Tag Archives: Christmas

Rudolph on toast

22 Dec

DASHER, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donna, Blitzen and… sorry Santa but Rudolph won’t be leading your sleigh this year.

He’s been pulverized, mixed with spices and garlic to create a delicious pate. Mmm, Rudolph on toast.

Reindeer pate

If you’re worried about piling on the pounds over Christmas, reindeer has one of the lowest fat contents of red meat – a mere two per cent – so it could be the answer. And you can rest assured that you’re not eating an endangered species – the reindeer are farmed in Sweden by Sami herdsmen and fed a diet of moss and lichen.

The packaging of my tin of reindeer pate looked innocuous. A white label announced an arctic delicacy, ‘an indulgent Christmas treat’ and claimed Rudolph’s relative was inside. When I opened it the pate didn’t look very appetising – dark, plummy meat clumped together so it resembled cat food – but it was surprisingly tasty.

I didn’t have any Knackebrod (Swedish crisp bread) so I slathered it onto some toasted not-very-authentic ciabatta.

Smoother than Michael Buble singing Christmas classics, the pate tasted rich and gamey but not overpowering. It  wasn’t as greasy as pork-based pates and was infused with spicy cognac – it definitely had sparkle.

So if you want to treat your family to something exotic, festive and tasty this Christmas, shelve the turkey. Buck the trend and treat them to some reindeer pate instead.

Reindeer pate is available from www.firebox.com

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Corny but tasty

16 Dec

Weird food: Mince pie flavoured popcorn

I HAVE a Christmas confession.  I hate mince pies. The stodgy pastry and spiced, gloopy mixture sends shivers down my spine. A bit unfortunate really as it is only thanks to the pesky pastries that I reached the heady heights of being a  Guinness World Record Breaker. 

I write ‘heady heights’ with a massive dollop of sarcasm because the record I hold, along with former colleagues Luke Chilton and Michael Xuereb, is for eating the most mince pies in a minute. And we achieved…two.

I can hear you snorting with laughter. You’d think wolfing down two mince pies in a minute would be a piece of, er pie. After all, most people manage to shovel a few down at Christmas, along with endless turkey, chocolate log and trifle.

But the pastry dried out my mouth then combined with the mincemeat to create a sticky glue that stuck my jaw together. The tactic was to take small, delicate bites then gulp them down, but it took me at least 30 mince pies to work this out.

Despite being red-faced from the mince pie sweats and  green about the gills (at least I was sticking to a festive colour scheme!) I managed to secure the record. But it left me scarred and the thought of even the tiniest morsel of mince pie passing my lips made me shudder.

So it was with trepidation that I tested Joe and Seph’s Mince Pie flavoured popcorn.  Continue reading →

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