Salmon tartare, hasselback potatoes and a date and pear pudding make up Domini Kemp's luxurious Christmas menu.

Ingredients

Salmon Tartare

Serves 4 – allow roughly 50-80g skinned salmon per person

  • 250g salmon fillet, skinned, trimmed and finely diced, chilled
  • ½ cucumber, deseeded and finely diced
  • 6 radishes, sliced
  • Juice and zest of 2 limes
  • Knob ginger, finely grated
  • 2 tsp sesame oil
  • 3 tsp mirin
  • Salt and pepper

To garnish

  • Micro herbs
  • Crackers or tortilla chips as a side – feel free to add one diced avocado

Hasselback Squash

  • 2 squash, peeled and cut in half, lengthways
  • 50 ml olive oil
  • Salt and pepper
  • 150g maple syrup
  • 150g butter
  • 2 tbsp white miso
  • Few sage leaves

Tartiflette

Serves 4

  • 500g potatoes
  • Salt & pepper
  • Few good knobs butter
  • 200g bacon lardons
  • 2 shallots, peeled and very finely sliced
  • 1 garlic clove, crushed
  • Few sprigs thyme
  • 50ml white wine
  • 100ml cream
  • 250g Milleens cheese, sliced

Crisp Garlic & Miso Jerusalem Artichokes

  • 100g white miso
  • 50g butter
  • 50ml olive oil
  • 800g Jerusalem artichokes, scrubbed, but not peeled, cut in half
  • 4 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
  • Few sprigs thyme
  • Salt and pepper

Date & Pear Pudding, Butterscotch Sauce

Serves 6

Butterscotch Sauce

  • 225g dark brown sugar
  • 185g butter
  • 250g tub crème fraiche
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • Good pinch salt

For the pudding

  • 200g dates
  • 200ml water
  • 80g butter
  • 1 teaspoon bicarb soda
  • 2 large pears, peeled and diced (about 250 g diced pear)
  • 185g self-raising flour
  • 100g caster sugar
  • 85g muscovado sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 150g pecan nuts, roughly chopped

Method

For the Salmon Tartare

  1. Mix the salmon with all the ingredients (other than the garnish) and keep chilled. You may find that
  2. after an hour or so, you may need to add some more seasoning – the salmon absorbs the flavours
  3. and can become "flat" tasting after an hour in the fridge. I think this is best made with chilled, diced salmon and mixed with all the ingredients about 10 minutes before serving, accompanied by the preferred garnish.

For the Hasselback Squash

  1. Preheat the oven to 200C.
  2. Scoop out the seeds of the butternut squash and discard. Put the squash on a baking ray and season with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast for about 20 minutes to "soften".
  3. Then, when cool enough to handle, very thinly slice the squash to create the "incisions" without going the whole way through.
  4. Meanwhile, heat up the butter, maple syrup and miso and whisk until a smooth paste. You can pause cooking at this stage or else, keep going, by brushing the glaze into the squash generously and cooking for another 40 minutes.
  5. You can insert the sage leaves or sprinkle over and occasionally, brush another layer of glaze onto the squash. Serve once tender and a lovely rich colour.

For the Tartiflette

  1. Preheat oven to 200C.
  2. Cook the potatoes in boiling salted water until just tender, but still firm enough when you put a knife into them. Drain and set aside to cool.
  3. Melt the butter and fry the lardons until super crisp, then turn down the heat and add the shallots and garlic and thyme until the shallots are soft.
  4. Deglaze the pan with the white wine and cook of the liquid. Then add the cream.
  5. Generously butter a gratin dish. Slice the potatoes thinly and layer in the gratin dish.
  6. Season well, then pour in the bacon and cream mixture.
  7. Layer the Milleens slices on top.
  8. Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes or until the cheese is golden brown and bubbling.

For the Crisp Garlic & Miso Jerusalem Artichokes

  1. Preheat oven to 180 C.
  2. Heat up the miso and butter over a gentle heat in a small saucepan. Whisk so it's nice and smooth, then add in the olive oil.
  3. Put the artichokes into a large roasting tin and pour over the miso butter. Roast for 30 minutes, then check to see you’ve got some colour on them.
  4. Toss them around so you move them around and distribute the browned ones and move the pales ones to the outside.
  5. Loosely cover with tin foil if they’re still a little hard or starting to go to brown, then remove the foil for the final blast of heat and colour.

For the Date & Pear Pudding, Butterscotch Sauce

  1. First make the butterscotch sauce. Throw everything into a small saucepan and heat gently, whilst whisking enough until melted and has turned into a delicious sauce.
  2. Preheat oven to 180 C. Line a 24 x 24cm slice tin/shallow cake tin.
  3. In a small saucepan, bring the dates, water, butter and bicarb to a gentle simmer. Cook slowly so that the mixture is jammy but still loose (rather than wet).
  4. It will go a weird green colour but as the dates get mushed up (which you will do with the back of a wooden spoon) it will eventually turn into a dark, smooth porridge like puree.
  5. Allow it to cool down. Add the diced pears.
  6. Mix the dried ingredients together: the flour and sugars. Whisk together the eggs and vanilla and the stir into the cooled date & pear mixture.
  7. Fold this wet mixture into the flour mix. Add the nuts.
  8. When well mixed, pour the batter into cake tin and bake for about 20 minutes. Check to see how well cooked it is then cook for another ten minutes if necessary.
  9. Remove from the oven and after it has cooled down a little (about 15 minutes) prick the pudding with a fork and pour over half the butter scotch sauce and let it sit and marinate the pudding.
  10. Keep the other half for serving.