Easy mulled wine recipe nz1/21/2024 ![]() ![]() ![]() GlöggĪs in so many things, anything we can do the Scandinavians can do better – and despite its faintly unappetising name, their take on mulled wine, glögg, somehow conjures up visions of cosy firesides and log cabins, rather than plastic beakers and sticky pub carpets. Although I think he's been a bit heavy-handed with the sugar and citrus peel, the flavours seem better blended, and mellower than I'm used to – and, it strikes me, it would be easy enough to make a batch of syrup in advance, and then dispense as required throughout the mulled wine season, in the manner of a well-prepared paragon of domesticity. Once the syrup is ready, you can pour in the rest of the wine and a couple of star anise, heat through, and serve. It's important to do make a syrup base first," he continues, "because it needs to be quite hot, and if you do this with both bottles of wine in there you'll burn off the alcohol." And no one wants that, do they? "The reason I'm doing this first," Jamie explains, "is to create a wonderful flavour base by really getting the sugar and spices to infuse and blend well with the wine. ![]() This is then gently heated until the sugar has dissolved, at which point the cook merrily cranks the heat up and keeps the mixture at a rolling boil until it becomes a thick syrup. Unlike Delia, with her pleasingly simple one-step method, Jamie's recipe kicks off with a syrup base, made by putting the sugar in a large pan along with some clementine juice and peel, lemon and lime peel, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, bay leaves, nutmeg and vanilla, and then pouring in enough red wine to just cover it all. Time marches on, however, and since I first pledged allegiance to Delia and her Bulgarian Cabernet Sauvignon, there have been developments in the world of mulled wine – as seen in Jamie Oliver's "Christmas in a glass". The citrus works brilliantly with the warm spices to create a kind of winter sangria effect which never fails to please, particularly if one takes her up on the optional 2 tbsp of Grand Marnier, and then adds a few more for good measure. Deliaĭelia's own recipe is an old favourite of mine: heat a couple of bottles of wine with 6 tbsp honey, an orange studded with cloves, a few slices of orange and lemon, some ground ginger and a cinnamon stick, and allow to simmer gently for 20 minutes before serving. The result? Classic mulled wine – not particularly exciting, but palatable enough, despite the inclusion of water, which has no place in a wine-based punch. I simmer the spices together in 235ml water, "until the flavour is extracted", and then add a pint of wine, and some sugar to taste, and bring it all to the boil. Thing have moved forward in 500 years rather than just sticking everything into ye pan and hoping for the best, this recipe starts with a mulled tea. She's also pretty vague ("in making preparations like the above, it is very difficult to give the exact proportions of ingredients like sugar and spice, as what quantity might suit one person would be to another quite distasteful" she explains, helpfully), but at least the list of ingredients is more manageable: cloves, grated nutmeg, cinnamon, wine and sugar. Jumping forward five centuries, I turn to Mrs Beeton, Delia's Victorian great-grandmother, for advice. The mishmash of spice is overpowering – it tastes like something that might have been used to ward off the plague, rather than to make merry with during the cold, candle-lit evenings of the 14th century. Further than this, the recipe is coy, so I tip in some cheap French red, on the vague basis that wine was probably pretty rubbish in those days, and a suitably parsimonious amount of sugar, and taste. A historical site helpfully suggests substituting rosemary for this aromatic Indian root, so I stick a bit of that into the pestle and mortar as well. ![]() Given the drink's origins, I decide to start with a recipe from The Forme of Cury, a cookery book published about 1390, which starts, promisingly: "Pur fait Ypocras …" I must grind together cinnamon, ginger, galangal, cloves, long pepper, nutmeg, marjoram, cardamom and grains of paradise – although sadly I'm unable to lay my hands on any "spykenard de Spayn". ![]()
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