Christmas has arrived at the Manor again and in honour of our favourite celebration we held a dinner inspired by some of our favourite festive Nigella recipes. We used Feast, Nigellissima, Kitchen and Nigella’s Christmas as our guides to put together a filling and enjoyable banquet. We’ve always felt that the Manor is at its best as a winter venue and so it was an absolute joy to have an excuse to get the tree and decorations out particularly early!
We welcomed our guests in from a particularly chilly night and led them up to our cosy library with roaring fire and Christmas carols. We had a mixture of new and repeat guests who were all looking forward to some Christmas fun!
The cocktail for the evening was a ‘yule mule’ a vodka based tipple with lime juice, cranberry and ginger beer. This was paired with canapes that included bocconcini, or ‘golden balls’ – little mozzarella pearls coated in breadcrumbs and fried til golden and crisp. Also on the agenda were sticky and moist chipolatas in a moreish ginger and mustard glaze. Finally the canape we’ve been excited about for ages was mini meatzzas. A meatzza is Nigella’s bizarre attempt at combining a pizza but instead of bread, the base is made of meat! She makes giant ones but Susie adapted the recipe and formed mini bite size beauties. They were a revelation for us, elegant and fun – plus they did indeed taste of pizza!
Dinner at the Manor 