This recipe is from Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals. He serves it with salmon fillets and Jersey Royals but in the programme he says it would go with plenty of other food such as white fish or chicken.

Ingredients:

leaves from half a bunch fresh mint
small bunch fresh flat leaf parsley
1 clove garlic
4 anchovy fillets
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 heaped tsp Dijon mustard
1 heaped tsp capers
2 cornichons
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Method:

Blitz in food processor until combined. Check for seasoning. Serve in a small bowl.

This is a recipe from Ching’s Chinese Food Made Easy which I borrowed from the library last year. Yesterday I found some leftover sesame sauce in the freezer and used it to flavour a slightly bland veg and noodle stirfry. The sauce is quite acidic but with my stirfry the result was fantastic. I didn’t have the recipe but happily I found it on someone’s food blog:

This recipe is more of a template for me than something to follow to the letter e.g. I like to make the sesame sauce quite thick, omitting a lot of the water for the stock cube, and doubling the amount of tahini. The black rice vinegar can be reduced to 1 tsp as it is very strong.

The method I use is based on Heston’s in In Search of Perfection.

I use Maris Piper (floury), peeled and boiled in salted water using 10g salt per litre of water for 10 mins or until just starting to break apart. I set the oven to 175C with fan. I use olive oil to roast, pouring it into a roasting tray to a depth of about 2-3mm (don’t skimp) and heating the oil up for 10 mins before adding the parboiled potato. I turn the potatoes every 15 mins to get all the sides browned and crunchy. They take about an hour and can’t be rushed; the turning the temperature up results in them getting too dark without getting a thick, glassy crisp side.

Tonight I cooked pheasant breast. I’ve cooked whole pheasant before and the breast was succulent while the legs were tough as old boots so now I just stick to pan-frying breasts coated with seasoned flour.

I would like to try the sauce from Valentine Warner’s pheasant recipe next time.

This makes about 8 servings, bearing in mind it is eaten as part of a meal with other curries.

Chop 500g beans into bite size pieces and precook in water in the microwave for 10 mins on full power. They are still crunchy after this but cooking them in the curry just finishes them off.

Gently fry 2 chopped onions sprinkled with 1/2 tsp salt in 4 tbsp ground nut oil until translucent. Add 1 tsp ajwain seeds and 1 more tbsp of oil and fry for a few seconds, until they release their aroma. Add 2 tbsp garlic and ginger paste, 1 tsp tumeric, 1/4 tsp red chilli powder, 1 tsp cumin and coriander powder. Stir and fry until they release their aroma then add the beans, 1 400g can of quality chopped tomatoes and then half a can of water swished around the empty can.

Cook on a gentle heat until the beans have softened and the tomatoes and spices have cooked into a sauce. I set the timer and check every 5 mins. Towards the end I add salt to taste, 1/4 tsp should suffice. It should take 20-30 mins to finish.

I bought a leg of lamb of very good quality from Waitrose weighing 1.94kg. I used the recipe in Heston Blumenthal at Home. It took quite a while to get the anchovy pieces, garlic slices (I poached in milk AFTER slicing) and rosemary leaves in. I’ve discovered that it’s best to push them in quite far so that they flavour the meat, not just the skin.

I used the small oven and with the dial at 50C the oven thermometer read 90C. The leg of lamb had been defrosting so it started off at room temperature. After 2.5 hours in the oven the meat’s internal temperature had reached 61C and lots of salty (from the anchovies) juices had run out. I made a gravy by sieving the juices and using just 1tsp of flour to thicken. The meat’s temperature goes up during resting so the lamb was more done than I wanted but it was still good. Next time I will check the oven temperature even more carefully and check the meat’s temperature ater 2 hours.

To accompany the roast lamb I made roast potatoes based on Heston’s recipe in the same book except that I boiled the potatoes in salted water (10g salt per litre of water) in accordance with his recipe in In Search of Perfection. The potatoes were done about 15 mins early but then they were quite small. I just took them out of the oven and put them in a warm bowl lined with a sheet of kitchen roll. They turned out very well.

I also made roast squash which I peeled and cut into approx. 1 cm wide slices and coated wih oil, hot paprika and a little salt. These were done after half an hour at 175C, then just to add colour I turned the fan on and cooked for a further 5 mins on each side.

Mark keeps complaining that I overcook baby courgettes when I pan-fry them so after slicing down the middle lengthwise as usual I smeared the flat side with the smallest amount of oil and cooked them on a hot griddle pan instead. They were perfect.