Sophie Morris on the wonders of Bonfire Night food, and what you can do with a few simple ingredients.
It’s the food that people most look forward to on Bonfire Night, not the Catherine Wheels.
Think about it: firework food is so simple, but so right. Baked potatoes cooked on an actual open fire (hopefully), crisp bangers (try these award-winning posh sausages - Debbie & Andrews from South Yorkshire), chilli, hotpot, tooth-cracking sticky sweets, parkin...
Seven ideas for your bonfire feast
1. Potatoes
If you’re not having a bonfire but want to indulge the firework food ethos, bake your potatoes in the oven for 20 minutes before turning up the temperature to top whack to get a good thick crust and that slightly burnt skin. You could grab your chance here to blister your thumb on the h-h-h-hot potatoes to authenticate your bonfire experience next day in the office.
2. Bangers
If the sausages you have to hand aren’t anything special, whip them into a tomatoey bean sausage casserole by slow-cooking with some white beans and kidney beans and a home-made herby ragu.
3. Carb it up
Whether your bonfire is real or a complete charade, serve comforting ladles of chilli con carne or Lancashire hotpot with rice, cheesy or garlicky bread and yet more potato – no one’s going to lecture you on your carb intake when you’re stood outside at 10pm and it’s below freezing.
4. Toffee
Then there’s the sweet stuff. Treacle toffee and toffee apples should by rights be confined to fairgrounds, but it’s ok if you’re chewing them to commemorate Guy Fawkes’ failed gunpowder plot.
5. Parkin
Bake your own parkin pudding - it's dead easy, and one of those desserts only eaten at a particularly time of the year.
6. Mulled wine
Let’s not forget the opportunities Bonfire Night throws up for wintery boozing: November 5 is really the first night of the year you can start heating up your alcohol without being laughed at. Now's the time for your first glass of mulled wine - Riverford does a good spice mix if you can’t be faffed to add your own cloves and herbs.
7. Mulled cider
Try making mulled cider if you don't fancy the above. Get some Heron Valley or Sheppy’s cider, also from Riverford, add the mulling spices and brew in vast quantities – but not so vast you’re as useless as poor old Guido was when left in charge of a pile of explosives.
Also worth your attention:
Gourmet Mulling Syrup With Cinammon Sticks