Mulled Wine and Mince Pies

One of the surprising pleasures of living abroad is that you discover that traditions you assumed were commonplace and internationalised turn out in fact to be unique to your country of origin. At this time of year in the UK the supermarkets have stacks and stacks of boxes of mince pies. These small mincemeat pies are sweet and contain no meat but a mixture of spices, spirits and candied fruits. They are traditionally eaten warm and are best eaten accompanied by a glass of mulled wine.

Mincemeat is fairly easy to make - but the ingredient list is long. Depending on the recipe you use it contains sugar, cider, apples, suet, spice, cinnamon, currants, raisins, cherries, almonds and brandy or rum. So it is probably cheaper and easier to buy ready made unless you are making industrial quantities... In Edmonton you can buy mincemeat at the Sunterra Market in Lendrum - this is a great speciality grocery store / cafe / deli on the Southside.

The pies are made using shortcrust pastry. In the UK you can buy this 'Ready to Roll - but in Canada you will have to make your own.... Nigella 'Domestic Goddess' Lawson makes the pastry using orange juice, which I have found works well. The pastry is best made with half butter, half Trex (but I wasn't able to find this in Edmonton - so I used just butter).

A variety of recipes are also available for mulled wine. Nigella uses red wine, dark rum, earl grey tea, an orange with cloves, cinnamon sticks, star anise, muscovado sugar and honey. I had to improvise a bit and used red wine (this is required!!), southern comfort, earl grey tea, an orange, ground cinnamon and demerera sugar and it seemed to work OK. If you are in the UK you can buy mulled wine syrup and just add to the wine, this can cut down on the shopping required in the Christmas rush.

Useful / Interesting Links:

Wikipedia Mince Pie Entry
Pie Club
Feast - Nigella Lawson
How to Be a Domestic Goddess - Nigella Lawson