Alphabet Soup

R is for... Razor clams with remoulade, razor clam broth and radish and radicchio salad dressed with raspberry vinegar and rapeseed oil

2012-02-14T10:35:00.000-08:00

Razor clams are possibly the rudest of all shellfish. These little blighters like to stick their tongues out at you in a slow and casually antagonistic fashion. Aside from enjoying giving you the bivalve equivalent of a fingers up, they're also wily too. Razor clams are rarely seen in supermarkets and you often have to ask for your fishmonger to get them in specially. This is not because they are an unpopular purchase for seafood lovers, far from it, it is rather because they are so damn difficult to catch. Special razor clam hunters in the Orkney Islands are known as spooters. Tom Norrington-Davies, chef/owner of Great Queen Street, describes the practice thus:

"When full moon tides expose vast flats of wet sand, those with the know-how head for the beach with trowels or clam-diggers. The trick is to walk slowly backwards through the sand. When they detect footprints, the clams descend but leave behind a shaft of air. It is the sudden emergence of one of these holes that alerts the spooter, and a quick dig should be enough to catch the poor wee beastie."

Their sparsity only adds to their specialness. The flavour of razor clams is both sweet and salty, similar to scallops but a little richer and with a texture more like squid. Like all clams, they're best eaten on the day of purchase and absolutely must be alive when you buy them. The fact that they like to wriggle out of their shells before retracting like a slurped up string of spaghetti makes identifying their freshness pretty easy, but if you're not sure, just give the shell a gentle tap and the clam should react. They take next to no time to cook, and can become quite rubbery if left in the pan for too long, so it's best to start on your remoulade first.

Remoulade

Remoulade is a delicious French mayonnaise-based sauce and very similarly to its British cousin, tartar sauce, creates a marriage made in heaven when paired with fish or seafood.

2 egg yolks

Approx 350ml rapeseed oil

A splash of vinegar (I used white wine vinegar)

A squeeze of lemon juice

A good couple of handfuls of herbs - I used flat leaf parsley, tarragon and chervil, finely chopped

A handful of cornichons, finely chopped

A tablespoon of capers

Salt and pepper

Place the yolks in a bowl and give them a quick whisk. Slowly, drop by drop (I find this bit painstakingly dull, but I am quite impatient, especially when hungry) add the oil, whisking all the while. You may find it helpful to place your bowl on a damp tea towel to prevent it slipping. Once you've added about half the oil, you can start sloshing it in with a bit more abandon. Don't go overboard though, you don't want it to split now that you've come so far. Once you've got to a decent, mayonnaise-y consistency, add a little lemon and/or vinegar and seasoning to taste. Then, chuck in your herbs, cornichons and capers, stir it through and bosh. You're ready to go.

Radish and radicchio salad served with raspberry vinegar and rapeseed oil dressing.

The bitterness of the radicchio was balanced beautifully with the sweetness of the raspberry vinegar and the dressed salad was a glorious jewel-bright red, adding to the temptation of this dish. In terms of the recipe, you'd struggle to make this simpler. Wash, dry and slice the veg. Next, whisk together 2-3 tbsp of raspberry vinegar with 6 tbsp of rapeseed oil, season and dress the salad.

Razor clam broth

A knob of butter

A handful of razor clams (1 to 2 per person)

2 shallots, finely chopped

1 garlic clove, crushed

A large glass of dry white wine

A large glass of water

2 bay leaves

Salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a wide shallow pan and add the onion. Stir the onion until soft, but not brown and add the garlic. Stir again for a minute or so before chucking in the water and wine with the bay leaves. Bring to the boil and leave to simmer for a few minutes while you prepare the razor clams, by simply rinsing then under cold water and discarding any dead ones. Add the clams to the pan and pop on the lid. After a couple of minutes, the clam shells will open. Carefully remove the clams from the pot with tongues and place them on a chopping board for later. Leave the razor clam broth to simmer while you prepare the razor clams with remoulade.

Preheat the grill.

Remove the clams from their shells, do not discard the shells though, you will need them to serve the dish in later. Cut the diggers off the clams - these are the dark bits at one end. Next, use kitchen scissors to slice up through the middle and check the insides for sand. Remove any dark bits - these will be the intestines. Give them a little rinse under the tap if they're sandy and chop the clams into small pieces.

Mix the clams with a generous few dollops of your remoulade and fill your saved shells with the mixture. Pop them under the grill for a minute or so.

Serve alongside an espresso cup of sieved razor clam broth and the raspberry-dressed salad. Classy.

R is for...

2012-02-06T17:47:00.000-08:00

... Rusty Nails with Romesco and red pepper rice rolls, razor clams with remoulade, razor clam broth and radish and radicchio salad dressed with raspberry vinegar and rapeseed oil. Next up, we had Richard's rocket and Roquefort risotto, followed by rabbit ragù ravioli. The main course was rosemary-crusted reindeer with red currant reduction, röstis and red cabbage followed by a pre-pudding of rose petal jelly-topped rose mousse. Pudding was raspberry and Ricotta roulade, roasted rhubarb, rhubarb sorbet and raspberry coulis. Next, we had a cheeseboard of Rachel, Red Chester Thomas, Reblochon and Roquefort served with rye bread and raisin relish and finally, rooibos tea with rum truffles.

R night began with a rather exciting development in the Alphabet Soup kitchen. The hob, which only had three working rings from long before I even moved in, got fixed. I asked the oven cleaner if he thought there might be something he could do about it and, within 15 minutes, he had worked his magic and given me an extra burner. I could have kissed him (I didn't), and I might have done a silly little dance (I definitely did) and it may just have been the best £45 I've ever spent. To be fair, the hob fixing was technically free, as the money paid for a full professional oven cleaning service which I am not ashamed of using because, frankly, I'd rather go without a few non-essentials for a while than have to clean the bugger myself. Life's far too short and I'm far too lazy for scrubbing.

R night played host to a lovely mixture of guests. We welcomed the talented poet and playwright, Richard Marsh and his girlfriend Tammy, a freelance reality TV producer, along with lead singer of the excellent band, This Sporting Life, Matt Hopkinson and his ravishing teacher and theatre-maker wife, Claire Davies. Finally, R night greeted theatre maker and newlywed, Alex Ferguson, alongside applied drama practitioner at the Young Vic, Lily Einhorn. Lily is also a newlywed. She just married Alex! Romance! I made their cake.

Richard Hurst made a wonderful R-themed playlist, including Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, The Ramones, The Rolling Stones, Rose Royce, R.E.M., Diana Ross and Rihanna.

Rusty Nail

If you're partial to Scotch and you're partial to Drambuie, then the chances are, you'll be partial to these little lovelies. Warming, sticky and strong, perfect for cold Winter nights. They certainly hit the spot on R night and paved the way for a resplendent and raucous repast.

We forgot to take a photo of the rusty nails on the night, so here is an image from The Edinburgh Reporter

Equal parts Scotch and Drambuie stirred over ice. Bosh.

Romesco and red pepper rice rolls

Romesco sauce is a thick, full-flavoured Catalan sauce that works beautifully with fish or, if like Richard you can't eat fish, it's also lovely with chicken. R night's rather eccentric use of Romesco was actually quite delicious, if a little on the messy side when it came to actually eating them.

for the Romesco

2 roasted red peppers, skinned and deseeded
1 thick slice of stale white bread
1 tomato
2 large cloves of garlic, crushed
A handful of blanched hazelnuts
A handful of blanched almonds
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
A couple of tbsp red wine or sherry vinegar
1 lemon
A good few glugs of extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper

First, skin the tomato. Simply score the top with a cross, plunge the tomato into boiling water, leave for a minute or so, then plunge the tomato into cold water. The tomato skin should be easy to pull off now. Toast the nuts in a dry pan until lightly golden, turn the nuts out onto a cold plate and leave the nuts to cool. Whizz the bread in a food processor until you have fine bread crumbs and transfer to a bowl. Blitz the nuts until ground - but don't overdo it and pop the breadcrumbs back in the processor with the nuts. Add the tomato, garlic, roasted peppers, chilli, vinegar, some olive oil and the juice of half the lemon with a generous pinch of salt and pepper. Whizz again until you have a nice thick sauce. Taste for seasoning and add more lemon and/or salt and pepper and oil if needed.

for the rice paper rolls

A packet of rice wrappers/ spring roll wrappers/ rice paper (available at Asian/Chinese food stores).

1 red pepper, deseeded and sliced into long thin batons.

Romesco sauce

Soak the rice paper in warm water until completely soft - it usually takes about 30 seconds. When soft, lift the rice paper out of the water and spread out on clean surface. Place a little pile of red pepper batons in the centre of the rice paper and blob on a nice amount of Romesco sauce on top. Fold the edges of the rice paper near the tip ends of the red pepper batons over. Take the piece of rice paper in front of you and fold it tightly away from you over the filling and then roll it up into a tight little sausage. Repeat until you've run out of rice paper or you get bored.

Q is for... Qumbe

2012-02-05T05:41:00.000-08:00

Qumbe is a traditional Somalian coconut pudding I discovered while researching my menu and trying to find something (anything!) that began with the letter Q that Richard might not have heard of. I found lots of recipes that were largely the same - a toffee goo made up of coconut, milk, sugar and cardamom, then pressed down in a tin to set before slicing into squares. I wondered if it might taste similar to that 1980s staple of my childhood: coconut ice, which I never really liked to eat but was a popular treat with others in the Glass household, so I made it continuously until I got bored and moved on to something else. I'm pleased to report that qumbe is much more delicious than coconut ice and is strangely moreish, even if you have already eaten your weight in quesadillas, quail, quinoa and quaking pudding.

Qumbe

This recipe is an amalgamation of lots of different recipes I found on the internet.

180 ml/ 6 fl.oz whole milk

100g/ 4oz caster sugar

100g/ 4oz desiccated coconut, plus extra for sprinkling

6-8 cardamom pods, pods smashed open and the little seeds ground in a pestle and mortar

Line a small square tin with baking parchment and sprinkle the paper with desiccated coconut.

Place the milk and sugar in a saucepan over a low heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Increase the heat and bring to the boil. Chuck in the cardamom and coconut and stir over a low heat until the coconut has absorbed all the liquid and continue to stir for around five minutes. Pour the coconut mixture out into the tin, press it down firmly and smooth over the top. Sprinkle over more desiccated coconut and leave the mixture to cool before popping it in the fridge for about half an hour to set. Turn out the qumbe and slice into squares and serve.

Q is for... Queen of Puddings (and Quaking Pudding) with a quenelle of Quark ice cream

2012-01-09T10:19:00.000-08:00

Richard took me to Heston Blumenthal's The Hinds Head in Bray a few years ago and, although the famous triple-cooked chips were everything everyone said they were, it was the quaking pudding that really resonated for me. I found this recipe penned by the great man himself and followed it to the letter. TO THE BLOODY LETTER, HESTON! And (forgive me if I sound too much like Gregg Wallace here) although the flavour was the same comforting custard-y cuddle I'd remembered, this pudding was less quaking and more total collapse. My quaking puddings resolutely refused to set and as such were a resounding flop. It was all the more annoying to later discover that Heston had published another recipe for quaking pudding all of three months later, which is COMPLETELY different. He'd clearly cocked it up the first time round and had to revisit the recipe to correct it. I wish I'd found the correction first, then maybe Q night would have been saved from a pudding of quaking soup. It wasn't all bad though. As is my usual wont, I couldn't decide which pudding to make out of quaking and queen of, so I did the only sensible thing and made both.

On P night, the guests were making predictions for Q's menu and the inimitable Chris Neill's offered suggestion was "a quenelle of some shit". So a quenelle of some shit or other it had to be, and what better shit to choose than another ingredient beginning with the letter Q. I went for a quenelle of Quark, which some might think is quite shit in and of itself, due to its staggeringly and saintly low fat content. It turned out not to be shit at all and, in actual fact, was rather delicious and cheese cake-y when transformed into lemon ice cream - the slug of cream probably didn't hurt it either.

Queen of Puddings

It's traditional to use breadcrumbs, but I think they taste nicer with brioche. If you take objection to this alteration, by all means substitute the brioche crumbs for white breadcrumbs. I attempted to make just the right amount for two puddings, but, as usual, I over-estimated and ended up with three. I made these in custard pots, which I think are probably a little bigger than ramekins, so you might be able to get a fourth pud out of the same volume of mixture.

300ml of full fat milk

75g brioche crumbs

A knob of butter, plus extra for greasing

50g caster sugar

A pinch of salt

The finely grated zest of half a lemon

A dash of vanilla extract

2 eggs

A pinch of salt

A couple of tbsp of raspberry jam (or whatever jam you fancy)

Bring the milk to the boil and take the pan off the heat. Stir in the brioche crumbs, butter, 25g sugar, lemon zest and vanilla and leave the mixture to swell for about 20 minutes.

In the meantime, butter your custard pots/ ramekins and place them on a baking tray and preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan).

Separate the eggs and whisk the yolks into the cooled brioche mixture. Divide the mixture between your buttered dishes, flatten their tops and pop them into the oven for about 15 to 20 minutes or until set.

Melt the jam in a small saucepan and spread it over the set puddings. Whisk the whites with the salt in another bowl until stiff, then gradually whisk in the remaining sugar. Generously spoon a a mound of meringue on top of each pudding and fluff it up with a fork. Return to the oven for 10-15 minutes or until the meringue tops are golden brown. Leave the puds to cool a bit before serving.

Quark Ice Cream

(this obviously makes more than 2 quenelles' worth)

The zest and juice of 2 lemons

4 tbsp of caster sugar

1 tub (250g) Quark

125ml double cream

Place the lemon zest and juice in a saucepan with the sugar over a gentle heat. Stir until the sugar has dissolved and you have a light syrup. Leave to cool.

Whisk together the quark and cream and add the syrup - A strained mine of zest because I wanted it smooth, but you don't have to. Mix it all together and pop it in the fridge for half an hour or so to make it properly fridge-cold.

If you have an ice cream machine, then follow the manufacturers instructions. If not, pop the mixture in a tupperware box and stick it in the freezer, giving it a vigorous whisk every half an hour or so until it's set to stop any ice crystals forming.

Take the ice cream out of the freezer for 5-10 minutes before you're ready to serve your pudding to soften. Using two tablespoons, scrape a spoonful of ice cream back and forth between the two spoons until you have made a rugby ball shape. Plonk it on a plate next to your queen of pudding and dig in.

Q is for... Quince-stuffed quails with quinoa

2012-01-06T09:55:00.000-08:00

Although I've said that all the dishes were kept secret from Richard on Q night, there were definitely no surprises here with quail, quince and quinoa. He may not have anticipated them all being served on the same plate, but if bets had been placed he would certainly have cleaned up with these three. But none of that really matters, and besides, there is hardly an exhaustive list of foods beginning with Q, so as far as predictions go, there was bound to be quite a high hit rate for accuracy. Despite the lack of surprises at the contents of this particular dish, it worked together beautifully.

I love the subtle gamey taste of quail, but I know plenty of people who can't be bothered to order it in a restaurant because they're so small and boney and it can get tiresome picking the carcass for the last remaining scraps of meat. I personally quite like carcass-picking, but I'd already decided to stuff my quails with quince, so boning seemed the obvious way forward. I'm lucky enough to have one of London's finest butchers only a short bus ride away from where I live, so I asked the lovely folk at Moen's to bone my quails for me. I didn't own a boning knife at the time (this year's Christmas changed that - thanks Richard!) and thought I might slice my hand off if I tried to use a chef's knife on something so tiny. Ready-boned, these were a doddle to stuff and a cinch to slice.

Unlike David Lynch, I've never been much of a quinoa enthusiast, but this was soft, mellow comfort food. It's the kind of food you crave when it's cold and dark outside and you're feeling tired and lazy. The kind of food that you can just spoon into your pie hole and lazily chew once or twice before it's ready for swallowing. The kind of food you could probably get away with eating if you didn't have teeth. Like mashed potato or rice pudding. I'm never going to be sent into a frenzy of pleasure or delight by eating quinoa, but it has its place and I think I've found it: lying under a quail stuffed with quince.

Quinoa

Serves 2

150g quinoa

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

A few spring onions, finely chopped

A bunch of flat leaf parsley, chopped

Salt and pepper

1 pint of fresh chicken stock

A glass of dry white wine

A knob of butter

Fry the onions, garlic and chilli in the butter until soft. Add the quinoa and the stock and wine, stir and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat, pop the lid on and leave to simmer for 15 minutes. Throw in the parsley and stir through for a couple of minutes. Season to taste and serve.

Quince-stuffed quail

I bought the quince cheese (membrillo) as quinces weren't in season at the time of Q. I found a wonderful quince-centric company who were so passionate about their products when I rang, I ended up buying more than I'd ever intended.

I've made my own quince cheese before and, aside from passing it all through a sieve, it's not tricky at all. Just chop up the quinces and simmer them in water for a couple of hours until very soft and pass them through a sieve. Next, place the pulp in a saucepan with an equal volume of sugar, add a squeeze of lemon and simmer for a few hours until it becomes very thick and a drop sets hard on a cold plate. Pour into oiled jars or pretty shaped dishes with lids so that you can upturn them straight on to a cheese board, or, in this case, into a quail.

to serve 2

2 boned quails

1 packet of parma ham

2 tbsp quince cheese

Seasoning

2 tbsp Hot Quince Jelly (optional, as I said, I got rather carried away while quince shopping)

Preheat the oven to 190°C (170°C fan)

Simply place 1 tbsp of quince cheese in the centre of the boned quail, season and roll up the bird like a sausage. Wrap it in parma ham and place on a baking sheet. Repeat with the other bird. Heat the hot quince jelly in a small pan to melt and then brush it over the parma-wrapped quails. Pop them in the oven for about 20 minutes. Rest for 5-10 minutes before serving.

Q is for... Qotban

2012-01-05T15:40:00.000-08:00

So, a qotban is a Moroccan lamb kebab. They are incredibly simple to prepare and, being mainly made up of big hunks of tender meat, are of course delicious.

Qotban

250g lamb neck, trimmed of fat and cut into cubes
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
The juice of 2 lemons
A finger of ginger, peeled and grated
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp allspice
Salt and pepper
A generous glug of olive oil
Kebab skewers (if using bamboo skewers, be sure to soak them in water before use)

Mix all the marinade ingredients together and pour it into a sandwich bag. Add the lamb cubes, tie a knot in the top of the bag and squidge everything about a bit, so the lamb is fully coated. Pop the bag in the fridge for a couple of hours, giving the bag a bit of a shake and squidge every now and then.

Thread the meat on to the skewers and pop under a hot grill for about 15-20 minutes. Turn the kebabs regularly and baste with the left over marinade. Serve with a few simply dressed salad leaves.

Q is for... Quahog in Quinta

2012-01-05T14:47:00.000-08:00

Quahogs are hard shelled clams often used in clam chowder or eaten raw with a little grated horseradish. On Q night, I decided to steam them in Quinta, a dry, white Portuguese wine. I was particularly keen to feature these little lovelies for Q after the mussels on M night managed to completely revolutionise Richard's attitude to shellfish. After his initial trepidation, Richard tucked into the Moules Marinière with unparalleled gusto and since his seafood epiphany, he's been seen scoffing the stuff at every opportunity since. If the empty shells (chucked into cocktail-drained Martini glasses. Classy.) were anything to go by, the quahogs hit the seafood spot nicely.

Quahogs in Quinta

(serves 2)

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 stick of celery, finely chopped

2 rashers of bacon

4 tomatoes, skinned, deseeded and chopped

A bunch of flat leaf parsley, chopped

1 large glass of Quinta (or any other dry white wine)

Knob of butter

Seasoning

A little shake of dried red chillies (as much or as little as you like)

750g quahog clams, washed and de-bearded - throw any open clams with open shells away.

Sweat the onion, garlic, celery and bacon in butter until everything is soft. Crank up the heat so the bacon and vegetables turn golden brown. Throw in the wine, tomatoes, parsley, chilli flakes and tumble in the clams. Season and pop the lid on and leave to simmer for a few minutes or until the quahog shells open. Serve in warm bowls with a little French bread to mop up the delicious juices.

Q is for... Quesadillas

2012-01-05T11:25:00.000-08:00

Having already scoffed down two Scotch quails eggs the size of cricket balls as pre-dinner "nibbles" with our cocktails, a quesadilla starter was clearly asking for trouble. Having lost all reason, I decided to make enough tortilla dough to make 20 tortillas. Yes, that's right. 20. For two people. As a starter. Fortunately, reason returned for long enough to prevent me from actually serving all 20 tortillas. Instead, I popped the rest in an old cake tin to save for later, or, as actually happened, to be forgotten about until they went mouldy and had to be thrown away.

I stuffed my quesadillas with plenty of cheese (obviously) in the form of Quicke's Cheddar, along with red peppers, chilli, coriander, mushrooms and onion. They were somewhere between a calzone and a toasted sandwich. They were delicious, but, by gum, were they filling. Richard and I fell back in our chairs, rubbing our full bellies, with the resonating notes of Josh Homme ringing in our ears. "Is there very much more to come?" Richard squeaked. "Yes," I replied, "quite a bit". Richard tried to hide his fear with a kindly smile, before suggesting we should "have a bit of a rest first".

In all honesty, that little rest could have quite happily turned into a carbohydrate and cocktail induced five hour nap, but our training sessions in the form of the letters A to P had stood us in good stead. Several months of multi-course eating meant we were match-fit to continue onwards in the quest of Q. The quesadillas weren't going to stand a chance against old veterans like us. Bring on the remaining quantity of Qs!

Quesadillas

If you haven't got the time, or can't be bothered to make your own tortillas, don't beat yourself up for buying them in. I only made the tortillas myself because I'd never made them before and the whole point of this food quest is to make it a bit of a challenge. Making a sandwich out of shop bought tortillas and whacking it under the grill didn't seem much like a challenge, which, of course, is exactly what would make it so appealing the rest of the time.

for the tortillas (makes about 20)

400g/1 lb plain flour

15g/ 1/2 oz butter

1 tsp baking powder

A pinch of salt

175ml/ 6 fl.oz boiling water

Sift together the dry ingredients before rubbing in the butter. Slowly, add the water and mix with a knife using a cutting action until you have created a rough dough - you may not need all the water. Once the dough is cool enough to touch, knead it on a lightly floured surface until smooth and elastic. Place in an oiled bowl topped with cling film to rest for 15 minutes.

Divide the mixture into small golf ball sized pieces and roll each one on a floured surface until thin and about the size of a dinner plate. Leave the remaining dough covered while you are rolling each piece, to prevent it from drying out.

Heat a large non-stick frying pan over a medium to hot flame with no oil. Dry fry each tortillas for 30 seconds to a minute on each side or until the top is slightly bubbly and golden. Stack the tortillas and wrap them in a clean tea towel or a parcel of baking parchment and foil to keep warm.

for the filling (to make 1 quesadilla that serves 2 people as a starter or for lunch)

You can fill your quesadillas with anything you like, as long as it includes cheese. In fact, you can, if you like, only put cheese in them. As long as cheese is featured, it's a quesadilla. It really is the cheese that's the important thing here, in case you hadn't worked that out.

1 onion, finely sliced in half moons

1 clove of garlic, crushed

1 red chilli, seeds removed and finely chopped

2 handfuls of chestnut mushrooms, sliced

1 red pepper, seeds and pith removed and sliced

A handful of fresh coriander

2 generous handfuls of grated Quickes Cheddar (or any other cheese you fancy)

Preheat the grill

Fry the onions in a glug of olive oil until soft. Add the mushrooms, pepper and garlic and fry until everything is soft and golden. Season generously and chuck in the chilli. Continue to fry it for a minute or so before taking the pan off the hat. Take one tortilla and sprinkle over half of the cheese. Pop the fried vegetables on top and scatter over some fresh, chopped coriander. Sprinkle over the rest of the cheese and place a second tortilla on top. Press it down slightly and place the quesadilla under the grill until the cheese has melted. Cut the quesadilla into quarters and serve.

Q is for...

2011-11-28T06:35:00.000-08:00

... Queen Elizabeth cocktails and Scotch quail eggs, quesadillas, quahogs in Quinta, qotban, quince-stuffed quail with quinoa, queen of puddings (and quaking pudding) with a quenelle of Quark ice cream and qumbe with coffee.

When Richard and I hosted Easter last year for the whole Glass clan, he was concerned there wouldn't be the slightest hope we could fit them all in. My mother was bringing an extra table, along with a few chairs and extra crockery and cutlery. Problem solved I said. Richard asked for the measurements of the extra table to see if it would fit in the room. I replied, as is my wont, with, "It'll be fine". Richard, unconvinced, asked again. I rang up my mum and dutifully asked for the table measurements, to which she replied, "Oh, but it's behind lots of stuff in the garage and it will be a pain to have to get it out before we actually need it. And, if it doesn't fit, don't worry, we'll work something out when we get there. It'll be fine". Her voice could have been mine. This is exactly how I approach all things. If I fall in love with a painting or a piece of furniture AND extraordinarily enough I can afford to buy it, I do. I just do. Without any thoughts on where to put it or if it will fit or if I can find it cheaper elsewhere. If I fall in love with a person, an object or an idea, I go with it, certain in my belief, and regardless of anything else, that it will fit, there will be room and it will all work out in the end. Richard approaches things very differently. Armed with his parents' log-in details for Which? magazine, a tape measure and a firm idea of his current bank balance, he makes decisions based on reason and logic and asks questions like, "But do we really need a new ...?". This is why we work well together; he reigns me in where necessary and I tell him to "bugger it, just get it" when I can see he really wants something frivolous, but feels guilty about it. I've talked before about the process for creating an Alphabet Soup menu and probably the most vital part of this process is the bit where Richard reigns in my natural extravagance and ungrounded optimism by saying something on the lines of, "Have you invited Mr Creosote?" or simply, "That looks like rather a lot of food. Are you trying to kill our guests?" This time, this part of the process was going to have to be sacrificed for the greater good. I was going to go it alone for Q for a very important reason.

Richard is always privy to everything. He is the only Alphabet Souper (apart from me), who knows what we are eating before we eat it. He is the only Alphabet Souper allowed in the kitchen, in case secrets of courses to come are uncovered. He is the only Alphabet Souper who occasionally rolls up his sleeves and prepares a letter-themed dish. And, so it struck me, that all those things also meant that Richard was the only Alphabet Souper who hadn't fully experienced Alphabet Soup. For the letter Q, this was all going to change. The menu planning, shopping and food preparation were going to be secret until each dish was served. He wasn't allowed anywhere near the kitchen and he had no idea what we were going to eat, drink or the music we were going to listen to. This highly secret evening kicked off with Queen Elizabeth cocktails and enormous Scotch quail eggs to a soundtrack of Queens of the Stone Age and Queen. Thankfully, neither of us own any Queen Latifah.

Queen Elizabeth

If I'm honest, I have absolutely no recollection of what these tasted like, or, more extraordinary still, whether or not I liked them. This leads me to believe that I probably had more than one and that they must have packed quite a punch. If you want a less hazy description, I suggest you try one yourself. I'm sure they're very good. Probably.

2 shots of gin

1/2 shot of dry vermouth

1/2 shot of benedictine

Shake over over and strain into a Martini glass.

Scotch quail eggs

Richard hates eggs, but I knew he wouldn't be able to resist these little lovelies, covered, as they were, in a thick layer of delicious sausage meat. Admittedly, the layer of sausage meat may have been rather too thick, which is why my hopes for soft, gooey yolks, fell by the wayside. After accidentally making Scotch quails eggs the size of Scotch hen eggs, I was left with only two choices: I could either have runny yolks and raw meat, or cooked meat and hard eggs. Obviously, I went for the latter, but next time I won't make the mistake of being too meat-greedy again. Still, they were completely delicious and Richard and I, rather unwisely, gobbled up two each, leaving us quite full before I'd even dished up the starter.

4-6 quails eggs

200g sausage meat

A pinch of cayenne pepper

2 eggs, beaten

Plain flour for dusting

Fine breadcrumbs or Panko

Salt and pepper

1 litre of rapeseed or sunflower oil

Prick the top of each egg with a cocktail stick and boil in salted water for a minute to a minute and a half (go for 2 minutes if you want them hardboiled). Remove the eggs from the water with a slotted spoon and transfer them to a bowl of ice-cold water to stop them cooking any further. You have to work very quickly here.

Season the sausage meat generously with the cayenne and salt and pepper, you can even add a splash of Tabasco if you fancy it. Fry off a little ball of the meat so you can taste it for seasoning and adjust if necessary.

Being very careful not to break them, shell the eggs inside a bowl filled with cold water - it will make the job easier. Flatten a ball of sausage meat into a flat patty shape, place the egg in the middle and carefully wrap it in the meat.

Put the beaten eggs, flour and breadcrumbs in three separate bowls and roll the eggs first in the flour, then egg and finally the breadcrumbs. Place them in the fridge for half an hour to firm up before dunking them again in the egg and then the breadcrumbs.

Preheat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan)

Heat the oil in a wide heavy-bottomed pan and deep fry the Scotch quail eggs for a few minutes until golden brown. Remove them with a slotted spoon and place on kitchen paper to absorb any excess oil and pop them in the oven for a further couple of minutes before serving.

P is for... Pine nut praline truffles and chocolate dipped physalis

2011-11-24T14:23:00.000-08:00

Pine nut praline truffles

for the praline

250g/ 10oz caster sugar
250g/ 10oz pine nuts

for the ganache

50g/ 2oz dark chocolate, chopped

50ml/ 2 fl.oz double cream

Cocoa for dusting

First, make the praline. Line a baking sheet with baking parchment. Toast the pine nuts in a dry frying pan and leave to cool. Heat the sugar in a pan over a medium heat. Don't stir it or your caramel will go grainy. Once all the sugar has dissolved and turned a deep, rich golden, take it off the heat and chuck in the pine nuts and pour the whole lot on to the baking sheet, tipping the pan away from you. Be very careful not to touch the hot caramel! Rock the sheet carefully from side to side to level out the mixture. Leave to cool completely. Break the pine nut praline up a little, before whizzing it in a magimix into fine crumbs.

Next, heat the cream in a pan until it just boils. Take off the heat and leave for one minute before chucking in the chopped chocolate. Stir until all the chocolate has melted and you have a smooth, glossy ganache. Tip in the pine nut praline and mix together. Leave to cool completely.

Once set, use a teaspoon to scoop out small balls of ganache and roll to even their shape between your hands. Roll the truffles in sifted cocoa before placing on a serving plate.

Physalis dipped in chocolate

When Richard was in his mid twenties, his whole family went over to Bordeaux to celebrate his younger brother's 21st. During the trip, they visited OH! Légumes Oubliés, the farm park of forgotten vegetables. I defy anyone to resist visiting somewhere boasting such a name. Apparently, most of the "forgotten" vegetables consisted of strange shaped squashes. Once they'd finished their tour, they were given a selection of dishes made from all the forgotten vegetables. They were given nettle flan, glasswort and wild blackberries and "amour en cage" - or physalis, which had been dipped in chocolate. Buses back from OH! Légumes Oubliés were few and far between, so the whole Turner-Hurst clan were driven back into town by the friendly farmer. Eating weird shaped squashes makes you kinder. Fact. Richard has recreated the chocolate dipped physalis he ate there more times than he could shake a stick at, and, although not a particularly forgotten or even startlingly original recipe, it is one that comes with a rather nice story about a delightfully eccentric French farm.

I found this photo on google image search, because we were too drunk to
remember to photograph these on P night

Several physallis (as many as you want to eat)

Melted dark chocolate

Dip the physalis in the dark chocolate and leave to set on a piece of baking parchment. Serve just before they're rock hard, so you don't have to worry about your un-tempered chocolate "blooming" unattractively. Failing that, you can temper the chocolate if you can be bothered. It's easy enough to do, but I had about a minute and a half to make these on P night, which, after several pints of Prosecco washed down with a couple more of Port, was quite a feat in itself.

P is for... Pont L'Evêque, Pecorino, Provola di Bufala Affumicate, Perazola Azul, Prefailles

2011-11-24T14:20:00.000-08:00

It was to La Fromagerie that we turned to for P night's cheeseboard, which we served with poppyseed crackers and more of the plum pickle from earlier in the evening. Starting from the top left of the board, the suspiciously shaped cheese on a string is Provola di Bufala Affumicate, a smoked buffalo milk cheese with a delicate, fruity flavour. To its right is a Spanish blue sheep cheese Perazola Azul, a fairly mild Roquefort-style cheese with a nutty finish. In the centre of the board, you'll be unsurprised to know, is Pont L'Evêque is a soft French cows milk cheese washed in cider, which gives it an aromatic earthiness. The bottom right of the board boasts a whopping chunk of Pecorino - which La Fromagerie are particularly keen on, having an enormous range instore. Neither Richard or I can remember which particular Pecorino this was, but it was considered the best in the shop by the cheesemonger, so that was good enough for us. Finally, we had Prefailles, a French semi-soft goat cheese with a buttery texture and a tangy earthiness. The cheese is coated in aromatic herbs and spices.

P is for... Peach pannacotta with pomegranate and Prosecco jelly, passion fruit and pomegranate pavlova with pomegranate coulis and pistachios

2011-11-24T11:40:00.000-08:00

peach pannacotta, pomegranate and Prosecco jelly, passion fruit and pomegranate
pavlova with pomegranate coulis and pistachios

Pavlova is always my fallback pudding of choice. When I want to make something quick and easy that looks beautiful bunged in the middle of the table, like a billowing snowy cloud topped with fruit, it's to pavlova I turn. It also has the wonderful added bonus of being gluten free, so you can dish it up to gluten dodgers and wheat lovers alike, without having to make the slightest compromise on taste. Another plus in a pavlova's favour is that people tend to think you're a culinary genius because you've whisked up some egg whites. As for pannacotta, it's another really simple pudding with a little element of danger - namely, whether or not it decides to set. You only want to put in just enough gelatine to make it set, without turning it into blancmange. Then there's the unmoulding of the pudding on to the plates. Not difficult in itself, but enough to turn some otherwise calm and collected types into shaking nervous wrecks. I've been served pannacotta in Italy that hasn't been fancily unmoulded into a pretty dome shape at all, it's just been served in the glass it was set in, which is definitely worth bearing in mind to ease the pressure.

Passion fruit and pomegranate pavlovas

Serves 8

I always think imperially when making pavlovas, largely because I never bother with scales when making one. In fact, this is a great pudding to make for those who don't own weighing scales, but do have a tablespoon rattling round in their cutlery drawer. One slightly heaped tablespoon of sugar equates to roughly one ounce and you need double the number of ounces to the number of egg whites used. So, that's 6oz for 3 egg whites or 12oz for 6 egg whites, etc, etc. I know puritans often bang on about the scientific necessity for absolute accuracy in baking, but trust me on this one, I bake for a living. I have managed to make a whole wedding cake to feed 100 greedy guests with only a tablespoon as a measuring tool, working in a friend's shockingly under-equipped holiday rental kitchen, so a little meringue isn't going to be beat me. And, if you follow these simple instructions, nor shall it beat you. If you're frightened of getting distracted and losing count, you can always count out the right number of spoonfuls into a bowl beforehand, but I like to live a little dangerously and plonk them straight in. Go on, don't be scared, show this pavlova who's boss.

3 large egg whites (you can save the yolks and make a delicious custard later)

6 slightly heaped tbsp caster sugar

2 level tsp cornflour

1 tsp white wine vinegar (it doesn't have to be white wine, that's just for clarity of colour, but I've been known to use malt vinegar before and it's worked out just fine. Just don't use balsamic)

A splash of vanilla extract (optional - it's just for flavour)

1 330ml tub of double or whipping cream

The juice of 4 passion fruits

3 pomegranates

Whisk the egg whites in a large bowl until stiff (if you have an electric hand whisk, save your arms and use it). Gradually whisk in the sugar, one tablespoon at a time, until your meringue is beautifully glossy. Add the cornflour and vinegar and whisk in - these two ingredients are responsible for creating the deliciously marshmallowy inside beneath the crisp, chewy crust. Lastly, whisk in the vanilla if you want to.

Preheat the oven to 150°C (130°C fan)

At this stage, you can bung the meringue into a large piping bag fitted with a plain or star nozzle, but two spoons will also do just fine. Create individual mounds on a baking parchment-lined baking sheet, making sure you leave a couple of inches either side of each pavlova to allow for any spreading. Next, make a little dip in the top of each to make room for the cream and fruit topping later. Pop the tray/s in the oven and immediately turn the temperature down to 140°C (120°C fan). Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Once baked, turn the oven off and open the oven door slightly and leave the pavlovas to cool inside. Once cold, peel the pavlovas off the paper and place them on serving plates. Whip the cream until billowing and whisk in the passion fruit juice. Top each pavlova with a generous blob of passion fruit cream and top with pomegranate seeds. There's no need to pick them out with a pin, just turn them upside down and bash them over a bowl with a wooden spoon and the seeds will fly out.

Peach pannacotta with pistachios

Serves 8

6 gelatine leaves, soaked in cold water for about ten minutes

600ml/ 1 pint and 1 fl.oz double cream

150ml/ 5 fl.oz milk

250ml/ 9 fl.oz peach purée (I couldn't get hold of peaches, so I bought a pouch)

50g/ 2oz caster sugar

100g/ 4oz shelled, unsalted pistachios, roughly smashed up in a pestle and mortar

Place the cream, milk, peach purée and sugar in a saucepan over a low heat, stir until the sugar has dissolved. Stop stirring and bring to a simmer. Take the pan off the heat, squeeze the excess water out of the gelatine and add to the pan. Stir until all the gelatine has dissolved and divide the mixture between 8 ramekins or custard pots and leave to cool. Once cold, place them in the fridge for at least an hour to set. To unmould, quickly submerge the base of the ramekin in a shallow bowl of hot water, wipe and turn upside down on a plate. The pannacotta should slide out and keep its shape. Repeat with the rest of the puddings and sprinkle their tops with crushed pistachio nuts.

Pomegranate and Prosecco jelly

125ml/ 4.5 fl.oz pomegranate juice

25g/ 1oz caster sugar

125ml/ 4.5 fl.oz Prosecco

The seeds of 1 pomegranate

4 gelatine leaves, soaked in cold water for about 10 minutes

Line a square dish or tray with cling film. Stir the sugar into the pomegranate juice in a saucepan over a gentle heat until the sugar has dissolved. Take off the heat and stir in the gelatine after squeezing off any excess water. Pour in the Prosecco and tip out into your prepared tray. Scatter the jelly with pomegranate seeds and once completely cool, pop the tray in the fridge to set for about an hour. Once set, slice the jelly into little squares to serve with your pudding.

Pomegranate coulis

500ml pomegranate juice

200g/ 8oz caster sugar

A squeeze of lemon juice

Pop the lot in a saucepan over a low heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Stop stirring and leave to simmer until the coulis has thickened slightly. Leave to cool, then pop in the fridge.

P is for... Passion fruit and pink peppercorn parfait stuffed pineapple parcels

2011-11-23T06:54:00.000-08:00

Pre-pudding

pineapple parcel

Last year, Richard decided he wanted to go to Latium to celebrate his birthday. It's an Italian restaurant tucked away in an unlikely road, just north of Oxford Street. Don't be put off by its echo-y lack of soft furnishings or its Italian "fayn dayning" tag line, because the food is properly delicious. As ravioli specialists, you can literally have ravioli for every course, including pudding, and although they offer sweet pasta raviolis, I think it's their pineapple variant that is the most interesting. God only knows where they find them, but they seem to use the biggest pineapples known to humanity and slice them so perishingly thinly that I can't work out how it can possibly be done by hand. I'd put money on it that they use some kind of meat slicer, because if they don't, their precision is nothing short of extraordinary. They use one sheet of pineapple, which is filled and folded in half before being frozen. Although I remember it tasting good, filled with something cold and lime-heavy, it's the look of the thing that most impresses. I wanted to attempt a recreation using a thin sheet of pineapple as a parcel to hold a scrumptious filling, so I went out and bought the biggest pineapple I could find. Really, it was a whopper. After peeling it and removing the "eyes", I began the laborious task of slicing it as thinly as I could, which turned out to be pretty thinly indeed, if you don't hold up Latium's slicing as a benchmark. The thinness wasn't the problem, it was the size of the actual rounds. They would be far too small to contain any decent quantity of filling. Disappointingly, I had to resign myself to the fact that Latium must buy their particular breed of pineapple in Brobdingnag, and, as I didn't have the requisite travel guide, I would have to make do with the non-mutant sized kind found in the greengrocer's down the road. In the end I used two sheets for my parcels, which (take note Latium!) ended up more closely resembling ravioli than the giant-one-sheeted examples ever did. Get in! I decided to fill my pineapple parcels with passion fruit and pink peppercorn parfait and scattered more of the scooped out passion fruit flesh on top to create a crunchy, tangy sauce. It went down as a refreshing rest after its meaty predecessors with all, except Tamzin Aitken, who, as I mentioned before, is perennially averse to the pleasures of the pineapple and is impervious to any powers of persuasion to tempt her otherwise. Ah well, more for me. She had to make do with a bowl of passion fruit and pink peppercorn parfait.

Passion fruit and pink peppercorn parfait stuffed pineapple parcels.

Inside the pineapple parcel

For the pineapple

1 large pineapple

1 vanilla pod, cut in half, seeds scraped out

4oz/100g caster sugar

7 fl.oz/ 200ml water

A handful of fresh basil leaves

Top and tail the pineapple and carefully remove the skin with a very sharp knife. Carefully pluck out any little black "eyes" and, without removing the core, slice the pineapple into wafer thin discs. Place the pineapple in a tupperware box. Place the sugar, water, basil leaves, vanilla seeds and pod in a saucepan over a gentle heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil and turn off the heat. Strain the syrup over the pineapple, pop the lid on and allow to cool before transferring to the fridge for as long as you've got - 3 hours to 3 days.

For the passion fruit and pink peppercorn parfait

4 eggs, separated

4oz/ 100g caster sugar

4 fl.oz/ 100ml water

6 tsp pink peppercorns (plus extra for scattering)

16 passion fruits

5 fl.oz/ 150ml double cream

First, you need to make a pâte à bombe. Place the sugar and water in a saucepan over a gentle heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Once dissolved, stop stirring and increase the heat until the syrup comes to the boil. Leave it for 30 seconds then take the syrup off the heat. Place the egg yolks in a large heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water and whisk (if you have an electric handheld whisk, use it) until the yolks are pale and creamy. Add the hot sugar syrup very slowly, drip by drip, continuing to whisk all the the time. This takes a while, so try to be patient. Once all the syrup has been added, continue whisking until you have a thick frothy custard. Remove the bowl from the pan and continue whisking at the highest speed for a couple of minutes. Turn the speed down and continue whisking for five minutes more at a low speed. Yes, there's a lot of whisking here. The mixture should have doubled in volume and leave a ribbon trail. Leave until cool enough to pop in the fridge to cool completely.

Line a loaf tin with cling film. Bash the pink peppercorns into a pestle and mortar. Remove the pulp from 12 passion fruits and plonk in a sieve over a bowl or jug. Use a wooden spoon to push the pulp and juice through the sieve leaving the seeds behind. Whisk the cream and stir in the passion fruit juice and the pink peppercorns. Fold the passion fruit cream into the pâte à bombe you made earlier. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and fold into the passion fruit mixture. Tip into your prepared loaf tin and freeze for at least 3 hours.

For the pineapple parcels

Take the parfait out of the freezer for 10 minutes to make it easier to scoop. Take one piece of pineapple out of the syrup and place on a clean surface (the worktop will do, if you have space). Scoop out a large teaspoons' worth of parfait out of the tin (try to do it all at one end, so you can slice the rest later for another night's pudding) and place in the centre of the macerated pineapple disc. Place another disc on top and, using your hands, press the top pineapple disc around the parfait, expelling any air and sealing the two sheets of pineapple together. Place in a tupperware box and pop in the freezer, while you make another parcel. Continue making parcels (popping each one in the freezer as soon as you've made it, so your parfait doesn't melt) until you have used up your pineapple. Take the rest of the parfait out of the loaf tin and trim off the jagged end you've been scooping bits out of, and wrap in more cling film and shove it back in the freezer to slice for another day. Now, back to the pineapple parcels. Get them out of the freezer 10 minutes before serving and scoop out the pulp from the remaining passion fruits and scatter over the top of each parcel, along with a few more bashed up pink peppercorns.

P is for... Pork belly, pumpkin puree, parsnips and pickled pears with a port reduction

2011-11-22T14:46:00.000-08:00

Pork belly, parsnips, pickled pears, pumpkin puree and Port reduction.

Pork belly is a cheap cut that's been making it big in posh restaurants everywhere. That's the beauty of pork belly, it's just such a versatile beast. It's as happy being the centrepiece of a homely Sunday roast, as it is spiced up with chillies, star anise, ginger and soy for a casual weeknight Chinese red-cooked pork with friends. The lavish layers of fat make for meltingly tender meat, and, when paired with generously salted, crunchy crackling, create a show-stopping supper. I always ask my butcher to score the fat for me, but you can do it yourself with a stanley knife if that's the kind of thing you're into. Pouring boiling water straight from the kettle over the skin, before discarding the water, patting the meat dry with kitchen paper and cooking it any which way you choose, will ensure your crackling is suitably crackly. For a hassle free weekend lunch for a full table of guests, there's nothing easier than roasting it simply for a few hours, while you get on with cleaning the loo and laying the table before your doorbell rings. On P night, oven space would have been too tight and too tricky to let a big belly monopolise it for that long a time, so I opted for twice cooked pork belly; a favourite way of chefs to prepare the meat as it makes for neater presentation, especially if you weight it overnight.

Pork belly (twice cooked)

1 large onion, sliced

10 cloves of garlic

A few sprigs of fresh thyme

A couple of bay leaves

2 k pork belly, ribs removed but kept

1 litre of fresh chicken stock

1 large glass of white wine

Sea salt and black pepper

Preheat the oven to 250°C (230°C fan)

Place the onion, herbs and garlic at the bottom of a roasting tin and place the pork belly, skin side up, on top. Generously season the pork skin and pour the wine and stock into the pan. Place in a preheated super hot oven for 20 minutes. Take the pork out and turn the oven down to 160°C (140°C fan). Cover the pork with a layer of baking parchment and a layer of foil, tucking the pork in as if you're putting it to bed. Pop it back in the oven for about 4 hours or until very tender. Leave the pork to cool in its cooking juices. Once cold, remove the pork belly and place on a tray with two big pieces of cling film draped over it in the shape of a cross. Place the pork in the middle and wrap it up in the cling film. Place another tray on top and place heavy weights on top - tins of beans or even a couple of bricks if you happen to have them lying around. Press the weights on top of the pork down so it lies flat and, with the weights still on top, pop the pork in the fridge overnight. The next day, remove the pork from the fridge 40 minutes before you want to serve it and ten minutes before plating up, trim the belly into a neat rectangle before dividing it into even portions. When you are ready to cook it, preheat the grill to its hottest setting, then heat a large skillet with plenty of olive oil over a very high flame. Place the pieces of pork belly skin side up into the skillet and cook, basting the top with the oil, for about 5 minutes before sticking the pan under the grill until the crackling crackles. Plate up with the pumpkin purée, roasted parsnips and pickled pears before pouring over some Port reduction.

Pumpkin purée

Many people, myself often included, can be put off pumpkins and squashes because they're such a faff to peel. Well, come closer, people, because this dish requires no peeling whatsoever.

1 medium pumpkin
Olive oil
A few garlic cloves

Double cream
Butter
Seasoning

Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan)

Chop the pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds and place each half on a baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil and fill the cavities with garlic cloves (there's no need to peel them). Sprinkle over some salt and pepper and pop them in the oven for around 40 minutes or until soft and until. Discard the garlic and scoop out the flesh with a spoon and place it in liquidiser with a generous splash of cream and a knob of butter. Once puréed, transfer the mixture to a saucepan over a low flame, generously season and stir until the mixture becomes velvety and some of the moisture has evaporated off. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt and pepper, cream and butter if necessary and leave in the pan to reheat just before serving.

Parsnips

I love parsnips. Especially roasted parsnips. Is there a vegetable more delicious alongside a plate of roasted meat, than a parsnip? No. There isn't. This isn't much of a recipe, so I'm not going to give you a list of ingredients, but I'd usually allow 1 to 1 and a half parsnips per person, but more than that will always be welcome if your guests have any sense. Peel them, slice them in half lengthways and parboil them in salted water. Drain and place back in their saucepan with a glug of olive oil and a knob of butter. Swish the pan round and pour the parsnips along with the oil and butter on to a baking tray, season and roast in a preheated oven at 180°C (160°C fan) for 35-40 minutes, or until the parsnips are soft and golden.

Pickled pears

The spicy acidity of the vinegar works brilliantly alongside the sweetness of the pears, pumpkin purée and parsnips, and the saltiness of the pork belly. Any leftovers will be delicious on a plate of cold cuts and cheese - perfect for Christmas leftovers.

4 ripe pears
A finger of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
1 cinnamon stick
1 star anise
A few allspice berries
2 whole cloves
A small handful of black peppercorns
125ml red wine vinegar
2oz/50g caster sugar

Peel the pears, slice them in quarters lengthways and remove their cores. Place the remaining ingredients in a saucepan and stir over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Bring the liquid up to the boil for a couple of minutes and add the pears. Leave the pears to simmer for about 10 minutes or until tender. Leave the pears to cool in the pickling juice or, you can, at this point, transfer the pears and the liquid into sterilised jars. Once ready to dish up, strain the pears and cut them into small cubes and arrange on the plate with the pork belly, parsnips and pumpkin purée.

Port reduction

1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, roughly chopped
1 celery stick, roughly chopped
The pork ribs from the pork belly
1 bay leaf
A sprig of thyme
1 pint of fresh chicken stock
500ml of ruby port (yes, I know it's a lot, but you can always turn this into a red wine reduction if economy dictates it - just add a pinch of sugar if you do)
A knob of butter
Salt and pepper

Brown the vegetables and ribs in a saucepan with a little oil, pour over the chicken stock and leave to simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, skimming off any excess fat every now and then. Strain the sauce of vegetables and bones into a clean saucepan and add the port. Leave to simmer until the sauce has reduced by half - it should be thick and slightly sticky, but don't over-reduce it to nothing. Taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary, then stir in the knob of butter to enrich your sauce and give it a lovely sheen just before serving. Don't forget to warm your plates!

P is for... Pigeon, parsley and porcini pelmeni

2011-11-14T15:01:00.000-08:00

Pigeon, parsley and porcini pelmeni

Pelmeni are Russian dumplings made from unleavened dough. They are very similar to Polish pierogi, but unlike pierogi which can be made sweet, pelmeni are exclusively savoury. Pelmeni are stuffed with raw fillings before cooking, while pierogi are often stuffed with pre-cooked fillings.

Pelmeni are traditionally made by hand, but I think you could just as well put the dough through a pasta machine. In fact, these little dumplings are close cousins in both construction and taste to large tortellini. In fact, I wish I hadn't been such a stickler for tradition on P night and cranked up the pasta machine. It would would have made the process less faffy and the pelmeni certainly wouldn't have suffered for having more thinly rolled dough.

Pigeon is a delicious dark meat with a rich and subtly gamey flavour and soft, tender flesh - a perfect match for the porcini mushrooms and parsley. The pelmeni were elegant but rustic, tasty and filling. Definitely the perfect plateful for cold, dark nights when only serious carbs can cut it.

Pigeon, parsley and porcini pelmeni

for the dough

400g plain flour
1 tsp salt
1 large egg
200ml cold water

for the filling

30g tub of dried porcini mushrooms
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
4 pigeon breasts
4 rashers of streaky bacon
A handful of flat leaf parsley
1 egg
1 glass of white wine
25g/ 1oz butter, plus extra for frying off the mushrooms
Salt and pepper

Simply bung all the ingredients in a food processor and blitz until a dough has formed. If you don't have a food processor, place the dry ingredients in a mound on the worktop, create a well and crack the egg in. Fork the egg into the flour and salt and then gradually mix in the cold water and knead for 15-20 minutes or until you have a smooth, elastic dough. Cover the dough in cling film and leave to rest for half an hour or so.

In the meantime, make the filling. Place the dried porcini in a bowl and pour over boiling water - just enough to cover the mushrooms. Leave them to soak for 20 minutes and drain, reserving the mushroom liquor. Place the liquor in a saucepan with the wine and reduce the liquid until you are left with about 2 tablespoons' worth. Leave to cool.

Place the pigeon, bacon, garlic, flat leaf parsley, butter, egg, seasoning and cold reduced porcini liquor in a food processor and blitz the whole lot together until finely minced. Fry off a teaspoon of the meat and taste for seasoning, adjusting if necessary.

Unwrap the dough and cut it in half, then rewrap one half. Roll the other into a long 1 inch thick sausage with your hands. Cut the sausage into 1 inch thick pieces and then roll each individual piece into thin rounds with a lightly floured rolling pin. Place a teaspoon of filling into the centre of the circle, lightly dampen the edges with a little water and fold over and seal, so you end up with a crescent shape. Take both ends of the crescent and pinch them together. Set aside on a floured surface and repeat with the remaining dough rounds. Once you've filled all the rounds, roll the other half of the dough into a long sausage and repeat the process.

Ten minutes before serving, fry off the pre-soaked porcini mushrooms in plenty of butter and season generously. In the meantime, heat up a large pan of water with salt and once it's boiling, throw in the pelmeni in three stages and cook for 3-4 minutes or until they rise up to the surface. Remove the pelmeni with a slotted spoon and place three on pre-warmed plates. Top with a few buttery mushrooms and a drizzle of the butter from the pan.

P is for... Potted pheasant and partridge with plum pickle and poppyseed plait.

2011-11-11T13:15:00.000-08:00

When Autumn hits us in the face with its burnished hues and chilly winds, my mind always turns to game. Delicious game. What can cheer a dark night's dinner plate more than a generous helping of wild, forest meats? This potted pheasant and partridge on hot buttered toast hits the spot perfectly and also makes for an excellent home-made Christmas gift for food-loving friends and family.

Potted pheasant and partridge

Potted pheasant and partridge

I couldn't possibly have P night without including some kind of potted "P" (sorry), especially considering Richard's three excellent "potted" shows: the Olivier-nominated Potted Potter, the cutlass-wielding Potted Pirates and the festive firecracker, Potted Panto - which will be on at the Vaudeville Theatre this Christmas. Get your tickets booked before the show sells out!

1 pheasant

1 partridge

8 rashers of smoked back bacon

1 large onion, finely chopped

3-4 cloves of garlic, crushed

Goose or duck fat

1 litre of pheasant and partridge stock (for which you will need, 1 pheasant and 1 partridge carcass, 2 carrots, an onion, a few cloves of garlic, a leek, a stick of celery, a scattering of black peppercorns, a few sprigs of thyme and a couple of bay leaves)

Half a bottle of fruity red wine

A pinch of mace

A suspicion of nutmeg

1 star anise, finely ground in a pestle and mortar

A few sprigs of thyme

Bay leaves

Salt and pepper

3 x 350ml kilner jars, sterilised.

Preheat your oven to 200°C (180°C fan)

First, for the messy bit (which you can easily ask your butcher to do for you if you don't want to get your hands dirty): skin and de-bone your birds and remove any pieces of shot. Next, place the carcasses on a roasting tray and pop them into your preheated oven for half an hour before transferring them into a large pan. Roasting the bones will give your stock a much richer flavour, but if you're short on time, or can't be bothered, just bung your raw bones straight into a pan. Add the roughly chopped veg for your stock (see above), herbs and peppercorns and pour over enough water to cover. Scatter over some salt and bring it all up to the boil, before reducing the heat and leaving it to simmer for a few hours. There you have plenty of pheasant and partridge stock to be going on with for P's feast and beyond.

Fry your onion and garlic in a dessertspoonful of goose/duck fat until very soft. Pour over your red wine and reduce by half. Add your stock and the sprigs of thyme and reduce by half again. Season generously and reduce by half again. Remove the thyme and leave to cool.

Preheat your oven to 160°C (140°C fan)

Now, turn your attention back to your meat. You need to chop the pheasant, partridge and bacon quite finely, so it starts to resemble mince. Place all the minced meat in a large pyrex bowl with a couple of tbsp of goose fat. Add the star anise, nutmeg and mace along with a generous scattering of salt and ground black pepper. Pour over the cold red wine reduction and mix the whole lot together until thoroughly combined. Fry a little of the mixture to taste for seasoning, adding more if necessary. When satisfied, fill your sterilised kilner jars about 3/4 of the way up and place a single bay leaf on top. Leave the lids open. Transfer the jars to a roasting tin and fill the tin with enough water to go halfway up the jars. Pop them in the oven for 2 1/2 hours. Once out of the oven, immediately close the lids and leave to cool. The potted pheasant and partridge will last, unopened in a cool, dark cupboard for up to a month, but once opened, it must be refrigerated and eaten within three days.

Plum pickle

Plum pickle

I wanted to keep my plum pickle properly plummy, so didn't add any of the extra usual suspects like raisins, currants or apples, but if you want to turn this into more of an old fashioned chutney, go ahead and add away.

1 punnet of plums (I used Victoria because that's what I found, but you can use what you like), stoned and chopped

1 onion, finely chopped

A finger of ginger, grated

A cinnamon stick

A scattering of black peppercorns

1 tsp salt

2 heaped tbsp soft brown sugar

1/2 pint white wine vinegar

2 small sterilised jam jars (or 1 large, whatever you have)

Simply bung the lot in a heavy bottomed saucepan, stir until the sugar has dissolved (don't stir so hard you break up the plums too much at this stage). Stop stirring, bring to the boil then reduce the heat and leave to simmer for about three quarters of an hour or until thick and sticky. Taste for sweet/sharpness and seasoning, adjust if necessary and cook through again if needed. Fish out the cinnamon stick and the peppercorns if you want to and then transfer into your sterilised jam jars. Place a small disc of wax paper over their tops if you want to and immediately pop the lids on.

Poppyseed plait

Poppyseed plait

1 tsp caster sugar

7.5 fl.oz/ 220ml warm water

1 x 7g sachets fast-acting yeast

15oz/ 375g strong white bread flour

1 tsp salt

1oz/ 25g cooled melted butter or 2 tbsp olive oil

In a measuring jug, mix the sugar with a third of the warm water and the yeast. You don't need to leave it to stand with fast-acting yeast. Sift the flour and salt together in a large bowl and make a well in the middle for the cooled melted butter or oil, the yeast mixture and most of the remaining water. Mix the lot together, adding the remaining water if needed. Knead the dough for about ten minutes or until the dough is smooth, elastic and springy to touch. Place the dough in a large, oiled bowl, top with cling film and leave to prove for an hour or two somewhere warm, until the dough has doubled in size. I always bung mine in the airing cupboard.

Preheat the oven to 220°C (200°C fan)

Knock back the dough, by punching it so it deflates. Knead the dough again for another couple of minutes and leave to rest for about 10 minutes. Cut the dough into three equal pieces and roll each piece into a long sausage. Pinch the ends together and plait. Transfer to a floured baking tray, tuck the ends underneath to make it look neater, cover the top with a clean tea towel and place somewhere warm to double in size. Brush the top with an egg wash and scatter the top with poppy seeds. Pop your plait in the oven and bake for 30-35 minutes. Turn the temperature down to 200°C (180°C fan) and bake for a further 10-15 minutes or until the top of the bread is golden and the base sounds hollow when tapped. Cool the bread on a wire rack.

P is for... Pea and pancetta potage

2011-11-09T11:32:00.000-08:00

You'll be forgiven for thinking I'm just trying my luck with the "P" for potage here, but you'll also be wrong. After much teasing from the P-ers that "potage" is just a posh word for soup, I told them what I'm about to tell you.

Although potage has been pinched by some posh restaurants to use as a pimped up synonym for soup, in actual fact, it has defining characteristics of its own. Potage is from the old French "pottage" meaning "potted dish" and is used as an umbrella term for thick soups, stews or porridges. OK, so potage is, essentially, a stewy soup - I wasn't going to go anywhere near the porridge despite the extra "P" it would have given me. I decided to only blend half of it, to ensure my potage remained thick and chunky. Does a thick soup with bits in turn it into a potage? I'm going to say yes, it does!

Pea and pancetta potage

A knob of butter

Olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, minced

200g pancetta

1 kilo frozen garden peas

1.5 litres fresh chicken stock

Salt and pepper

Fry the onions, garlic and half the pancetta in butter and oil until the onions are soft and the pancetta has browned. Add the chicken stock and peas, season and leave to simmer for around half and hour. Blend half the soup and leave the rest chunky. Stir through and taste for seasoning. At this point, you can leave the potage to cool and reheat it later. When ready to serve, fry the remaining pancetta in a dry pan until crispy. Ladle the soup into warm bowls and scatter their tops with the crispy pancetta.

P is for...

2011-09-27T11:52:00.000-07:00

P night played host to a perfect parade of personable people. We had music industry guru and karaoke enthusiast, Rebecca Ayres who came with her Aussie musician boyfriend, Graham Brown. We also welcomed pineapple-phobic performer, Tamzin Aitken, and journalist turned illustrator and co-founder of Failbetter Games, Paul Arendt. Sadly, Paul's chef-extraordinaire wife, Jane Carnall, couldn't make P night, but check out her blog for some delicious recipes, that begin, alas, with a disappointing variety of letters. Last, but certainly not least, was hilarious comedian, writer and lover of offal, Chris Neill, who also writes a fabulous food blog called Chris Neill's Dirty Kitchen. Richard created a perfect P-themed playlist featuring The Pogues, The Pretenders, The Proclaimers, The Postal Service, The Pet Shop Boys, Pavement, Paris Motel, Pulp and Prodigy as well as two of my all time favourites: PJ Harvey and The Pixies.

Planter's Punch

To get the party started, Richard made an enormous bowl of Planter's Punch, which is essentially fruit juice spiked with a generous finger of rum. It was so generous, in fact, that there was plenty of punch for us all to have a second glass.

Planter's Punch is two parts rum, two parts orange juice and one part lime juice, shaken over ice with a dash of Angostura Bitters, a little sugar syrup and a splash of Grenadine. Strain and top up with soda water, if you like, but we didn't bother. What's the point of a cocktail unless it kicks you up the bum?

To accompany the Planter's Punch, the P partiers picked on proscuitto wrapped prunes, potato cakes topped with Philadelphia and paprika, and pesto, parma ham and Pecorino palmiers.

Proscuitto wrapped prunes

These simple little snacks have a perfect balance of sweet and salty and are as simple as they sound.

Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan)

16 pitted prunes
8 slices of Proscuitto

Wrap each prune in half a slice of Proscuitto, place them on a baking tray and pop the tray in the oven for about 10 minutes.

Paprika potato patties topped with
Philadelphia

This is a great way to use up left over mashed potato. You can make them bigger to serve alongside a main course too if you wish.

Mashed potato, made with 3 medium sized potatoes (floury are best - Maris Pipers or King Edwards)
5 tbsp plain flour
1 egg
Salt and pepper
1 tsp bitter sweet paprika

Beat the egg and pour it into the mash and mix through. Sift the flour over the potato mixture with the paprika, salt and pepper and thoroughly combine. Spoon out the mixture and create small patties using your hands. Chill in the fridge for about 15 minutes so the patties will hold their shape. Once you're ready to serve, heat some oil in a pan and fry the patties on each side until golden brown. Top each patty with a teaspoon of Philadelphia and a sprinkle of paprika.

Pesto, parma ham and Pecorino palmiers

Palmiers are made from puff pastry and are usually sweetened with sugar and cinnamon and served as biscuits. Palmiers are a very particular shape that you make by rolling each end of the pastry in towards the centre. I decided to make savoury palmiers with home made puff pastry, fresh pesto, Parma ham and Pecorino cheese. They were incredibly indulgent, but definitely worth it.

Pesto

3-4 generous handfuls of basil
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
A handful of pine nuts, lightly toasted
A handful of grated Parmesan
Extra virgin olive oil
A squeeze of lemon
Salt and pepper

Some people balk at the idea of bunging everything in the magimix and bang on about how you can really taste the difference if you stick to tradition and use a pestle and mortar. Personally, I couldn't give a monkeys for tradition here as whenever I try to make pesto in a pestle and mortar, it's too much like hard work just to keep it in the mortar. In the magimix, home made pesto is quick, simple and full of freshness and nicer than anything you'd ever get out of a jar.

Pulse the garlic, pine nuts and basil in a food processor and pulse. Scrape the mixture into a bowl and add most of the Parmesan. Stir through and drizzle over enough oil until you have a nice oozy sauce. Season and add some lemon and stir again. Taste for lemon, Parmesan and seasoning. Adjust as necessary and it's ready to serve.

Pesto, Parma ham and Pecorino palmiers

Puff pastry
Parma ham
Pesto
Pecorino, grated

Roll the puff pastry into a rectangular and spread with pesto. Next layer over slices of Parma ham and sprinkle over Pecorino. Starting on one side, roll the pastry quite tightly towards the middle of the rectangle and stop. Roll from the other side in towards the centre, so that you've created an "ear" shape. Wrap in cling film and pop in the fridge for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan)

Remove the cling film and place the sausage on a board. Cut in half inch slices and lay the palmiers on a large baking sheet. Leave enough room between each palmier for expansion on cooking. Bake for about 12-15 minutes or until golden. Leave to cool for a few minutes before transferring them from the tray to a serving plate with a palate knife.

O is for... Orange truffles

2011-09-18T12:01:00.000-07:00

I know I have ended many an Alphabet Soup dinner with a chocolate truffle or two and I make no apology for it. Who doesn't love a homemade truffle laced with booze, nuts or whatever else befits the letter of the day. In fact, I love to end a meal with a dark chocolate truffle so much, I can promise you there will be plenty more on the Alphabet Soup menus to come. They are quick, they are delicious and they are crowd pleasers. What's not to like?

O night's truffles were orange zest-heavy and spiked with Cointreau, but you could use any orange liqueur you have knocking around in your drinks cabinet. As always, it's much easier to think metrically than imperially when making truffles and a tip for speed if you haven't got time to finely chop your chocolate is to blitz it in a magimix. It saves time, though does create extra washing up. I've added butter to these because when you add a generous pouring of ~~booze~~ liquid, it can cause trouble with the setting. This amount of chocolate makes A LOT of truffles, so feel free to halve, or even quarter, the ingredients.

Orange truffles

100g dark chocolate, finely chopped (I used Divine)
100 ml double cream
1 heaped tbsp light muscovado sugar
50g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
The zest of one orange
A forkful of Cointreau
Cocoa, sifted, for rolling

Place the chopped chocolate and butter in a bowl. Heat the cream and sugar together in a saucepan until the sugar has melted. Bring the sugary cream to the boil and take the pan off the heat. Leave to stand for one minute before pouring over the chocolate and butter. Leave for 30 seconds before mixing through with a rubber spatula. The heat of the sweet cream should melt the chocolate and butter. Stir in the orange zest and Cointreau and leave to cool and then set in the fridge. Once set, use a teaspoon to scoop out the ganache and roll between your palms to make a ball shape. Roll the truffle in the cocoa, repeat with the rest of the mixture and pop your truffles on a serving plate.

O is for... Oxford Isis, Ogleshield, Ossau-Iraty-Brebis and Oxford Blue with home-made oatcakes.

2011-09-18T12:00:00.001-07:00

O night's cheeseboard was sourced by Richard at the ever wonderful Paxton & Whitfield on Jermyn Street. Oxford Isis was created in 2003 especially for supply to Oxford Colleges and restaurants in the city. It is a soft cows' milk cheese with a rind washed in Oxfordshire honey mead. The cheese was developed to compete against French washed rind soft cheeses such as Epoisses ( one of my all time favourites) and I'm here to report that Oxford Isis utterly delicious and can certainly give its French competitors a run for their money. Next on the board was the deliciously addictive Ogleshield, a firm Jersey cows' milk cheese, also with a washed rind and with a texture similar to Raclette. Ossau-Iraty-Brebis is an unpateurised French ewes' milk cheese. Ossau-Iraty is a nutty semi-hard cheese, robust in flavour with a natural rind. Last up, we had Oxford Blue. A deliciously creamy cows' milk blue, with a tangy finish. I adore blue cheese and this was was no disappointment. In fact, I'd almost certainly choose it over Stilton.

While Richard was busy tasting cheeses for O night in Paxton & Whitfield's, I was attempting to make oatcakes. I'd never made oatcakes before and, foolishly, assumed they'd be pretty easy. I was wrong. Oatcakes are a bugger to make and mine kept falling apart when I tried to cut them. In fact, they didn't stop falling apart after they'd been baked either, possibly due to my overzealous research, which led me to make a hybrid recipe of my own - a pick 'n' mix approach from all those I had read. For some reason, I balked at the idea of making the oatcakes with 100% lard, but I'm quite sure if I had they would have stayed together properly rather than snapping into shards all over everyone's cheese plates. Oh well, they were still delicious regardless, but if you try them at home, steer clear of the sunflower oil and go straight for the lard.

O is for... Olive and chocolate fondants with olive oil ice cream

2011-09-18T12:00:00.000-07:00

When I made this pudding on O night, I thought at the time that I was being highly original and inventive in combining salty black olives with chocolate. Then, one fateful day, a few weeks later, I was leafing through David Everitt-Matthias' Dessert: recipes from le champignon sauvage and discovered, to my horror, a recipe for bitter chocolate and black olive tarts with fennel ice cream. I must have subliminally stolen this idea and, to my shame, passed it off as my own creation. OK, so I didn't make chocolate tarts, I made chocolate fondants and I made olive oil ice cream without a bulb of fennel in sight. BUT, I did, for some strange reason, decide that it would be prettier to bake the fondants in individual fluted tart tins - something I had never done before and something which, in hindsight, seems an odd choice of vessel for a fondant.

Of course, it's hugely unlikely that any of us are entirely original, and the creation of new recipes inevitably leads to all sorts of culinary kleptomania. This is especially true, if, like me, a cook book is as likely to be resting on your bedside table as a novel. In actual fact, there's something rather wonderful in knowing that all the endless cookbooks, food blogs and magazine recipes I read do, on some level, get absorbed. It's reassuring to know that they end up somewhere and that my brain doesn't just throw them in the recycling once my stomach's stopped rumbling.

Salty treats mixed with chocolate have become modern classics, from Paul A. Young's famous salted caramel chocolates to Reese's peanut butter cups and, more recently, Vosges Haut-Chocolat introduced us to chocolate and bacon bars. It makes sense to think olive and chocolate would be just as much of a hit, but my black olive and chocolate fondants weren't a unanimous success on O night, by any means. Olly and Dolly loved them and although I won't make olives an everyday addition to my chocolate fondants from here on in, I really enjoyed their salty fruitiness against the bitter cocoa rich chocolate. Richard, in contrast, declared this pudding to be "a real Alphabet Soup low point". In fairness, Richard is really not a fan of black olives full stop. Though, stoical to the end, this didn't prevent him from finishing his plate and scraping it clean with his pudding fork.

The olive oil ice cream, on the other hand, was a hit with the whole table. It was smooth, creamy and vanilla-rich, with a subtle but pleasing undercurrent of aromatic fruitiness. It goes without saying that it is essential to use a good and fruity extra virgin olive oil for this ice cream. If you go cheap and functional with the EVOO, the flavour of your ice cream will certainly suffer for your scrimping.

Olive oil ice cream

4 egg yolks

4 oz/ 100 g caster sugar

1 vanilla pod, scored lengthways

12 fl.oz/ 350 ml double cream

About 8 tbsp good quality fruity extra virgin olive oil

First make a custard by placing the cream in a saucepan. Scrape the seeds out of the vanilla pod and chuck in the pan, along with the pod. Gently bring to the boil. In the meantime. whisk together the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl until pale and creamy and pop a sieve over the bowl ready.

Once the cream has come to the boil, pour it through the sieve over the eggs to strain off the vanilla pod and any woody bits that have come off it in the cream. whisk the eggs, sugar and cream together and pour back into the saucepan. Place the saucepan over a gentle heat and whisk constantly until the custard thickens enough so that it can coat the back of a spoon and if you draw a line through the custard with your finger, the line remains. Immediately pour it into a cold jug and pop a bit of cling film over the top to prevent a skin forming and leave to cool.

Once cold, stir the olive oil into the custard and taste, add a little more oil if you think it needs it and pop the jug into the fridge to chill.

If using an ice cream machine, follow the manufacturer's instructions, otherwise, pour the mixture into a tupperware box, pop the lid on and transfer to the freezer. Whisk the mixture thoroughly every half hour or so for the first 2 hours of freezing to prevent ice crystals forming and then leave to set completely.

Olive and chocolate fondants

Makes 4

75g pitted black olives

175g caster sugar

100ml of water

25g unsalted butter

100g good quality dark chocolate (I used Divine)

100g salted butter, cut into small squares.

2 whole eggs

2 egg yolks

75g plain flour

25g cocoa, plus extra for dusting

Place the water and 75g of caster sugar in a saucepan over a low heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Increase the heat and once the syrup is boiling add the olives, reduce the heat and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Take the pan off the heat and leave to cool. Once cool, chop the olives and pop them back in the syrup and pop them in the fridge until needed.

Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan)

Melt the 25g unsalted butter and brush the insides of four individual tart tins. Use a tea strainer to sift cocoa over each tin, until they are well covered. Tap the excess cocoa out of the tins and place on a baking tray.

Melt the chocolate and butter together in a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Once melted, take off the heat and stir until thoroughly combined. Leave to cool for about 10 minutes.

Whisk together the eggs and egg yolks with the remaining 100g caster sugar until thick, pale and mousse like. This can take a little time so get your electric hand whisk out if you have one.

Pour the butter and chocolate mixture into the sugar and eggs and stir thoroughly. Sift over the flour and cocoa and fold in. Finally, drain the olives of their syrup, and mix them into the chocolate batter.

Divide the batter between your tart tins, filling them almost to the top, and pop them in the oven for 6-7 minutes*. Pop the tart tins on a wire rack to cool for a few minutes before unmoulding and plating up. Take the ice cream out of the freezer ten minutes before you're ready to serve so it is soft enough to scoop. Place alongside the olive and chocolate fondant and dust the top of the fondant with cocoa before serving.

*You can use ramekins if you prefer, but increase the cooking time to 10-12 minutes.

O is for... Oolong and orange rolled ostrich with Oxford Landing reduction, oregano and oyster mushroom orzotto served with stuffed onions.

2011-09-17T07:32:00.000-07:00

I remember eating ostrich for the first time in the late '90s, when it seemed to be everywhere. Waitrose stocked it and gastropubs in the area I grew up (Tunbridge Wells) seemed to jump on the band wagon with ostrich steaks hitting their chalkboard menus. It seemed everyone was trying to get consumers excited by this high iron, low fat and exotic meat back then.

I remember eating it for the first time in a pub with my Grandad, who always encouraged me to try new things, but what I remember most about the experience was how dull the meat was. Perhaps I was expecting too much? A flavour explosion like nothing I'd ever tried before it certainly wasn't. In reality, it was rather dry and uneventful. Sadly, ostrich didn't last long on the supermarket shelves or on the menus of gastropubs, largely because people just didn't know how to cook it.

Ostrich meat has a taste somewhere between venison and duck and should be treated like lean game in the kitchen. It is sacrilege to overcook an ostrich fillet, as all the succulent, juicy flesh will become a desiccated disaster; where all moisture has been sucked out and replaced with chewy flakes of tough meat. Overcooked ostrich is equally, if not more awful, than overcooked pork tenderloin. But, when cooked well, ostrich is sensational - a subtle and tender red meat with less fat than a skinless chicken breast.

Ostrich meat should be brought to room temperature before cooking and should be served rare to medium-rare and must, as with all meat, be left to rest before serving. If you don't like to see any pink on your plate, move away from the ostrich tenderloin now and leave more for the rest of us. If your curiosity is strong enough, I recommend you try ostrich sausages or mince instead.

I sourced the ostrich for O night from the wonderful Gamston Wood Farm, an ostrich farm in Nottinghamshire. They handily have a stall at Borough Market on Fridays and Saturdays and also offer a mail order service for those who want it brought to their doorstep.

I rolled the ostrich in orange zest and "Oriental Beauty Supreme" oolong tea from Jing Tea. The tea and orange added an aromatic and woody depth to the flavour of the meat, without overpowering the ostrich's subtle charms. I made an Oxford Landing red wine reduction to be spooned over the meat and served it with orzotto, a "risotto" made with pearl barley instead of rice, studded with oyster mushrooms and oregano. The vegetable accompaniment was the much neglected onion. Poor old onions are rarely used as a vegetable in their own right. They are mostly used to add extra flavour, then left to play second fiddle to the more starry ingredients of the show. Onions are deliciously sweet, mellow and moreish when roasted and I followed Jamie Oliver's lead and stuffed mine with a mixture of garlic, bacon, herbs, Parmesan and cream to add a little extra indulgence to the dish.

Oolong and orange rolled ostrich

Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan)

2 ostrich tenderloins (this amount of meat could probably have stretched to feed 6)

The finely grated zest of 2 oranges

10g Oolong tea

Plenty of cling film

Simply mix together the tea and orange zest and roll each tenderloin in it until it is evenly coated. You may find it easier to pat the orange oolong on to the meat with your hands. Once coated, wrap each tenderloin individually and tightly in cling film and leave on a plate out of your way until you are ready to cook it.

Once all the other components of the dish are almost ready to serve, unwrap the tenderloins and sear in a hot pan with a little oil and butter. Once seared, transfer the ostrich on to a roasting tray and pop it into your preheated oven for ten minutes for rare or 15 minutes for medium-rare. Once out, transfer to a board and leave to rest for 10-15 minutes before carving. I served mine in thick medallions on top of the orzotto.

Oxford Landing reduction

1 large glass of Oxford Landing Cabernet Shiraz

Same volume of chicken stock

1 shallot, finely chopped

A little butter

Pour the wine in a saucepan with the shallot and leave to simmer until it has reduced by half. Add the stock and continue to simmer until it has reduced by half again. Strain the shallot out of the sauce into a clean saucepan and continue to simmer until the sauce is nice and thick. Finish with a little butter to enrich the sauce.

Oyster mushroom and oregano orzotto

Orzotto is a slower cook dish to risotto, simply because pearl barley needs a lot longer in your pot than rice, so start this an hour before you want to dish up.

400g pearl barley

1 large onion, finely chopped

2-4 cloves of garlic, crushed

2 carrots, peeled and finely chopped

1 stick of celery, finely chopped

4 rashers of bacon, finely chopped

A punnet of oyster mushrooms, finely chopped

A generous handful of fresh oregano

2 pints of chicken stock

A large wine glass of white wine, I used Oxford Landing Sauvignon Blanc

Salt and pepper

A handful of fresh Parmesan, finely grated

Sauté the onion, garlic, carrots, mushrooms and celery in a little oil in a large heavy bottomed pan. Add the bacon and cook until the vegetables are soft and the bacon is lightly golden. Add the pearl barley and stir for a minute or so and chuck in the wine. Stir to prevent the pearl barley from sticking and pour in the chicken stock. All of it. You don't need to add a little at a time like you would with risotto. Add half the oregano and season generously. Stir thoroughly, pop on the lid and leave to simmer, stirring every now and then, for about 50 minutes. Stir through the Parmesan and add most of the rest of the oregano, leaving a little for scattering on top. Taste for seasoning, adjust accordingly and serve with the final oregano sprinkled over the top.

Stuffed onions

Adapted from a Jamie Oliver (another "O"!) recipe

2 pints of fresh chicken stock

2 bay leaves

4 small onions, peeled

2-4 cloves of garlic, crushed

A little fresh oregano, picked and chopped

A generous splash or two of double cream

A generous handful of Parmesan, grated

4 rashers of smoked back bacon

Salt and pepper

Boil the onions in the chicken stock with the bay leaves for about 15 minutes or until the onions are slightly tender. Remove the onions with a slotted spoon and leave to cool. You can use this stock for the rest of the dishes above.

Preheat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan)

Once cooled, cut about an inch off the tops and use a spoon to scoop out the middle of the onion, leaving the outer cm intact. If need be, slightly trim the stalk end so that the onions sit flat on a roasting tray.

Heat a little oil in a frying pan and add the chopped up scooped out flesh of the onions, the garlic and half the bacon. Once soft and golden, add the oregano and pour over the cream. Stir thoroughly and remove from the heat before adding the grated Parmesan. Season to taste. Set aside.

Fry off the rest of the bacon until brown. Place the onions on a roasting tray, spoon the creamy filling inside each one and top with a sprinkle of the chopped bacon. Pop the onions in the oven to roast for 25 minutes to half an hour or until soft, bubbling and golden. Serve immediately.

O is for... Ox cheek olives

2011-09-14T14:01:00.000-07:00

After the delicate elegance of the octopus carpaccio, the time in the evening had definitely come for something that bit more rich and hearty. Something unapologetic, both in its rich and meaty flavour as well as its undeniable efficiency in lining the stomach for the several bottles of wine to come: ox cheeks. Ox cheeks are made for slow cooking and are excellent value at around £7 a kilo (or just over two pounds for the imperially inclined amongst you). I picked mine up from the ever reliable and wonderful Moens of Clapham - a meat lover's paradise.

Beef olives were a 1970's bistro classic, but on flicking through the net I have read various claims of this dish's origins. Some say they are a French or an Italian export and others an old-fashioned Scottish staple dating as far back as the 1600s. Wherever they're from there's no doubting their credentials as delicious and hearty fare. Apparently you can use any cut of beef you like for these, as long as it's for slow cooking (fillet is not welcome here), which is why ox cheeks proved to be the perfect choice.

Ox cheeks are huge and are jam-packed with connective tissue, so as long as you don't let the sauce you cook them in boil dry, it would be almost impossible to overcook these babies. I thought it would be a fairly simple procedure to hammer the ox cheeks to thin them out enough to stuff and roll, but proved extremely reluctant to participate and barely budged a centimetre, despite at least half an hour of banging them repeatedly with a meat tenderiser. Instead, I decided to cut each cheek (which in this case was two to feed four) horizontally in half and then butterflied the halved cheeks again. As I sliced through the cheeks I had to remove quite a bit of the stringy connective tissue so I could flatten them effectively and then I gave them a final bashing with the meat hammer before they were ready for stuffing. Once stuffed, these meaty morsels were braised in all manner of befitting flavours for as many hours as I could find in the day. If you're serving this dish as a main course, a dollop of mash and some steamed greens are all you'll need as an accompaniment. You'd be hard-pressed to find a more full-bodied and meltingly tender way to eat these beefy beauties.

Ox cheek olives

Preheat your oven to 180°C (160°C fan)

Serves 4

2 ox cheeks

A generous few spoonfuls of Dijon mustard

String or cocktail sticks

for the stuffing

A couple of shallots or a small onion, finely chopped

A few cloves of garlic, crushed

4 rashers of smoked bacon, cut into small pieces

A punnet of chestnut mushrooms

A small bunch of fresh thyme

Salt and pepper

150g of sausage meat

for the sauce

1 onion, finely chopped

3 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 stick of celery, finely chopped

2 carrots, peeled and finely chopped

1 pint of fresh beef stock

1 bottle of red wine, something full bodied

A few sprigs of thyme

A couple of bay leaves

A few sprigs of rosemary

2 tbsp tomato purée

Salt and pepper

Firstly, make your stuffing by sautéing your onions, garlic, bacon and mushrooms together. Add the thyme and season. Leave to cook down until soft and golden, then leave to cool. While you're waiting for the onion mixture to cool, butterfly and bash your ox cheeks (as above). Spread some mustard over the surface of each ox cheek. Thoroughly mix your cold onion mixture with the sausage meat and place a ball of mixture in the middle of each ox cheek. Roll the ox cheeks up into a sausage shape and tie up with string or use cocktail sticks to secure the olives. Brown the olives in a large frying pan with a little oil and place inside an oven proof dish with a lid.

Make the sauce by sautéing the vegetables in the same frying pan in a little oil until soft. Season generously, add the tomato purée and stir until it is all well mixed. Pour over the stock, stir it round and pour over the ox cheek olives. Pour over the red wine and add the herbs, put the lid on and pop in the oven for at least three hours. Checking every now and then and turn over the ox cheek olives. When you're ready to serve, scoop out the ox cheek olives and place on a warm plate, discard the herbs and boil the sauce to reduce until nicely thick. Taste for seasoning and spoon a generous helping of sauce over each ox cheek olive before serving.

O is for... Octopus "carpaccio"

2011-09-08T07:50:00.000-07:00

Once the beast was definitely dead, it was time to turn this octopus into carpaccio, which usually means finely sliced raw meat or fish, but according to my research, in the case of octopus, it should be boiled for hours on end before any knives need sharpening.

The octopus carpaccio we ate in Rome definitely had its suckers on but, in a fit of confusion, I decided to follow the advice of Gordon Ramsay and scrape the suckers and skin off its tentacles after boiling. Essentially, all old Ramsay's recipe requires you to do is to tightly pack your tentacles in a lined mould and pour over some of the reserved octopus stock (which looks a bit like Sailor Matey bathwater that you've dropped a bar of soap in - when the colour remains, but the bubbles don't). Once you've done that, you're supposed to tightly wrap it into a sausage shape and then bung weights on top of it and stick it in the fridge. Gordon seems sure that the octopus will hold together if you follow this advice. Gordon is wrong. I think if I'd left the suckers on it might have worked, because they're a bit sticky. But I didn't leave the suckers on. I listened to Gordon Ramsay.

My carpaccio did not hold together in a big homogenous tubular mass that could then be sliced into delicate, paper-thin and pretty rounds. My carpaccio instantly fell apart. My octopus's tentacles refused to stick together, and so I was left with lots of tiny little circles of finely cut tentacle meat. I dressed these rounds with a fresh and tangy lemon, chilli and parsley vinaigrette and it was delicious. Light, succulent and summery, my octopus carpaccio might not have held together, but this was purely a presentation issue. When something tastes this good, who cares what it looks like?

Octopus carpaccio

1 large octopus (trimmed, beak and stomach removed and cleaned)

1 whole, unpeeled onion

A couple of carrots, cut into large chunks

A stick of celery, cut into large chunks

1 leek, cut into large chunks

A couple of bay leaves

A bunch of flat leaf parsley

1 large glass of white wine

A scattering of peppercorns

Enough water to cover the octopus.

Place your octopus in a large pot with your onion and then pop the other vegetables and herbs around it. Add enough cold water to cover the octopus and bring up to the boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat and leave to simmer for four to five hours. Remove from the stock and leave to cool.

Once cold, cut off the tentacles and discard the body. You can try making the carpaccio as described above, or you can leave the suckers on and follow the instructions above. Leave the tightly rolled cling film sausage in the fridge for a few hours before carving.

Vinaigrette

The juice of half a lemon

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 red chilli, finely chopped

A handful of flat leaf parsley, chopped

Half a clove of garlic, minced

Salt and pepper

Mix the ingredients together until fully combined. Taste. Add more seasoning, lemon juice or whatever it needs. Plate up the octopus carpaccio and liberally dress with vinaigrette.

O is for... Octopus vs. Victoria

2011-09-07T11:12:00.000-07:00

Richard and I had such a delicious dish of octopus carpaccio in Rome last year, that we haven't stopped banging on about it since. I wanted to try to recreate that unforgettable dining experience for O night and started, reasonably enough, by sourcing an octopus for my pot, so I turned to our excellent local fishmonger's, Fish Tale, for help and advice. I rang them up and asked if I could order an octopus for the weekend and the lovely man on the other end of the line replied in a thick Portuguese accent, "Of course! You cook octopus before?". I told him I hadn't, but I would very much appreciate his advice. And here it is:

"Well, traditional speakin', you supposed to bash 'im very hard against a rock for a very long time to make 'im nice and tender. So much faff it is this way, so don't worry. Stickin' 'im in the freezer does zactly the same job. You freeze 'im and once you defrost 'im, he'll be very nice and tender for you. So, I do this for you, OK?"

"Yes please! Thank you, that sounds great! And how long should I cook the octopus for?"

"Well, my wife, she is a very good cook, and she say to put an onion in the pot with 'im and also lots of water. When the onion is cook, 'e is cook. OK?"

Great! That all sounds straightforward and easy enough. Just shove him in a pot with water and an onion and leave it until the onion's cooked through. No probs. Excellent.

I asked Richard to collect the octopus from Fish Tale on his way back from a meeting, which he did, but it wasn't quite what I'd been expecting. The octopus was in a large plastic box, about the size of a family sized tub of ice cream, all squashed with a beady eye looking at me, peering out through the cellophane lid. Richard told me what the man in Fish Tale had said,

"I was going to kill 'im for you, but 'e 'asn't 'ad time to fully defrost yet. Very easy to do though, once 'e's finish defrosting, turn 'im inside out and chop 'is beak off and then run 'im under the tap. OK?"

"Hang on", I said, "hang on just one second. Does that mean... he's still alive?". Richard and I both turned our attention back to the half defrosted plastic tub of octopus sitting on the kitchen worktop. We looked suspiciously at the eye peering out through the icy, transparent and flimsy lid, then back at each other's worried scowls. "I don't know," said Richard, "surely freezing it would kill it? Wouldn't it?".

I quickly opened my laptop and pounded 'will freezing an octopus kill it?' into the keyboard. My search unnervingly raked up accounts of their unparalleled intelligence and problem-solving skills and also entries concerned with how octopuses kill humans:

"Most octopus have beaks that can pierce a person and if they bite one of your main arteries than you would bleed to death. Some octopus have venom in their beaks so you would get poisoned and possibly die. Also, their grip is tremendous so they could strangle and suffocate you. If you were scuba diving than an octopus could pull your breathing tube out so you would drown".

These reassuring images caused the already heightened paranoid dramatics in my head to snowball. The octopus in my kitchen was clearly going to defrost, break through the cellophane lid with its unusually strong eight arms and then hurl itself at my throat. I had images of the octopus's eight-armed grip growing tighter and tighter around my neck, shaking me with enough force to lift my kicking feet off the kitchen floor, while my hands desperately clawed at its suckers in a last pathetic attempt to lessen its hold. I imagined the octopus getting irritated with my clawing hands on its suckers and releasing one of its arms so as to slap me on the wrist and then slap me round my hysterical face, like swatting a fly, before it rejoined its seven comrades in choking the last gasping breath of life out of my oxygen-starved body. Next he would move on to Richard, then the neighbours, then the whole street. Was any of London safe from the psychopathic cephalopod in my kitchen?

My mind wandered back to a memory of my nephew's excited and expectant face as he showed me a video from the National Geographic website called Shark vs. Octopus. He laughed as he asked me, "which one do you think will win, Auntie Vic? I bet you can't guess!". I thought the shark could take it, of course I did. Who wouldn't? A shark's got massive bite-y teeth and the strength of ten Bravestarrs at least! And what's an octopus got? It's just a big rubbery pile of arms, for Christ's sake! It couldn't beat a shark, because, well, it's a bloody SHARK! Well, it turns out that octopuses are much niftier in the art of killing than most of us would expect. In Shark vs. Octopus, the octopus took it without breaking a sweat. Octopuses are clever.

After much nervous laughter while prodding the half frozen box with a spatula to see if it moved, I realised there was only one option. Richard would have to go back to Fish Tale and ask the lovely, helpful man to wait for it to defrost so he could kill "him". So Richard did and then a few hours later we went back to collect "him" to put him in a pot with an onion. When the onion was done, he was done.

O is for... Oven baked oysters

2011-07-21T08:10:00.000-07:00

There are few things that irritate me more than people who describe seafood as tasting "like the sea". Tasting "of the sea", ever generous spirited that I am, I might allow (just), but "like the sea"? Why on earth would anyone ever find such a description appealing? It's like when food bores describe lamb as tasting like grass. Now I'll admit to having eaten a handful of grass or two in my time (as an experiment to prove it wouldn't make me sick, despite my mother's insistence that it would. I wasn't sick. But I did feel a bit queazy for a while afterwards. Still... Victory was mine!). And I'm here to tell you, grass tastes absolutely nothing like lamb. Flavour-wise and texture-wise, lamb and grass are polar opposites on the taste spectrum. Likewise, and thankfully, seafood does not taste like the sea. If it did, it probably would make us all sick, as everybody knows what salt water can do (especially if your ears, like mine, held witness to the results at school when waiting outside toilet cubicles which contained the sad, pretty young skinnies who sipped from flasks of the stuff all day long in the hope that it would aid them to getting skinnier still). Sea water is revolting and unless you are of a particularly demented nature, you won't want anything on your dinner plate to taste like it. I think people use the expression to mean that the seafood tastes fresh, as if it has only just been hauled out of the sea. Fresh is definitely a good thing in relation to seafood, otherwise you yourself might begin a similar relationship with the toilet bowl as those poor little sixth formers locked in toilet cubicles.

Oysters are particularly frightening to anyone who has been put off seafood by others insisting it tastes like the sea. I've only had fresh-pick-them-off-a-plate-of-ice-prise-them-open-and-shove-them-down-your-pie-hole-oysters once, and they did taste a bit like sea water. Cold, fleshy sea water. I was advised to squeeze a lemon wedge over the top and add a dash of Tabasco and, though marginally more tolerable, they still tasted like cold, fleshy sea water - only this time with the addition of lemon and Tabasco. Although I'm sure raw oysters have a texture and flavour you can grow to love with practice, I'd rather find tastier morsels to spend an arm and a leg on instead.

Baked oysters on the other hand, I have a lot of time for. They have a velvety texture with a sweet, salty and delicate flavour. They are, however, an absolute bugger to open. Especially if you don't own a special oyster knife (I don't) and don't eat them often enough for it to be worth buying one (I don't).

To open them, you have to find the point where the two shell halves meet - no easy feat in itself - push your knife in with some force and then twist the blade until the shell pops open a tiny bit. Once you've done that (and well done if you've managed to get this far with a little paring knife) you need to slide the blade upwards into the shell to cut the adductor muscle which holds it shut. Please be very careful. It's very easy to lose your grip and plunge the knife into your thumb - as I did - or even to cut yourself on the oyster shells; they are much sharper than you'd imagine. I wish I'd bought some gardening gloves, or something similar, to grip on to them with and provide my hands with a bit of much needed extra protection. They took so much longer to open than I'd imagined that I was delighted that our guests were nearly an hour late. Thanks to Dolly and Olly for getting lost on their way, I had plenty of time to stab at the shells and bandage myself up afterwards for accidentally stabbing myself too. Don't be too put off by the dangers, they are quite delicious and very much worth the effort (and almost worth the bloodshed too).

Oven baked oysters

Preheat the oven to 200°C/ 180°C fan

2 - 3 fresh oysters per person as a modest starter

1 - 2 garlic cloves, minced

2 oz. 50 g soft, unsalted butter

Flat leaf parsley, chopped

A few chives, finely chopped

A dash of Tabasco

A generous squeeze of lemon plus wedges to serve

Salt and pepper

Open the oysters as detailed above and discard the empty half shell, leaving each oyster on its remaining half shell. Mix all of the ingredients (except the oysters) together so you have a lovely flavoured butter. Simply blob a teaspoon's worth of butter on to each oyster, still in its shell and pop them on to a baking tray and into the oven for 5 minutes. Serve immediately with a lemon wedge.

O is for...

2011-07-20T09:48:00.000-07:00

... Olympia cocktails with okra orbs, followed by oven-baked oysters, then octopus carpaccio. Next up we ate ox cheek olives followed by a main of oolong and orange rolled ostrich with oregano and oyster mushroom orzotto served with stuffed onions. Pudding was olive and chocolate fondants with olive oil ice cream. Next up was a cheeseboard of Oxford Isis, Ogleshield, Ossau-Iraty-Brebis and Oxford Blue with home-made oatcakes. Lastly we ate orange truffles with organic coffee.

O night was an intimate affair. Richard and I played hosts to only two guests: scientist, naked cyclist and Bunsen burner enthusiast, Olly Crawley, and the talented and hilarious (and very tall) writer, Dolly "Hannah" Alderton. Dolly writes an excellent blog called Dolly Does. which documents her experiences doing things she's always wanted to try. You can read about her experience of O night here. Richard made origami birds as table decorations and, as always, made a cracking O themed mixtape including the likes of Roy Orbison, Official Secrets Act, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, The Only Ones and Beth Orton.

With only four people to cook for, I found myself developing a fairly laissez-faire attitude to the preparations. I got up late and hung about in my dressing gown drinking endless cups of tea while fannying about on Facebook. Every now and then, Richard would wander in, panic-faced, telling me what the time was. After Richard's talking clock routine failed to budge me, he politely suggested I might want to think about getting the fuck on with something. I responded with a casual shrug, puffing my cheeks with air before slowly releasing it and mumbling a pathetic "yeah, s'pose" in reply. Three "yeah, s'pose"s later, I dragged myself through the shower and attempted to psyche myself up to deal with the enormous plastic tub containing the octopus. But before I get on to that particular adventure, first things first: cocktails and okra orbs.

Olympia Cocktails

It's always nice to have a cocktail with a cherry in it, if only for its retro appeal. Olympias are well balanced in flavour with the sticky sweetness of the cherry brandy cut through with the sourness of lime and an added warmth from the subtle spiciness of the dark rum. Because they are so well balanced in flavour they are dangerously gluggable and we all ended up reaching for seconds from the shaker. Olympia cocktails = a hit!

1 part cherry brandy
1 part lime juice
1 and a half parts dark rum
Cocktail cherries

Shake all the ingredients (minus the cocktails cherries) over ice and strain in Martini glasses. Garnish each with a cherry and serve.

Okra Orbs

I have already let you in on my patent rejection of the catarrhal charms of okra. With their oozing, viscous centre, they remind me of pea pods who are suffering a horrible cold; all crisp skin with phlegmy innards. The appeal of okra (if really there is any) has always been wasted on me, but I wondered if this sorry little vegetable might just about redeem itself if I coated it in batter and deep fried it. It seems a sensible enough idea - what doesn't taste better after being battered and deep fried? But, alas, okra remained as snotty as ever. And possibly more so. Dolly and Olly seemed to approve, but I'd rather these horrid little ladies fingers crawled away in the opposite direction to my dinner plate, never to return. Failing that, save okra for Halloween parties, where all food is deliberately revolting anyway, so these gruesomely snotty horrors would at last find their natural habitat.

I attempted to round off the cut edges to make them "orb" shaped, but once battered they looked more like little logs. I'm going to stick to calling them orbs because of the pains I took to chisel them into shape and as punishment to the okra for being so slimy.

I made the batter with cornmeal, because I thought the yellow colour would look attractive against the green. If you can't find cornmeal, substitute it with fine polenta, or, failing that, plain flour will do.

5 oz/ 125 g cornmeal
1 oz plain flour
2 eggs
9 fl.oz/ 250 ml cold fizzy water
A pinch of salt
A pinch of cayenne pepper
A generous grind of black pepper
As much okra as you can stand, washed and cut into pieces
Sunflower/ vegetable or rapeseed oil for deep frying

Heat about 3 inches of oil in a heavy wide brimmed saucepan until a single breadcrumb sizzles when you pop it in. Place the cornmeal, 1 egg, the cayenne, salt and pepper and fizzy water in a large bowl and mix loosely. Lightly whisk the remaining egg in a small bowl and dunk the okra pieces into it before tossing them in the flour. Throw the okra into the batter and carefully place them in the hot fat. Leave them to cook until slightly brown (just a couple of minutes) and carefully remove them with a slotted spoon. Drain the okra on kitchen paper before serving with an extra sprinkle of sea salt.

A to Z in 365 days: tick (part 2)

2011-07-08T10:34:00.000-07:00

You can read all Alphabet Soup menus from O to T here. And here's a preview for the menus from U to Z.

Union Square cocktails (with umbrellas, of course) served with upma patties

...

Udon noodle soup

...

Urfa kebabs

...

Umbles with umeboshi and urd

...

Urney puddings and Ume wine upside-down puddings with "ugli" ice cream

...

U cheeses

...

Coffee with Uli Petataws

Valencia cocktails with Vacherin vol-au-vents

...

Vichyssois

...

Venus clams in Vermouth with vermicelli

...

Venison in Victoria sauce

...

Veal rack with salsa verde, vichy carrots and verdura with vinaigrette

...

Verbena and violet verrines

...

Vanilla and Valrhona varenyky in vanilla and Valrhona velouté

...

V cheeseboard

...

Vin Santo with vanilla truffles

White Russians with wild rice and Wensleydale balls

...

Whelks and winkles in wood ear and wakame broth served with warm wholewheat walnut bread

...

Wild boar and water chestnut wontons and wildebeest wontons with a watermelon, Worcestershire sauce and white wine vinegar dipping sauce

...

Wigeons braised in white wine with a walnut and watercress salad

...

Welsh wagyu wellington with a warm potato salad and watercress pesto

...

White Lady sorbet

...

White chocolate and wasabi waffles with white chocolate and wasabi crème anglais topped with wattleseed ice cream

...

W cheeseboard

...

Whisky and whiskey worms with coffee

Xylophone cocktails with XO xian choi balls

...

Xavier soup with xavier dumplings

...

Xarém with Xoriatiki

...

X marks the spot for Xanté! Xanté! Xanté!

(a pudding based on the pear brandy, Xanté: A Xanté moussed with a Xanté, xylitol and chocolate cake base topped with a Xanté jelly "X", served with pears poached in Xanté and xylitol and Xanté ice cream)

...

Xalwo with coffee

Yale cocktails with yellow lentil patties with yellow pepper dipping sauce

and Yorkshire puddings with yuzu

...

Yakitori

...

Yakisoba

...

Yassa with yams

...

Yangmei yoghurt cake topped with yangmei sauce and served with yuzu yoghurt ice cream

...

Coffee with yangmei truffles

Za Za cocktails with Za'atar Mankoushe

...

Zhul'yen kurinyi V Kokotnisch

...

Zelnik with zingy tomato salad

...

Za'atar zebra with zyleone

...

Zabaglione with zaleti

...

Z cheeseboard

...

Zesty truffles with coffee

A to Z in 365 days: tick

2011-07-07T09:15:00.000-07:00

Last night, exactly 365 days after I launched my alphabetical mission, I dished up the letter Z. Today, after 4 hours' sleep and the lingering echo of last night's Zalze, Zinfandel and Zubrowka vodka still thudding behind my eyes, I can't quite believe it's all over. Well, almost. The mountain of dishes in the kitchen is suggesting otherwise.

It has been an amazing year. It has been an exhausting year. I can no longer fit into most of my clothes and I have never done as much washing up in my life, but none of that matters because I've had some of the best nights of my life doing this project and I have become a better cook in the process. Right now, with teary overtired eyes and a sprained knee, sitting on the sofa alone in the flat, I feel like hurling my fist into the air and screaming "I've done it! I've gone and bloody done it!" But I didn't quite do it alone.

To the ever wonderful, hilarious, gorgeous and greedy love of my life, Richard: thank you. For food shopping, for DJ-ing, for photographing, for chopping, for stirring, for the best salad dressings known to humanity, for washing up, for reaching things on the top shelf, for dishing up, for ironing tablecloths and for bleaching the wine stains out of them afterwards, thank you. But mostly, for your unwavering support, your faith in me and your faith in this project, thank you.

I'd also like to say a very special and heartfelt thanks to all my Alphabet Soupers who have gobbled up letters with me along the way. I really couldn't have done it without you and it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun if I'd tried. You all rock!

And lastly, to you (that's right, YOU): thank you for reading. Without you I might as well have been shouting in the wind. Please keep coming back.

The write-ups will keep coming, but for now, here's a sneak preview of the menus from O to Z.

(Read Dolly Alderton's write-up of her O experience here)

Olympia cocktails with okra orbs

...

Oven baked oysters

...

Octopus carpaccio

...

Ox cheek olives

...

Oolong and orange rolled ostrich with oregano and oyster mushroom orzotto served with stuffed onions

...

Olive and chocolate fondants with olive oil ice cream

...

O cheeseboard with home made oatcakes

...

Orange truffles with organic coffee

Prosciutto wrapped prunes, potato patties topped with paprika Philadelphia, and pesto, parma ham and Pecorino palmiers

...

Pea and pancetta potage

...

Potted pheasant and partridge with plum pickle and poppyseed bread

...

Pigeon, parsley and porcini pelmeni

...

Pork belly with pumpkin puree, pickled pears, roast parsnips and a Port reduction

...

Passion fruit and pink peppercorn parfait stuffed pineapple parcels

...

Peach pannacotta with pomegranate and Prosecco jelly, passion fruit and pomegranate pavlova with pomegranate coulis

...

Pine nut praline truffles and chocolate dipped physalis

Q cocktail (the name escapes me for now) and quesadillas

...

Scotch quails eggs

...

Qotban

...

Quince stuffed quail with quinoa

Queen of Puddings with a quenelle of Quark ice cream

...

Coffee and qumbe

Rusty nails with red pepper romesco rice rolls

...

Razor clams with remoulade, razor clam broth and radish and radicchio salad dressed in raspberry vinegar and rapeseed oil

...

Richard'd Roquefort and rocket risotto

...

Rabbit ragù ravioli

...

Rosemary crusted reindeer with a redcurrant reduction served with röstis and red cabbage

...

Rose petal jelly topped rose mousse

...

Raspberry and Ricotta roulade with roasted rhubarb, rhubarb sorbet and raspberry coulis

...

R cheeseboard with rye bread and raisin relish

...

Rum truffles

Singapore Slings with sweet and sour shrimp spring rolls

...

Scallops and crispy Serrano ham on puréed salsify and sorrel sauce

...

Smoked salt and Szechuan pepper squid with samphire salad with saffron mayonnaise

...

Succotash and socca bread

...

Sweetbreads and Sauerkraut

...

Seared steak sashimi with spring onions, soy and sesame

...

Squirrel, sage and Sherry stew with sautéed sweet potatoes and spinach

...

A shot of satsuma and Sauternes soup

...

Strawberry soufflé with strawberry semifreddo, strawberry sorbet and star shaped sablé biscuits

...

S cheeseboard with sunflower seed soda bread scones

...

Coffee with star anise sponge sandwiches and spoonfuls of sea salt caramel

(Read James Ramsden's review of T night here)

Tequila Sunrise cocktails served with tofu tempura and a tamarind dipping sauce and tripe tempura triangles with tentsuyu

...

Turkey teriyaki

...

Trompette de la Mort and truffle tortellini

...

A taste of tomatoes:

Toffee cherry tomatoes, tomato tartare, tomato and Tabasco granita, clear tomato soup, tomato and thyme tarte tatin

...

Tongue, tail, testicle and tarragon terrine

...

Thyme stuffed teal with Tartiflette, turnips and tayberry sauce

...

T cheeseboard

...

A trio of traditional puddings: tirimisu, treacle tart and tangerine trifle all served with a dollop of toffee ice cream and toffee sauce

...

Turkish coffee or tea with tahini truffles

TBC...

N is for... Nougat and nutty Nocino truffles

2011-06-22T00:00:00.000-07:00

The N night nougat was a strange beast. It looked like nougat, smelled like nougat and even tasted like nougat, but the texture wasn't like nougat at all. It had some give to it when cutting but once you tried to pick it up its solid state was unnervingly temporary. The nougat collapsed in your hand and slowly melted into a pool of mess with a firm surface but a viscous liquid bottom. It was like the scary evilbot in Terminator Two who could turn his hands into swords to stab through people's heads (and milk cartons) or melt into a weird silver pool. I'd never made nougat before and so looked around at various recipes and opted for the one that my cupboards already boasted the ingredients for. I should have known that it might be a bit dodgy considering all the other recipes included powdered glucose. But I didn't have any powdered glucose. I should have trusted Rachel Allen and gone out and bought some powdered glucose, but I didn't. Sorry Rachel.

I've just tried to open that recipe so I could link to it in a bid to show you all what to avoid, but the website seems no longer to exist. Maybe it wasn't just the nougat that let them down. Here's the recipe so you can make sure you avoid it. With all those pistachios, it was an expensive mistake to make.

Bad nougat

680 g sugar
340 - 450 g pistachio nuts
340 ml golden syrup
235 ml water
60 ml clear honey
2 egg whites
Vanilla extract

Place the sugar, syrup, honey and water into a saucepan and heat until 127°C (260°F). Beat the egg whites stiffly and pour the hot mixture slowly into them, beating constantly until the mixture goes stiff and waxy. Add the vanilla and the nuts and mix well. Pour into a box or pan lined with waxed paper. When cool, cut into squares and attempt to serve.

Nutty Nocino truffles

We were all on far safer ground with these. Richard and I had brought home a bottle of Nocino (an Italian walnut liqueur) that we picked up at the airport on our trip to Rome last year. Richard had been given a bottle years before and decided it was the most delicious thing ever and had always hankered after a repetition of that happy drinking experience. He made it sound delicious and I was excited. I thought it would be like Frangelico- sticky and sweet, but walnut instead of hazelnut flavoured. We got it home and a few days later decided to crack it open and have a snifter. For starters it was the usual brown of so many of the Italian digestifs we had tried in Rome on our search for something Nocino-esq. Secondly, it had the same cough syrup smell and unpleasantly bitter edge as those other dark brown disappointments we drank in Rome. Needless to say, I wasn't much of a Nocino convert. Richard insists that I have an over developed resistance to all things bitter and in part I agree with him, but it's a very specific kind of bitter I steer clear of. I love the bitterness of a meltingly perfect square of cocoa solid rich dark chocolate. I adore lemons in almost any form, think olives are excellent and I don't object to the bitter notes in a chicory salad. I am a big fan of a rich, strong and aromatic cup of coffee (albeit with a sugar or two), but there's a particular kind of bitter that I can't abide - bitter with a ferric aftertaste. This includes most beers because I think they taste like blood (Yes, I know, we're probably not treading common ground here, but to redeem myself for slating Britain's heritage drink of choice, I have discovered that I quite like Innis and Gunn). I also hate all weird herbal infused digestifs - Jägermeister, as far as I can see, is a big gulp of horror. And fizzy water tastes like a cut finger dunked in a glass of tap (I have no excuse for this. Perhaps it's the result of some long buried childhood trauma involving a soda stream). Either way, I think I've proved my point. It's not that I hate all bitter tastes, it's just that I'm acutely fussy about which bitter notes my taste buds will accept. And even Richard admits that Nocino isn't quite as nice as he remembered.

BUT, it turns out Nocino fares very well indeed when you bung it into a chocolate truffle. I sweetened the ganache a little more than usual (despite the fact that I'm not usually a fan of overly sweet treats) in an attempt to counteract the taste of iron bar you get after quaffing a glass of this walnut tipple and, by gum, it worked! These truffles were quite something - all smooth and velvet-y with a hint of complexity and rolling them in the roasted chopped nuts added a welcome crunch. Try them. I think you'll like them.

100 g dark chocolate, chopped and placed in a heatproof bowl

100 ml double cream

2 tbsp light brown muscovado sugar

50 g unsalted butter

A forkful of Nocino

Enough chopped roasted nuts to roll your chocs in.

Heat the cream and sugar together in a saucepan over a gentle heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Once the cream begins to bubble, take it off the heat and stir in the butter until melted. Pour the buttery sweet cream over the chocolate and leave to stand for about a minute before stirring with a rubber spatula until all the chocolate has melted and you are left with a smooth, glossy ganache. Add your Nocino and stir. Taste for strength and add more if you need to. Leave to cool before transferring to the fridge to set. Take the ganache out of the fridge 10 minutes before rolling them into balls. Spoon out a teaspoon's worth and roll the ganache between you palms until you have made a neat sphere and roll it in the nuts. Repeat until you've run out of ganache and pop the nutty Nocino truffles on a pretty plate to serve.

N is for... Neufchâtel, Nantais and Northumberland.

2011-06-18T16:17:00.000-07:00

Cheeseboard

N night took place in the middle of February (which in itself reveals how behind I am in my write-ups) and, as such, the heart shaped Neufchâtel we bought from Paxton & Whitfield was pleasingly seasonal. Neufchâtel is a delicious soft cows milk cheese with a slightly crumbly texture and a mushroom-y tang. Nantais is another French cows milk cheese, but this time a lovely smelly sticky soft cheese with a washed rind and a smoky bacon finish. Lastly, Northumberland - another cow, but this time a hard cheese from our own fair shores. The flavour is complex and slightly fruity with a natural rind dusted with grey mould. An excellent cheeseboard, regardless of its reliance on cows.

N is for... nutty nectarine and nutmeg tarts with Neapolitan ice cream

2011-06-16T08:17:00.000-07:00

Now, I'm happy to admit that this wasn't the most attractive pudding of the alphabet so far, but it was tasty enough to be forgiven for its rather sad appearance. The pastry is a basic sweet shortcrust tweaked so that some of the flour is substituted for ground nuts with added chopped nuts for texture and ground nutmeg for a subtle spice hit. You can use whatever nuts you like, but I used almonds, pistachios and hazelnuts. The filling was a smooth and vanilla-y crème pâtissière and the nectarine slices on top added a sweet tartness that complemented the creamy centre perfectly. I thought the Neapolitan ice cream might be an N too far for this dish, but I did it anyway. Because I'm like that. And anyway, who cares if chocolate, strawberry and vanilla ice cream have no place next to a nutty nectarine and nutmeg tart? Neapolitan's great. As a child growing up in the 1980's I would only ever eat the chocolate and vanilla ice creams from the Neapolitan block unless in dire emergencies (namely when there was only strawberry left). I'd mix both flavours together to make a vanilla and chocolate soup. My oldest sister, Sam, went for the same flavours but luckily my other sisters, Steph and Debbie, were strawberry fans, so it all worked out in the end. Phew.

Nutty nectarine and nutmeg tarts

for the nutty nutmeg shortcrust

(enough to line 8 individual tart tins or one large)

5 oz/ 125 g unsalted butter

4 oz/ 100 g icing sugar

5 oz/ 125 g plain flour

2 oz/ 50 g ground almonds

2 oz/ 50 g ground hazelnuts

2 egg yolks

2 tbsp cold milk

The seeds from 1 vanilla pod

A generous grating of nutmeg

A pinch of salt

3 oz/ 75 g chopped pistachios

1 oz/ 25 g chopped hazelnuts

Blitz the butter and sugar together in a food processor. Add the rest of the ingredients except for the chopped nuts and blitz again until a dough begins to form. Add the chopped nuts and press the pulse button twice - you want to incorporate them into the dough without losing their texture. Tip the dough out on to a large sheet of cling film, pat it down slightly, wrap it up and pop it in the fridge to rest for at least half an hour.

Preheat your oven to 180°C (160°C Fan)

Roll out the pastry and line your tin/s. Blind bake individual pastry cases for 10 minutes or one large case for 15 - 20. Remove the tin/s from the oven, remove the baking beans and parchment, brush the pastry bases with a little whisked egg and pop them back in the oven for 5 minutes. Leave to cool completely on a wire rack before turning them out of their tins.

for the crème pâtissière

4 egg yolks
100 g / 4 oz caster sugar
25 g/ 1 oz plain flour, sifted
12 fl. oz/ 350 ml whole milk
1 vanilla pod or a splash of vanilla extract

Whisk the egg yolk and sugar together in a bowl until pale and thick. Add the flour and mix in. Score the vanilla pod (if using) down the centre and place it in a saucepan with the milk over a gentle heat. Bring the milk slowly up to the boil, fish out the vanilla pod and pour the milk over the egg, sugar and flour mixture, whisking all the time. Tip the mixture back into the saucepan and place it on a low heat, stirring all the time, until it comes up to a gentle boil. Leave it to boil, still stirring, for a couple of minutes, or until the mixture has thickened. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the vanilla extract (if using). Pour the creme patissiere into a cold bowl or jug and cover the top with cling film to prevent a skin from forming and leave to cool. If your mixture has gone lumpy, push it through a sieve before decanting into your clean bowl or jug.

for the nectarines

6-8 ripe nectarines

2-3 tbsp light muscovado sugar

2 tbsp water

A splash of vanilla extract

A knob of butter

Destone and slice your nectarines. Place the sugar and water in a skillet over a medium flame until the sugar has dissolved and the caramel begins to bubble. Add the vanilla and leave to bubble for a minute or so. Stir in the butter and, once melted, top in the nectarines and leave to poach for about 5 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to remove the nectarine slices and then boil the nectarine sauce until it has reduced by half. Leave to cool.

Assembly

Fill the cold tart cases with crème pâtissière, up to their tops and smooth over. Top with some nectarine slices and a drizzle of nectarine sauce.

Neapolitan ice cream

Vanilla

Simply make a rich vanilla custard and once cool, pop it in the fridge for an hour before tipping the cold custard into an ice cream maker. Transfer into a rectangular tupperware dish and pop it in the freezer.

4 egg yolks

4 oz/ 100 g caster sugar

1 vanilla pod, scored lengthways or 1 tsp vanilla extract

12 fl.oz/ 350 ml double cream

Place the cream/milk in a saucepan with the vanilla pod (if using) and gently bring to the boil. In the meantime, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl until pale and creamy and pop a sieve over the bowl ready. Once the cream has come to the boil, pour it through the sieve over the eggs to strain off the vanilla pod and any woody bits that have come off it in the cream. whisk the eggs, sugar and cream together and pour back into the saucepan. Add the vanilla extract at this stage if using. Place the saucepan over a gentle heat and whisk constantly until the custard thickens enough so that it can coat the back of a spoon and if you draw a line through the custard with your finger, the line remains. Remove from the heat and pour into a cold jug or bowl. Cover the top with cling film to prevent a skin from forming and leave to cool completely.

Chocolate

As before, but leave out the vanilla and stir in 100 g of melted dark chocolate to the custard before leaving it to cool. Then pop it in the fridge as before and tip it into an ice cream maker. Transfer to a rectangular tupperware dish and pop in the freezer.

Strawberry

3 punnets of strawberries

4 egg yolks

2 oz/ 100 g caster sugar plus 2 tbsp

12 fl. oz/ 350 ml ml double cream

Hull and chop 2 and a half punnets of strawberries and stick them in a bowl. Sprinkle the strawberries with the 2 tbsp of sugar, cover with cling film and leave to macerate for at least 6 hours.

Blitz the macerated strawberries along with their juice and pass through a sieve into a saucepan. Heat the strawberry juice over a gentle flame until the juice begins to scald. In the meantime, whisk together the remaining sugar and egg yolks in a large bowl until pale and fluffy. Once scalded, pour the strawberry juice into the egg mixture and mix thoroughly before returning it all to the heat. Whisk until thickened and transfer to a cold jug. Top the jug with cling film and leave to cool completely before popping the jug in the fridge so it can get properly chilled. Stir in the double cream and pop the lot into an ice cream maker and then transfer it to a rectangular tupperware box and pop in the freezer.

Once all the ice creams have properly set, dunk the boxes in warm water to loosen the ice creams (don't let them melt) and upturn them next to each other, with the vanilla in the middle on a large sheet of cling film. Press each ice cream together firmly so you have one large bock. Work quickly so the ice cream doesn't have time to melt. Wrap the block up in the cling film tightly and pop it back in the freezer. Take the Neapolitan out of the freezer 20 minutes before serving so it softens enough to cut.

N is for... Napa

2011-06-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

Napa: front left

I can't pretend this is an authentic Asian dish, it's more that I felt, rightly so, that N night was sorely lacking vegetables and I have an unusual enthusiasm for cabbage. Now, I don't mean your boiled to death, sweaty sock smelling cabbage. I'm talking about cabbage that has been lightly steamed or fried, turned into kimchi or a single glorious cabbage leaf used as a pocket to hold in some delicious meaty filling. I'm talking about cabbage that has retained its nutritional value, without it running away in the water it's been boiled in, and which also retains a pleasing al dente texture. Napa cabbage is sometimes labelled as Chinese cabbage in supermarkets and is very pale in colour with a long rather than round shape.

Napa

I very simply shredded the napa cabbage and fried it in a hot wok with a touch of crushed garlic and finely chopped chilli. Once it had started to soften I chucked in about a tablespoon of honey. Once the honey started to reduce and had fully coated the napa, I tossed over some toasted sesame seeds and drizzled the lot with sesame oil and a dash of soy. Bosh.

N is for... Nasi Goreng

2011-06-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

Nasi Goreng is at the front

This is an Indonesian rice dish, that's almost like a hot rice salad. It's delicious. Give it a go!

Nasi Goreng

2 beaten eggs

2 red chillies, chopped

4 finely sliced shallots

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 large carrot, julienned

150 g sliced chestnut mushrooms

250 g cooked basmati rice

2 tsp soft brown sugar

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp chilli sauce (bough or homemade)

1/2 cucumber, sliced into batons

Sesame oil

Make two thin omelettes with the egg and slice into ribbons. Fry half the chillies, shallot, garlic, carrot and mushrooms for 3 to 4 minutes. Add the rice and stir for a couple of minutes until heated through. Chuck it in a serving dish and top with the egg, cucumber and remaining chilli before drizzling the whole lot with sesame oil.

N is for... Nam Prik Num

2011-06-13T10:00:00.000-07:00

Nam Prik Pao is the front dish

This is another Thai sauce, this time featuring green chillies, aubergines and tomatoes. It goes particularly well with chicken or meaty fish. I obviously went for chicken. The aubergine gives this dish a subtle smokiness and gives the sauce a clingy viscosity which coats the meat nicely.

Nam Prik Num

1lb/ 450g of chicken, cubed

3 garlic cloves, skin on

5 shallots, skin on

4 green chillies

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 aubergine

2 tbsp lemon juice

2 tomatoes, halved

1 tsp sugar

Place the garlic, shallots, chillies, tomatoes and aubergine under a hot grill until charred - keep a watch on it as you will have to remove some of the veg before others. Deseed the chillies and peel the aubergine, tomatoes, shallots and garlic. Bung the whole lot in a food processor with the soy, lemon and sugar and blitz. Taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary.

Fry off the chicken in a little oil until just cooked through and add the nam prik num. Stir through until the sauce is hot and has fully coated the chicken and serve.

N is for... Nam Prik Pao

2011-06-13T08:28:00.000-07:00

Nam Prik Pao: bottom right

Nam prik pao is a fiery and tangy Thai sauce. Its full bodied flavour works as brilliantly with beef as it does chicken or you can even go down the squid or prawn route. This sauce can be made in bulk and it will sit happily in sterilised jars for ages in your fridge. As with the Nuea Sawan, feel free to swap the soy for nam pla if you're after authenticity. I made this dish with prawns for N night because I already had a chicken, beef and pork dish on the menu. Unfortunately, half of my guests (Richard included) are not big fans of prawns, but they still loved the sauce. I'll be making this again, but maybe with chicken next time, depending on who's coming for dinner.

Nam Prik Pao

4 - 5 tbsp vegetable/ sunflower oil

4 cloves of garlic, crushed

2 shallots, finely chopped

3 tbsp dried red chilli flakes

1 tsp shrimp paste

2 tbsp soy sauce

2 - 3 tbsp soft brown sugar

1 tsp tamarind paste

2 tbsp lime juice

2 tbsp water

200 g prawns

Fry the garlic and shallots together until golden and slightly crisp. Remove from the oil with a slotted spoon and leave to cool. Stick the cooled shallots and garlic along with the rest of the ingredients into a food processor. Blitz until it makes a thick paste. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Chuck the paste into a hot wok and simmer to reduce to the texture of loose jam. Tip in the prawns and cook for two to three minutes or until the prawns are cooked through. If you don't want to use the nam prik pao immediately just transfer the hot sauce into a sterilised jar.

N is for... Nikujaga

2011-06-13T08:05:00.000-07:00

Middle dish at the back

Nikujaga is a Japanese meat and potato stew. Meat and potato stew doesn't scream authentic Japanese to me, but apparently this is a favourite home style dish - like a Japanese version of stovies or Lancashire hotpot. You can substitute the pork with beef if you'd prefer. Anyway, it is delicious and strangely, despite it's unlikely ingredients, tastes really Japanese and worked really well in the plate piled high with absurdly mixed up Asian dishes.

Nikujaga

200 g/ 8 oz pork loin, thinly sliced

5 potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks

1 large onion, cut into wedges

2 large carrots, peeled and cut into bite sized pieces

1/2 packet of shiritaki noodles, broken into 3" pieces

500 ml dashi stock

2 tbsp mirin

2 tbsp caster sugar

1 tbsp vegetable/ sunflower oil

Sauté the meat in a large, deep pot. Add the carrot, potato, onion and noodles to the pan and sauté together. Pour over the dashi and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and skim any foam off the top. Add the sugar, mirin and soy and pop the lid on. Simmer until the vegetables are soft, taste for seasoning and serve.

N is for... Nuea Sawan

2011-06-13T07:12:00.000-07:00

Nuea Sawan is on the left.

Nuea Sawan is a Thai dish which translates as Heavenly beef. And Heavenly it is. Although, if you're anything like me, you'll think similarly of almost anything bovine. This dish is sticky and slightly chewy - it has the kind of texture that feels like it might turn into spicy beef jerky if you were to leave it in the sun for more than twenty minutes. It is supposed to contain nam pla (fish sauce), but Richard's allergy made me look elsewhere for a similar hit. I couldn't think of one, so I just chucked in more soy sauce. This nam pla free version was delicious but if you feel like getting fishy with it, substitute 3 tbsp soy for nam pla.

Nuea Sawan

4 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp fresh coriander, finely chopped

1 tsp ground coriander

2 1/2 tbsp caster sugar

1 sirloin steak, thinly sliced

Vegetable/sunflower/ rapeseed oil for deep frying

Mix together the marinade ingredients, pop in the beef and swirl it around so it's completely covered and leave to marinate for 15 minutes. Heat a frying pan with a little splash of oil and fry off the meat and marinade sauce until reduced. Heat 2 - 3 inches of oil in deep wide brimmed pan saucepan and deep fry the beef in small batches. Drain on kitchen paper and serve.

N is for... Norimaki

2011-06-12T05:21:00.000-07:00

People often mistakenly believe sushi means raw fish. It doesn't. Sushi means vinegared rice. Norimaki is a specific style of sushi which is rolled in nori - a type of seaweed. N night's norimaki, for reasons elsewhere explained, was vegetarian, but you could very easily bung all manner of fishy treats in yours if you so desire. Or indeed other veggie or meaty fillings. I've even been wondering whether norimaki can be made sweet - maybe coconut sweet rice filled with chocolate, dried fruit or jelly. I'm convinced the saltiness of the seaweed would work particularly well with some caramel or chocolate-y filling or other. In fact, I don't know why I haven't tried it yet. This must be addressed forthwith!

Please don't be put off trying to make your own norimaki because you have convinced yourself you don't possess the requisite skills. You'll need a bamboo rolling mat and a devil-may-care attitude and you're away. It really isn't rocket science. You just cook and season the rice, decide what you want in it and stick it all on a sheet of nori and roll it up tightly. Your first attempt will probably be a bit loose. Don't worry, the second one's better and the third will be your best yet. It might not be as pretty as the ones in food magazines, but they'll be delicious. Go on, have a go! I promise you won't look back and, if like so many people out there, you have a sensitivity to gluten and find lunchtime a boring hassle, these little babies will revolutionise your lunchbox.

Norimaki

10 oz/ 250 g sushi rice
250 ml water
2-3 tbsp Japanese rice wine vinegar (sushi vinegar)
1 tbsp caster sugar
3 nori sheets
Wasabi paste
1 red pepper
Half a cucumber
1 avocado
1 lime

to serve

Pickled ginger
Soy sauce for dipping
Wasabi paste for your guests to stir into their soy sauce.

Rinse the rice thoroughly before placing it in a saucepan with the water and bring to the boil. Pop the lid on and simmer for five minutes. In the meantime, stir the sugar into the vinegar. Take the rice off the heat. leave the lid on and leave it to sit for 10 to 15 minutes. Stir the sweetened vinegar into the rice and then cut and cool the rice by folding it through with a metal spoon. Taste for seasoning and adjust with more vinegar if you think it needs it. Leave to cool completely.

In the meantime, prepare your veg. Deseed your red pepper and cut it into thin batons. Remove the seeds from your cucumber and cut into thin batons. Peel and slice the avocado into batons and squeeze over some lime juice to prevent the avocado from browning.

Place one sheet of nori on your rolling mat, rough side up, and spread a third of your rice on the sheet, leaving a small gap at the top and bottom of the nori. Make a groove in the middle of the rice and dab in some wasabi. Place a line of red pepper batons across the groove, with a line of cucumber next to it and lastly top the pepper and cucumber with a line of avocado.

Take the edge of the mat nearest you and roll the sushi tightly, so you are left with a thick cigar-shaped roll. Unroll the sushi from the mat and repeat the process until you have three long sushi rolls. Pop the rolls in the fridge for about ten minutes so they firm up to make them easier to cut.

Place the rolls on a chopping board, one at a time, and, with a wet sharp knife, cut off the messy ends (a nice little cook's treat for you to snaffle before your guests arrive) and then cut the roll into even sized pieces. Repeat with the remaining rolls. I like to make mine in different thicknesses because I think it looks pretty on the plate.

Serve the norimaki with pickled ginger and soy sauce and more wasabi.

N is for...

2011-06-03T07:29:00.000-07:00

... Napoleans served with Nduja and naan bread, followed by a starter of norimaki. For our main course, we ate nuea sawan, nikujaga, nam prik pao, nam prik num, nasi goreng and napa. For pudding we ate nutty nectarine and nutmeg tarts with neopolitan ice cream followed by a cheeseboard of heart shaped Neufchatel, Nantais and Northumberland. Lastly we knocked back a Nocino with petit-fours of nutty Nocino truffles and nougat

N is a tricky letter for ingredients. Go on, have a go. Off the top of your head, count the number of foodstuffs beginning with N. It's tricky, isn't it? Nectarines: tick. Nutmeg: tick. Nuts (a bit unspecific for my usual taste, but needs must): tick. Erm. Nnnnnnnn??? Ah. Oh dear. N looked set to be a nuisance. I went the way of J and decided to explore dishes rather than ingredients alone. This proved far more fruitful and took me to Asia. I know I moaned about the yawn-fest that following recipes often is in my write-ups for the letter J, but you know what? It's not all bad. And I can never be bothered to be that accurate anyway - you won't see me bothering to get the scales out for 25 grams' worth of anything (with the lone exception of macaroons). But, I now know, after years of thinking hand rolled sushi should be left to the professionals, that making your own norimaki requires about the same amount of skill as rolling up a roulade. I felt very proud of my norimaki - OK, if you want really elaborate sushi then printing off a step-by-step guide and knocking out a few rolls one afternoon isn't going to get you anywhere near expert status. But, you can definitely knock up something half decent that looks ever so pretty on a plate and that everyone seems to think you're a genius for attempting. Nice one.

N night also introduced me, via 1001 Foods You must Try Before You Die, to a delicious, spreadable sausage from Calabria: Nduja. This is one amazing discovery! This meltingly soft and dangerously moreish porky treat is generously laced with roasted hot red peppers that leave a comforting fire in your belly. You can, I've since discovered, buy special Nduja pigs to warm your sausage and make it even easier to spread. Nduja can be difficult to find but I sourced mine from the excellent Lina Stores on Brewer Street. If you can get there, get some. It's amazing spread on hot toast or used to transform a pasta sauce and you can buy it mild or spicy. We opted for spicy. Obviously. And what's more, luckily for N night, it was delicious dolloped on warm naans.

N night played host to performer and cyclist Alex Ferguson, writer and knitter extraordinaire Lily Einhorn and director of stage and screen, frequent changer of hair colour and recent resident of London Sarah Punshon. The N mixtape, lovingly prepared by Richard, included the likes of Nomeansno, Nirvana, Nico, New Order, New Pornographers, Gary Numan and Nine Inch Nails.

Napoleons

Napoleons are simple enough to make. Just shake 4 parts gin, 1 part Dubonnet Rouge and 1 part Cointreau over ice and strain into Martini glasses. Bosh.

Naans with Nduja

When I was a child, birthdays always involved Madhur Jaffrey's tandoori chicken and some rice dish or other that had onion and peas in, as well as Jaffrey's carrot salad which my mum has adapted over the years but still serves to this day and a delicious cumin- and coriander-heavy dry fried potato and cauliflower side dish. Swish delish. My family still often gets together to eat a massive home-made curry feast and it always reminds me fondly of past birthdays. So it was to straight talking, no nonsense Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery that I turned to for a naan recipe. And it's a good'un.

Makes 6 large breads

5 fl.oz/ 150ml hand-hot milk
2 tsp caster sugar
2 tsp dried active yeast
1 lb/ 450g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp vegetable oil, plus a little extra
5 fl.oz/ 150ml natural yoghurt, lightly beaten
1 large egg, lightly beaten

Put the milk in a bowl and add 1 tsp sugar and the yeast and stir to mix. Set aside for 15-20 minutes or until the yeast has dissolved and the mixture is frothy. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder into a large deep bowl. Add the remaining sugar, the yeast mixture, 2 tablespoons of oil and the yoghurt and egg. Mix and form a ball.

Empty the ball of dough on to a clean work surface and knead it for about 10 minutes or until it is smooth and satiny. Form into a ball. Pour about 1/4 tsp oil into a large bowl and roll the ball of dough in it. Cover the bowl with a piece of cling film and set aside in a warm, draught-free place for 1 hour or until the dough has doubled in bulk.

Preheat your oven to its highest temperature. Put the heaviest baking tray you own to heat in the oven. Preheat your grill.

Punch down the dough and knead it again. Divide it into 6 equal balls. Keep 5 of them covered while you work with the sixth. Roll this ball into a tear-shaped naan, about 10 inches in length and 5 inches at its widest (or if, like me, you wanted to make smaller ones, divide the dough into 12 balls and continue as before). Remove the hot tray from the oven and slap the naan on to it. Put it immediately into the oven for 3 minutes. It should puff up. Now place the baking tray and naan under the grill, 3-4 inches away from the heat, for about 30 seconds or until the top of the naan browns slightly. Wrap the naan in a clean towel while you make the other naans to ensure they are all served hot.

M is for... Mango macaro(o)ns, mandarin madaleines and macadamia nut and maple truffles with mint tea

2011-05-28T10:48:00.000-07:00

Whether you call them macarons or macaroons is up to you. Some people assume that macaroons are the British coconut confection drizzled with chocolate and stuck on a sheet of rice paper and that macarons are their more elegant French cousin - the chewy almond meringue biscuits made famous and brightly coloured by Ladurée. But Ladurée call them macaroons on their English website and macarons on their French, which makes me wonder - are British speakers who call them, and indeed spell them, macarons simply forgetting a small matter of the French to English translation? Although I do concede that missing an "o" does make marking their difference from our stodgy (but equally delicious) British variety easier. Especially for those too lazy to precede the British kind with the word with "coconut".

Mango macaro(o)ns

Mango ganache filling

100g white chocolate, chopped

100ml fresh mango purée (simply blitz fresh, ripe mango flesh in a liquidiser)

Place the chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Place the mango purée in a saucepan over a medium heat. Once the mango begins to boil, remove it from the heat and leave to stand for 1 minute before pouring over the chocolate. Mix together carefully with a rubber spatula until all the chocolate has melted and leave to cool completely. Once cold, scoop the filling into a piping bag. Only snip the end off just before using.

Macaro(o)ns

I forgot to bring back some piping nozzles to my home kitchen from work so my macaro(o)ns weren't quite as neat as they could have been. Still, no matter, they tasted good. If, however, you want your's to be neater than mine or you can't trust yourself to be tidy with a snipped bag alone, you'll need a no. 8 nozzle. Incidentally, I know it seems a bit much to weigh egg whites, but macaroons need to be very precise and the weight of individual eggs varies greatly, but to make things a little simpler, 90 g is usually and roughly just under 3 eggs. Do weigh them if you can though.

Preheat the oven to 150°C (130°C fan)

5 oz/ 125 g icing sugar

5 oz/ 125 g ground almonds

3 1/2 oz/ 90 g egg whites, at room temperature

2 tbsp water

4 oz/ 100 g caster sugar

The tip of a tsp of tangerine food colouring paste

Sift the icing sugar into a large bowl. Add the ground almonds and mix them all together. In another bowl, whisk the egg whites until at the soft peak stage and gradually whisk in the caster sugar until stiff. Add the food dye to the meringue and stir through until it is all one even colour, adding more if required. Sprinkle the almond mixture over the meringue and fold in. Place the mixture in a piping bag (fitted with a nozzle if you have one) and snip the end off. Pipe circular blobs of about 1.5 inches in diameter on to a baking sheet lined with baking parchment. Leave at least an inch between each disc. Let the macaroons skin over for half an hour or so before popping them in the oven for 12-15 minutes. Take the tray out of the oven and lift the baking parchment with the macaroons on it to a wire rack to cool. Once cold, peel the macaroon discs off the paper and sandwich together with a generous blob of mango filling.

Mandarin madeleines

Madeleines are madeleines because of their shape, so you will need a madeleine mould for this recipe. Having said that, if you don't have one, you can still follow the same recipe to make delicious fairy cakes with the batter instead.

Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan). This recipe is enough to make 24 madeleines.

2 large eggs

The finely grated zest of 2 mandarins

5 oz/ 125g icing sugar

3 oz/ 75g plain flour

1 oz/ 25g ground almonds

1/2 tsp baking powder

5 oz/ 125g melted butter, cooled

Rub your madeleine trays with butter and dust them with flour before shaking off any excess.

Whisk together your eggs, sugar and mandarin zest until very pale and frothy (this will take at least a few minutes with an electric whisk). In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, almonds and baking powder and fold into the egg mixture in three stages. Finally, fold in the melted butter before pouring the batter into the moulds 3/4 of the way up and baking for 10-12 minutes.

Once cooked, leave the cakes to cool for about a minute before turning them out of their moulds and leaving them to cool completely on a wire rack - bottom side down so you don't get grid marks on their shell-like tops. Once completely cool, sift over a little icing sugar before serving.

Macadamia and maple truffles

As I've said before, when making truffles, it's much easier to think metrically than imperially (I'm usually the opposite) as the number of grams of chocolate used should match the number of millilitres of cream. You'll need the butter in these, otherwise the ganache won't set because of the large volume of maple syrup required before you can really taste it. I put the syrup in neat as I've heard (though I've done nothing to test it) that maple syrup loses strength of flavour when heated.

100g dark chocolate, chopped

100ml double cream

3-4 tbsp maple syrup

2 oz/ 50g unsalted butter, room temperature and chopped

A bag of whole macadamia nuts, shelled

Sifted cocoa powder for dusting

Place the chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl with the butter. Scald the cream in a saucepan over a medium heat and pour it over the chocolate and butter. Leave to stand for 1 minute before stirring until all the chocolate and butter have melted. Stir in the maple syrup and taste for maple-y-ness, adding more syrup if necessary. Leave to cool and once cold place in the fridge to firm up.

Scoop a spoonful of set ganache out of the bowl, pop a macadamia nut in the centre and, using your hands, roll the ganache into a ball with the nut in the middle. Roll the truffle in cocoa and repeat until you've used up your ganache.

I served my mango macaro(o)ns, mandarin madeleines and macadamia and maple truffles with fresh mint tea, which you make simply by placing a generous bunch of mint in a teapot, pouring over boiling water and leaving to stand for 3-5 minutes before pouring.

M is for... M cheeseboard

2011-05-28T09:08:00.000-07:00

Morbier, Maroilles, Munster, Manchego, Sainte-Maure de Touraine and Moelleux du Revard served with malted grain crackers

M night was a real treat for cheese lovers. Richard popped down to Paxton and Whitfield for these, mostly French, beauties.

Morbier is a semi-soft French cows milk cheese, fruity and almost yeasty in flavour, Morbier has a distinctive flash of ash running through its middle, giving it a strikingly elegant appearance on top of its aromatic, nutty flavour.

Maroilles is another semi-soft French cows milk cheese which was apparently created in the 10th Century by a northern French monk. Maroilles is usually square and has a deep orange to brick red washed rind. The flavour is fruity with a smoky edge and was the firm favourite of our Parisian diner, Caroline.

Munster is a deliciously stinky soft French cows milk cheese. Munster is usually round with a sticky, orange washed skin.

Manchego is a hard Spanish ewes milk cheese which has a nutty and almost peppery tang. An excellent addition to any cheeseboard as well as a marvellous melter which can play a happy substitute for cheddar for those with a cows milk intolerance.

Sainte-Maure de Touraine is a French goats milk cheese shaped into a small log. The cheese is soft, salty and white under a charcoal grey mouldy rind. The cheese has a piece of straw running through its centre which is marked with an AOC seal and a number indicating its producer. The straw also works to keep the roll of cheese together in the making.

Moelleux de Revard is a semi soft French cows milk cheese with a salty herbal finish.

M is for... Marron meringues with a multi marron mousse marquise (marron chocolate cake topped with a layer of marron mousse and chocolate and marron mousse and marron praline), marron ice cream and marron butterscotch sauce washed down with Moscatel

2011-05-28T08:29:00.000-07:00

I love chestnuts. I knew when I was planning my menu for the letter C, that as I couldn't include chestnuts back then (they weren't in season), then by gum I'd get them in for M. Which, incidentally isn't a cheat by Alphabet Soup's rules, as long as I don't use the same ingredient by two names, I'm in the clear. I just wish I hadn't been so quick to call a courgette a courgette given the veritable feast of possible vegetables already beginning with C compared to the sad and paltry list of edible anythings beginning with Z. The fact that M's menu ended up with a French feel has meant that it's all worked out rather nicely in the end.

Marron meringues with a multi marron mousse marquise, marron ice cream, marron butterscotch sauce and marron praline

I'm not going to lie to you. This pudding is quite a fiddly and time-consuming undertaking. I really didn't mind though as I really do love chestnuts. It's one of those dishes that evolved to have more and more components as I was making it, with thoughts of "ooh hang on, wouldn't it be cool if"s. This isn't unusual in itself, but it probably meant that I wasn't as efficient as I could have been. I've tried to write the recipes down here in the order of stages that make most sense for timings.

Marron purée

This was an essential ingredient for all the components in this dish, but I didn't buy quite enough chestnuts so I had to cut my purée with a little ready made chestnut purée. To peel chestnuts, score their tops heavily with an "X" shape using a sharp knife. Place them in a saucepan of boiling water for about 3-4 minutes. Leave the nuts in the water while peeling a few at a time. Make sure you remove the thin brown inner skin too.

1 lb 4 oz/ 500g peeled chestnuts (see above)
12 fl. oz/ 350 ml whole milk
1 vanilla pod, split lengthways with the seeds scraped out
4 oz/ 100g caster sugar

Place the chestnuts, milk and vanilla pod and seeds in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and leave to simmer for about half an hour or until soft. Remove the vanilla pod, add the sugar and use a stick blender (if you have one, otherwise shove the lot in a liquidiser/ food processor) to blend into a smooth purée. Leave to cool.

Marron praline

10 chestnuts, peeled
12 oz/ 300g caster sugar

First, boil the chestnuts in water until soft and then drain and dry. Place the sugar in a large frying pan, so that the sugar covers the pan in an even layer. Heat the sugar over a medium flame and leave to caramelise (be extremely careful here as boiling sugar can cause horrific burns). Once the sugar has melted and turned into a lovely caramel add the chestnuts, stir around a bit and leave for another minute or so. Tip about 4 tbsp of the caramel (without the chestnuts) into a small saucepan for the marron butterscotch and pour the rest out onto a baking parchment lined baking tray (don't use greaseproof paper unless you oil it first, or it will stick). Tip the caramel away from you for safety. Quickly level it out with a palate knife and leave to cool and harden. Once cold, roughly smash up the praline and blitz it in a food processor, using the pulse button. It's best if some of the praline is quite chunky and some is a fine powder.

Marron butterscotch sauce

Reserved chestnut caramel, still warm
2 oz/ 50g unsalted butter
5 fl. oz double cream

Over a gentle flame, add the butter to the warm chestnut caramel and stir until melted. Tip in the cream, stir through and increase the heat and bring the mixture to a rolling boil for about a minute before pouring the butterscotch sauce into a cold jug and leave to cool completely.

Marron meringues

Preheat the oven to 150°C (130°C Fan)

4 large egg whites
8 oz/ 200g caster sugar
A pinch of salt
1 tsp of vinegar
1 heaped tsp of cornflour
A splash of vanilla extract
Marron praline (minus 2 tbsp for scattering later)

In a spotlessly clean bowl, whisk the egg whites with the salt until stiff peaks form. Continue to whisk and gradually, one spoonful at a time, add the caster sugar. Once all the sugar has been incorporated, your meringue should be stiff and glossy. Whisk in the vinegar, cornflour and vanilla and then fold in the marron praline. On a baking parchment lined baking sheet, carefully create even mounds (about 2 tbsp's worth of meringue in each) you can use a fork to create a pretty spirally imprint if you wish. Make sure you leave about a 2 inch gap between each meringue to allow them room to spread and pop them in the oven for about an hour or until crisp. Turn the oven off and open the oven door and leave the meringues to cool at the same rate that the oven cools. This way your meringues will have beautifully crisp outer shells and soft marshmallow-y middles.

Marron and chocolate cake base

Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan)

6oz/ 150g dark chocolate
2 oz/ 50g unsalted butter
4 oz/ 100g marron purée
3 eggs, separated

A pinch of salt

4 oz/ 100g caster sugar
3 oz/ 75g plain flour
2 oz/ 50g ground almonds

Melt the chocolate and butter together in a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. In the meantime, whisk the egg whites and salt together until stiff peaks form. In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together until pale and fluffy, mix in the ground almonds, the marron purée and melted chocolate and butter. Sift over the flour and stir it through. Fold in the egg whites and tip the mixture into a baking parchment lined roulade tin, level it with a palate knife and bake for about 15-20 minutes or until the cake is no longer sticky to touch. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Marron ice cream

4 egg yolks
4 oz/ 100g caster sugar
12 fl.oz/ 300ml double cream
1 vanilla pod, split lengthways
4 oz/ 100g marron purée

First, make a custard. Whisk together the yolks and sugar until pale and fluffy. Place the cream and vanilla pod in a saucepan over a medium flame to scald the cream. Pour the scalded cream into the egg and sugar mixture, stir it vigorously and then tip the whole lot back in the saucepan and place back over a gentle heat. Stir continuously until the custard thickens, but be careful not to curdle it. Strain the thickened custard into a cold jug, top with cling film and leave to cool. Once cold, whisk in the marron purée and place the jug in the fridge to get very cold before pouring the mixture into an ice cream maker (follow the manufacturers instructions). Once set, pop the ice cream in a tupperware box and stick it in the freezer. Remember to remove the tub from the freezer 20 minutes before serving to allow the ice cream to soften slightly.

Marron mousse and marron and chocolate mousse

for custard

4 egg yolks
4 oz/ 100g caster sugar
1 vanilla pod, split lengthwise
12 fl.oz/ 300 ml double cream

Whisk together the yolks and sugar until pale and fluffy. Place the cream and vanilla pod in a saucepan over a medium flame to scald the cream. Pour the scalded cream into the egg and sugar mixture, stir it vigorously and then tip the whole lot back in the saucepan and place back over a gentle heat. Stir continuously until the custard thickens, but be careful not to curdle it. Strain the thickened custard into two cold jugs, so you have an equal quantity of custard in each. Top the jugs with cling film and leave to cool.

Marron mousse

1 jug of custard (see above)
4 oz/ 100g marron purée
2 leaves of gelatine
2 tbsp boiling water
2 egg whites

Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for 10 minutes. In the meantime, whisk the marron purée into the custard. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Drain the gelatine and squeeze out any excess water. Return the gelatine to its soaking bowl and whisk in the boiling water until the gelatine has completely dissolved and stir this liquid into the marron custard. Gently fold in the whisked egg whites.

Marron and chocolate mousse

1 jug of custard (see above)

4 oz/ 100g marron purée

4 oz/ 100g dark chocolate, melted

2 leaves of gelatine

2 tbsp boiling water

2 egg whites

Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for 10 minutes. In the meantime, whisk the marron purée into the custard, followed by the melted chocolate. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

Drain the gelatine and squeeze out any excess water. Return the gelatine to its soaking bowl and whisk in the boiling water until the gelatine has completely dissolved and stir this liquid into the chocolate-y marron custard. Gently fold in the whisked egg whites.

Multi marron mousse marquise with marron praline

Oil the insides of 8 ring moulds. Use the ring moulds to cut out a circle of cake, leaving the cake to sit in the bottom of the ring. Place each ring on a baking parchment lined baking sheet and make sure the cake is pushed to the very bottom of each ring. Pour in marron mousse to halfway up the ring mould and place in the fridge for about an hour or until the mousse has set. Next pour a layer of marron and chocolate mousse into the rings up the the top of each, levelling each with a palate knife. Return the mousses to the fridge for at least an hour until the top layer has also set. Sprinkle over some marron praline which you reserved from earlier.

Un-moulding

Place one mould at a time on top of an upturned egg cup, use a blowtorch or a hairdryer to heat the outside of each ring so that you can slide the ring off, pushing it downwards. Use a palate knife to lift the marron marquise off the egg cup and place on a serving plate. Repeat until you have un-moulded each one.

Plating up

Next to each marron marquise, place a marron meringue and drizzle over some marron butterscotch sauce. Use two spoons to make a quenelle of marron ice cream and place next to the meringue and serve with a chilled glass of Moscatel.

M is for... Mojito sorbet

2011-05-27T10:20:00.000-07:00

There was an audible groan of relief from my over-stuffed guests when this course came out. It felt like a bit of a holiday after all the rich cream- and meat-based foodstuffs we had gorged on up to this point. I have to admit that I'd always thought of sorbet as something of a none event and rather a sorry excuse for pudding. But, after visiting our good friends, Lily and Alex, in Paris a few years ago, I had my mind surely and sharply changed. Lily ordered an apple sorbet. After scoffingly describing her dessert choice as "a cold, wet yawn" she insisted I have a spoonful, and by God I'm glad she did. Yes, it was cold, and yes, it was wet - in fact, it was positively dripping in Calvados - but no, there wasn't a yawn in sight. It was delicious. So fresh, so palate-cleansing, so... apple-y. I don't think, up to that point, I'd ever had a proper home-made sorbet. My mum loves the stuff but, as far as I can remember, has never made sorbet from scratch. She always insisted on having a constant stash of shop bought sorbet in the freezer at all times and it always tasted of well... a cold, wet yawn. So I always avoided it and I didn't see any reason to change my ways until Lily's Calvados-soaked apple sorbet touched my lips. Now I like sorbet - though let's be honest, there are still almost always more appealing menu options on offer when dining out. I like making sorbet too and this little booze injected mint and lime number worked brilliantly as a pre-pudding palate cleanser.

Mojito sorbet

15 oz / 375 g

17 fl. oz/ 500 ml water

1 tbsp finely grated lime zest

8.5 fl. oz/ 250 ml freshly squeezed and strained lime juice (about 12 - 15 limes)

A generous bunch of fresh mint, chopped

Several fingers of white rum

Place the sugar and water in a saucepan with a few pinches of the lime zest over a gentle heat. Stir until the sugar has completely dissolved, let the syrup come up to the boil, turn off the heat and leave to cool completely. Once cool, stir in the juice and remaining zest and pop the mixture in fridge for at least an hour before pouring into an ice cream machine - follow your specific model's instructions. Once it begins to set, chuck in the chopped mint. If you don't have an ice cream machine, just pour the lime syrup into a tupperware box and stick in the freezer, stirring vigorously every half hour or so to prevent ice crystals forming. It will take at least four hours to set. Take the sorbet out of the freezer about 20 minutes before serving, scoop into glasses and pour over a generous glug of white rum.

M is for... Mandarin-stuffed mallards with a Madeira, maple, mandarin and marjoram reduction, served with mange-tout and mash

2011-05-27T09:13:00.000-07:00

After M night's detour to that most British of British dishes: mutton stew (though I did stick a bouquet garni in it, does that count?), I wanted to return to the loosely Frenchified theme of the night with magret de mallard - in English: mallard breasts. I ordered them from The Wild Meat Company and I was excited! I waited in for them to be delivered for a whole day. And then I waited the next day. Then I waited some more. And after waiting a little longer still, I stopped waiting and started to panic. I rang The Wild Meat Company who apologised, but said there was very little they could do about it now that my meat was in the hands of the delivery company. They gave me a tracking code that didn't work and it became abundantly apparent that there was very little I could do about it either. Except that I could hope for the best and... wait. Great.

Well bugger that, I thought, I can't get on with anything until I've at least got a plan B in place and anyway, I thought, if the meat arrives now, it will probably have gone off, having been left out of the fridge for a considerable length of time. I rang the usual suspects, Moens and Chadwicks, but they couldn't get any mallard in for me that day. I rang Allens of Mayfair, who had run out. I rang the meat departments of all the overpriced poshy toshy stores - Fortnum and Mason, Harrods and Harvey Nic's. Nothing. Sacrebleu!

I wasn't very happy with The Wild Meat Company at this point and told Richard in no uncertain terms that they were clearly a bunch of idiot holes for using such an unreliable delivery service. Richard, as is Richard's wont, tried to see it from a different, more reasonable perspective - "we have an annoying and archaic vehicle gate system...." and "maybe the van came, but couldn't get in". Blah blah blah. I wasn't having any of it. I'm not proud, but I think I even stamped my foot. I'd already tried to buy moose meat and failed. It's impossible to get hold of in this country apart from in ready made meatballs in IKEA and I even read somewhere (though alas, I have since lost the link) that moose meat is only legal to consume if you have actually hunted and killed it yourself. I really hope that's true. Either way, a quick trip to Finland or Alaska seemed a little de trop. And who knows what kind of troubles I'd have had with customs even if I had gone to that kind of effort.

There was nothing else for it but to go to Borough Market and if I still had no luck (which I didn't expect to at this time of day), perhaps it really was time to admit defeat. I just had to quickly pop into Waitrose on the way first, to pick a couple of bits up...

... And there they were! Looking magnificent, drawing me towards them with what seemed like a magnetic ray of transcendental light: mallards! Loads of the buggers! And on offer too! Oh, Waitrose, I really do love you. I don't care if people think you're too middle class for your own good. I don't care if people say Sainsbury's is cheaper (I have looked into this and have found little evidence to support it). I love you! I love your well oiled trolleys, your wide aisles and helpful staff. I love your ethical sensibilities and your calming spring green colour scheme. I think you're top and I thank you, deeply and sincerely from the bottom of my heart, for stocking mallards. You saved M day!

Obviously I'd have preferred it, Waitrose, if you had stocked magret de mallard instead of just the whole birds, but I also understand that, in this life, we can't expect to have everything. Can we.

But it all worked out rather well, instead of just making a mandarin, marjoram and Madeira sauce, I stuffed the birds with the fruits too and then added a little maple syrup to the sauce, just for an extra touch of earthy sweetness.

A couple of weeks later, a package arrived from The Wild Meat Company. It was the mallard breasts I'd ordered and it was decidedly whiffy. The instructions for delivery and the nature of the contents could not have been more explicit. It really wasn't The Wild Meat Co.'s fault at all but still they gave me an immediate refund. Good. I have used them since and their meat was delicious and it seems they have now changed to a more reliable delivery service. Excellent.

Madeira, maple, mandarin and marjoram sauce

1 onion, chopped

1 pint duck/chicken stock

1 pint Madeira

The zest and juice of 2 mandarins

A generous bunch of marjoram

Salt and pepper

A splash of maple syrup

The juices from the roast mallards

Place the onion and stock in a saucepan over a medium heat and leave to simmer until reduced by half. Top up with the Madeira, mandarin zest and juice and marjoram and leave to simmer again until reduced by half again. Tip in the juices from your roasted mallards (below), a splash of maple syrup and season to taste. Reduce again by half and strain the sauce through a sieve into a warm jug or gravy boat.

Mandarin-stuffed mallards

Preheat the oven to 220°C (200°C Fan)

4 mallards

8 mandarins

Butter

Salt and pepper

Generously season the cavity of the birds, pop a knob of butter into each and stuff them tightly with mandarins. Rub more butter over the skin and season again. Place the mallards on a baking tray and stick them in the oven for 25 - 30 minutes. Take the birds out of the oven and leave to rest and catch the juices to add to the sauce.

Mash

It feels somewhat ridiculous to write down a recipe for mashed potatoes, but having watched several thousand episodes of Come Dine With Me where I've witnessed people do all manner of strange things to make mash, I thought I'd put my tuppence worth in on the matter. My only real point of note is to use a masher. That's what they're for. Don't stick cooked potatoes in a Magimix and don't use an electric stick blender. OK, you'll definitely get the lumps out, but you'll also be left with a gloopy, gluey and sorry excuse for mashed potatoes and not the soft, buttery and fluffy plate of heaven you should expect. As for the milk or cream debate - I tend to use milk for an everyday meal but cream when a bit of extra indulgence feels necessary. White pepper or black? I really couldn't care less, but if you don't want to spoil its pure creamy colour with speckles of ground black pepper, I suggest you go white. Other than that, you can do what you like with it - add a dollop of mustard, horseradish or even stir in some cheese, but I mostly prefer my mash simple and unadulterated.

1 kg of potatoes (King Edwards or Maris Pipers are always a good bet)

A generous knob of butter

A generous glug of double cream

Salt and pepper

Peel the potatoes and cut them into chunks. Place them in a big saucepan of salted boiling water and cook until soft. Drain the spuds place them back in empty pan, add the butter and cream and mash until smooth. Season to taste and serve.

Mangetout

No tips here, just steam and salt then top with a knob of butter if you like.

M is for... Mutton, mace, marrowfat pea and Maplemoon ale stew

2011-05-27T04:55:00.000-07:00

There are so many great things about stew. You can use the very cheapest cuts of meat and a stew will thank you for it. If you unexpectedly have a few extra guests at your door, you can chuck some spuds in the pot, knock up a batch of dumplings for its top, you can stick a tin of beans in (kidney, cannellini, flageolet, whatever's in the cupboard or to hand), or you can even cover it with a pastry lid and suddenly it has been transformed into pie. With very little effort, your stew can start to resemble the magic porridge pot. Quantities aren't really important, cooking times can almost be as long as you like (just watch it doesn't boil dry) as stews only seem to become more delicious the longer they sit bubbling away. And, perhaps, most importantly of all, this most ancient of all dishes is comforting, enveloping your senses as you enter the kitchen, giving you a long, warm and welcoming hug. Mmmmm stew.

Mutton, mace, marrowfat pea and Maplemoon ale stew

I made far too much stew for mini portions for 8. This amount would easily feed 6 as a hearty main and will probably leave you with enough for seconds.

1 kg mutton, cubed and tossed in seasoned flour
1 large onion, chopped
1 leek, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 celery sticks, chopped
1/4 tsp ground mace
1 - 2 tins of marrowfat peas, drained
1 pint of lamb stock
2 bottles of Maplemoon ale
2 bay leaves
A bouquet garni
Salt and pepper

Simply fry the vegetables in oil in a large pot until soft, chuck in the mutton and brown it and top up with the stock and one bottle of ale. Add the bouquet garni and bay leaves, pop the lid on and leave to simmer for a couple of hours, stirring every now and then. Tip the remaining bottle of ale in the stew, season generously and leave to simmer for another hour. Add the marrowfat peas and mace and leave to thicken for another hour. The meat should be meltingly tender by this point. Check for seasoning, remove the bouquet garni and bay leaves and serve.

M is for... Moules Marinière with Maldon salt topped malted muffins

2011-05-26T09:57:00.000-07:00

With a Parisian guest in tow, M night's menu seemed to find itself falling naturally into a French themed affair and what better way to celebrate the French in the letter M than with the ultimate classic: Moules Marinière.

Richard, as I may have said once or twice before, is allergic to fish. He is not allergic to shellfish, molluscs or crustaceans, it's just that he has always tended to avoid eating things that reside in the sea, hanging out with all the fish. Because of this, he'd never eaten mussels before M night. And he really wasn't looking forward to it. Not one bit. When the mussels were dished up and he tasted his first bite, his face lit up and we barely heard a peep out of him until every last bite had been scoffed and the last remains of the soupy broth had been slurped and soaked up with bread. I was delighted by this, as was he, and the Moules Marinière turned out to be Richard's favourite dish of the evening. What's more, I've seen him order mussels in restaurants since and, as such, I can't help but feel a warm glow that Alphabet Soup opened Richard up to a new flavour experience that he absolutely loves.

Maldon salt topped malted muffins

1 tsp caster sugar

215 ml warm water

3/4 sachet of fast-acting yeast

15oz/ 375g Strong malted blend bread flour

1 tsp salt

2tbsp olive oil

Egg wash

Maldon salt crystals

Preheat the oven to 220°C (200°C Fan)

Stir the sugar into 75ml of the water, add the yeast, stir again and leave to stand for a few minutes. In the meantime, sift the flour and salt into a large bowl and make a well in the centre of the flour. Pour the oil into the centre of the well and then pour in the yeast mixture and most of the remaining water and mix until a soft but not sticky, loose dough, adding the remaining the water if needed. Knead the dough for 10 minutes until the dough is smooth, springy and elastic. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with cling film and leave to rise for an hour or two or until it has doubled in size.

When the dough has risen knock the air out of it by giving it a firm punch and then knead the dough again and then leave to rest for another ten minutes or so. Form the dough into small balls and place each ball in a lightly oiled hole in a muffin tray. Cover loosely with cling film and leave to double in size in a warm place (I always prove bread in my airing cupboard). Brush the top of each muffin with egg wash and sprinkle their tops with salt. Bake for 20 minutes before turning the oven temperature down to 200°C (180°C Fan) and leave to continue baking for another 5-10 minutes or until the bread is well risen, golden and the base of the muffins sound hollow when tapped. Cool the muffins on a wire rack before serving.

Moules Marinière

3 kilos of mussels

9oz/ 225 g butter

10 shallots, very finely chopped

4 cloves of garlic, crushed

2 large glasses of dry white wine

2 tbsp plain flour and 2 tbsp butter mixed together to form a paste

A large bunch of flat leaf parsley, chopped

1/2 pint double cream

Seasoning

You'll need an enormous pan for this weight of mussels - I used a preserving pan and covered the top with foil.

Wash the mussels thoroughly in cold water, trimming off any "beards" or barnacles and discard any open shells. Melt the butter and tip in the shallots and garlic, season and leave to soften, cooking over a very gentle heat - this will take at least 20 to 30 minutes. Once completely soft, add the white wine to the shallots, turn the heat up to a medium flame and leave the liquid to reduce by half. Tip in the mussels and pop a lid on (or a big sheet of foil in my case). Leave the mussels to cook for 5 to 10 minutes or until their shells have opened. Remove the mussels from the sauce using a slotted spoon and transfer them to a large warm serving bowl and cover with foil. Crank the heat up under the mussel juice and once boiling whisk in the flour paste, whisking constantly for a couple of minutes or so. Finally add the parsley and cream and stir through. Pour the sauce over the mussels and serve with the malted muffins.