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James Whale discusses the Welsh language on Sky News.flv

James Whale discusses the Welsh language and nationalism on Sky News

Traditional Welsh Christmas Recipes: Traditional Wassail

 

Traditional Welsh Christmas Recipes: Traditional Wassail
Just as we drink mulled wine and punch at Christmas and New Year parties nowadays, a Welsh Christmas at the turn of the century involved drinking from the wassail bowl.
These bowls were often elaborate, ornate and many-handled. The bowl was filled with fruit, sugar, spices and topped up with warm beer. As it was passed around, the drinkers would make a wish for a successful year's farming and a bumper crop at harvest... time.
Ingredients
4 small apples
1 cup unrefined cane sugar
1 medium orange
13 whole cloves
2 quarts hard apple cider
1/2 cup brandy
1 tbsp powdered ginger
1 tsp grated nutmeg
6 allspice berries
2 cinnamon sticks
6 large eggs (separated)
toast (optional, to serve with)
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Scoop out the core of the apples without fully penetrating the apple – a melon baller works well. Fill each apple with about a tablespoon of unrefined cane sugar. Place the apples in the baking sheet. Stud an orange with thirteen cloves and place it in the baking sheet. Bake the apples and orange together for forty minutes.
While the apples and orange bake, pour apple cider and brandy into a heavy-bottomed stock pot and warm over moderately low heat. Whisk in powdered ginger and grated nutmeg. Do not bring the wassail to a boil.
Cut a small square of the butter muslin and place allspice and cinnamon into the square; tie with 100% cotton cooking twine and float this sachet of spices in the wassail as it warms.
Beat egg yolks until light in colour and set aside. In a separate bowl, whip egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold egg yolks into whites, then temper the eggs by slowly pouring one-half cup wassail into the eggs. Remove the spice sachet from the wassail and pour in eggs. Transfer to a punch bowl. Float baked apples and oranges in the wassail and serve by the mug, topping each much with a small slice of toast if desired.See More

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Traditional Welsh Christmas Recipes: Taffy - a Christmas Eve custom

 

Traditional Welsh Christmas Recipes: Taffy - a Christmas Eve custom
This was a popular Christmas treat in Wales at the turn of the last century.
Got a sweet tooth? Why not re-live an old Welsh custom this Christmas? Taffy-making....
This is how families whiled away the dark hours of Christmas Eve's night, leading up to the Plygain service. Toffee was boiled in pans on open fires and - this is a nice twist - dollops were dropped into icy cold water.
The taffy curled into all sorts of shapes - like letters. This was a way of divining the initials of the younger, unmarried family members' future loves.
Ingredients:
1 lb of powdered loaf sugar
1 teacupful of water
¼ lb of butter
6 drops of essence of lemon
Put the water and sugar into a brass pan, and beat the butter to a cream. When the sugar is dissolved, add the butter and keep stirring the mixture over the fire until it sets, when a little is poured on to a buttered dish; and just before the toffee is done, add the essence of lemon.
Butter a dish or tin, pour on it the mixture, and when cool, it will easily separate from the dish.
Butter-Scotch, an excellent thing for coughs, is made with brown, instead of white sugar, omitting the water, and flavoured with ½oz. of powdered ginger. It is made in the same manner as toffee.
Time: 18 to 35 minutes.
Sufficient to make 1lb of toffee.
Credit to BBCSee More

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Welsh Recipes: Welsh oggie

 

Welsh Recipes: Welsh oggie
Ingredients
Makes: 8 oggies...
Shortcrust pastry
450g plain flour
1 pinch salt
250g chilled butter, diced
6 tablespoons chilled water
beaten egg or milk, to glaze
Filling
25g butter
1 onion, finely chopped
200g leeks, finely sliced
salt and pepper to season
350g lean lamb, finely diced
200g potato, peeled and finely diced
50ml lamb or vegetable stock
1 tablespoon mint sauce
Method
Prep:1hr › Cook:35min › Ready in:1hr35min
Make the pastry:
Sift the flour and a pinch of salt together into a mixing bowl. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Sprinkle 6 tablespoons chilled water evenly over the surface and start bringing the dough together.
Add a little more water if the mixture is too dry. Gather the dough together, then lightly knead on a floured surface for a few seconds until smooth. Wrap and chill in the fridge for 20 minutes.
Make the filling:
Put 25g butter in small pan and add onion, leek, salt and pepper and fry gently for 1 to 2 minutes.
Add the lamb, fry gently for a further 2 minutes.
Add the diced potato and stock, simmer for 5 minutes. Add the mint sauce. Set aside to cool.
Assemble:
Divide the pastry into eight pieces, then roll out each piece on a lightly floured surface to a 22cm round. Spoon an equal amount of the filling onto the centre of each pastry round.
Cover half of each pasty circle with the filling. Moisten pastry edges and fold pastry over the filling. Use your fingers to crimp the pasty all along to try to eliminate any leakage when pasty is cooking. Brush with milk or beaten egg before placing in the oven.
Cook in a pre-heated oven at 230 C / Gas 7 for 10 minutes and then turn down to 190 C / Gas 5 for another 20 to 25 minutes.
Pasty should be hard and golden brown.
Photo credit: eatingwales.com
Recipe Credit: http://allrecipes.co.uk/See more

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Cawl Cennin a Hufen

 

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Welsh Recipes: Cawl Cennin a Hufen (Welsh Creamed Leek Soup)
Ingredients:
Butter: 2oz...
Leeks: 1 ¼ lb
Roughly chopped onion: 1/2 lb
Roughly chopped head of celery: 1 bunch
Stock: 5 pints with 1 Knorr stock cube
Parsley: roughly chopped 1 oz
Salt and Pepper
Double cream: 5 oz
Preparation:
- Clean the leeks thoroughly, chop them roughly.
- Melt butter and cook onions and leeks and celery without browning
- Add the stock, bring to the boil, simmer for 1 hour, skimming if necessary,
- Rub through sieve or put in blender till smooth.
- Reheat gently.
- Stir in the parsley.
- Season with salt and pepper.
- Stir in the cream, correct seasoning, and serve with fresh baked bread.
Full credit to: pattayadailynews.comSee more

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Traditional Welsh Cawl

Welsh Recipes: Traditional Welsh Cawl
2lb best end of  Welsh lamb
1 small swede
1 medium parsnip...
1/2 carrots
1lb potatoes
2 leeks
1oz parsley
1/2 oz flour
salt and pepper
METHOD
1. Place the meat in a large saucepan and cover with water, add salt and pepper.
2. Slowly bring to the boil and skim carefully.
3. Add the chopped carrots, swede, parsnip and whites of leeks and simmer for 2 hours. If in season cabbage, celery etc. can all be used.
4. Add chopped potatoes and simmer for a further 1/2 hour.
5. Thicken with flour and water and add the chopped parsley and green of leeks.
6. Simmer for a further 15 mins.
7. Serve hot.
8. Cawl is particularly tasty when left overnight and again served hot.See more

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Historical sites in Wales: Cilmeri

Historical sites in Wales: Cilmeri (sometimes given the anglicised spelling Cilmery) is a village in Powys, mid-Wales.
The village is famous for being close to the spot where the last native Prince of Wales of direct descent, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, was slain in a skirmish by soldiers in the service of Edward I of England, on 11 December 1282.
A memorial stone to Llywelyn ap Gruffudd was erected on the site in 1956 and serves as the focal point for an annual day of remembrance on the anniversary of his death.