Rukmini Iyer’s quick and easy recipes for jewelled winter salad and chocolate-orange pudding

This wonderfully filling salad is perfect as part of a festive spread, or an easy, feed-a-crowd lunch with some crusty bread alongside; it really is worth getting hold of a jar of butter beans, too . The dessert, meanwhile, is the bread-and-butter pudding of dreams: an indulgent, chocolate pudding featuring a grown-up jaffa cake melting middle – just ask a bear to lend you a jar of marmalade from its hat. It’s best eaten minutes after coming out of the oven, but you can prep it the day before and refrigerate before cooking. Any leftovers are wonderful for breakfast.

Jewelled winter salad with roast squash, butter beans and pomegranate (pictured top)

To get ahead, roast the squash the day before and marinate the beans overnight, then warm through and put the dish together the next day. It’s lovely hot from the oven or at room temperature.

Prep 15 min
Cook 30 min
Serves 4 as a main, 6 as a side

1 small butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and cut into 1½cm cubes
5 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp ras el hanout
1 tsp sea salt flakes
2 small red onions (or 1 large one), peeled and each cut into eight equal wedges
Juice of 1 lemon, plus 3 strips of zest (use a speed peeler)
3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely sliced
570g jar butter beans, drained and rinsed (or most of a 700g jar, if that’s the size you find)
30g flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
30g coriander, roughly chopped
200g feta, cut into 1cm cubes
Seeds from 1 pomegranate
75g pistachios, roughly chopped (if you can find the bright-green Sicilian ones, so much the better)

Heat the oven to 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6. Mix the squash, two tablespoons of olive oil, the ras el hanout and salt in a roasting tray large enough to hold everything in a single layer. In a small bowl, toss the onion wedges with half the lemon juice (this will help them keep their colour), add them to the squash tray, then roast for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, put the remaining oil, the garlic and lemon zest in a large frying pan over a low heat, and warm through for two to three minutes without letting the garlic brown. Add the butter beans, cook, stirring occasionally, for six to seven minutes, then take off the heat.

Once the squash is ready, gently stir the butter beans and herbs into the tray, then dress with the remaining lemon juice. Taste and adjust the salt as needed, then top with the feta, pomegranate and pistachios,, and serve warm or at room temperature.

Chocolate-orange brioche pudding

I like to use brioche here because its innately high butter-to-flour ratio saves you having to butter the slices, plus it soaks up the orange-spiked custard beautifully.

Prep 15 min
Soak 2 hr
Cook 25 min
Serves 6-8

250ml double cream
250ml full-fat milk
Juice and finely grated zest of 1 clementine, plus the peeled and shredded zest of 1 extra clementine , to garnish (optional)
100g 70% dark chocolate, finely chopped
20g cocoa or cacao powder
4 egg yolks
60g sugar
400g sliced brioche, roughly torn
125g fine cut marmalade
Creme fraiche, to serve

Put the double cream, milk and clementine zest in a saucepan, bring to a boil, then take off the heat immediately. Add the dark chocolate, leave for two minutes, then whisk vigorously until the chocolate has melted.

Tip the cocoa powder into a bowl, pour in a few tablespoons of the hot chocolate milk and whisk until smooth. Add the egg yolks and sugar, and whisk again until glossy. Add the remaining chocolate milk and the clementine juice, and whisk until incorporated.

Arrange half the torn brioche in a single layer in a round, medium-sized pie dish or roasting tin. Pour over half the chocolate custard, then dot evenly with teaspoons of marmalade. Arrange the remaining brioche slices over the top, then pour over the remaining custard evenly. Let the brioche sit at room temperature for a couple of hours for the custard to soak in, or cover and refrigerate if you’re planning to cook it later or the next day (in which case take it out about an hour before you want to bake it).

Heat the oven to 170C (150C fan)/340F/gas 3½, then bake the pudding for 25-30 minutes, until crisp on top and melting inside – after sitting for two hours on the counter before cooking, mine was deliciously self-saucing, but after a night in the fridge you’re going for wobble rather than sauce.

The pudding now needs little more than creme fraiche alongside, but you can garnish it by using a speed peeler to take the zest off a second clementine, then slicing it into wafer-thin strips. Pop these in a bowl of boiling water for three minutes, then drain and refresh under cold water before patting dry. Scatter over the pudding just before serving.