The Hairy Bikers Home for Christmas episode 4: The Hairy Bikers create mouthwatering festive dishes and get into the spirit of the season with special guest Denise Lewis.
Christmas is a wonderful time to celebrate with food and the Bikers have the perfect solution for celebration dishes to keep your guests happy and get your party started. They create a trio of canapes, porchetta pork loin and a prawn and salmon terrine, as they find out how Denise spends her Christmas. Alongside the recipes and fun, there are also fantastic ideas for homemade edible Christmas presents.
The Hairy Bikers Home for Christmas episode 4 recipes:
Porchetta
Ask your butcher to butterfly the pork. This way the flavouring permeates the loin all the way through, especially if you leave it for two days to marinate in the fridge. This recipe is a great Italian alternative for a Christmas roast pork.
Method
- For the paste filling, either put all the ingredients in a small food processor and blend until well combined (it doesn’t have to be completely smooth), or pound with a pestle and mortar.
- Lay the pork out, skin-side down, and rub the paste over the pork, then roll it up as tightly as you can and secure at intervals with butcher’s twine.
- If you have time leave in the fridge, uncovered or loosely wrapped in kitchen towel overnight – or even better, for two nights, to give the flavours time to permeate the meat and to let the skin dry out.
- An hour before you are ready to start cooking the pork, remove it from the fridge so it can return to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 150C/130C Fan/Gas 2.
Method part 2
- Arrange the potatoes and onion slices on the base of a large roasting tin and season with salt. Pour over the white wine (or cider) and stock (or water).
- Make sure the rind of the pork is dry and season it with salt. Place on top of the potatoes and onions. Cover with foil and put in the oven. Roast for four hours until the pork is cooked through – the internal temperature should read 68C/154F (use a meat thermometer to check this).
- Turn the heat up to its highest setting and cook for a further half an hour to crisp up the skin. Remove from the oven and transfer the meat and potatoes to separate serving dishes. Leave the meat to rest for half an hour, uncovered, but keep the potatoes warm.
- To make the spiced apple sauce, put all the ingredients in a saucepan with a splash of water, then cook gently for around 10 minutes, or until the apples have softened and broken down into a purée. Taste and adjust the flavours if necessary – you may need a little more sugar.
- To finish the pork, strain off any liquid remaining in the tin and skim off any fat. Serve the juices alongside the meat and potatoes.
Fried goats’ cheese
Look for goats’ cheese with a rind – it’s often in rounds, the texture a bit oozy like brie, but slightly chalkier. Serve with the spicy salsa, or simply drizzled with honey.
Mortadella mousse
Enjoy this delicious pâté topped with pistachios and spread on toast. It sets quite hard when chilled but is still spreadable, and is a good make-ahead starter for Christmas dinner.
Prawn and salmon terrine with dill sauce
This fresh-tasting terrine is a great make-ahead starter for Christmas Day. You could serve it with cucumber pickle, capers or caperberries to cut through the richness.
