New Year, Bigger Flavours, plus irrestible rum & spiced puff puffs!
A spice Masterclass with Champagne Hibiscus Cocktail, Christmas Pudding Doughnuts, my last show of the year 2023 on BBC Radio 4 The Kitchen Cabinet plus what’s to come.
Welcome to COOK WITH LERATO! Letters for you with ravishing recipes, stories & a good dose of African magic. This letter includes exclusive content for paid club members, free for all readers for a limited time only. I love & appreciate all our subscribers and members. If you haven’t joined our community, what are you waiting for? Click below to subscribe for free or upgrade to support the growing village that make this possible.
Hello Sunshine,
Its me again, with a bonus newsletter on this glorious day. I wanted to share another special recipe for you to enjoy this New Year and if you are anything like me, ‘Enjoyment Minister’ like my friends love to tease, and you like to stretch out/maximise your pleasures, there really is no reason why you can’t celebrate the New Year, today, tomorrow, all week and all month with these joyous recipes. Who’s with me?
The champagne is chilled, I have got leftover orange blossom syrup from those Magical Moroccan pancakes I made at Christmas and will be making again tomorrow morning, God willing. I even cooked my Tamarind Lamb & Baked Jollof recently published in Delicious Magazine and soaked dried fruits in rum & spices ready for the Christmas Pudding Puff Puffs tonight.
In great spirits, however, I have been struck by a nasty cold. And so I may be far too wobbly to deep fry anything tonight and can’t enjoy champagne bubbles tickling my on my nose as the clock strikes 12! At least I won’t starve. I have Jollof. My planned ‘Best of 2023’ will have to wait until sometime next week and I will not succumb to FOMO as everyone is sharing theirs now. As I ease into 2024, I will be spend the entire month of January slowly reflecting on the telenovela that was 2023. This is how I love to start the new year. Looking back in order to forge ahead.
Champagne and Puff Puff would have been ideal, however, just because I will be stuck in bed enduring the worst of Christmas television while most likely haluscinating after taking night nurse, it does not mean you cannot enjoy the very best New year celebration. And I pray you do. You have been my backbone and true supporters and I am so thankful.
Pour a dash of champagne into that Spiced Hibiscus Drink, crumble your leftover Christmas Pudding into the batter of this irresistible Nigerian doughnut, drizzle the enchanting orange blossom and honey syrup all over those Baghrir Pancakes. 2023 felt like a movie and I need to decompress and almost watch recaps of being in the thick of it all. There is much more to unfold in 2024. I can promise you that we are going bigger and better on this newsletter, with lots more exciting recipes for you and much excitement on the horizon. I cannot wait.
For easy listening, very good recipe ideas and tips from a great buffet of chefs and with roaring laughter, enjoy my last two episodes of the year on BBC Radio 4’s The Kitchen Cabinet. A great highlight of the year. The 30th December 2023 episode left me tickled pink and rolling off my bead!
Oh…and are you a coupe, a flute or a tulip kinda girl or boy?
A JOYOUS NEW YEAR TO YOU, MY DEAREST ONES!
Listen here:
A Party Food & Festive Nibbles (30th December)
A Spice Masterclass (10th Dec)
TOO GOOD TO MISS
Do you love spice and need inspiration to enjoy them in a variety of recipes, intimidated by spices or not sure how to properly stock up, store or use them? You will love our Spice Masterclass. See the introduction to this new series below.
*Exclusive Recipe from my cookbook, Africana*
Christmas Pudding Puff Puffs
This is a doughnut and Christmas pudding hybrid, one I created especially for haters of Christmas pudding, like myself. Puff puff is a much-loved Nigerian doughnut that ‘puffs’ once the batter is dropped into hot oil. I have always found these round balls to be simply irresistible and have been similarly smitten with olie bollen – another dropped doughnut, which I enjoy on New Year's Eve with my Dutch family as part of a tradition in The Netherlands. Once, while making puff puffs for New Year, we had some Christmas pudding left over from our family dinner, so I decided to crumble the abandoned pudding into my puff puff batter. And just like that Christmas pudding puff puffs were born.
