The Hairy Bikers Home for Christmas episode 3: The Hairy Bikers create mouthwatering festive dishes and get into the spirit of the season with special guest Paul Martin.
Christmas is a wonderful time to celebrate with food and the Bikers share some meat-free recipes perfect for when you’ve had enough of turkey. The Bikers create sage and spinach gnocchi, nut roast with all the trimmings and a hazelnut and pear cake, as they find out how Paul spends his Christmas. Alongside the recipes and fun, there are also fantastic ideas for homemade edible presents.
The Hairy Bikers Home for Christmas episode 3 recipes:
Christmas nut roast with mushroom gravy
Perfect for a vegetarian Christmas, this nut roast recipe is served with creamy mushrooms, spinach and tangy sherry-soaked cranberries.
Method
- Preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6. Line the loaf tin with baking paper.
- Wash the spinach in plenty of water and put into a saucepan. Heat gently until it has wilted down, stirring a couple of times, then drain over a sieve. Leave to cool, then roughly chop.
- Put the cranberries into a small saucepan and cover with the sherry. Bring to the boil, remove from the heat and set aside until the cranberries have plumped up and absorbed most of the sherry.
- Heat the olive oil and butter in a frying pan. Add the onion and mushrooms and cook over a medium heat until any liquid coming out of the mushrooms has evaporated and the onion has softened. Put the parsnip and continue to cook until the parsnip has reduced in volume and the onion has started to caramelise. Add the garlic, dried sage, thyme and lemon zest, then cook for a couple more minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.
- Put the freekah or spelt into a large bowl along with the mixed nuts, chestnuts, breadcrumbs, spinach, cooked vegetables and the eggs. Season well with salt and pepper and mix thoroughly.
- Spoon into the lined loaf tin and dot over the butter. Smooth down, but do not pack too tightly. Cover with a layer of greaseproof paper and bake in the oven for about an hour or until piping hot.
- Meanwhile, to make the gravy, heat the olive oil and butter in a saucepan. Add the onion and cook for several minutes until starting to caramelise around the edges. Put the mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes, stirring regularly. Add the garlic and thyme season well and continue to cook for a couple of minutes. Turn up the heat and pour in the sherry. Allow to bubble until almost completely evaporated, then add the stock. Simmer, covered, for 10 minutes. Stir in the cream just before serving.
- To make the cranberry sauce, put the cranberries into a saucepan with orange juice and zest and the sugar. Gently heat until the sugar has dissolved then turn up the heat and simmer until the cranberries have softened and started to burst. Stir and remove from the heat – you should have a mixture of whole and broken down cranberries. Allow to cool and store in the fridge until needed.
Cheesy pumpkin gnocchi
It is very important to get the squash or pumpkin as dry as possible for this recipe so that the gnocchi dough is not too sticky.
Pear and hazelnut cake
You’ve heard of ground almond cakes, well here is the Hairy Bikers’ ground hazelnut cake.
Winter salad and parsnip nests
For this recipe you can either make 12 small parsnip nests using a shallow fairy cake tin, or four using a Yorkshire pudding tin.