Banging dishes to enjoy on Bonfire Night

There’s more to Guy Fawkes Night than fireworks and sparklers. The food and drink is key – it keeps you warm, fuelled up and able to enjoy the festivities. So, what should you serve this 5 November?

Standing outside on a late-autumn evening to watch fireworks inevitably means wrapping your mitts around something warm and comforting. The Bonfire Night classic, a sausage in a roll topped with loads of buttery onions and ketchup, springs to mind.

Or, if curling up on the sofa to enjoy the view from the window is more your bag, a steaming bowl of rich and smoky campfire stew or chilli con carne are quintessential choices.

However you’ll be spending it this year – in the garden, out at a local event or staying cosy indoors – Bonfire Night is a great excuse to whip up some special snacks and sweet treats. Here’s how to make sure the evening goes off with a bang.

Smoky main sensations

Given that the night air is filled with the smell of bonfire smoke, it’s not a surprise that lots of people like their food to have similar characteristics. But with most barbecues packed away for the year, how can you get that distinctive smoky flavour into your cooking?

Turn to your grill

“You can add a great smoky flavour to your vegetables simply by grilling them on a non-stick tray or, better still, griddle,” says Theo Randall, chef patron at Theo Randall at the Intercontinental.

If you’re planning a stew or pasta dish, grill the vegetables until slightly charred before adding to the pot, or for veggie sides and snacks like corn on the cob, make sure you let some of the edges catch a deep colour from the grill before serving.

“Marinating meat like pork chops with rosemary, lemon and olive oil gives a lovely subtle smokiness when grilled, too. The rosemary leaves cook to embers adding a unique flavour. Any meat or vegetable will benefit from this. I have cooked slices of squash like this on a griddle pan and the slightly burnt herbs add a lot of flavour.”

Use smoky ingredients

“Using smoked ingredients is a brilliant way of creating those autumnal Bonfire Night flavours in your dishes,” says Mark Hartstone, chef proprietor at La Fosse at Cranborne.

“Things like smoked bacon or smoked sausages give wonderful flavour to your cassoulet, cabbage or risotto, for instance. Smoked cheese can also be a handy ingredient.”

You could also turn to smoked paprika, which is great for lending a smoky edge to stews, curries and casseroles.

“What I probably use most is dry chillies, specifically chipotle – a smoked red chilli,” adds Shaun Hurrell who runs Barrio Comida in Durham. “You can grind it up to a powder and then rub it into meat – it gives a very intensely smoky flavour. You could even use it to sprinkle onto something like popcorn, which is a great snack for watching fireworks.”

Nina Matsunaga, chef at Black Bull in Sedbergh, uses the humble tea bag to add a smoky touch.

“Lapsang Souchong is the perfect replacement for liquid smoke. I like to blitz the leaves in a spice grinder to create a fine powder – adding in black peppercorns, red pepper powder (which you can get in most Asian delis), sea salt and raw cane sugar – and use it as a rub for chicken, meat, fish and even chunky veg like cauliflower. Alternatively, I brew a batch of extra strong tea, which I then mix into marinades and sauces to add that smoky hit.”

Joe Hurd, an ambassador for Lifetime Training’s Chef Academy, is also a fan of cooking with tea: “Drop a tea bag into your pan as you’re cooking up a casserole, stew or curry and it’ll add a perfect smoky flavour – just don’t forget to pull the bag back out again!”

Sweet treats

Black treacle will give your sweet treats a rich and smoky flavour – try it with Mary Berry’s Granny’s Gingerbread or our jaw-breaking bonfire toffee.

Cinder toffee (aka honeycomb) is another great treat to share around the bonfire. Once cooled, break your slab into chunks and dip each into melted chocolate. When you whip out a tin of this stuff, people won’t only be oohing and ahhing over the fireworks.

Of course, apples are very apt for this season, and these puff pastry apple pies bring with them a signature winter flavour – marzipan.

Another popular apple-based snack at this time of year is the classic toffee apple. Choose from a soft coating or a hard, shiny shell, finished with chopped nuts.

Drinks

As far as we’re concerned, Bonfire Night doubles up as the start of the mulling season. If you’re going for a classic mulled wine, Mary Berry advises you give your mix a quick boil then a slow simmer to extract all those lovely spice and citrus flavours. Alternatively, you could turn to your slow cooker and leave it on low for a couple of hours to let those aromatics fully infuse the wine. Mulled apple cider is a great alternative, if vino isn’t your thing.

Another classic drink to warm the cockles is a hot toddy laced with honey and whisky. Perhaps take it a step further by mashing it up with mulled cider to create a whisky cider hot toddy.

Drinks expert Jassy Davis’ go-to bonfire refreshment is a non-alcoholic mulled wine, or winter cup.

“A mulled punch is always a crowd pleaser. I use a mix of English breakfast tea and pomegranate juice in my alcohol-free version. The tea is steeped for 20 minutes to make sure it’s strongly brewed, which gives it a robust tannic flavour. Combined with tart pomegranate juice, it makes a rich, gutsy stand-in for red wine.”

Another winter-warming softie Davis suggests is hot buttered apple juice. To increase the richness, Davis advises blending butter with sugar and spices before adding it to warmed apple juice. You could make up a batch of the butter and keep it in your fridge for up to four weeks.

Originally published October 2023