This Year, Maybe: From the author of A Gift in December

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Terence has been making Singapore curry laksa since we first started slurping the spicy coconut curry noodle soup in Sydney in the 1980s, at a massively popular ‘Singapore Curry Laksa’ stall in subterranean food court in Chinatown food court. Big bowls of laksa served as dinner on many a cold winter’s night. While Terence has long been obsessed with recreating that original noodle soup we adored (he has 10 different curry laksa recipes in his recipe manager!) this recipe comes courtesy of legendary Sydney chef, Christine Manfield. Don’t be deterred by the list of 17 ingredients. The final result is well worth the effort of pounding your own curry paste from scratch. When the first series of Winter Love Island debuted on ITV2, it was supposed to be one of two seasons to air in 2020, however coronavirus restrictions ended up cancelling last year’s main summer series. Warm Potato Salad Recipe with Anchovies, Capers, Chives and Celery Leaves That’s Also Delicious Cold

Now before I tell you about our 31 recipes to cook in January, the winter edition, I have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader-supported. This salmon fillet with colcannon recipe has been a favourite since we first tasted the dish at restaurant Banc in Sydney. The crispy skinned salmon fillet was cooked to perfection, the colcannon (an Irish mash potato) was creamy and rich, and while the red wine sauce seemed an unusual choice, its acidity worked well with a mouthful of the other ingredients. Terence has been making this dish for many years now and it turns out perfect every time. In south India, “gunpowder”, or milagai podi, is considered similarly useful. A seasoned mix of roasted, ground coconut and lentils, it is best known for flavouring potatoes, but Avinash Shashidhara, the head chef at Pahli Hill in London says: “We use it on everything, even on ghee-buttered toast.” Powdered seaweed This Winter Edition Red Bull started being available in Summer 2020. Yes, it’s a bit early, but not surprising anymore since the brand released its 2020 Summer Edition in Winter 2020. Ugh. I feel I broke my head a little more by typing the first half of this paragraph. I could really use something that vitalizes my body and mind. Arctic Berry replaces Plum Twist, which was the Winter Edition from 2018-2019 in the U.S.

This spicy Mexican sopa de tortilla or tortilla soup recipe is undoubtedly one of our best winter soup recipes. Terence began cooking up this wonderful warming Mexican soup after our first trip to Mexico City in the Nineties. He tweaked it a little after a class with the lovely Marilau at her excellent cooking school in beautiful San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where we spent two weeks on the grand tour of the world that launched Grantourismo. Terence combined a few tips from Marilau’s recipe with his old recipe – we actually prefer a spicier tortilla soup to Marilau, so Terence added additional Ancho chiles to his recipe. If you don’t like spicy food, you could leave those out. Although there are few better things than chillies to warm you up on a cold winter’s night. This traditional Irish beef and Guinness stew recipe with cheese dumplings delivers a hearty beef stew made with Ireland’s beloved stout beer, with meat so tender you can pull it apart with a spoon and fork. It also includes a recipe within a recipe for savoury cheddar cheese dumplings that cook with the stew. Though you could serve it with mashed potatoes or greens if you prefer. If you enjoy this, also try our best Irish stew recipe, which makes an incredibly rich and deeply flavoured traditional Irish stew, arguably the national dish of Ireland. My grandparents were born during the Russian Empire in the land we now know as Ukraine and while my grandfather identified as Russian, my Odessa-born grandmother identified as Ukrainian. Her repertoire included both Russian dishes and Ukrainian dishes and sometimes a fusion of the two. This cabbage dumplings recipe makes a cabbage-filled of the mashed potato-filled Ukrainian varenyky. For a family feast of the kind we shared regularly, make a batch of my baboushka’s Russian pelmeni, a big pot of her borscht soup, some kotleti, stuffed cabbage rolls, a classic garden salad, and perhaps some piroshki. The only book that I’ve already bought and wrapped (which is very organised for me) is Uzumakiby Junji Ito. It isn’t necessarily the first book I’d think of when thinking of cosy Christmas gifts but my brother has been reading a lot of horror, specifically surrealist, so I couldn’t think of a better book to gift him. Uzumaki is the story of a town contaminated with spirals. Ito uses the common and ordinary shape of spirals to create uncomfortable and grotesque imagery throughout the book yet I’d still describe the artwork as beautiful, or at least incredibly impressive. This isn’t a collection I’d recommend to just anyone but definitely for any fans of nightmarish literature.

The winter edition, which was filmed in Cape Town in South Africa, was introduced with the intention of becoming a regular fixture in the Love Island schedule, however international travel restrictions meant it didn’t return this year. Our spicy pork mince pie recipe made with Cambodian prahok k’tis is a marriage of Australian and Cambodian food made in heaven – an iconic Australian meat pie filled with Cambodia’s deliciously spicy dip of minced pork, coconut cream, pea eggplants, prahok (fermented fish paste), and yellow kroeung (a kroeung is a Cambodian herb and spice paste). This is another of our top 31 winter recipes to cook in January and if you love curried meat pies, you are going to love our spicy minced pork pie.And here is Oink’s Porky clue, a piggy in the Middle of the grid. I expect some Pink Squares for those who entered PUG, a mistake I often make. The actual definition will be at one end of the clue, not in the middle.

For my partner, I have Tate Britain’s Visions of the Occult: The Untold Story of Art and Magic by Victoria Jenkins, a strange and beautiful art book in spectacular colour which deep-dives into the Tate Archive; ‘a clandestine depository of the world’s most extensive collection of archives relating to British Art.’ Jenkins ‘reveals the hidden magical worlds of the artists we thought we knew – through witchcraft, parasciences, magical stones, alchemy, […] revealing that occult influences have always been present in artistic practices, if only we choose to see them’. For my mother-in-law who lives on the Southern coast and adores a stomp in the great outdoors, I have Raynor Winn’s inspiring memoir, The Salt Path. The book tells the story of Winn and her husband receiving his devastating diagnosis which coincides with them losing the family home. In response to their lives falling apart, Winn and her husband Moth decide to walk the South West Coast Path. Last Christmas and new year I read three long novels: Colm Toibin’s The Magician, an epic journey into the soul of Thomas Mann and Germany, Jonathan Franzen’s Crossroads, a enjoyable baggy family saga of adultery that immersed me happily in an unhappy family and then for new year, the astonishing Anna Karenina by Tolstoy which I found profoundly moving and which meant my January whipped by as I was really in Russia, my heart breaking worrying about Anna and what would become of her. I’d recommend all three books (and if you love the Russian storytellers, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders is a treat).This classic cottage pie recipe makes the traditional Irish comfort food dish synonymous with hearty Irish farmhouse cooking and it’s another of our top 31 winter recipes to cook in January. While cottage pie is made right across the UK and in Australia and New Zealand, the long history of cottage pie in Irish cooking includes some of the oldest documented cottage pie recipes. Endearingly old fashioned, this Irish comfort food favourite consists of layers of savoury beef mince and vegetables, and cheesy mashed potatoes, which are baked, and served with buttery green peas. Wash it all down with red wine or Guinness. Now, the future of Winter Love Island remains uncertain, with no word as to whether the show will be returning to South Africa this winter yet.

As is often in English, the noun and verb have different emphases, en-TRANCE (Charm), and EN-trance (way in) VICTORIA– Double Def. And the name of my daughter, who failed to get this clue when I WhatsApped it to her this morning. Like all 12-ounce cans of Red Bull, this also has 114 milligrams of caffeine, which gave me a decent energy boost. Also, I kind of like the muted baby blue can color. A versatile workhorse,” says Alex Rushmer, the chef at Vanderlyle, a plant-focused restaurant in Cambridge. Peel red or white onions, separate the “petals” on a roasting tray and bake them in a process of “dehydration, caramelisation and controlled burning” at 160-190C (140C-170C fan)/325-375F/gas 3-5 for approximately one hour, until dried and dark brown. Keep an eye on their progress: “They should turn to powder when you squeeze them in your hand.”

My recipe for the tastiest, juiciest Italian style meatballs is based on the classic Southern Italian meatballs, which Italians called polpette, made in Sicily and Calabria with ricotta, parmesan and pecorino cheeses, that are fried until brown then simmered in a rich classic Italian tomato sauce. Cook them in your favourite fry-pan or trusty skillet. Serve these meatballs with tomato sauce as the Southern Italian do, at the centre of the table, sprinkled with chopped fresh flat leaf parsley, celery leaves or fragrant basil, with a simple salad of fresh rucola tossed in extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar – or with your favourite pasta. We’ve also got a recipe for spaghetti and meatballs here. Even better than a pie with pastry is the pot pie – a pie without pastry baked in a small pot or ramekin. This classic British fish pot pie recipe makes mini mashed potato and creamy salmon pot pies baked in individual ramekins and it’s one of our best salmon recipes. Delicious as they are, these adorable salmon pot pies are also very versatile. You could replace the salmon with a white fish, combine types of fish, add prawns or mussels or both, and add spices such as nutmeg. These little salmon pot pies may look simple but beneath the crispy cheesy lid are layers of buttery mashed potatoes infused with fresh fragrant herbs that sandwich a layer of chunky salmon pieces simmered in a rich creamy sauce.