Cornwall Christmas recipes by Jack Stein and Paul Ainsworth

Cornwall's local chefs share their favourite festive recipes, while English wine expert Rebecca Pitcairn recommends the best tipples to pair with them

Jack Stein’s Christmas morning Crab omelette

The tradition of having seafood the night before Christmas stems from a religious custom in the Catholic church of abstaining from meat on Christmas Eve. However, it is still widely observed today in both religious and secular communities, particularly in places like Cornwall where fresh, local seafood is easily accessible and celebrated.

As proprietors of The Seafood Restaurant in Padstow, the Stein family are unsurprisingly advocates of the tradition, preparing hundreds of their famous seafood platters both for diners and home delivery throughout the season. At home, ‘most if not always we have turbot on Christmas eve,’ says chef director Jack Stein, who is also a fan of fish on Christmas morning and created this recipe as an alternative to the popular smoked salmon and scrambled egg combo.

‘I was once about to do a demo at the Padstow Christmas Festival and after a long hard day found myself unsure what to cook for the assembled crowd,’ he explains. ‘A great chef and friend, Carl Clarke, just kept whispering “crab omelette” in my ear. I vaguely remembered having had one in Sri Lanka but had no recipe to hand – so I made it up on the spot. It proved a great success.’

Ingredients (per omelette)

· 3 eggs

· 20ml double cream

· 1 teaspoon soy sauce

· 25g butter

· 50g white crab

· A few fresh curry leaves

· A handful of chopped fresh coriander

· Salt

Method

1. Whisk the eggs in a bowl, then stir in the cream and soy sauce.

2. Heat the butter in a frying pan until foaming, then add the egg mixture, tilting the pan slightly from side to side so the egg mix covers the bottom.

3. When the egg mix is half cooked and almost set, add the crab and the herbs.

4. Using a spatula, fold the omelette in half and leave for 30 seconds, then slide onto a plate to serve. (The residual heat will finish cooking the inside of the omelette.)

5. Finish with a little salt and then enjoy.

Rebecca’s pairing: There aren’t many occasions when it’s totally acceptable to drink bubbles for breakfast and an English sparkling wine, such as Fortnum & Mason’s Brut NV, which is made by Camel Valley (£31, fortnumandmason.com/camelvalley.com) is delicate enough to pair with the white crab meat with the crisp acidity needed to match the umami of the soya and cut through the creamy eggs.

Paul Ainsworth’s Traditional Cornish Roast

Fancy a twist on the traditional Christmas lunch? Proving you don’t have to stick with meat for the main event at Christmas, Paul Ainsworth, who has five establishments in Padstow and across the water in Rock, created this recipe, also for Padstow Christmas Food Festival, to show people how to take the stress out of a Christmas Day roast dinner.

‘A roast dinner has a number of different elements and can seem overwhelming – but it doesn’t need to be. The key is to be as prepared as possible,’ he says. ‘Turbot is expensive, but you get quite a lot of meat for your money. This centrepiece encapsulates everything I love about sitting down with friends and family; everyone passing bowls of vegetables around the table and someone carving the fish. It’s pure magic.’

Ingredients (serves 4)

For the turbot

• 1 whole turbot, weighing about 2.5 kg

• 10tbsp olive oil, plus extra for frying

• 1 lemon, thinly sliced

• 10 sprigs of thyme

• 4 white onions, peeled and cut into eight

• 4 red onions, peeled and cut into eight

• 8 large sage leaves

• 100ml white wine

• Cracked white pepper

• Sea salt

For the braised carrots

• 200g unsalted butter

• 500ml chicken stock

• 3 sprigs of thyme

• 2 star anise

• 1 bay leaf

• 65g honey

• 3 pinches of sea salt

• 8 medium carrots, peeled

• 10g flat-leaf parsley, chopped

For the Yorkshire puddings

• 150g plain flour

• 3–4 large eggs (about 150 g)

• 150ml whole milk

• 8 tbsp olive oil or beef dripping

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C fan.

2. Prepare the turbot. You can ask your fishmonger to do this, or if not take a sharp pair of scissors and cut off the dorsal fins, then cut off the tail with a sharp knife. On both the white and dark sides of the turbot, make 4–5 light incisions over all four fillets. Keep the fish dark-skinned side up and season with sea salt on both sides. Take 5 tablespoons of the olive oil and massage this all over the turbot. Now lay the lemon slices and half the thyme all over the dark side of the fish.

3. Take a medium-to-large bowl and add the onion wedges, the remaining 5 tablespoons of olive oil, the sage leaves and white wine and season with sea salt and a few twists of white pepper. Give the ingredients a good mix with your hands, then transfer all the onions to a baking tray to create a trivet. Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour.

4. Remove the foil from the tray, place the turbot on top of the onions and continue to cook for 20–25 minutes. When the inside temperature of the fish reaches 50°C, take the turbot and onions out of the oven and allow the fish to rest. Now place the turbot on a platter, ready for the middle of the table.

5. Now caramelize the onions. Place a large frying pan over a high heat and add a little olive oil. Place the braised onions in a flour sieve, to remove any excess moisture, then place them into the hot frying pan and fry for 2–3 minutes to give them some colour.

6. To make the braised carrots, place all the ingredients, except the carrots and parsley, into a large casserole and bring to a simmer. Add the carrots to the hot liquid, cover with a lid and bake in the oven for 50 minutes. Remove the carrots from the oven, place the casserole dish over a medium–high heat and reduce the cooking liquor for 4–5 minutes, until the carrots are nicely glazed. Finish with the parsley and serve in the centre of the table alongside the turbot.

7. To make the Yorkshire puddings, increase the oven temperature to 220°C fan. Add the flour to a mixing bowl, break the eggs into the flour and whisk together. Pour in the milk, whisking, to form a smooth batter and season with a pinch of sea salt and couple of twists of black pepper. Place a tablespoon of oil or dripping into each well of a pudding tin or mould.

8. Transfer the tin to the oven and, when the oil is hot, pour the batter into each well, filling them halfway. Bake for 25 minutes until risen, crisp and golden. Do not open the oven door during cooking – check the Yorkshires through the window of your oven. Once they are cooked, take the Yorkshires out of the oven, turn them upside down and pop them back into the oven to drain off any excess fat.

Rebecca’s pairing: Turbot’s rich flavours, the braised carrots and Yorkshire’s need a wine that has some backbone so richer styles of dry white wine work best. With complex flavours of apple, vanilla, citrus, pineapple and brioche, Trevibban Mill’s

Constantine Chardonnay 2023 (£34.95, trevibbanmill.com) is a brilliant match.

Paige Carter’s locally spirited Christmas Cake

For head chef Paige Carter, who relaunched the kitchen and restaurant at Treguddick Distillery in Launceston, Christmas in Cornwall is all about getting outside, making the most of where she lives and supporting local businesses.

‘Cornwall’s businesses really capture the festive spirit. Here at Treguddick we host events, such as Christmas music bingo, which is always a fun evening,’ she says. ‘I love going to the Christmas markets in Truro with my family, and on Boxing Day we always head to Millendreth for a sea swim followed by hot chocolate on the beach.

Paige also likes wrapping up for a walk along the coast and visiting towns such as Bude or Tintagel, before heading home to enjoy a slice of Christmas cake made with brandy

Ingredients

• 300g currants

• 275g raisins

• 275g sultanas

• 110g dried cranberries

• 110g dried apricots, chopped

• 100g mixed candied peel

• 90g pitted dates, chopped

• 110ml English Spirit spiced rum or English Spirit No.11 apple brandy

• 4 large eggs

• 275g plain flour

• 100g ground almonds

• 1 tsp ground ginger

• 1½ tsp ground cinnamon

• 2½ tsp mixed spice

• 1½ tsp baking powder

• 1 tbsp black treacle

• 250g unsalted butter

• 250g dark muscovado sugar

• Zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange

Method

1. Place all the dried fruits, candied peel, and citrus zest into a large bowl. Stir in the rum and brandy. Cover and leave to soak overnight.

2. The next day, heat the oven to 150C (fan 130C). Line a 23cm round cake tin with baking parchment.

3. With an electric whisk, beat together the butter, sugar, and treacle until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

4. In a separate bowl, sieve the flour, cinnamon, mixed spice, ginger, and baking powder. Fold this into the butter mixture along with the ground almonds.

5. Stir in the soaked fruit and any remaining liquid. Mix thoroughly.

6. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth the top.

7. Bake for 2hrs 20–2hrs 30, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

8. Leave to cool in the tin. Once cooled, poke small holes in the top of the cake with a cocktail stick, then brush with 1–2 tbsp English Spirit Apple Brandy (or alternatively English Spirit Rum).

9. Feed the cake weekly with a little more brandy or rum for 3–4 weeks. Wrap in baking parchment and foil between feedings.

Rebecca’s pairing: You could stick to sipping on rum or brandy to reflect the ingredients but why not go for a warming ‘grown’ up mulled wine by mixing a bottle or Cornish red wine, such as Trevibban Mill’s Cicero Red (£25, trevibbanmill.com) with Fortnum & Mason’s Clementine & Juniper Mulling Syrup (£19.95, fortnumandmason.com), which will bring out the seasonal spices in the cake.