I got sent a press release recently about encouraging random acts of Welshness this week, the little thing that celebrates our traditions and culture. It got me thinking about a few random acts that appear in our food and drink culture – or at least in my experience growing up in Newport.

Cream on cream

Perhaps this is just my family, or maybe a south Wales thing, but it’s impossible to have any creamy dessert without additional runny cream on top. A helping of Sara Lee chocolate gateaux? It will be made infinitely better with a good drizzle of double cream. A bit of extra cream on that trifle? No problem. Perhaps it’s not too surprising, as Wales has always been a dairy-loving nation, and why not make a decadent dessert even more delightful?

Corned beef for life

If you’re a regular reader of this newsletter, you’ll know my own love affair with corned beef in all its forms, but I don’t think I’m alone. I’m not sure there’s such an availability of corned beef products anywhere else, except maybe some parts of northern England. Corned beef pasties, pies, rissoles, hash, fritters, stew, sandwiches. The list goes on – and I’m here for it!

Dried fruit for the win

I remember making pancakes in university on Shrove Tuesday and my housemates standing aghast as I threw in a handful of currants into the batter in the pan. Doesn’t everyone do this? I don’t think I’d ever had a pancake up until that point without dried fruit in it. Thankfully, my one housemate from Porthcawl came to my rescue and assured me that it was a perfectly normal thing to do. It’s not just pancakes though, we like dried fruit in everything from Welsh cakes to bara brith.

No dry chips

Are you a gravy, curry sauce, mushy peas, ketchup, mayo or just vinegar person? Either way, I find it very difficult to eat a chip without some kind of sauce. I remember some late nights out ending with chips, cheese and gravy from the chip shop. These days I’m a vinegar (until my eyes are watering) and a mushy pea combo guy.

Bring on the bakestone

Cooking on a hot slab – either stone or iron – used to be common in all of the UK but while the bakestone fell out of use in other parts, it remained a staple in Wales. It’s still used now and I cook lots of things on mine, not just Welsh cakes – although that’s it main use.

What random acts of Welshness will you be doing this week?

Happy St David’s Day – Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!

Cook something Welsh

If you fancy rustling up something Welsh this week, here are a few easy recipes from the archive to help.

Welsh cakes

Cake and bara brith

Cawl

Rarebit

Alternatively, if you find yourself in Wales, check out one of the special rarebits being served by some top chefs for the inaugural rarebit fortnight, raising vital funds for Cegin y Bobl (The People’s Kitchen). Cegin y Bobl delivers hands-on food programmes that build knowledge and skills around food. Its work has engaged primary school pupils, parents in family and early years cook clubs, teachers in school leadership training, adults in home cookery courses, and more, showing the pride and passion that there is in every community to make food a force for good.

Participating businesses include Cardiff’s Asador 44, Milkwood, Ogof and Hard Lines, The Shed in Swansea, The Felin Fach Griffin in Brecon, and Pitchfork and Provisions in Llandeilo. Dishes included in the campaign range from Asador 44’s Leek and Galmesan cheese rarebit gratin and chorizo crumb to Ogof’s smoked pollack rarebit tart to the Hare & Hounds Bakery’s chestnut mushroom & Welsh rarebit toastie to The Shed’s Welsh onion soup with Welsh rarebit croûte.

The Playlist

To me, cooking and music go hand in hand, whether that’s singing at the top of your voice using a wooden spoon as a microphone while waiting for pasta to boil, or dancing around with the oven gloves on as the oven timer counts down. Here are some ideas for your Welsh Kitchen playlist.

It’s a right wonderful Welsh lineup today!

Green, green grass of home by Sir Tom Jones

International Velvet by Catatonia

My little Welsh home by Stuart Burrows

O Gymru by Côr Glanaethwy

Safwn yn y bwlch by Tryst & Steff

Calon Lân by Dunvant Male Choir with Bryn Terfel

Anyway, back to plygain. In essence, the plygain is a carol service that traditionally happened just before dawn on Christmas morning, sometimes as early as 3am or often a little later at around 5 or 6am. People would make their way to the chapel in procession and then congregate inside – all by glowing candlelight. The minister would greet everyone and then officially open the plygain. Groups of people would get up and sing traditional unaccompanied Welsh folk carols.

When everyone had had their turn, they would have a second round, where the groups would do a turn in the same order. Rules of the plygain meant that you couldn’t sing a song that had already been sung, so it would be wise to race to the front to make sure that you could perform what you’d rehearsed. To get around that problem, families would often have their own carols or write new ones so there was no danger of being caught out with not enough tunes under your belt. Once everyone was spent, and dawn was quickly approaching, the plygain would be closed with Carol y Swper. Mostly sung only by men of the congregation. It was a song that called for everyone to head home for supper (or breakfast in this case).

“Mae heddiw’n ddydd cymod, a’r swper yn barod, A’r bwrdd wedi’i osod; O brysiwn!”

Today is the day for redemption, and supper is ready, And the table set; Oh, let us make haste!

The origins of the plygain are not really known for sure, although its thought that the word comes from the Latin ‘pullicantio’ the call of the cockerel. There are references of both Christian and earlier pagan tradition and it’s likely a mix of both.

After a bit of a dip in the tradition, it’s slowly being revived with at least 75 happening this year, one of which I attended in London. There were more than 250 people packed into Capel y Boro, the Borough Welsh Congregational Chapel on Southwark Bridge Road and it was incredibly atmospheric as congregational hymns were sung in rousing harmony, and plygain groups and three choirs performed – all by candlelight. I hasten to add that the service was at a leisurely 4pm, and so Carol y Swper did in fact ring out just before dinnertime rather than breakfast.

Here a little poem I wrote this year to celebrate the history of the plygain:

Carol Plygain
By the hush of night unspoken,
By the chill of frosty morn,
Shadows stir and souls awaken,
From their slumber, gently torn.

Fill the chapel, candles glowing,
Guided by the holy light.
Winter’s frost and winds a-blowing,
Shelter from the bracing night.

Stories tell of stars and angels,
Blessings for a virgin’s child,
Gifts of gold around a manger,
Peace and fortune reconciled.

Let the plygain voices sing out
Songs of mercy, songs of joy!
Swell the spirit, praise the music.
Guide the hearts we all employ.

Take your turn, and join the chorus.
Hush descends as night is spent,
Dawn is breaking, Christmas calls us,
Stomachs lilt from twilight lent.

So, to mark a feast awaiting,
Neighbours rise in joyful strain.
Candle glow is now abating,
Sunrise comes to light our way.

Other Welsh New Year traditions include the Mari Lywd, and toffee pulling. More of which you can read about here:

And here’s a wonderful video from Amgueddfa Cymru of Welsh toffee being made and pulled:

Oh, and before I go, hello young lovers wherever you are today! Dydd Santes Dwynwen Hapus, Happy St Dwynwen’s day – the Welsh patron saint of lovers.

And don’t forget that there are just a few days left to get 50 per cent off a Welsh Kitchen subscription:

Just £10 for a whole year

The Recipe

Blue cheese rarebit

I managed to snag myself a giant wedge of blue cheese – you know I find it impossible to ignore a yellow label – at a greatly reduced price last week and it got me thinking about rarebit. There are so many versions of Welsh rarebit, some of which I’ve featured before, but I’ve never made a blue version. This was a revelation! It’s super simple to make but oh so satisfying. Ideal if you’ve still got a little bit hanging around in your fridge from Christmas.

Ingredients (serves 2)

1 tsp butter
1 tsp flour
100ml milk
100g Welsh blue cheese, crumbled
40g Welsh cheddar, grated
1 tsp English mustard
1/4 tsp rosemary
2 big slices of crusty bread
Drizzle of Welsh honey
Handful of chopped walnuts

Method

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over a high heat until fizzing, then tip in the flour and mix vigorously to combine and cook out the flour.

2. Add the milk bit-by-bit, stirring until it is incorporated each time.

3. Add the cheeses and the mustard and rosemary and mix, and gently simmer until the cheese has melted and it’s thickened. Then take it off the heat.

4. Very lightly toast the bread, then drizzle with the honey. Place on a baking sheet.

5. Top with the rarebit, which should have started to firm up a bit by now, and place under a hot grill until brown and bubbling.

6. Transfer to a plate and sprinkle with the chopped walnuts.

If you try the recipe out, don’t forget to tag any photos with #mywelshkitchen.

The Playlist

To me, cooking and music go hand in hand, whether that’s singing at the top of your voice using a wooden spoon as a microphone while waiting for pasta to boil, or dancing around with the oven gloves on as the oven timer counts down. Here are some ideas for your Welsh Kitchen playlist.

We’re celebrating some January birthdays this issue with two legends, Dame Shirley Bassey (aged 89) and Ivor Novello (born 133 years ago) – plus a rendition of Carol y Swper.

History Repeating by Propellerheads featuring Shirley Bassey

We’ll Gather Lilacs by Cerys Matthews (written by Ivor Novello)

Carol y Swper by Parti Cut Lloi

Bread of heaven in London

@baracafelondon

Bara Café on Instagram: "Rydyn ni’n caru bara - We love bread. …

I’m delighted to say that London is getting its very own Welsh café. Bara is opening on 12 February in Peckham. The brainchild of Welsh chefs Cecily Dalladay and Zoë Heimann, Bara is a loveletter to Welsh food tradition and innovation. On the menu, you can expect a Caerphilly Cheesesteak sandwich with eight-hour, smoked Welsh beef brisket, melted Caerphilly cheese, melting onions and Blas Y Tir leeks, a Crab Rarebit made with Câr-y-Môr brown crab, Caerphilly cheese & Purple Moose beer, and of course toasted Bara Brith slathered in salty butter. I was lucky to have peek and a nibble this week, and it looks and tastes fantastic!

From the archive

January

January is always a special time for the Welsh Kitchen as it’s the anniversary of my starting it back in 2021. That means that next month, it’ll be five years of Welsh recipes, customs, music and my general nonsense. To celebrate, yearly subscriptions are 50 per cent off for the whole month of January. That means it’s just £10 a year to support my work in putting the newsletter together each month.

Subscribe for a tenner

January was also a time for two important Welsh traditions, plygain and the Mari Lwyd. I took part in the celebrations in London which have now become permanent features of the London Welsh community’s calendar. I’ve not written much of the plygain tradition but perhaps we’ll save that for January. You can read more about the Mari in this post from January 2022.

February

The lovely team at Ocado Life magazine asked me to write them some Welsh recipes ready for St David’s Day. They had to be on a budget and feature some Welsh ingredients, and I was delighted to create a Welsh pear-bit, mini lamb hot pots, and Anglesey Eggs with sausages and peas. They appeared in print and online.

March

@fooddrinkawardswales

Food and Drink Awards Wales on Instagram: "Wales Food and Drink…

A nice little surprise came in March when the Welsh Kitchen was shortlisted for the Wales Food & Drink Champion of the Year award at the Wales Food & Drink Awards 2025. Sadly, it didn’t win the top prize, but it was lovely to be included in the list.

April

The newsletter notched over 1,000 subscribers in April and I celebrated by delving into the history of leeks in Wales and why this humble vegetable is so closely linked with our Welsh identity and cuisine.

May

I had quite a cultural month in May as I was honoured to sing Welsh songs – including one I’d written the lyrics for – at Southwark Cathedral along with Côr Y Boro. It was part of their Europe Day celebrations where seven choirs performed in their native languages including Polish, Latvian and German. I also got invited to celebrate the incredible shortlisted writers for the prestigious Dylan Thomas Prize at an event at the British Library.

June

Time for some more food, and this time not in my own kitchen. Thanks to a commission for The Telegraph (more on that later), I had the joy of visiting Cardiff’s first and only Michelin star restaurant: Gorse. Chef Tom Waters and his team have pitched it perfectly, as the restaurant feels incredibly special but not intimidating. In fact, you enter the restaurant right by the kitchen, so the chefs are the first people to welcome you. The friendly feel continues throughout your visit with the knowledgeable team explaining each dish carefully but then leaving you time to enjoy it. It’s a tasting menu which changes seasonally but might include bites such as preserved local mushrooms, lovage and pickled juniper; gently steamed cod, roasted onion cream, pheasant and unripe juniper berry broth; and toasted oat llymru, smoked cherry jam, apple caramel and blackcurrant wood oil. Wine pairings are interesting and well thought through with bottles from some lesser-known places. An absolute delight.

July

The summer was busy with trips including a little day out in Wrexham, where I was given a tour of the Wrexham Larger brewery, St Giles’ Church, and sampled a rather wonderful beer pairing menu at The Bank Wine Bar & Bistro including a moreish Welsh pork sausage roll.

August

Wine was on the cards in August when I popped along with some other wine writers to several Welsh vineyards, from Pembrokeshire to Monmouthshire. I’ll be telling you all about it in the new year including a look at which of the wines caught my attention.

September

The new academic year made me look at those September rituals we have, the joy of windfall apples and the Welsh farming tradition of cymortha.

October

I mentioned that I’d been commissioned by The Telegraph earlier on, and in October my guides to Cardiff came out on the travel section of the website including my picks of bars, restaurants and activities to enjoy in the city.

A weekend guide to Cardiff

November

I love November, and not just because it’s my birthday, but because we start to get those really crisp autumn days. It’s also when events start kicking off for me. This year it included a rather special service at Westminster Abbey in memory of Dylan Thomas and Richard Burton.

Anyone who picks up Waitrose Food magazine might also have seen my review of the fantastic Mesen restaurant in Cardiff.

December

And so to December, where as well as delighting crowds of commuters at London Bridge Station with Côr Y Boro, I also hosted another wine tasting event at the London Welsh Centre. I’ll be doing more in 2026, so do look out for them and come along to taste some great wines and enjoy a warm Welsh welcome.

@coryboro_london

Côr y Boro | Borough Welsh Choir on Instagram: "Yesterday, we …

The Recipe

Sherry Cake

I’ve been wanting to try baking some form of sherry cake for a while, and I finally had the excuse when I popped open a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream for a little aperitif (forget what your nan told you and served it chilled over ice with a slice of orange). Okay, so I didn’t need that much of an excuse, but it is the season for sweet sherry. I also wanted to create something for people who don’t like Christmas cake. This has some of the flavours of Christmas without dried fruit (yum) or marzipan (yuck). It’s also a great way to use up the opened bottle of sherry that you might have used for your trifle. It would go well with custard or a bit of leftover brandy butter or cream if you have any other that left in the fridge, too.

Ingredients

150g softened Welsh butter
200g caster sugar
Pinch of salt
½ tsp ground ginger
2 free-range eggs
1 tbsp black treacle
275g self-raising flour
200ml cream sherry

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/ Gas Mark 4 and grease and line a cake tin.

2. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, salt and ground ginger until pale and light.

3. Beat in the eggs a little at a time to stop the mix curdling.

4. Stir in the black treacle and a third of the flour.

5. Fold in the rest of the flour and the sherry until you have a cake batter.

6. Bake in the oven for around 45 minutes until cooked through.

7. Leave to cool slightly in the tin and then turn out and cool on a wire rack.

If you try the recipe out, don’t forget to tag any photos with #mywelshkitchen.

Five products I’ve savoured this year

Hard Lines Coffee

I’ve been a big fan of Hard Lines for a long time and love grabbing a coffee when I’m in Cardiff. While I don’t drink much coffee at home these days, when I do, I like it to be good quality, and I was rather delighted to see the Hard Lines Festive Blend with notes of chocolate, orange and caramel for sale this month.

Brew up

Gaz Oakley’s Plant to Plate

As much as I love being creative in the kitchen and creating recipes for the newsletter, sometimes I also need a bit of inspiration for my day-to-day meals. I’ve been trying to eat more veg and Welsh chef Gaz Oakley’s book Plant to Plate has been just what I needed to shake up the way I think and use fruit and vegetables in my cooking. I really love how the recipes are divided by ingredient with chapters on carrots, tomatoes, apples etc. I’m working my way through but really enjoyed the tomato kimchi fried tofu, and I’m eager to try the roasted pumpkin ravioli.

Get cooking

Y Lleidr rosé

One of my favourite Welsh wines of the year was the 2024 Y Lleidr from The Dell Vineyard. The name means the thief and is a nod to the blackbirds that helped themselves to the grapes on the first vintage. The wine is a lovely peach blush colour and has delightful fresh notes of red berries and watermelon. Remember, rosé is for life, not just for summer.

Time for a tipple

Ynys Aroma Sea candle

A dear friend gifted me a candle for my birthday. I’m always slightly dubious about candle scents – or should I say discerning – but his one has become a favourite. Made by Louise in Barry Island, the Sea aromatherapy candle smells divine with notes of rosemary and cedar.

Scent of the sea

Matsudai Ramen

One of the highlights of my year was both visiting Matsudai Ramen in Cardiff for my friend Angela Hui’s supper club and also reviewing one of their make-at-home kits. They were hugely popular in the pandemic, and they are still super simple and packed full of flavour.

Use your noodle

Almost none of the guisanderas I spoke to on my travels had any sort of formal training, they’d simply learned by eye, hand and taste. It’s what home cooks do all the time.

Even if you’re a strict recipe follower, you’ll still know how your particular oven cooks something, so that you maybe give it an extra five minutes. Or perhaps how much salt you add to your tastes. It’s why I love reading second-hand cookbooks where their previous owners have pencilled notes in the margin or stuffed a hastily written recipe on the back on an envelope, with titles such as “Easy chocolate cake” or “Aunty Edna’s blackberry jam”.

I have no formal training. I consider myself a home cook and I learned much of what I know – everything from preparing a Sunday roast, baking a sponge or simply washing up – from other home cooks, namely my grandparents.

My grandad used to joke that he knew what day of the week it was when he sat down to dinner. My Nannie Gwen had somewhat of a schedule of meals – out of ease and sometimes necessity – even though she could cook nearly anything, having been both a home cook and working in catering kitchens.

This newsletter began nearly five years ago now with a recipe for Welsh cakes or bakestones as we always called them. My now legendary Great Auntie Den always made them in our family. She’d make hundreds at a time, and she even shipped me off to university with a batch to help me make friends with my new flatmates. She’d worked in kitchens and dining rooms, and had done her silver service training, so any buffet at her house always featured sandwiches graced with fancy twisted slices of cucumber. She was a fantastic home cook and would try out anything in the kitchen from classic rice pudding (she loved the skin on the top) to pressing ox tongue. Sadly, we had to say goodbye to Great Auntie Den last week, not long after we celebrated her 95 extraordinary years. She’ll forever remain the doyenne of the Welsh cake in our family and I promised her I’d keep the tradition alive.

Here’s to all those wonderful, practical, inventive, nourishing home cooks that have gone before. And here’s to the memory of my fabulous Great Auntie Den.

The Recipe

Bara gwenith

I’ve been nosing in my old Welsh cookbooks again, and a version of this recipe appears in several of them – often baked in a pot oven. Bara gwenith simply translates as wholemeal bread, but I think it sounds so much nicer in Welsh – and not just because my nan was called Gwenyth. I don’t often make bread but I enjoy it when I do. The process of kneading and then the science (and magic) of watching it rise. This makes a classic wholemeal loaf, which on occasion I find quite boring, but you can easily liven this up with some seeds or flavour it with something like caraway – another ingredient that appears a lot in old Welsh recipes.

Ingredients

500g wholemeal flour
7g (one sachet) fast-action yeast
1 tbsp soft brown sugar
1.5 tsp salt
20g softened butter
275ml warm water

Method

1. Place the flour in a large mixing bowl (or a stand mixer if you want to do it the easy way), along with the yeast, sugar and salt, and then mix.

2. Make a well in the middle and place the softened butter, and most of the water, and begin to mix together until you form a soft dough. Keep adding water bit by bit until you think it feel about right.

3. Tip it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes until smooth and elastic (you won’t need this long if doing it in the mixer).

4. Place in a large well-oiled bowl and cover with a damp tea towel. Leave to rise for an hour.

5. Tip the risen (hopefully) dough out and gently knead again and form into a round loaf shape. Place on a baking tray lined with oiled parchment paper. Cover with the tea towel and allow to rise again for an hour. After 30 minutes, preheat your oven to 200°C/180°C Fan/400°F/ Gas Mark 6.

6. When the dough has risen, pop it in the oven for around 45 minutes until golden. Leave to cool on a wire rack. Serve with lashings of salty Welsh butter and dip it in cawl or use as the base for rarebit.

If you try the recipe out, don’t forget to tag any photos with #mywelshkitchen.

The Playlist

To me, cooking and music go hand in hand, whether that’s singing at the top of your voice using a wooden spoon as a microphone while waiting for pasta to boil, or dancing around with the oven gloves on as the oven timer counts down. Here are some ideas for your Welsh Kitchen playlist.

This week we have Petula Clark who celebrated her 93^rd birthday last week. Her ancestry is Welsh on her mother’s side and, while she was born in Surrey, she spent many years at her grandparents in Pentrebach near Merthyr Tydfil to escape the blitz in London.

Second up is the group Pedair made up of some of Wales’s best folk singers, Gwenan Gibbard, Gwyneth Glyn, Meinir Gwilym and Siân James.

My Happiness by Petula Clark

Y Môr. by Pedair

Time for a tipple?

Ross on Wine: Christmas Crackers

Come along to my wine tasting at the London Welsh Centre on Thursday 4 December. We’ll be tasting my picks of the best supermarket wines for Christmas, from festive fizz to tipples to go with your turkey.

Get tickets

@londonwelshccll

London Welsh Centre on Instagram: "🔥 Whip, flip & feast - it’s…

I also spotted that my friend Joe from Rogue Welsh Cakes is doing a masterclass and workshop at the London Welsh Centre on 14 December in case you fancy learning how to make them.

Get tickets

From the archive

Over the past month, I’ve been busy with traveling for work, but I also managed to have a holiday too. It’s a rare occurrence for a travel writer, as you can never really get your brain out of work mode. But, I was determined to have some sort of a reset and headed to Switzerland for a few days to hike some mountains, take deep chest-expanding gulps of fresh air, and tentatively submerge myself in some glacial lake waters. Naturally, my trip also included plenty of eating and drinking and as a balance to all that healthy exertion, I consumed an inordinate amount of fondue. Had I been a week later, I’d have witnessed the Alpabzug or Züglete September ritual, where farmers drive their cows and cattle down from the mountains back to the valley pastures for winter. It’s quite the event with cows adorned with flowers and bells. This process of transhumance is akin to the hafod and hendre tradition in Wales. I wrote about that a while back if you want to know more.

Anyway, back to September and rituals. When the last days of summer peter out and the harvest season kicks in, food becomes a comforting joy. September is possibly the most exciting time for fruit and veg in the UK. Windfall apples, deep juicy late blackberries, rich figs. It’s a time I remember fondly as when I was a child, it meant Sunday dinners at Nannie Gwen’s house would be followed by her homemade apple and blackberry tart. Crisp, light pastry dusted with crunchy sugar, and then bathed in Bird’s custard. My personal preference is still to have the pie cold out of the fridge with the hot custard in top. You’ll find that recipe here.

Traditionally in Wales, September marked the start of harvest and threshing season, where grain was separated from the stalks. September in Welsh is Medi, meaning reap or harvest. Before machinery made this sort of work quick and easy, farmers relied on cymorth or the cymortha. This was a community effort where each farm agreed to cut on different days so everyone could help each other. In the fields, workers would be plied with threshing cake for energy and sustenance. Most often, each threshing day would end with a big meal at the farmhouse.

For me, September also marks the start of soup season, as the days get a fresh chill and I need the comforting nourishment of a warm lunch. The Spanish have the word friolero to describe someone who is always cold. Time to get my woolly jumpers out. It’s also time for squash and pumpkin and runner beans and pears. The perfect moment for Welsh pear-bit. Here’s a recipe I wrote for Ocado Life magazine in March.

Check out the recipe

Do you have any September rituals? Let me know.

The Recipe

Welsh Apple Cake

My dear friend Janet gifted me a whole sack of windfall Bramleys from her apple trees recently, and it gave me a good excuse to try out a recipe that appears in many older Welsh cookbooks: Welsh apple cake. I didn’t know how this one would turn out, but the result is a moist crumble-like cake, ideal with a cuppa or served with custard or a dollop of clotted cream.

Ingredients

500g cooking apples
A little lemon juice
150g demerara sugar
150g Welsh butter
250g self-raising flour
1tsp mixed spice
A little milk (2tbsp)
Welsh honey (optional)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/ Gas Mark 4. Line a cake tin with baking paper or grease with butter.

2. Prepare the apples by peeling, coring and chopping into small thumbnail pieces and splash with a little lemon juice to stop them going brown. Sprinkle on the sugar and give it a good mix.

3. In a large mixing bowl, rub together the butter and flour until you have breadcrumbs. Add in the mixed spice and stir.

4. Tip in the apple mix and combine.

5. Add a little milk and mix thoroughly to form a relatively stiff dough.

6. Transfer it to the prepared tin and bake in the oven for about an hour until golden.

7. You might want to glaze the top with honey to give it a nice shine.

If you try the recipe out, don’t forget to tag any photos with #mywelshkitchen.

The Playlist

To me, cooking and music go hand in hand, whether that’s singing at the top of your voice using a wooden spoon as a microphone while waiting for pasta to boil, or dancing around with the oven gloves on as the oven timer counts down. Here are some ideas for your Welsh Kitchen playlist.

As autumn is upon us, this issue I’ve gone for three very different versions of the song Autumn Leaves. First up is Welsh soprano Beverley Humphreys and then Bronwen Lewis, followed by Côr Meibion Cymru De Affrig, the Welsh Male Voice Choir of South Africa.

Autumn Leaves by Beverley Humphreys

Hydref Ddail by Bronwen

Autumn Leaves by Côr Meibion Cymru De Affrig

Ross recommends

Snowdonia Cheese Co. Ruby Mist

snowdoniacheese

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I’ve always been a big fan of Snowdonia Cheese Co. While the cave-aged Rock Star and extra-mature Black Bomber are my usual go-tos, I was delighted to discover that they have a new recipe for their Ruby Mist. Infused with Graham’s Late Bottled Vintage Port, this mature Cheddar has a wonderful depth and elegance to it. Ideal for a cheese board or with a little drop of port.

Buy it here

Fancy a bit of Wales in London?

Côr Y Boro Autumn Concert

coryboro_london

A post shared by @coryboro_london

In London next Friday and fancy a spot of Welsh music, singing and poetry – plus a nibble and tipple afterwards? I’ll be hosting (and singing) at the Côr Y Boro Autumn concert.

Tickets here

Marchnad Gymreig

londonwelshccll

A post shared by @londonwelshccll

Also coming up in London is the Autumn Market at the London Welsh Centre. It’s a great place to stock up on goodies and gifts for Christmas.

More info

Welsh Connections Walk

The fabulous Caroline James will be hosting another of her wonderful Welsh walks of London on 18 October. They are always fascinating and fun and a bargain at just £12.

Tickets here

From the archive

I also visited a berry farm, something I haven’t done in Wales since I was a child. The sort of place that you can pick your own punnet. Pablo the owner told me how wild berries used to proliferate in the Asturian countryside, but they are much harder to come across now. It’s one of the reasons he and his wife started the farm to begin with. I couldn’t help but select a few of the plump blackberries and blueberries, and sample their homemade fruit ice cream. I love summer fruits and a good forage on a hedgerow.

In all my 80+ Welsh cookbooks, there’s usually a section for drinks and many of them call for the scents and tastes of summer, such as elderflower. They are used to make wines and cordials in the old tradition of using what’s in season and preserving it for other times of year.

“Flowers played a part in cookery in Wales, as elsewhere, as a source of flavour and colour before the arrival of chemical agents. Marigolds, violets, roses, tansies and elderflowers were the most commonly used: marigolds for their pungent flavour (in Wales they floated the flower-heads on top of the cawl) and their yellow colour (a few marigold petals would effectively colour a custard or a cheese or a second-grade butter); violets went into creams and puddings to impart both flavour and colour. The scent a flavour of elderflowers is so powerful that a bunch of them drawn through any fine jam before bottling would flavour and scent it most deliciously, while the simply made elderflower wine, which the bouquet of German white wines echo more delicately, was employed to flavour junkets, cakes and light puddings. Country women in Wales today recall these practices and many still employ them.

Home-made wines and home-brewed beer played a significant role in the social life of the Welsh countryside for longer than they did in England, because tea, which replaced buttermilk and the home-produced beverages, was slower to win acceptance in Wales than it was in England. The hedgerows and moorlands provided a useful harvest of wild fruits and berries – whinberries, wild raspberries, cranberries, blackberries, crab apples and medlars – which came to the table in simple pies and puddings.” Traditional Food in Wales (1997), Bobby Freeman

I love this 1965 archive clip from the BBC where we meet Richard Batten, from Llanfihangel near Newbridge-On-Wye, and he tells us about what he makes from his foraged bounty.

The Recipe

Raspberry and lemon cordial

I’ve spoken before about how much I love a drop of squash, but I’ve never really thought of making cordial. That was until I stumbled upon some on-their-way-out raspberries (forever a bargain hunter) at my local greengrocers. I thought I’d give it a go and this is the result. A refreshing taste of summer in a glass. I’ve also diluted it with sparkling wine and it’s just as good if not better than water!

Ingredients

150g raspberries
2 large lemons
250g caster sugar
400ml water

Method

1. Peel the lemons using a potato peeler and pop the shavings into a saucepan, along with the raspberries, water and sugar.

2. Juice the lemons and add the juice to the pan.

3. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 10 minutes or so mashing down the raspberries.

4. Pour through a fine sieve or muslin squeezing out any excess.

5. Put the strained liquid back in the pan and boil again until it reduces slightly and gets thicker.

6. Store in a sterilised bottle or jar.

7. Dilute one part cordial to five parts water or to your taste.

If you try the recipe out, don’t forget to tag any photos with #mywelshkitchen.

The Playlist

To me, cooking and music go hand in hand, whether that’s singing at the top of your voice using a wooden spoon as a microphone while waiting for pasta to boil, or dancing around with the oven gloves on as the oven timer counts down. Here are some ideas for your Welsh Kitchen playlist.

We’ve lost two great Welsh singers recently, Stuart Burrows and Iris Williams. Stuart was born in Cilfynydd in Rhondda Cynon Taf, and had a magnificent career in opera across the world as well as his own TV show among other things. Iris was born in Pontypridd in Rhondda Cynon Taf, and was hugely successful also having her own TV show and performing across the world.

Myfanwy – Stuart Burrows

I hear you calling me – Stuart Burrows

He was beautiful – Iris Williams

Pererin Wyf – Iris Williams and Rhys Meirion

Ross recommends

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Matsudai Ramen x Halen Môn
One of the best things to come out of the pandemic has to be Matsudai Ramen’s make-at-home kits. They were lauded and rightly so. I recently got sent their latest one, which is a collaboration with my favourite salt brand Halen Môn. The deep, rich broth is divine, and the kit contains golden chicken chintan and seafood dashi double-soup with Halen Môn shio tare, wild garlic oil, custom wavy noodles, braised pork loin chashu, menma, and spring onions. You can also opt to include a seasoned ajitama egg. It’s really easy to put together and it’s like a warm hug in a bowl.

Buy the kit

Can you help?

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London Welsh School fundraising
Ysgol Gymraeg Llundain has been providing bilingual Welsh/English education in London for nearly 70 years, although the teaching of Welsh in London dates back much further – a Welsh school was founded in Clerkenwell 300 years ago as a charity school for poor Welsh children in London. The current school in Hanwell receives a small grant from the Welsh Government to help sustain the school. This funding is now only promised until the end of the school year 2026. Without this funding, the school will not be able to remain open. You can help by signing the petition to ensure that the Welsh government maintains this grant, and you can also donate to school.

Sign the petition

Donate to the London Welsh School

Wine time

There are still a few tickets left for my wine tasting at the London Welsh Centre tomorrow night. We’ll be tasting my choice of supermarket wines for summer.

Get your ticket

From the archive

Nanna and Poppa would shop smart, buying certain products here and others there to get the best value. Nan could also spend an hour in any discount shop inspecting every item to see whether it was worth the pound that they were asking for it. My granddad would wait patiently outside with the shopping bags watching the world go by while nan did her domestic goods inventory. My dad was passed this grocery reductions radar gene, and he will sniff out bargains in everywhere from supermarkets to charity shop. I often benefit from his charity shop finds. And, dear Welsh Kitchen reader, I am proud to say that I am my my grandmother’s grandson and my father’s son.

To clarify, this is not about things being cheap (although being frugal in the current economic situation is not a bad thing), it’s about finding value in the products. For example, I might purchase more expensive clementines because I think they taste better and peel easier. But when I talk about a product’s value, it’s also about how to can get the most out of that product, what I can do or make with it.

I cannot walk past a yellow label – it’s not in my genes to do so. It calls me from the edge of the shelf, luring me in with its flash of sunshine and giant barcode. I have to see what it is. Then I check the mark-down to see if it’s worth a punt on a product I might not normally buy or rejoice that the offer is good on a product I love. I also assess it for how I can use it. I love experimenting in the kitchen, particularly with ingredients that I’ve never used before, and finding a reduced quail or mooli fills me with a culinary creative spark.

My Nannie Gwen also instilled in me a loathing of food waste – eyes bigger than bellies was a cardinal sin and anyone being frivolous with food (think food fights, throwing away perfectly good leftovers) was given short shrift. It’s also for this reason that I can’t leave yellow-labelled goods on the shelf. I hate to think of them being wasted.

I’m trying to clear out my freezer again, as I cannot get any more in it. Nearly everything – bar the garden peas – has a yellow sticker on it. Sea bass fillets, whole chickens, they’re all in there waiting for their moment to shine in my kitchen. Talking of freezers, my flatmates often tell me I should do a series of ‘things I found in my freezer’ and subsequently what I cooked with it. The problem is, I’m not great at labelling leftovers when I freeze them, so it would make for an interesting read (and eating experience). It reminds me of that scene is Victoria Wood’s dinnerladies where Bren says she takes the labels off all her tins, “What’s it going to be? Fruit cocktail? Alphabetti spaghetti?”

Yesterday’s yellow-label haul included a large chicken down from £7 to £4, which I’m cooking for Sunday lunch, and the leftovers of which will go into possibly a pasta or curry. The bones I’ll boil down for stock and then make a soup or spring cawl. I also picked up some reduced oaty baps (reduced from £2.50 to £1.25), one of which I had yesterday for a tuna sarnie, and another this morning for a sausage, egg and brown sauce roll. I might use the other two to make herby croutons for salads or slice them in half and spread with rarebit. I feel like Ainsley Harriott on Ready Steady Cook, never knowing what’s going to be in the bag that I’m going to have rustle something up with. It's exhilarating and makes me be really think about flavours and keeps my meals anything but boring.

So, here’s to the bargain-hunting gene. Thanks Nan!

The Recipe

Bacon-wrapped fish with buttered greens

Cooking fish wrapped in bacon is an old Welsh culinary tradition. Originally, it’s likely that fish was fried simply in bacon fat, but there are several old recipes that use bacon to wrap around the fish – particularly sewin (sea trout). This is likely to have become a more popular way to cook it when ovens became more commonplace in homes. The bacon fat provides moisture to the trout, which can often dry out as it’s easy to overcook. Here in this recipe, I’m using the same principle but have subbed in white fish fillets. It’s an incredibly easy, quick and delicious dinner.

Ingredients (serves 2)

2 chunky white fish fillets (I used Basa – it was in my freezer with a yellow sticker on it – but cod or similar would also work well)
10 rashers of Welsh streaky bacon
2 medium Welsh leeks, roughly chopped
1 tbsp Welsh butter
300g frozen peas
1 lemon

Method

1. Preheat the oven 200°C/390°F/Gas Mark 6.

2. Gently wrap the bacon around each of the fish fillets and place on a baking tray lined with a bit of baking parchment, and pop them in the oven. They’ll need about 15-20 mins depending on the fillets, or until otherwise cooked through and with the bacon crisp. Feel free to turn them over half way through.

3. Meanwhile, soften the leeks in the pan with the butter for about 10 minutes before adding the frozen peas. Add the juice of the lemon, and simmer gently for a further five minutes or so, mixing often until the peas are tender.

4. Mound up the peas and leeks on a plate and place the fish on top, then grate a little lemon zest all over.

If you try the recipe out, don’t forget to tag any photos with #mywelshkitchen.

The Playlist

To me, cooking and music go hand in hand, whether that’s singing at the top of your voice using a wooden spoon as a microphone while waiting for pasta to boil, or dancing around with the oven gloves on as the oven timer counts down. Here are some ideas for your Welsh Kitchen playlist.

The very first Eurovision Song Contest was held 69 years ago yesterday on 24 May 1956. So, with that in mind, here are just a few UK Eurovision entrants with a Welsh connection. There are more, but here’s my selection.

1970 – Knock, Knock Who's There? by Pontardawe-born Mary Hopkin

1976 – Save Your Kisses for Me by Brotherhood of Man (member Nicky Stevens was born in Carmarthen)

1990 – Give a Little Love Back to the World by Emma (Louise Booth) from Bridgend

1992 – One Step Out of Time by Micheal Ball, whose mum is Welsh, and considers himself Welsh

2002 – Come Back by Jessica Garlick who grew up in Kidwelly

2017 – Never Give up On You by Pentyrch-born Lucie Jones

From the archive

But what about our national vegetable? Welsh leeks currently only have UKGI protected status, and that's only been since 2022. How has it taken so long for one of our most beloved symbols and a core part of so many Welsh dishes to be recognised? It got me thinking that perhaps leeks are just leeks, and that they’re not uniquely Welsh as we all like to think. Delightfully, after some digging, I'm glad to say that leeks are in fact very Welsh and we have the history and product itself to prove it.

It's thought that the Phoenicians first introduced leeks to Wales, possibly as a trade for highly-prized Welsh tin. Leeks were lauded throughout history for their supposed medicinal properties – and they are nutrient rich – so far back as the druids.

The Romans were big on them too. Emperor Nero was known for consuming them in great quantities, earning him the nickname Porophagus – leek eater – perhaps I could now claim that moniker! He believed that leeks improved his singing voice... so maybe we finally have an explanation for why Wales produces such fine singers.

There are a multitude of legends that leeks were used in battle by the Welsh. There are tales that St. David ordered soldiers to wear leeks on their helmets in a battle against the Saxon invaders to distinguish themselves from the enemy, and it’s said that the battle itself took place in a field of leeks. In the 7th century, Cadwaladr, king of Gwynedd, also supposedly ordered his men to tie a leek to their armour. In 1346 at the Battle of Crecy, the much-feared Welsh archers are wore white and green on their battle dress. In Tudor times, there are records that soldiers wore leeks – quite possibly on St David’s Day. Even now, Welsh Guards have white and green plumes and get presented with leeks every 1 March by the royals.

But what makes Welsh leeks different? Well, they are a hybrid. Leeks typically like Welsh soil and it's the reason they've been grown for centuries. According to the UKGI register, “The key feature of ‘Welsh Leeks’ is their predominant long distinctive dark green flag which comprises over 40% of the overall length of the leek. The remaining stem is a light fluorescent green that becomes white only within the last 10 – 20mm when in close proximity to the root.”

Leeks also feature heavily in Welsh cookery throughout history and looking back in my library of Welsh cookbooks, they appear in many recipes including the biggies such as cawl. I’ve included a few leek recipes from the archive to celebrate this great – and definitely Welsh – vegetable.

The Recipe

Lemon and caraway biscuits

Caraway crops up a lot in old Welsh recipes, from breads to cakes. I love the slightly perfumed liquorice taste they give, and a slight citrus that pairs well with lemon. These little butter biscuits are also a bit of a take on traditional Easter biscuits – although they have currants in. I’ve made them as fingers, but you can use whatever cutter you have in your kitchen, or even an upturned wine glass.

Ingredients (makes about 20)

100g Welsh butter
75g caster sugar
1 free-range egg
Zest of a lemon
1 ½ tsp caraway seeds, slightly crushed
200g plain flour

Method

1. Preheat the oven 200°C/390°F/Gas Mark 6. Line a baking tray with baking paper – you might need two or to cook them in batches.

2. Mix the butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and smooth.

3. Beat in the egg a little at a time until combined.

4. Add the lemon zest and caraway seeds and stir together.

5. Mix in the flour until you have a soft dough. You might need to add a drop of milk if it’s a bit tough and or dry.

6. Roll out the dough on a floured surface until about the thickness of two stacked £1 coins (about 5mm), and then cut into rounds or shapes using a cutter.

7. Place on the baking tray and bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes until they are just starting to turn golden at the edges.

8. Remove and cool on a wire rack. You can dust with more caster sugar if you like. Enjoy with a strong cup of Welsh Brew tea.

If you try the recipe out, don’t forget to tag any photos with #mywelshkitchen.

The Playlist

To me, cooking and music go hand in hand, whether that’s singing at the top of your voice using a wooden spoon as a microphone while waiting for pasta to boil, or dancing around with the oven gloves on as the oven timer counts down. Here are some ideas for your Welsh Kitchen playlist.

This issue we’ve got Tra Bo Dau (While There Are Two). This lovely folk song was thought to have kickstarted the revival of Welsh folk music at the start of the 1900s, when everything was all a bit hymny, and could be a touch fire and brimstone music-wise. There’s also music from Caernarfon-born Alis Glyn, and the bossa nova tones of Malan also from North Wales.

Tra Bo Dau by Al Lewis and Casi Wyn

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Golau by Alis Glyn

Dau Funud by Malan

Time to celebrate

I’m not sure how but thanks to you lovely lot in the Welsh Kitchen community, the newsletter has reached 1,000 subscribers. An enormous diolch yn fawr for taking the time to sign up, read and engage with each issue. And thank you too for all the lovely comments you send through to me. They honestly mean the world.

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That’s not the only good news. The Welsh Kitchen has been shortlisted for the Wales Food & Drink Champion of the Year award at the Wales Food & Drink Awards 2025. I got interviewed by the judging panel last week who will decide the winner. The results will be announced at the awards on 22 May at Venue Cymru, Llandudno.

From the archive

St David said:

It got me thinking – as it does every 1st March – about how important the little things are. The details, the tweaks, the small gestures. It also made me think about how it's the little things in the food and drink world that often make all the difference, too. Here are five of the little food and drink things that allow me to "be joyful" – another of St David's mottos.

Doilies

When my Nannie Gwen was having a party at her house, you could pretty much guess the menu: red salmon (it's posher than pink) from a tin liberally doused with malt vinegar and white pepper on upturned half baps, crisps of the Hula Hoop, onion ring or chipple variety, corned beef sandwich triangles, mini sausage rolls, or cocktail sausages on sticks. There might have been other regulars and some rogue surprises that I can't remember, but nothing, and I mean nothing left the kitchen without a paper doily underneath it – maybe even two to make sure that not a hint of plate touched the food. It seems a bit old fashioned now, but lo and behold, my mum magicked some from the cling film drawer the other day to put underneath some ham sandwiches and mini pork pies for a party. It made me look at them again in a differnt light. In some ways, they do elevate the eating experience. As flimsy as the paper is and however kitsch, they seemed to make the plate of sandwiches that little bit fancier. So, I'm starting the #bringbackthedoily campaign now.

Toast

Bread (other than tea and wine) is my biggest vice. I love it in all its floury forms. But something wondrous happens when you apply a little heat to a slice. In reality, its the milliard reaction, where amino acids and sugars react to form the golden colour and the sweet, rich taste and new flavour compounds. In my mouth, it's a taste sensation. And sandwiches are quite possibly the best food creation on the planet, but spread the outside with butter and pop it in a pan for a few minutes and you’ve got a thing of wonder. Toasties are deity level.

A good mug

I’ve mentioned before about how I can’t go through a day without at least eight cups of tea, but not all teas are created equal. We all know that person who is just useless at making a decent cuppa. But it’s not just how it’s made that makes a big difference to the joy that comes from steeping dried leaves in hot water and adding milk. What it’s served in is crucial to proper tea enjoyment. I like a big mug, but not so big that it gets cold too quickly, as there’s nothing worse than cold tea. The inside of the mug has to be white ideally so that you can get the correct colour when brewing. It has to have a handle that you can actually get your fingers through, but also the mug needs to be a good size and shape so that you can hug it with your hands when it’s a bit chilly and you want warming comfort.

Opening tins

There’s previously been a whole newsletter dedicated to tins, such is my love for them, but I’m not sure that I extolled the virtues and joy that comes from opening them. Perhaps it’s the fact you have to sort of break into them and prise apart metal. That there’s a secret inside that you need to unlock. If I were ranking them, ring-pulls are my least favourite, although there’s a sense of accomplishment at being able to actually bend metal back with your bare hands, like Superman. Standard tins comes next. The ones that you use a tin opener for, where I like the mechanical operation of it and how the lid comes off very neatly. Next is the pop-open-with-a-spoon-handle tins. You don’t see them much now, but custard powder used to come in them, and golden syrup and treacle. The easing up of all around like a paint can until you finally get that satisfying pop sound. King of tins however, has to be the corned beef tin. For starters, it’s got a key! Then you have to bend, twist and wind that little strip of metal until you can hinge the tin open, and encourage the corned beef out with a knife in that lovely squelchy thud. I think it’s also the danger factor – my Nannie Gwen was insistent that you will cut yourself on an opened corned beef tin, and I still handle them rather gingerly even as an adult.

Roast potato scraps

Who doesn’t love a roast potato? They certainly have to up there in the top tier of potato goodness. But my particular little thing to be joyful about is the loose flakes or scraps of potato that litter the roasting pan. They are often welded on with some might but a sturdy spatula or knife jabbed underneath sets them free. They are crispy, crunchy, full of fat from the cooking grease, and oh-so delightful. Pure potato perfection!

I could go on and on, but I’ll leave you to think of your own little food and drink things that make you joyful. I hope you have a fabulous St David’s Day, whatever you’re doing. I’ll be onto my second do of the week tonight – a twmpath at the London Welsh Centre. Last night I had the honour to be invited to the annual St David’s Day dinner at the Guildhall in London. The event has been running since 1904 to celebrate all things Welsh in London. Many thanks to Rhys and the team at Pensaer architects for the invitation.

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!

Ross x

The Recipe

As it’s a celebratory time, I thought I’d share a few classic Welsh recipes from the archive that you might want to rustle up this week.

CAWL:

BARA BRITH

RAREBIT

WELSH CAKES

If you try the recipe out, don’t forget to tag any photos with #mywelshkitchen.

The Playlist

To me, cooking and music go hand in hand, whether that’s singing at the top of your voice using a wooden spoon as a microphone while waiting for pasta to boil, or dancing around with the oven gloves on as the oven timer counts down. Here are this week’s ideas for your Welsh Kitchen playlist.

It’s an outrageously patriotic bunch of singers and songs to celebrate St David. Crank the volume up and sing along.

O Gymru by students of University of Wales Trinity Saint David

Myfanwy by Sheku Kanneh-Mason

We’ll keep a welcome by Shirley Bassey, Bryn Terfel and Michael Ball

Tom Jones - Green Green Grass Of Home

Safwn yn y bwlch by Côr Unedig Clybiau Rygbi De Cymru

International Velvet by Catatonia

Hen wlad fy nhadau by the London Welsh Male Voice Choir and Waterbeach Brass

Check out my other work

I mentioned a little while ago that I was working on some recipes for a well-known supermarket. I’m delighted to say that they are now out in the world. You can see them here on the Ocado website or find them in Ocado Life magazine. Thanks to the team at Sunday for the commissions and letting me bang on about how wonderful Welsh food is.

Welsh 'Pearbit'

Mini Lamb Hot Pots

Anglesey Eggs with Sausages and Peas

St David’s Day subscription offer

Help support my work producing this newsletter each month by buying or gifting a paid subscription. Money from the newsletter goes towards helping me source and buy ingredients to test the recipes and to buy products to review. For the month of March, yearly subscriptions are just £12 – that’s just one pound a month.

Get 40% off forever

I can't quite believe I'm saying it, but this little newsletter is four years old. I started it in the midst of lockdown number two (shudder) on a bit of a whim. I was hardly writing anything, as the pandemic had put paid to much of my work as a travel writer. I desperately needed an outlet for my words but also for my own sanity. I can’t speak for other writers but I definitely get rusty if I don’t write for some time. I knew I didn’t want to create a blog (that seemed very 2001) and I had been hearing good things about Substack. I felt it gave a real connection between me the writer and you the reader. So, thanks for letting me land in your inbox each month, and for joining this ever-growing community of Welsh food and drink lovers – nearly 1,000 of them!

Talking of lovers, today is Dydd Santes Dwynwen (Saint Dwynwen’s Day) the Welsh patron saint of love.

The tale goes that Dwynwen grew up in the area that we now know as Bannau Brycheiniog, which gets its name from Dwynwen’s father, King Brychan Brycheiniog, a 5^th century ruler of mid-Wales. Dwynwen was said to be the most beautiful of the king’s 24 (yikes!) daughters, and she fell in love with local lad (and as many legends go a bit of a handsome fellow) Maelon. But as is common in so many of these stories, the King had other plans for his daughter and wanted to marry her off to someone else.

Dwynwen was distraught at the thought of never being with her beloved Maelon and ran into the woods in floods of tears. She was praying for help to make her forget all about Maelon when an angel appeared, and gave her a potion that they promised would do the trick. What she didn’t realise, however, was that by drinking it, Maelon would be turned into a block of ice. But Dwynwen was also granted three wishes. Firstly, she wished that Maelon be released from his icy prison, that God would protect all those on the path of true love, and finally that she would never be married.

Dwynwen fled to Llanddwyn Island in Ynys Môn (Anglesey), became a nun and founded a convent. She died around 460AD and people still make pilgrimages to the site today where you’ll see remains of a 16^th century church. The fish in the nearby well were said to be able to determine the destiny of lovers who peered into the depths.

So in the spirit of Saint Dwynwen, today I encourage you to show someone that you love them, perhaps with a hug, sending them a message or cooking them a lovely meal (there’s plenty of inspiration in the previous 92 issues if this newsletter!)

Thank you once again for subscribing and reading the Welsh Kitchen.

Diolch o galon,

Ross x

The Recipe

Welsh whisky marmalade

It’s the season for Seville oranges. They are the best for making marmalade as they are naturally bitter. I never used to be a fan of marmalade particularly with the shred in, but now I often favour it over jam. This one has the addition of a good glug of Welsh whisky for an extra-special treat. It is a bit of a process to make, but well worth it for the delight you’ll get each morning when you spread it on your toast. I think it’s also good with cheese.

Ingredients (makes 6-8 jars)

1kg Seville oranges, cut in half
1 lemon, cut in half
2kg granulated sugar
100ml Welsh whisky (I used Aber Falls)

Kit

Jam jars
Muslin

Method

1. Put a piece of muslin over a large bowl in preparation. Juice the oranges and lemon and pour the juice into a very large pan (I use stainless steel for this with a heavy base).

2. Scrape the inside of the orange shells to remove the pith. Place all the pith, pips etc in the muslin. Don’t worry about removing every last bit of pith from the orange peel as any small bits will melt in the pan later.

3. Slice the orange peel into thin strips, any leftover bits and pieces and the lemon husks, you can put in the muslin too. Put the sliced peel in the pan with the juice.

4. Tie up the muslin bag and pop it in the pan along with 2.5 litres of water. Bring the whole thing to the boil, then turn down and simmer for 2 hours until the peel is really soft when you press it against the side of the pan.

5. Pop a few saucers in the freezer for later and preheat your oven to low. Remove the muslin bag and pop it in a bowl to cool. Wash your jam jars and pop them in the oven to dry out thoroughly.

6. When the muslin bag is cool enough to handle, squeeze out all of the pulp and juice into the pan. This is my favourite part! When you got as much out as you can, you can discard the muslin and the contents.

7. Whisk in the sugar thoroughly over a low heat until completely dissolved – make sure that there are no sugar crystals left. Then bring the whole thing up to a rolling boil for 15 minutes, stirring every few minutes.

8. Take a saucer out of the freezer and spoon a little of the marmalade onto it and pop in the fridge for a minute or two. If you can push your finger through it and it wrinkles along the saucer, it’s ready. If not continue boiling for a further five minutes and try again until it’s ready.

9. Allow the marmalade to cool for 5 mins before adding the whisky, be careful as it might froth up.

10. Remove the jars from the oven and carefully (everything will be hot), spoon the marmalade into the jars and seal with the lid.

If you try the recipe out, don’t forget to tag any photos with #mywelshkitchen.

The Playlist

To me, cooking and music go hand in hand, whether that’s singing at the top of your voice using a wooden spoon as a microphone while waiting for pasta to boil, or dancing around with the oven gloves on as the oven timer counts down. Here are this week’s ideas for your Welsh Kitchen playlist.

January marks the birthdays of Dame Shirley Bassey who turned 88 on the 8^th, and Daniel James (Gwyrosydd) who was born on 23 January 1848 and is the writer of one of the most beloved Welsh hymns, Calon Lân. Here are two love songs for Santes Dwynwen.

Almost like being in love by Dame Shirley Bassey

Calon lân by Cerys Matthews

An anniversary discount

To celebrate four years of the Welsh Kitchen, I’m offering 40 per cent off yearly subscriptions. That means it’s just £12 for the whole year.

Get 40% off forever

From the archive

Read more

Noir black garlic salt from Chilli of the Valley

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I tried this for the first time this year (and the whole bulbs of black garlic) and loved it. Black garlic has a deep, subtle flavour compared with the in-your-face aspect of everyday garlic. Use this to sprinkle on eggs, roast potatoes, and steak. Try using it to flavour risotto or as a rub for slow-cooked meat.

Buy it here

Santa’s Greatest Secret by Lyndon Jeremiah

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I first saw this poem a few years ago and have delighted in reading it ever since. You can buy it as a beautifully illustrated children’s book from Jeremiah Publishing where a portion of the profits goes towards 2wish – a service that provides immediate and ongoing bereavement support for families, individuals and professionals affected by the sudden and traumatic death of a child or young adult aged 25 or under. You can by it in English or yn Cymraeg. Hear the story in the Welsh playlist below →

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South Stack Golden Rum from Anglesey Rum Co

Generally, I’m not a big rum drinker but this gorgeous golden rum had me sold when I sipped it. It’s definitely got a slight whisky quality to it – probably why I liked it – and hints of vanilla, dried fruit peel and honey. A lovely Christmas tipple.

Buy it here

Velfrey Vineyard Rhosyn

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This is still one of the best sparkling wines I’ve tried this year (and there have been many!). Yes, it’s a bit on the pricier side, but it’s worth every penny for the quality and care that’s gone into producing it – and it tastes spectacular. It would make a special gift for someone or a welcome treat for a dinner table. I think sparkling pairs well with lots of foods but to me, this would go beautifully with pastry canapes, salmon en croute and more.

Buy a bottle

Gwinllan Llaethliw Vineyard White Wine

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I tried this for the second time recently at the London Welsh Centre’s autumn market, and it stuck with me. It’s a bright, fresh white with good acidity making it ideal for pairing with things like fish and chips, as well as poultry and cheese.

Buy a bottle

Daffodil Hot Sauce

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This is one of the first products I ever featured on the Welsh Kitchen. I spotted that Cai had started making some batches again recently and his shop is now open again online. Warning: this is potent stuff, but if you like heat, you’ll love these sauces. I rather fancy trying the Habonariro & Charred Ginger Preserve for a sweet-spicy kick to go with cold meat and chips on Boxing Day.

Buy it here

Bossa Nova Champagne chocolates

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I rather love these little handmade choccies from Newport-based Boss Nova. I tried a selection of chocolates recently and I think these laced with Champagne were my favourite. Surprise, surprise.

Buy a box

Nadolig Llawen, Merry Christmas,

Ross x

The Recipe

Mincemeat cake

I was cleaning out my kitchen cupboards recently and found a jar of mincemeat from last year and I wondered what to do with it. Yes, it was past its sell-by date but I’m of the opinion that something with that much sugar and dried fruit in it, can’t go off in a hurry. I didn’t want to make mince pies though (as much as I love them) as it felt a bit too early, so instead I used it in this cake.

Ingredients (makes one loaf)

175g butter
100g soft light brown sugar
3 free-range eggs
1tsp ground mixed spice
½ tsp ground ginger
200g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
1 jar (400g) Christmas mincemeat

Method

1. Line a loaf tin with baking paper and preheat the oven to Gas Mark 3/160°C/320°F.

2. Cream together the butter and sugar.

3. Whisk in the eggs bit by bit until combined. Add a spoonful of the flour if it starts to curdle.

4. Gently fold in the spices, flour, baking powder and mincemeat.

5. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for about an hour.

If you try the recipe out, don’t forget to tag any photos with #mywelshkitchen.

The Playlist

To me, cooking and music go hand in hand, whether that’s singing at the top of your voice using a wooden spoon as a microphone while waiting for pasta to boil, or dancing around with the oven gloves on as the oven timer counts down. Here are this week’s ideas for your Welsh Kitchen playlist.

A festive playlist for you this issue, with hits from David Alexander, Côr Y Boro, Rhys Meirion and Elan Meirion, and Dame Shirley Bassey.

Silent Night by David Alexander

Gwyl y Baban by Côr Y Boro | Borough Welsh Choir

Hwiangerdd Mair (Mary’s Lullaby) by Rhys Meirion and Elan Meirion

The Christmas Song by Dame Shirley Bassey, Ollie Baines, Stephen Bowman and Humphrey Berney

Santa’s Greatest Secret by Lyndon Jeremiah

From the archive

When testing, I jot down as I'm going along, adding +15mins to my original 45mins if something needs longer than I expected, or 100ml + 20ml if something needs more liquid than I had imagined. Some cooks (trained chefs more often) are able to divine quantities and timings before cooking, but I have to taste as I go along, and judge if and when somethings needs whipping out of the oven before it burns.

By the end, I have a scribbled recipe on a tomato sauce or tea-splattered piece of paper, which eventually I'll type up neatly and orderly. But I rarely throw the paper version away. I like to refer back to the process and there's something about having both physically written it, and then reading the hand-written copy back, crossings out, asterisks and all.

I also love seeing handwritten recipes. I'll often find them inside second-hand cook books, neatly folded over and stored at the back. They're often entitled Aunty Marjorie's Pineapple Cake, Mum's Bolognese, or Dad's Boxing Day Chutney. I like to see the penmanship as much as the recipe itself. I wonder if they were gifted over the phone or passed at a family gathering or over a cuppa in the office kitchen. My colleague Andy sent me a photo of a family recipe for a corned beef risotto he was talking to me about recently. It was typed up (very posh) but had added handwritten notes in the margin. I'll report back on how I get on with it soon – it sounds right up my street. I also found a few in a book my Great Auntie Den gave me. She'd noted them from a magazine or book or somewhere on random bits of paper. I also like to see what people have scribbled them down on: the back of an envelope, a notelet, a bit of cereal box card etc – all the better if they are splattered with a bit of experimental cooking concoction.

I feel as if a lot of these recipes have simply been stored in people’s heads and this is the moment that they’ve finally been put to paper for one reason or another (a child off to university, a plea to have the secret recipe, or just as an aide-memoire). Today’s newsletter recipe is one of those that lives in my head because I’ve made a version of it that many times, and I can roughly judge the quantities without measuring. But as you can’t read my mind, I put my tester hat on and noted down the recipe for you. Enjoy!

The Recipe

Welsh whisky rarebit with Marmite toast

It’s that time of year for bringing out the rarebit. Warming, comforting, easy to prepare and versatile, rarebit is my go-to for cosying up at home. I’ve used Marmite here on the toast to bring even more deep richness to the rarebit, but you can just have the toast plain if you’re a Marmite hater.

Ingredients (serves 2)

1tbsp butter
1tbsp plain (all-purpose) flour
60ml (a double measure) of Welsh whisky  (I used Aber Falls)
50ml warm milk
125g mature Cheddar cheese, grated (I used Dragon)
1tsp English mustard
2 rounds crusty bread (I like sourdough as it’s a bit more robust)
Marmite (optional)

Method

1. In a saucepan, melt the butter until it starts fizzing, then tip in the flour and whisk together to form a paste. Cook for a minute or two.

2. Combine the milk and whisky. Add bit by bit to the saucepan, whisking all the time to create a smooth paste.

3. Mix in the grated Cheddar and mustard until the cheese has melted.

4. Lightly toast the bread and spread with Marmite. Dollop a generous helping of the rarebit on top.

5. Place under a hot grill until bubbling.

If you try the recipe out, don’t forget to tag any photos with #mywelshkitchen.

The Playlist

To me, cooking and music go hand in hand, whether that’s singing at the top of your voice using a wooden spoon as a microphone while waiting for pasta to boil, or dancing around with the oven gloves on as the oven timer counts down. Here are this week’s ideas for your Welsh Kitchen playlist.

First up, we have Goldie Lookin Chain. I spotted that the lads from Newport have new music out and I loved this song all about the Middle of Lidl. Secondly, with Remembrance this coming week, I thought this piece about dreaming of home, of Wales, was fitting. This version of Cymru Fach is a live recording by the wonderful Katherine Jenkins from the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod in 2006.

The Middle of Lidl by Goldie Lookin Chain

Cymru Fach by Katherine Jenkins

Ross Recommends

Good food is nothing without good ingredients and thankfully there are plenty of fantastic Welsh products on the market. Here is where you’ll find recommendations to stock up your cupboard, fridge or fruit bowl, or a really great place or event for food.

Boss Nova Chocolates

Yes, the lights are going on and trees are going up, so Christmas must be on its way, and advent will soon be upon us. This luxury advent calendar is filled with the most gorgeous chocolates from Bossa Nova. I tasted many of the different chocs that they produce recently and there was not a dud among them. Made in Newport (just up the road from where I grew up), these chocolates are the brainchild and handcrafted creation of the lovely Andrea who painstakingly sourced the best cocoa and ingredients to create her signature confectionary – all with a Brazilian twist. Bossa Nova cocoa beans are bought as much as possible directly from farmer cooperatives to ensure that farmers earn a better price for their crop and can improve their livelihoods.

Follow Bossa Nova on Instagram

My month in food and drink

It’s been another busy month for me, which started at the fabulous Neath Food Festival, where I spoke on a panel (along with Kacie from The Rare Welsh Bit and Jake from Swansea Spotlight) about how Welsh food and drink brands can work with influencers, content creators, and the media. I was shocked at how busy the market was, and how many great stalls there were, from Barry Island Sprit Co. and Fat Bottom Welsh Cakes, to Little Goat Brewery and Popty Cara. There was also some great live music on the outdoor stage and I had the most delicious tacos from Zakinthebox Streetfood.

Then it was onto try out a brand new Cardiff restaurant, Terra Mare. This Italian-Mediterranean spot on High Street serves dishes inspired by Puglia using a lot of Welsh ingredients such as Pembrokeshire Atlantic Edge oysters. The standout dish for me was veggie Spaghettoni alla poveraccia – long thick spaghetti with a tomato, caper, olive, and spenwood cheese sauce. I would have totally believed that it was meaty, as it certainly had all the richness of a quality meat sauce. Come for cocktails and stay for dinner.

Next up, an event to celebrate some lesser-known protected EU products, from wines to deli meats. You’ve heard of Parmigiano Reggiano and Rioja wines, but what about Spanish Garnacha wines from Campo de Borja, Cariñena, Calatayud and Terra Alta, or Mortadella Bologna from Italy? These spectacular products are often made by small producers who value high quality over quantity. You can find out more here.

londonwelshccll

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Finally, I had the delight to host a pairing workshop at the London Welsh Centre’s Autumn Market. We sampled in our tasting session wines from Llaethlliw Vineyard, gin from Llanfairpwll Distillery, golden rum from Anglesey Rum Co, along with Welsh nduja from Cwm Farm Charcuterie, savoury Welsh cakes from Rogue Welsh Cakes, black garlic salt from Chilli of the Valley, Cheddar from Blaenavon Cheddar Company, pear chutney from Bryn Williams, and chocolates from Bossa Nova among others. I was delighted to hear that attendees to the market topped 1,500 this year, double last year’s total.

Movember

theguiri

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Anyone who knows me, will be well aware that I have always struggled to grow facial hair. My beard is patchier than the phone signal in my flat, and has more gaps than the London Underground. But, I think I can just about grow a moustache. It's on my list of things to do before I turn 40 (in two years' time) and I'm raising money for men’s mental health, prostate and testicular cancer charities for all the friends and colleagues who never got the chance to make it to 40.

Donate to my Movember

From the archive

Back then, all good things came in tins according to my picky palate: peach halves in syrup, rice pudding, chicken soup, Big Soup, beans and sausages, Fray Bentos pies, tuna chunks in brine, fruit cocktail (minus the gross cherries), Bigga marrowfat peas, minced beef in gravy, and of course, my beloved corned beef.

There's something magical about food in a tin. Bear with on this one. First and foremost, it's such a simple, clever idea to preserve food. And I hate food waste, so canning goods that would otherwise spoil – or for you to enjoy out of season – fills me with glee. Secondly, there's the ritual of opening a tin. The exciting pop of a ring pull, the mechanical hardware of a tin opener, and the frankly bizarre unfurling of a corned beef tin with its key. It's like opening a present. Even though you might know or guess what's inside, unlike most other products, you can't see it, so there's still an element of surprise.

Besides, tins are so handy. They’re always there in the cupboard when needed. Empty, they can be recycled or upcycled. Particularly nice ones I've made into pencil pots, plant pots and ornaments.

I think we have a slight image problem with tins in the UK, both the physical appearance of them (look at Portugal for how to make tins an artform), and also the reputation of them. We seem to value them almost as a wartime souvenir, filled with cheap, poor-quality products. The truth is that this couldn't be further from the truth. Often, tinned vegetables can rival frozen and fresh for nutritional value. But where we seem not to give tins their glory is regarding tinned fish.

I recently had the delight to be invited to a seafood canning factory in Galicia in northern Spain (the bit above Portugal). Not only do factory and production lines hypnotise me, but I love to see where food comes from and how it gets to our plates. The factory, Conservas La Brújula, cans all sorts of shellfish and seafood, from mussels to tuna, sardines to mackerel. I was fascinated by how the seafood comes in, is cleaned and cooked and then so carefully and purposefully placed into the tins. These tins are considered premium but after seeing the work that goes into them, their price tag still seemed modest. I couldn’t help but snaffle some tins to bring home in my hand luggage.

I got to see firsthand where the mussels come from with a boat trip out to the bateras (mussel farm platforms). Long ropes are strung down from these floating jetties and the mussels grow on the rope. Here in the Rías Baixas region, seafood is highly prized and each of the bateras are often owned by single families – and no wonder, as one recently sold for more than a million euros. Our captain deftly served up mussels and razor clams from the tiny galley onboard and we washed it down in the sunshine with local albariño wine from Martín Códax. Heaven!

Anyway, back to tins. I’ve always got a line of tins in my pantry: anchovies (they make a great base for all sorts of dishes from Spanish-style rices to Bolognese), corned beef (for stew, sandwiches, pie etc), beans of all kinds, chopped tomatoes as they are so handy, tuna and salmon, mackerel in olive oil (one of my favourite lunchtime treats on toast), laverbread, and then some random product I’ve picked up on my travels or found in the supermarket and want to experiment with (canned jackfruit is a recent example). With that, I might have to have a squirrel around in the cupboard to see what intriguing tin is hiding at the back.

The Recipe

Pea, leek and bean soup

Today’s recipe seems apt, firstly because the weather has taken a turn and autumn is certainly upon us, and secondly, as it uses a lovely tin of cannellini beans. Peas might just be my favourite vegetable (excluding potatoes), and this combines fresh, bright peas with gorgeous, sweet leeks and buttery cannellini beans. I put half the tin in before I blitz it to give the soup some heft, and then put the other half in after so that there are some whole beans and a bit of texture. I’m topping mine with some crispy chorizo, but it would also be great with some crumbled cheese, or crunchy croutons.

Ingredients (serves 4 with bread)

Butter/olive oil (bacon fat also works well!)
Two medium leeks, roughly chopped
1 bay leaf
1 tin cannellini beans (or butter beans)
500ml pork stock (or another stock of your choosing)
300g frozen peas
Drop of cream/milk
Salt
White pepper
Chorizo/cured ham, diced (optional)

Method

1. In a saucepan, gently soften the chopped leeks in a little butter or olive oil together with the bay leaf.

2. Add the stock and half the tin of beans. Allow to simmer for 10 minutes.

   Add the frozen peas and simmer for a further 5 minutes.

3. Fish out the bay leaf. Blitz the soup using a blender until smooth.

4. Tip in the other half tin of beans, and stir through a little cream or milk to loosen up the puree. Season with salt and pepper.

5. Meanwhile, gently fry the chorizo or ham until crisp.

6. Serve the soup sprinkled with the crispy chorizo, a drizzle of the chorizo oil and a dusting more of pepper.

If you try the recipe out, don’t forget to tag any photos with #mywelshkitchen.

The Playlist

To me, cooking and music go hand in hand, whether that’s singing at the top of your voice using a wooden spoon as a microphone while waiting for pasta to boil, or dancing around with the oven gloves on as the oven timer counts down. Here are this week’s ideas for your Welsh Kitchen playlist.

First up, we have Olivia Newton-John, who would have turned 76 last week. Her dad, Brinley “Bryn” Newton-John was a university professor born in Cardiff. Here she sings the classic All Through the Night. Secondly, we have Sir Tom singing on the latest series of The Voice UK with fellow coach LeAnn Rimes.

All Through the Night by Olivia Newton-John

Let It Be Me by Tom Jones and LeAnn Rimes

Ross Recommends

Good food is nothing without good ingredients and thankfully there are plenty of fantastic Welsh products on the market. Here is where you’ll find recommendations to stock up your cupboard, fridge or fruit bowl, or a really great place or event for food.

I’ve three events for you this issue. Firstly, I’m going to be on a panel discussing how food and drink producers can work with journalists, influencers and creators at Neath Food Festival – if you’re there, do come along and say hello.

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Then we’ve got a London-based concert with my choir, Côr Y Boro. It’ll be an evening filled with music, poetry, some chat from me, and a good drink and some nibbles afterwards.

Book tickets

Finally, the Welsh Autumn Market is returning to the London Welsh Centre on 19 October. There will be lots of lovely Welsh producers selling their products – and you might even catch me floating around making a nuisance of myself while stuffing my face with some good Welsh grub.

londonwelshccll

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From the archive

You then took your ‘new’ trolley to a packing shelf where you loaded up your bags with shopping. The idea of Kwik Save was no-frills value with a warehouse-style store. You always had to pay for carrier bags, so many would bring their own (sound familiar?). The alcohol, fresh counters and greengrocer concessions were run as separate franchises to keep costs and wastage down. What most people don’t realise is that Kwik Save was started in Wales by Albert Gubay in Prestatyn in 1965.

Anyway, before we got to Kwik Save and it’s walk in fridges (very cool back in the day), we would often visit the bin shop. I pretty sure that wasn’t its actual name, but I've no idea what it was actually called. It was a shop that sold dry goods (porridge oats, lentils etc) out of giant bins, that you could measure out yourself, before they would be weighed and priced. Again, this was ahead of its time, as you now find refill shops on the high street. Several supermarkets have tried the idea of refill over the last few years under the guise of reducing plastic and packaging. Asda has just announced that it’s cutting back on its refill stations that stocked up to 30 staples in some stores, but M&S and Ocado have announced plans for expanding the concept.

Near where I live in, there's a version of the bin shop called The Source Bulk Foods. I often go to stock up on lentils and porridge oats – not dissimilar to my Nannie Gwen’s shopping list. I like the fact that I can get just the exact amount I need. A cake I made recently called for 300g of ground almonds, and I could get exactly that amount, whereas if I went to the supermarket, I would have had to have bought 400g. One of my pet hates is having to buy packs of vegetables in the supermarket when I only need one of something. Not that much gets wasted in my kitchen, but sometimes I don’t really want to eat four courgettes in a week. I just like to buy what I actually need rather than in excess. I hate food waste and I have become slightly obsessive in my using up of every scrap of food, much to the wonder and amazement of my flatmates who often look strangely at the food combinations that I put together – but I refuse to throw something away if I don’t have to.

In other news, I’ve bought a new bookcase (which I upcycled over the bank holiday weekend – I love a project!) and moved my cookbooks, leaving me with two free shelves in the kitchen. I’m going to make them into a little larder of dry goods in jars that I can refill at the local bin shop. As if it weren’t obvious before, I’m definitely turning into my grandparents – and that’s no bad thing.

The Recipe

Ham with laverbread sauce and roasted onions

Between the ages of four and 11, I took the same packed lunch to school every day (except Wednesdays when I went home for lunch with my Nannie Gwen). This was not down to my mum’s lack of imagination or culinary credentials. It was because I was an incredibly picky, no not just picky… fussy eater. I ate a ham sandwich on sliced white bread every lunchtime. I still love a ham sandwich now, although my tastes have certainly developed and my fussiness has subsided. This recipe is for boiled ham – something I only tend to have at Christmastime – but I don’t know why, as I love it. I’ve paired it with a really simple laverbread sauce that goes with all sorts of cooked meats, not just ham, and some wonderful little roasted pickled onions.

Ingredients

1 small ham joint
3 bay leaves
Small jar of pickled onions, drained
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp plain flour
300ml milk
1 small tin of laverbread (about 120g)
1 tsp ground white pepper

Method

1. Cook the ham according to the packet instructions in a large pot of water with the bay leaves – usually 20 mins for every 450g, plus an extra 20 mins. When the ham starts to boil, gently skim off the white scum that will float to the top. You can pre-soak your ham if you want to get rid of excess salt, but ham is not nearly as salty as it once was, so there’s no real need. Remove from the water when cooked and reserve under foil until ready to serve.

2. Meanwhile, toss the pickled onions in a little olive oil, and roast in a hot oven for about 10-15 mins until brown.

3. In a saucepan, melt the butter and then add the flour and stir. Heat for a minute or two to cook out the flour, then gradually add the milk bit by bit, whisking all the time, until you have a smooth sauce. Add the laverbread and white pepper, and mix well. Season with a little salt to taste.

4. Slice the ham and drizzle with the sauce and server with the pickled onions.

The Playlist

To me, cooking and music go hand in hand, whether that’s singing at the top of your voice using a wooden spoon as a microphone while waiting for pasta to boil, or dancing around with the oven gloves on as the oven timer counts down. Here are this week’s ideas for your Welsh Kitchen playlist.

Music from Cerys Matthews and Catatonia this issue, and Cerys Hafana who pushes the boundaries of the triple harp in her compositions.

Road Rage by Catatonia

Tragwyddoldeb by Cerys Hafana

Ross recommends

Cardiff Wine Passport

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You’ve still got four weeks left to buy and use your Cardiff Wine Passport. I have loved this idea since its inception a few years ago. You buy the passport and then trade it in for a glass of wine at any of the 15 participating independent venues in and around the city. Time to get sipping!

Buy your passport

From the archive

Often the answer is one of two things: salt or time. Let's take them one by one.

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Salt is a magic ingredient. It can make dishes sing, add much needed savouriness to something sweet, or make your tongue tingle. Last weekend, I hosted the Wine & Spirits Theatre at the National Geographic Traveller Food Festival again. I explained to the thirsty visitors about tannins in wine and tea. In the UK we drink a lot of tea, which is tannic. You can feel tannins on your gums, they cause that drying sensation and make us notice more bitterness. You'll know the taste of tannins if you've ever left a teabag in for too long. To overcome tannic bitterness, we add milk and sometimes sugar to tea. I'm not suggesting you do the same with wine or your food, but here's where our magic ingredient comes in again. Salt also reduces the tannic feeling. It's why we tend to eat naturally salty foods with red wine – everything from salted nuts to charcuterie, steak to slow-cooked lamb. A classic chefy trick is to add salt to lift the flavours. It's also why you should pay attention when a recipe says to season a dish well.

The other missing part can often be time. We all know that marinated foods taste better when left longer, curry, chilli con carne or stew tastes better the day after. But it's also true of everything from how long you've boiled pasta, to giving a cake a few more minutes in the oven. Food writer Jenny Linford perhaps describes it best in her book The Missing Ingredient:

In old Welsh recipes, the answer to the missing ingredient seems to be neither salt nor time, rather, add bacon fat or dried fruit. Laverbread...cooked in bacon fat. Pancakes... with currants. But of course, bacon fat tastes salty, and currants are naturally sweet due to the time they've spent ripening.

What makes food taste great is also something that I've had to consider over the last couple of months, as I have had the great joy of being a judge for the Guild of Fine Food Great Taste awards. You'll know Great Taste, as you've no doubt spotted the little black and gold stickers on products in the supermarket with either one, two or three stars, which denote if a product has made it through the rigorous blind-testing process, and had consensus from the judges that it tastes, well... great. To get three stars, a product needs to be judged by around 20-25 judges who come from the world of food. They might be chefs and restaurateurs, producers, food writers, critics, honey sommeliers, chocolatiers etc.

This year I tasted some outstanding products, including silky anchovies and butter, a smooth golden rum, a zingy passionfruit sorbet, and a luxurious rum and raisin ice cream with heavily soaked raisins (my Nannie Gwen would have approved).

The results of the latest Great Taste products were released yesterday. So, look out for new Great Taste-awarded products in shops soon. Last year’s Wales winner of the prestigious Golden Fork award (the product of the year) was the glorious Traditional Mead from the boys at Hive Mind in the Wye Valley. This is no small feat, considering the judges try, taste and score more than 15,000 products from around the world each year. In celebration, Hive Mind created a brand-new mead using all the leftover honey from the judging process. The result? Friends in Mead made using honey from a blend of over 250 honey varieties from across the world.

The Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru, the National Eisteddfod of Wales starts this week. It's the turn for south Wales to play host, with the celebrations taking place in Pontypridd. In celebration, I climbed up to the top of Primrose Hill in London on Monday. The viewing point affords the best view of London's skyline, but if you glance down at your feet, you'll see this circular plaque dedicated to Iolo Morganwg. This is the bardic name of Welsh history scholar Edward Williams. It is here on roughly this spot that he created the modern Gorsedd of Bards – a congregation of storytellers tasked with preserving and celebrating the stories, poems and culture of Wales and the Welsh language. He based it on a supposedly ancient tradition, even if his evidence is patchy verging on fantastical. It was then called Gorsedd Beirdau Ysys Prydain (Gorsedd of Bards of the Island of Britain) but is now called Gorsedd Cymru. We see it live in action at the National Eisteddfod each year, where the chief druid asks the congregation, “Ar oes heddwch?” (“Is there peace?”), to which the response is “Heddwch!” (there is peace). The Eisteddfod and Gorsedd were officially linked in 1819, but we can trace the Gorsedd to this lofty London spot on 22 June 1792 and to Iolo Morganwg.

The Recipe

Leftover roast chicken and chorizo pie with stwnsh topping

I tested this recipe the other week when the weather was not looking great, so you might want to save this one for when the sun goes back in – that said, I had my oven on most of yesterday bringing the temperature of my kitchen up to tropical. Anyway, as you’ll know, I love a leftover and this one uses stuff you’ll likely have lying around especially after a chicken Sunday roast. The topping is stwnsh. I have to thank my dear friend and fellow chorister Janet for telling me that this mix of mashed potato and swede has a name in Wales. It’s known as stwnsh rwdan or ponsh/ponch maip and often has carrots added to help with the colour. My friend Janet suggests, “Serve with gammon/bacon/sausage, fried egg and pickled onions, with a bit of bacon fat drizzled over! My kids used to make the mash into a volcano into which they wanted me to put the fried egg!” Sounds good to me!

Ingredients

3 large potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
2 medium carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
1 small swede, peeled and roughly chopped
White pepper
Cream/milk
Butter
3 shallots, finely chopped
100g chorizo, finely chopped (Try Moch Coch Welsh chorizo)
200g leftover roast chicken, shredded
1tsp oregano
1tsp parsley
2tbsp plain flour
100ml dry sherry, vermouth or white wine
200ml chicken stock
200ml milk
50g Welsh cheddar cheese (such as Dragon)

Method

1. In a large pan of salted water, boil the carrots, potatoes and swede until soft.

2. Drain well and leave to dry out a bit, then mash with some butter and a drop of milk or cream and a generous helping of white pepper.

3. Meanwhile, in a large pan, gently fry the shallots and chorizo in some olive oil, until the shallots are soft and the chorizo slightly crisp and oozing its gorgeous red oil.

4. Add the chicken, herbs and flour and mix everything together. Turn up the heat and add the sherry and stir well.

5. Add the stock and milk and make sure everything is well mixed so that you have a sauce. Turn the heat down and simmer for a few minutes until the sauce thickens.

6. Tip the chicken and chorizo mixture into a large ovenproof dish, then gently top with spoonfuls of the stwnsh until covered. Scatter the cheese on top and bake in a preheated oven (Gas Mark 6/200°C/390°F) for about 15 minutes until the cheese is melted and bubbling.

The Playlist

To me, cooking and music go hand in hand, whether that’s singing at the top of your voice using a wooden spoon as a microphone while waiting for pasta to boil, or dancing around with the oven gloves on as the oven timer counts down. Here are this week’s ideas for your Welsh Kitchen playlist.

In honour of the Eisteddfod, the music this week is a recording of Côr Y Boro | Borough Welsh Choir performing at the 2019 choir competition. Secondly, a piece from Sir Tom Jones, as the Eisteddfod is taking place in his hometown. Here’s also a clip that I love of the audience singing while patiently waiting for the results of the choir competition at the Eisteddfod in Cardiff in 2018.

Also, in case you’re interested in Welsh singing, here’s a piece I wrote quite a few years ago for the BBC: Can all Welsh people sing?

Dadl Dau by Côr Y Boro | Borough Welsh Choir

Come Home Rhondda Boy by Tom Jones

Ross recommends

Still Wild

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I was delighted to see that Still Wild from Pembrokeshire has been granted two stars for their new vodka. I’m a big fan of their vermouth – it’s great for drinking and for cooking – but this new spirit for them is made using local Pembrokeshire oyster shells to give notes of the ocean into the vodka. I can’t wait to get me hands on some to try it.

Buy it

Also, if you fancy a job with Still Wild, now’s your chance as they are looking for help.

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From the archive

On the last night of my trip, I had the great pleasure to have dinner with two members of the Club de Guisanderas. This esteemed group of female cooks was set up in 1997 by a collective of women who wanted to preserve the traditional Asturian recipes and food customs – those that had been passed down orally from grandmothers etc. The word guisandera comes from the word guiso meaning stew. A guisandera was a woman who prepared food for the village for special occasions, often travelling to neighbouring villages to cook there, too. She would also dispense her gastro-medicinal knowledge, prescribing foods or herbal remedies for common complaints. The guisandera was sort of part healer, part cook, and part village grandmother. And, most importantly, they kept it all in their heads. It was never written down, just passed down – by word of mouth, sleight of hand, and a knowing eye.

My dinner companions were Amada – a retired restaurant owner, cook and current president of the club, and Mary, whose restaurant we were meeting and dining in. After we got past the slightly mystified suspiciousness of why a random British journalist was so interested in their club, the conversation flowed, along with Asturian cider and more-than-ample helpings of each of the dishes chosen by Mary. “Give the rest to him,” I heard Amada say nodding in my direction, “He’s young and thin”. Oh no, another motherly figure trying to fatten me up, this time with delectable squid cooked in its ink with rice. Foolishly, I thought that was the final dish of several I’d already been served up – Amada and Mary’s eyes tracking every forkful to my mouth and delighting in my expressions of satisfaction and willingness to not just taste but devour whatever was heaped onto the plate in front of me.

They tell me that the club and its members have won just about every award that there is to win in their field, but they say, the one that means the most was given to them by a group of four-year-old school children. They are no stranger to awards themselves as they dish out (pun intended) the much-coveted Golden Guisandera awards each year to those who have supported the club and its ethos, this has ranged from journalists to politicians.

To date, the guisanderas have written three books filled with recipes and other helpful advice and guidance. Mary kindly gifted me a copy of their 25th anniversary cookbook, which is filled with gorgeous traditional recipes – some given modern twists. Amada says, “We're not about being stuck in the past, we're always open to new ideas.”

All the chatter made me wonder how many wonderful recipes have been lost to time around the world and back home in Wales. We’re fortunate that S Minwel Tibbott did a lot of work for us in Wales. She was an assistant keeper in the Department of Oral Traditions and Dialects at St Fagans National Museum of History, and she travelled around Wales back in the 60s and 70s collecting recipes. They were published in a book called Welsh Fare in 1974. In the introduction, it says, “A recipe may well be compared with a folk song or folk tale; all three are transferred orally from person to person, from generation to generation, and their preservation depends entirely on the strength or weakness of the human memory. Slight modifications are inevitable over a period of years. A slip of the memory or the wish to improvise may well account for the minor variations discernible when more than one recipe is given for a particular dish. Local customs attached to many of the dishes are evident too.”

We have a long tradition of oral history and storytelling in Wales. The bards and folk music and the most famous Welsh stories, The Mabinogion, are only there now because someone had the sense to record these classic spoken tales in written form.

I popped by St Fagans last week to see their latest addition, The Vulcan. Formally of Adamstown in Cardiff, the iconic pub was taken down brick by brick, glazed tile by glazed tile in 2012 and has been lovingly rebuilt in situ at St Fagans. The interior is styled in 1915 decor, the year the famous tiles were added to the exterior facade. You can have a pint of Vulcan brewed especially for the pub by the Glamorgan Brewing Company, plus wines and snacks such as picked eggs. I love how hands-on St Fagans is anyway but to be able to go in and experience the pub in the way it's supposed to be adds an extra element. Let's hope we soon have a classic Welsh Italian bracchi cafe there too serving frothy coffee and gelato in leatherette booths.

I’ll leave you with a final thought: if you have a recipe that's in your head, please write it down, tell someone about it, tell me about it. Don't let them disappear!

The Recipe

Ann Davies’s fruit cake

This is one of those old Welsh recipes that’s been recorded and handed down. The Ann Davies in question seems to have been something of a minor celebrity in her hometown of Kidwelly thanks to her recipe for fruit cake. She would sell the cakes from her shop at six pence a round, and possibly also sell the recipe – both common occurrences back in the day to make extra cash. I’ve adjusted the original recipe to make it metric and reduce the quantities as I’m guessing you’re not planning on selling it, but I’ve kept the ingredients and method the same. If you want to have a look at the original, you can find it in the Amgeddfa Cymru online archives.

Ingredients

350g plain flour
200g caster sugar
60g butter
100g lard
350g currants
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp mixed spice
½ tsp ground nutmeg
Good pinch of salt
1 free-range egg
150ml milk

Method

1. Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4/180°C/350°F, and grease and line a loaf tin with baking paper.

2. In a large mixing bowl, rub together the butter and lard with the flour and sugar. Then add all the other dry ingredients and mix.

3. Add the egg and slowly add the milk, mixing it all together to give a soft batter.

4. Tip the mixture into the tin and bake in the oven for about 1 hour and 30 minutes or a knife comes out clean when inserted.

The Playlist

To me, cooking and music go hand in hand, whether that’s singing at the top of your voice using a wooden spoon as a microphone while waiting for pasta to boil, or dancing around with the oven gloves on as the oven timer counts down. Here are this week’s ideas for your Welsh Kitchen playlist.

First up this issue we have a bit of an indulgent choice. Performed by Côr Y Boro | Borough Welsh Choir, In the Shadow of the Shard, tells the story of the chapel and family where the Borough choir – of which I am a member – rehearses and performs. I wrote the lyrics as a poem during lockdown in 2021, and the choir’s wonderful accompanist Ben Cook set it brilliantly to music. It had its premiere at Capel y Boro | Borough Welsh Chapel’s annual summer concert a few weeks ago. Secondly, we have a classic by Dolly Parton, who has a documentary soon to air exploring her Welsh ancestry on her mother’s side.

In the Shadow of the Shard by Côr Y Boro | Borough Welsh Choir

Coat of Many Colours by Dolly Parton

Ross recommends

Sheriff’s Biltong

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I’m a big fan of charcuterie, and I’ve featured Cwm Farm’s nduja before in a recipe with chicken, leeks and rice. This beautiful biltong is more of a snack than an ingredient (although watch this space as I always like to experiment), and if ideal with a little glass of something early evening, especially now with the balmy nights. It’s made in collaboration with rugby player Ken Owens whose nickname is the sheriff. It comes in different flavours but I rather like the black pepper one.

Buy it

From the archive

People often laugh when I tell them that I’ve been supping wine from Wales, but it really is their loss, as there are now around 38 vineyards in the country, many of which are producing some really interesting (and delicious) wines. Let’s not forget that Wales has a history of wine making: the romans were thought to have planted and grown vines in Caerleon in around AD75, and the UK’s first commercial vineyard was planted at Castell Coch in 1875.

Most vineyards in Wales are small, family-run operations and because of the very different climates around the country, growing grapes in Wales can be a lot of trial and error. That’s why you find a variety of grapes and styles of wine. With that in mind, here are a few that I think are worth raising a glass to (and with).

Montgomery Vineyard Solaris

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Summer’s on its way (I hope), and that means I’m more partial to a glass of crisp white wine. The Solaris from Montgomery Vineyard is a banger. Packed full of tropical fruit flavours like grapefruit and pineapple, this still, dry white transports you to sultry shores, even if it’s raining outside your window. The ever-charming Woody (pictured above) suggested that it has a slight hint of pear drops – and he’s not wrong – but thankfully without that weird grating of the roof of your mouth that the sweets used to do. Solaris is one of the more common grape varieties grown in Wales, and this is one of the best examples of how good it can be.

Pair it with: Seaweed and spring greens risotto-style rice
Visit the vineyard: Montgomery Vineyard
Buy the wine: Montgomery Vineyard Solaris

Velfrey Vineyard Rhosyn

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Owned by the lovely Fiona and Andy, Velfrey is a family-run vineyard near Narbeth, which has been going nearly a decade. I’ve been a big fan of their wines for a while now, but I recently tried their Rhosyn (rose in Welsh). It’s a sparkling rosé wine made from seyval blanc and pinot noir grapes. It’s possibly one of the best sparkling wines I’ve tried over the last year. It has lovely bubbles and is delicate and refined but still fun, with its strawberry and citrus notes. I think it would make a cracking spot of bubbly for a special celebration.

Pair it with: Trio of Welsh pintxos
Visit the vineyard: Velfrey Vineyard
Buy the wine: Rhosyn Sparkling Rosé

Whinyard Rocks Col Rondo

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I love tasting something a bit different, so this sparking red (in fact wildly purple) wine is right up my street. Without getting too technical with the wine jargon, this is a Col Fondo wine, which means that the lees (natural dead yeast left after fermentation that gives wine character) is left in the bottle – unlike most sparkling wines. It results in a slightly cloudy wine. This super interesting version by husband-and-wife team Susan and James is made using Rondo grapes – another classic variety suited to Welsh soil – and hits you with gorgeous raspberries and Welsh hedgerow goodness.

Pair it with: Chorizo and scallop skewers
Visit the vineyard: Whinyard Rocks
Buy the wine: Col Rondo

White Castle Cabernet Franc

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Founded and run by the Robb and Nicola back in 2008, White Castle Vineyard is located near Abergavenny. When they told me that they’d not only grown Cabernet Franc but made a cracker of a wine with it – the first in the UK – I was a taken aback. It can be a tricky little grape to grow well, and is often used a a blending grape. But this Cab Franc is brilliant. It’s got lovely cherry and berry flavours and is completely (and dangerously) quaffable.

Pair it with: Welsh lamb and laverbread meatballs
Visit the vineyard: White Castle Vineyard
Buy the wine: White Castle Cabernet Franc

Ancre Hill Estates Orange Wine

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I’ve featured this wine before, but it’s worth another mention. I’m not generally a big fan of orange wine but this has something about it. Made by Richard and Joy at Ancre Hill in Monmouthshire, this wine is all about fun, and ideal for summer picnics and barbecues. Orange wine is a essentially a white wine that is left on the grape skins (like when making red wine) which is where it gets its colour. Ancre Hill’s orange wine is made using Albariño, Chardonnay, Solaris and Ortega grapes. It’s got stone fruit flavours such as apricots and some citrusy orange too.

Pair it with: Welsh lamb kofta skewers
Visit the vineyard: Ancre Hill Estates
Buy the wine: Ancre Hill Estates Orange Wine

In April, I ventured to West Denmark to the region called Kystlandet or ‘coastal land’. This stunning 266 kilometres of coastline has fjords, an archipelago and wonderful countryside. During my trip, I was lucky enough to visit three farms. Their owners have all decided to forgo the classic farming of pigs – Danes really do love bacon it turns out – and are trying something different. First up, I went to see Anders and Sissel at The Little Organic Farm Shop (Det Lille Økori). Neither had been farmers before they took on these plots three years ago. They’ve transformed them quite miraculously in that time into a farm for microgreens and mushrooms (and a few other vegetables). They take their trays of produce directly to the kitchens of some of the area’s best restaurants, such as the dining room of Hotel Vejlefjord (one of Denmark’s best spa hotels), when done, the trays get returned and the whole cycle begins again. On my visit, Anders kindly plucked off sprouting greens for me to taste, from rocket to mustard seed, before we went into their mushroom cave. Okay, not so much a cave but a shipping container, but it’s still cool to see bouquets of oyster mushrooms lining the shelves. Naturally, I couldn’t resist picking a bunch that was ready to head off to a restaurant.

Next up we went to a farm that has taken to growing apples and producing some fantastic cider. Brandbygegaard Winery, the home of Søren and Lone, a couple who seem to be able to do just about anything, from producing their own cookbooks, to hosting a sell-out, pop-up restaurant, to refurbishing a barn to use as a tasting and function room. Interestingly, they tried a few grapes – rondo and such that we actually grow in Wales – but they didn’t like the results so have focussed more on the cider. They were all delightful and one even gets the full Champagne treatment, so of course I had to buy a bottle to bring home!

Lastly, I met Tine and Magnus from Reballegaad. This couple might be the coolest people I’ve ever met, and they have been working on an old dowager house that was once part of the family’s pig farm. They’ve made it into the most stylish scandi-chic B&B, and a house for themselves. They haven’t given up on farming though, they’ve decided to plant nettles. I’m a big fan of foragable food although my nettle knowledge is a little lacking. Thankfully, my hosts are no such strangers and serve me nettle soup, crab bisque using crabs from the fjord, a range of salads, and finally a shockingly green, nettle cake with meringue. I’m sold on the stingy plant and as soon as I got back, I had to try using nettles, which I cooked up with some wild garlic and spring greens silken with butter, with a rack of Welsh lamb.

I was sad not to be able to visit a seaweed farm off the little island of Endelave, but I think I might head back there at some point to see how it compares to our Welsh laverbread. Of course, we have the Vikings to thank for most of the names of our Welsh islands, including Caldey, Freystrop, Skokholm and Anglesey.

Not even a week later, and I was off to San Sebastián in the Basque Country. It’s such an exciting for city for food lovers. I eschewed the Michelin brigade (there are more Michelin star restaurants here per capita than anywhere else on earth) as I’m generally not a fan – often finding the food too fussy and needing a stop at McDonald’s on the way home to fill up. Anyway, the point of San Sebastián for me is pintxo culture. Pintxos (or pinchos) are little snacks served in bars – often from a glass cabinet on the counter – that pair with a beer, wine, cider or vermouth. Most are served on little slices of baguette-style bread although not exclusively. While you’ll find pinchos all over Spain, San Sebastián makes them an art form. And the bars throng with visitors wanting to try the best each bar has to offer. It suits my way of eating, as I always want to try a little bit of everything. I did have a sit-down dinner one night as I was kindly invited to the relatively new Nobu restaurant housed in the Nobu Hotel on La Concha beach. Nobu is famous for its sushi and black cod among other dishes, but I was delighted to see the local elements incorporated in the menu, and while the classic showstoppers were delicious, my favourite dish was a Spanish classic: pimientos de padrón (Padrón peppers) drizzled generously with miso sauce. I could have inhaled another two platefuls. I paired it all with a red txakoli wine (I didn’t know that this ever-so-slightly fizzy wine came in red as I’ve only ever had it white but you learn something new every day).

My final trip was one that I’ve been making for most of my life. A visit to Trecco Bay in Porthcawl. I think I’ve said before, that if someone asks what my favourite holiday has ever been, I always say that it was the times we spent in my Nannie Gwen’s static caravan in Trecco Bay. This week, my great aunts and uncles along with some cousins and my mum, booked into a caravan. I only went down for the evening, but what a flood of wonderful memories. We ventured to the Ancient Briton pub for a swift half before grabbing rissole and chips from Finnegans and heading back to enjoy it all together in the caravan. And of course, there was singing all night and free-flowing wine and beer. I can safely say, it’s still my favourite.

The Recipe

Trio of Welsh pintxos

Inspired by my trip to San Sebastián, and because the weather has suddenly got warmer, I’ve created these three easy pinchos with a Welsh flavour. I wanted to use laverbread on top of rye bread with cream cheese, but I realised I didn’t have any in the cupboard, so replaced it with cockles and a little bacon. You can really use whatever you have in the fridge or cupboard, and feel free to replace any of the parts with your favourites. Bread-wise, you can use anything you want. I used some French stick and some rye bread.

Creamed leeks with crispy Carmarthen ham

1 leek, finely chopped
Butter
3 tbsp double cream
1 tsp Dijon mustard
Few slices of Carmarthen ham (or jamón serrano or Parma ham), cut into small pieces

1. In a pan, gently soften the leeks in the butter for about 15 minutes.

2. Add the cream and mustard and a generous amount of black pepper.

3. In a separate pan (or under the grill), gently crisp up the ham.

4. Load your fresh baguette slices with the creamy leeks and top with pieces of crisp ham.

Cockles and bacon

Few rashers of bacon, cut into small pieces (you could also use lardons)
Small jar/ tin cockles, rinsed and patted dry
Cream cheese
Lemon zest

1. In a pan, crisp up the bacon. When ready, add the cockles and give the whole pan a good mix to coat the cockles in the bacon fat.

2. Spread your rye bread slices with cream cheese and top with the cockle and bacon mix.

3. Grate a little fresh lemon zest over the top.

Goat’s cheese and chutney

Welsh goat’s cheese, cut into slices
Fruity chutney (I used Dylan’s Fruit Chutney)

1. Place the slices of goat’s cheese onto the baguette slice and pop under a hot grill until the cheese is melted and bubbling.

2. Top with the chutney and enjoy.

The Playlist

To me, cooking and music go hand in hand, whether that’s singing at the top of your voice using a wooden spoon as a microphone while waiting for pasta to boil, or dancing around with the oven gloves on as the oven timer counts down. Here are this week’s ideas for your Welsh Kitchen playlist.

As it was Eurovision last night, we’re listening to some Welsh artists who have performed at the contest. First up, Jessica Garlick with the song Come Back, which finished joint third place in 2003. Second, we have Mary Hopkin with Knock Knock Who's There. She came seventh back in 1970. Finally, we have Emma Louise Booth singing Give a Little Love Back to the World back in 1990. It came in at sixth place.

Come Back by Jessica Garlick

Knock Knock Who's There by Mary Hopkin

Give a Little Love Back to the World back by Emma Louise Booth

Ross recommends

An night with Nerys Howell

Welsh food writer Nerys is launching her new book Cywain | Harvest at the London Welsh Centre on Wednesday 22 May at 7pm. There’ll be a cooking demonstration, a cheeky wine and more. Tickets are £8 – or £6 if your use the code NERYS6 – Sadly, I’m not able to make it, but it sounds like a great evening of Welsh food and fun.

Book now

From the archive

I love a bit of cordial. In fact, me and Robinson’s have had a very cordial relationship for years, whether that’s classic orange squash or a cheeky bit of blackcurrant. Ribena is great and my preference over Vimto every time. There’s something about the sweetness but also the refreshing wateriness of a glass of squash – as weird as that may sound. This highly concentrated love affair with squash started as a child – surprise, surprise – when the bottles were also packed with additives and a splash of Kia Ora would give me a delightful energy spurt. I’ve never drunk squash as thick and powerful as when prepared by my grandparents. The one-part cordial to four-parts water did not register with my nans – sometimes resulting in a nearly half-and-half affair in the glass. How Welsh!

I can’t quite remember when I stopped drinking fizzy drinks, and I remember loving pop as a kid. Is it Welsh to call it pop? My brother still loves a drop of pop, the fizzier the better. If Poppa didn’t give us squash, then it was a glass of Corona pop. This was delivered to my Nanna and Poppa’s house by the… pop man, well into the 1990s as far as I remember. We’d be surprised with orangeade or maybe dandelion and burdock or lemonade. The glass bottles were kept behind the curtain on the cold step of dining room that led out into the garden. Sometimes Poppa would make us ice cream floats in these little glass tankards that lived in Nanna’s beloved glass cabinet dresser. We were not allowed anywhere near the dresser in case the glass cabinet fell on us – nothing like the fear of being cut to shreds to keep kids away from precious furniture – even though the cabinet had never fallen on anyone and in fact hadn’t moved from its spot in the dining room for more than 40 years. Still, Poppa would fill the tankards with pop and top them with a scoop of Wall’s vanilla ice cream. I can taste that cream soda flavour as I type.

Here's a great piece on the story of the Corona pop brand: https://nation.cymru/culture/a-brief-history-of-welsh-pop-icon-corona/

Pasg hapus! Happy Easter!

The Recipe

Welsh lamb and laverbread meatballs

These meatballs are an easy but delectable midweek meal or a special occasion dinner, as they can be prepared in advance. The laverbread is optional but I think it gives the meatballs a wonderful savouriness.

Ingredients (serves 4-6)

For the meatballs
400g Welsh lamb mince
1 banana shallot, finely chopped (or an onion)
2 tbsp breadcrumbs
1tbsp laverbread (I used dried laverbread flakes)
1/2 tsp ground mace
1 free-range egg

For the tomato sauce
2 shallots, roughly chopped (or onion)
1 tin of anchovies (optional)
Small leek, chopped
Small carrot, chopped
Small courgette, chopped
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp sage
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp flour
100ml dry sherry or wine
300ml beef or lamb stock
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato puree
Handful cherry tomatoes (optional)

Method

1. In a large bowl, combine the ingredients for the meatballs along with a pinch of salt and form into golf ball-sized rounds.

2. Put some olive oil in a large pan and gently brown the meatballs. Remove to a plate and put to one side.

3. In the same pan, drizzle a little more oil and then gently fry the shallots. Add the anchovies – these will melt into the sauce and give a wonderful savouriness without any fishiness – the leek and carrot. Cook down for a few minutes until the carrot has started to soften.

4. Add the courgette, rosemary, sage, and bay leaf and stir. Sprinkle over the flour and mix again.

5. Turn up the heat and add the sherry and stock. Bring to the boil and turn down to a simmer.

6. Add the tomatoes, tomato puree and cherry tomatoes if using. Simmer for a few minutes before adding the meatballs back into the pan.

7. Simmer everything until the sauce has reduced and thickened and the meatballs are cooked through, about 20-30 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

8. Serve as they are will bread or with your favourite pasta.

If you try the recipe out, don’t forget to tag any photos with #mywelshkitchen.

The Playlist

To me, cooking and music go hand in hand, whether that’s singing at the top of your voice using a wooden spoon as a microphone while waiting for pasta to boil, or dancing around with the oven gloves on as the oven timer counts down. Here are this week’s ideas for your Welsh Kitchen playlist.

First up this week, we’ve got Dorothy Squires who was born on 25 March 1915 in Pontyberem. And next up is pop group Eden, made up of Emma Walford, Non Parry and Rachael Solomon.

Say it With Flowers by Dorothy Squires

Siwgr by Eden

From the archive