Mulled wine

We had some opened and forgotten wine, so I made a half batch of Jaime Oliver’s mulled wine recipe, altered for what we had on hand.

Ingredients

  • 2 oranges
  • 1 lemon for zest
  • 200 g caster sugar
  • 6 whole cloves
  • 1 stick cinnamon
  • 1 dried bay leaf
  • 1 whole nutmeg, for grating
  • 1 tsp vanilla purée
  • 2 star anise
  • 1 bottle Italian red wine

Zest both oranges, squeeze one into a saucepan. Zest lemon. Combine all ingredients but the wine and star anise. Wet the ingredients with enough wine to cover.

Dissolve sugar with heat and whisk, simmer until it’s a thicker syrup. Eat the remaining orange while you wait. Make an Arnold Palmer or something with the lemon.

Dump in the rest of the wine and the star anise. Heat until warm (5 minutes). Serve!

Know what else is good in this? Cranberries!

Don’t forget to use a strainer like I did or you’ll be spitting out cloves and orange peel all night!