Receipes: Spinach and garlic souffle | Pork sausages with beans | Baked dark chocolate puddings

Claire MacDonald

It could be a first course or a main course, depending on what else you intend to eat at this impromptu feast. I would eat it as a first course with the sausage dish for a main course afterwards. Sausages sound mundane, but given this treatment and providing that they are of the best quality, nothing could be more tasty.

The baked dark chocolate pud recipe knocks spots off any competition. And no ready-made chocolate pud tastes anywhere near as good – but you do need thick cream to serve alongside it.

Spinach and garlic soufflé

Serves 6 as a first course, 4 as a main course

8oz/220g young spinach leaves, crammed into a saucepan containing a very small amount of salted boiling water; clamp the lid on the pan and cook for less than one minute, then tip the wilted spinach into a sieve, cool, and press out as much liquid as you can. Whiz to a purée in a food processor.

2 fat cloves of garlic, skinned and chopped finely with

1 teaspoon salt

2oz/55g butter

2oz/55g flour

1 pint milk

4oz/110g grated Parmesan cheese

6 large eggs

a good grating of nutmeg, about 20 grinds of black pepper, a dash of Tabasco

Melt the butter and fry the finely chopped garlic and salt for half a minute before stirring in the flour. Cook for a minute before gradually adding the milk, stirring constantly until the sauce boils.

Take the pan off the heat and stir in the grated Parmesan, the nutmeg, black pepper, and Tabasco. Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time, and as you break each egg, put the whites into a large mixing bowl. When all the yolks are incorporated into the sauce, mix in the spinach purée.

Thoroughly butter a soufflé or Pyrex dish 4 pint/2 litre capacity.

Whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt – it gives greater volume – until they are stiff, but still glossy. Fold them quickly and thoroughly through the spinach sauce – a flat whisk is most efficient for this. Pour the soufflé mixture into the buttered dish. Cover the dish with clingfilm if you plan to bake the soufflé in an hour or two.

Remove the clingfilm before putting the dish into a very hot oven, 220C/450F/Gas Mark 7, and cook for 35-40 minutes. It should be slightly runny when spooned.

This soufflé is delicious on its own, but it is also very good served with a tomato salad, if you happen to have some to hand in the house.

Pork sausages with beans

This sounds very humdrum, but it tastes so good and is just right for enjoying with a large glass of red wine.

Serves 6

2lb/900g best pork sausages, skins removed − easy, just slit down each sausage with a sharp knife, and peel off the skins

3 tablespoons olive oil

3 onions, each skinned, halved and neatly diced

1 fairly level tablespoon flour

3 tablespoons tomato purée stirred into

½ pint/285ml stock

2 tins of chopped tomatoes

a grating of dried chillies – optional

contents of 2 tins of cannellini or butter beans, drained of their brine

1 teaspoon salt, about 20 grinds of black pepper

Heat the olive oil in a casserole dish and fry the diced onions, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes. Then add the skinned sausages, pressing them with your wooden spoon to break their shape, and fry, stirring, as the sausage meat browns. Stir in the flour and let this cook for a minute before stirring in the tomato puree and stock. Stir until the mixture bubbles gently, then add the contents of the tins of chopped tomatoes, the chilli if you are including it, the salt and black pepper and the drained beans. Mix all well together, bring the mixture back to a gentle bubble, cover the casserole with its lid and cook in a moderate heat, 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 for an hour. This keeps warm for ages at a lower temperature. All you need to go with it could is garlic bread or a mixed-leaf salad. And the wine!

Baked dark chocolate puddings

Serves 6

6oz/175g dark chocolate broken into bits in a saucepan with

3oz/85g butter

3 large eggs and 2 large egg yolks

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4oz/110g caster sugar

Thoroughly butter 6 ramekins and put them onto a baking tray. Put the pan containing the broken up chocolate and butter onto a low heat until the butter melts − the chocolate will melt at the same time; stir them together and take the pan off the heat. Cool for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a large measuring jug whisk up the eggs, yolks, vanilla and caster sugar, whisking for several minutes, until the mixture is very thick and almost white. Then, using a flat whisk, fold the butter and chocolate into the eggs mixture thoroughly. Pour even amounts into each of the ramekins, and bake in a hot oven, 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6 for ten minutes. Dust each with sieved icing sugar and have ready six small plates and teaspoons to serve the hot ramekins and their delicious chocolate puddings on – the puddings will have molten thick dark chocolate mousse-like interiors, which are enhanced by thick cream.

I wish you a very Happy New Year.