 3) Butter an ovenproof dish and line it with the cabbage leaves, reserving one for the "lid". Fill with the vegetable mix, spread chutney over the top and close it with the cabbage leaf lid. Lay the bacon strips over the top and bake at 180°C for 25-30 minutes. This came out very tasty. Next time I would put the bacon on before the cabbage leaf lid though so that it can cook and melt into the veg rather than just larding the top. I might add a bit of a zingier flavour to it too, but not necessarily. It was very sweet and could have done with a dash of acid of some kind but was very tasty and filling as is. Certainly an idea worth working on though!