Hot chicken curry for a mild(ish) evening

Once again there is a chicken from the farm defrosting for supper. Large (almost a small turkey), and organically raised, the skin is a light yellowish hue, and the legs are big enough to knock someone out, or at least chew on and pretend that you are a hobbit eating a partridge leg. And the flavour is phenomenal. I don't have to tell you that a bird that has been raised scratching around in the outdoors, eating grass, grain and vegetable scraps and living for 3 months before being killed and hung for 2 weeks is going to taste a hell of a lot better than birds that are intensively reared, given growth promoters and killed after 6 weeks before being stuffed in polythene and shipped off to a shelf. It really is worth spending an extra few quid on a decent chicken, both in terms of promoting animal welfare and eating meat that isn't full of antibiotics (and actually tastes of something).

I am tempted to roast the chicken, but as eagle-eyed readers will know I roasted a chicken a couple of weeks ago. So I joint the bird, keeping the carcass and wings for stock, and the legs for lunch, and cut the breasts and thigh meat into chunks. The likelihood is that you will, as I usually do, just buy the meat ready-jointed so we'll work on that premise...

Chicken madras

Serves 4

1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
10 cardamom pods
2 cloves
1 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 medium red onions, sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 green chillies, sliced (seeds removed if you prefer it less spicy!)
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 tin coconut milk
8 boneless and skinless chicken thighs, cut into chunks

To remove the seeds from the cardamom, crush the green pods under the back of a spoon and pull out the little black seeds. Save the pods to simmer with your rice, and crush the coriander and cumin seeds with the cardamom and cloves. Sweat the onion and garlic over a low heat in a little olive oil or butter, increase the heat and add the crushed spices plus the turmeric, cinnamon and chillies. Stir for a couple of minutes and add the tomatoes. Season with salt and a little sugar. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5-7 minutes. Pour the sauce into a magimix and blend thoroughly, then return to the pan (via a sieve if you can be arsed). Stir in the coconut milk, bring to a gentle simmer and add the chicken. Simmer for 8-10 minutes till the chicken is cooked*. Garnish with chopped coriander and serve with basmati rice.

*You may well find at this point that the sauce is thinner than you prefer. If so, remove the chicken with a slotted spoon, increase the heat, and simmer till reduced to desired consistency.

The best cheese on toast I have ever eaten...

It's about time the onion was appreciated more. It's not just a base to a soup or stew. It's not just something French people drape over their shoulders and cycle around with all day long. And it's not just the thing your weird neighbour's house smells of, even though you have never actually seen them with an onion. It is one of the most gloriously versatile vegetables around. Baked slowly in the oven it is slippery and gently aromatic; finely sliced into a tomato salad it is crunchy and clean; or chopped and simmered for hours with red wine, sugar and vinegar it makes a fantastic accompaniment to cheese or cold meat. Huzzah for the onion!

On Saturday I made an onion tart, the making of which I won't go into right now. Right now I'm all about the onion, of which I sliced four large ones (not too thinly - you want some bite to the onion in an onion tart) and melted a large knob of butter in a heavy bottomed saute pan. I stirred in the onion, seasoned generously with salt and pepper, covered and cooked over a very low heat for about an hour, stirring occasionally. When completely soft, gooey and golden the lid was removed and I added a tablespoon or so of thyme leaves (dried would be fine if that's all you have), increased the heat and cooked uncovered for a further 15 minutes, stirring regularly.

Having made the tart there was still a little onion left. The lunch that followed was a modest, yet utterly self-indulgent feast.

You will need:

A couple of slices of good bread
Grainy mustard
A couple of tablespoons of slow-cooked onion
A good handful of mature cheddar, grated
Worcestershire sauce

Preheat the grill to high.

Toast the bread in the toaster. Spread some mustard over each slice, followed by a good dollop of onion, which you will spread to the edges. Add a handful of cheese and pop under the grill until lightly brown on top. Remove to a plate, add a couple of shakes of Worcestershire sauce and scoff.

The Royal Well Tavern

I think I have found the best restaurant in the country. Honestly. I'm quite fussy at times, and I do think it is important to be objective about restaurants - to analyse why you did or didn't like a place, what was good, what was bad, and so on. But I can not think of a single bad thing to say about this place. Everything about it was complete perfection.

I went for lunch with my Mum, sister and brother yesterday, and in a small way my life changed forever. After ordering a pint of Tribute at the bar we were shown to our table where we found, to my complete wonderment, a jug of iced water already waiting. I have never, ever seen that before. To boot, there was proper sea salt in a little bowl, and a pepper grinder - items that you seldom see in any restaurant. The real spank-my-arse-and-call-me-Charlie touch was the pot of cornichons (mini gherkins) on the table. Unbelievable! I bloody love cornichons - undoubtedly the best thing to nibble at with a drink. As we mulled over the menu (I am awful with menus - super indecisive) we were brought bread - not just plonked on the table, but offered to us from a basket that they were handing round to everyone - a lovely touch that showed you got well looked after without the service being invasive, which was how things went throughout lunch.

Sam, the Maitre d', was informative, funny (without trying to be a cruise-ship entertainer) and generally very helpful. Our crippling indecision over a menu that was making me froth at the mouth led to us asking for a surprise from the kitchen. Turned out to be the best bit of ordering I've ever done. The first surprise came before the starters in the shape of four bits of grilled chorizo (possibly my favourite sausage) on chickpea puree, which we yomped down. The surprise starters arrived soon afterwards - the Terrine de campagne with celeriac remoulade and (absolutely delicious) toast was what it said on the tin, and what else would you ask of it? Classics don't need faffing, it was cracking. We played musical plates with our starters, the next one coming to me being baked cherry tomatoes with goat's cheese and mint, the tomatoes popping in your mouth and oozing with the creaminess of the cheese, and then the cleansing minty finish; then a delightfully smoky taramasalata on toast followed by a simple, toothsome and very French green bean salad.

After the mayhem of the musical plates our mains arrived. My lamb cutlets were crisp and salty and a deep medium rare, and served with a smashing ratatouille and anchoide (an anchovy paste of sorts, anchovy and lamb being quite magnificent bed partners). Mum had a really lovely chicken dish that came with a sweetcorn pancake - an inspired idea and absolutely scrumptious. My sister's poached sea trout with brown shrimps, samphire and beurre noisette was so good that, having convinced herself that there was no more room at the inn, she picked the last bit of trout out of the waiter's hand as he walked away. And I don't think I have seen a better looking steak than the one my brother greedily devoured, that came with an enormous bowl of golden frites, the lucky bugger.

Everything possible has been thought of in this place - there is a smoking exit signed out the back, so that you don't arrive at the place and have to walk through a plume of cigarette smoke, and apparently there were lillies and proper towels in the ladies' loo. And who said French food was fussy? Humphrey Fletcher's cooking is simple, infinitely tasty and very, very clever. I can't wait to go back.

The Royal Well Tavern is, by the way, in Cheltenham, on Royal Well Place. The phone number is 01242221212, I suggest you give 'em a bell.

Leftover chicken

Yes indeed, leftovers are quite the hip thing nowadays. Our Prime Minister has given us a ruddy good wrist-slapping (and rightly so) about the appalling amount of food wasted each year by us Brits, and so it's about time we thought twice before a) buying something or b) throwing it away.

There are 101 things you can do with a leftover chicken - stick it in a sandwich with some baby gem lettuce, tomatoes and mayonnaise; toss it through some pasta with broccoli, lemon juice and olive oil; add it to a risotto with mushrooms, or have it in a salad with some croutons, caesar dressing and shaved parmesan - yum!

But it's still raining, and all I want for lunch is hot soup. It's worth having proper stock for soup - there's nothing wrong with cubed, but a homemade stock is pretty irreplaceable. Making a stock is easy and an excellent way to use every last bit of the bird. Strip the remaining meat from the carcass (this will go in your soup) and put the carcass in a medium saucepan. Cover with water. Add half an onion, a carrot, a stick of celery, a couple of bay leaves, a few peppercorns and, if you have any left, gravy (a lot of people use a clove or two as well - I find their flavour a little bossy). Bring to a boil and simmer for 2 hours. Drain through a sieve and either freeze or use for a risotto or soup, like this one.

If smooth, rich chicken soup is your thing then this ain't it - but it might convert you. This is very simple, rustic broth. Pearl barley is a really lovely grain, and also makes an excellent risotto-style dish. You can find it in most supermarkets these days, and certainly in health food shops.

Chicken and pearl barley broth

Serves 6

1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 stick celery, trimmed and finely chopped
200g pearl barley
2 litres hot chicken stock
As much leftover chicken as you have, shredded


Heat a little oil over a low heat in a large saucepan and stir in the onion and celery. Season, cover and soften for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Increase the heat and stir in the pearl barley, then add the stock. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer gently for an hour or so, until the barley is soft. Add the chicken and simmer for a further 5 minutes before serving. This soup is excellent done in advance and reheated.

Chickening out

I'm surprised more songs haven't been written about roast chicken. Plenty of good songs about whiskey (Doors 'Alabama Song', Van Morrison 'Moonshine Whiskey'); good songs about bakery (Rolling Stones 'Brown Sugar', The Beatles 'Honey Pie' (not one of their best)) and, of course, Kings of Leon stunning ode to the dairy cow, 'Milk'; but dammit, I can't find a single song about roast chicken. What the hell is going on? Arguably the most perfect, beautiful, and, dare I say, sexy thing to put in front of someone and no one has bothered to strum two notes about it.

Because is there anything more perfect than a well roasted chicken? A juicy steak, charred on the edges, bloody in the middle, might be challenging for a bronze, and sure, a leg of lamb roasted medium rare, on the right day will take the silver no problem (I really hope you're enjoying my Olympic metaphor here), but nothing can put a smile on my face quite as consistently as a chicken fresh from the oven - the earthy undertones of herbs, the pungency of the lemon you have stuffed up its bottom, and the pop and crackle of the skin make it the ultimate crowd pleaser - the 'Brown Sugar' of the meat world?

In terms of bells and whistles I think a chicken responds extremely well to most seasoning, within reason - by this I mean a variety of herbs, garlic, shallots or onions etc etc...I do not mean pineapple or apricots. What I happen to do on this occasion is largely due to what I have at hand - although the unpeeled shallots are a Nigella Lawson touch, and an excellent one.

Roast chicken

Serves 4

A medium sized free range organic chicken
15 shallots
2 heads garlic
a handful of rosemary, thyme and tarragon
half a lemon
Olive oil
100ml vermouth or white wine
100ml water

Preheat the oven to 200C (fan 190C).

Make sure you take the bird out of the fridge an hour before cooking. Putting a cold bit of meat in a hot oven only lengthens the cooking time (quite considerably if it is a large bird). Season the bird inside and out with salt and pepper and stuff the herbs and lemon up its backside. Place it in a roasting dish and throw the (unpeeled) shallots around it. Cut the garlic heads in half horizontally and add to the tin. Drizzle liberally with olive oil, both the shallots, garlic and the chicken, and place in the oven for an hour.

Pierce the thigh, if the juices run clear you have a cooked chicken. Remove it, the shallots and the garlic to a warm plate to rest, and place the roasting tin over a medium heat. Add the vermouth and scrape up all the lovely juices from the chicken. Add the water and simmer for 5 minutes till desired consistency. (If you like a thicker gravy, whisk in a tablespoon flour).

Carve the bird and serve with the gravy and a couple of shallots, and whatever vegetables you are having.

Spiced flatbreads

Just about every time I bake I ask myself the question 'why don't I do this every day?', before vowing that, from this day forth, I shall. And, inevitably, after the two days of enthusiastic bakery I forget about it for a month before doing it all over again. I don't know why, it's just the way it is. Baking is such a peaceful pleasure - tactile, composed and unhurried, the perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon. These flatbreads are extremely easy (as is most baking) and are such an impressive thing to produce for lunch, or as an accompaniment to a curry or even Moroccan feast.

Don't be put off by the 10 minutes kneading (I'm not quite sure why you would be), or by the fact that, at first the dough will seem wet and unmanageable. As you knead you develop the gluten in the flour and the dough becomes springy and elastic. I will not claim to be an expert in baking, however, being very much an amateur every-now-and-again type of guy. A great baking blog is www.scandilicious.blogspot.com - check it out if you are a keen baker.

Makes 8 slipper sized breads

500g strong white flour
7g sachet dry yeast
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/4 teaspoon crushed chillis
350 ml warm water

Lightly crush the coriander, fennel, cumin and chilli in a pestle and mortar and, in a large bowl, mix with the flour, yeast and salt. Make a well in the centre and pour in the water, stirring as you go. When it has come together tip it out onto a lightly floured surface and start working with it with your hands (I find that it actually sticks less if you have wet hands, though is slippery!). Hold the dough with one hand and push it away with the other, fold it back, turn and repeat for 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and springy. Return to your bowl, cover with a tea towel and leave in a warm place for an hour or so, till it has risen in volume considerably. Heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat. Pull off a small handful of dough, one at a time, and roll thinly into small slippers. Place in the dry pan and cook for 2-3 minutes on each side. Allow to cool before eating, as the bread will continue to cook during this period. They can then be reheated as and when.

Linguine with prawns, rocket and chilli

I really want to pretend it's summer - that the sun is shining, and that I am sitting outside drinking rose with friends. The reality is too depressing to fathom. If you are of the same thinking then this dish is for you. Linguine are like spaghetti that someone has sat on - long, narrow, flat noodles ('linguine' means 'little tongues'). This combination is about as fresh and summery as it gets, and will, I hope, make you forget that the rain is lashing at the window and you haven't been outside for about a week.

Linguine with prawns, rocket and chilli

Serves 4

400g dried linguine
2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1 chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
200g cherry tomatoes, halved
100 ml dry white wine
250g raw king prawns, sliced in half lengthways
75g fresh rocket, washed and roughly chopped
Half a lemon
Salt and pepper

The Italian rule of thumb for a pasta sauce is that one should be able to cook it in the same time it takes the pasta to cook (at least with dried pasta - fresh cooks in minutes). This is one such dish - that is if you have all the prep work done.

So, bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and add the linguine. Heat some olive oil in another large pan and add the onion. Stir for a couple of minutes over a medium high heat. Season with salt and pepper and add the parsley, chilli, tomatoes and wine. Cover and simmer for 2-3 minutes until the tomatoes have softened (If you don't have faith in your speed you can do this bit of the sauce in advance). Uncover and add the prawns, stirring for a couple of minutes over a high heat until they are pink and firm to the touch. Stir in the rocket and a squeeze of lemon juice. Taste for seasoning.

Drain the pasta and add to the sauce. Toss thoroughly and serve with a green salad. Another Italian rule of thumb is no Parmesan with fishy pasta, but who am I to tell you not to add it if you want?

Steak and chips

I'm criminally hung over after a big night in Leeds with a friend and his Argentian ex-colleague. I don't really have the mental ability to write anything coherent or funny, but I promised Hernan I would put this up asap. Slightly thoughtless, you might say, serving steak to an Argentinian. Sort of like giving a Geordie some coal, except less weird. But I feel like steak. I get like that sometimes - the only thing that I could possibly want to eat is a bloody piece of cow with lots of chips and salad. Done.

If you would like to do the chips healthier then preheat the oven to 210 C, and after par-boiling them toss them in olive oil, salt and pepper and cook in the oven for 45 minutes or so. I had actually bought my Mum some truffle butter for her birthday but we ended up having it on the steaks - I'm a bad son, I know, and it sort of ruined the meat. Better beaten into mash potato.

Steak and chips

Serves 4

4 steaks (I like rib-eye best, but whatever you prefer)

6 large Maris Piper potatoes - these are best for chipping and easily found in most supermarkets
2 litres of vegetable oil

Pat the steaks dry and leave uncovered in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Peel the spuds and chop into chips of required size - I am a chunky chip man, you perhaps are not. Put in a pan of salted water, bring to the boil and simmer for 5-10 minutes, depending on their size. Drain and spread on a roasting tray. Put in the fridge for an hour - this dries the potatoes out and means that your chips will be fluffy and crispy, not crap and soggy. Pour the oil into a large saucepan and put over a medium high heat. The oil wants to be about 190C - it is hot enough when a bit of bread sizzles immediately - too hot if it leaps out of the pan. Carefully put your chips into the oil and fry for 10 minutes or so till nicely brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and pop on kitchen paper. Keep warm while you cook the steak.

Season the meat on both sides and rub with a little oil. Heat a heavy cast iron griddle pan over a high heat till smoking. Cook the steaks for two minutes on each side. Rest for 4 minutes in a warm place and serve. Ooh la la.

There's more to life than potatoes

I love a potato, me. In pretty much any way, shape or form - a mound of mash with sausages and a blob of fiery mustard, a bowl of chips with some aioli in front of the telly on a quiet evening, or a soothing plate of creamy, nutmeggy dauphinoise with roast beef, it is the ultimate accompaniment to a meal, and one I don't reckon I could do without for more than a week. But it is not the only accompaniment.

My friend Pete was literally horrified - wouldn't stop going on about it - at the weekend when I didn't serve potatoes with supper - I mean, really, is this Ireland? Is it still 1912? Darina Allen at Ballymaloe Cookery School once said that the Irish, God bless them, do not consider it a meal without the presence of potatoes in one form or another. But cookery has come such a long way, there are so many equally delicious foods that provide the starch and carb hit we like with our protein. We ate roast lamb (protein) with flageolet bean salad (starch), grilled aubergines and courgettes (vitamins and that) and watercress, rocket and pomegranate salad (er...salad I guess) - were spuds necessary? Am I a culinary dunderhead who does not produce what the average man wants of a Saturday night supper - enough potato to soak up the wine he is glugging? I'll leave that to you to decide, but in the context of the evening menu - a lot of crostini (see below), the main course described above, cheese, and then for pudding basil ice cream with shortbread and raspberries - I thought that the beans would be less heavy than a mountain of spuds. Neither were as heavy, it turns out, as this friend (a 16 stone Hungarian) sitting on me on the kitchen floor at two in the morning.

This was in fact a punishment for the basil ice cream - 'why can't we just have something normal, like vanilla?' (dear oh dear) - which had got him really riled. In his defence, (and I really shouldn't be defending such a narrow-minded philistine), he did taste it three times before becoming absolutely convinced he didn't like it, and I think that's fine. If you say you don't like something and refuse to try it you are a moron. If you try it and don't like it, then you are absolutely entitled to that opinion. There is no right or wrong in cookery. The ice cream went down extremely well with everyone else - it's a corker, and you can find it in Sarah Raven's Garden Book which is my book of the month.

Here are the recipes for two of the crostini we had to start. To make the crostini, preheat the oven to 200C, slice up a country-style baguette, rub with a little garlic, drizzle with oil and pop in the oven for a couple of minutes.

Broad bean, mint and pecorino

Makes enough for 20 small crostini I reckon

250g broad beans, podded
6 large mint leaves, roughly chopped
30g grated pecorino or parmesan
1 clove garlic, crushed
Juice of a lemon, plus extra if needed
A good slug of extra virgin olive oil

Bring a pan of salted water to the boil, add the beans and simmer for four minutes. Drain and run under cold water for a couple of seconds. Put in a food processor with the mint, cheese, garlic, lemon juice and salt and pepper and blend, pouring in the oil as you go till required consistency. Taste and adjust for seasoning, perhaps adding a little more lemon juice if you fancy. Spread on the crostini.

Chicken liver and caramelized shallot

Enough for 20

25g butter
5 shallots, peeled and sliced
100 ml marsala or sherry
250g chicken livers, washed and roughly chopped
2 teaspoons capers, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon chopped gherkin
1 tablespoon chopped parsley

Melt half the butter in a saute pan over a low heat and add the shallots. Season and gently cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, till soft and slippery. Whack up the heat and add the marsala. Boil for 10 seconds scraping the onion juices from the bottom of the pan and add the liver, breaking it up a little more as you stir. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the capers, gherkin, parsley and the rest of the butter. Stir and simmer for a further minute. Serve hot or cold on crostini.

Load of old rubbish

There is a Bialetti coffee pot growing mould in the larder. I'm not sure how long it has been there for, but I am fairly sure it was mouldy when it moved with us to this house 3 years ago, and had probably been mouldy for some time before that. Why hasn't it been thrown away? Rather like the partridges (yes, they're still in the fridge - yesterday Dad was on the verge of chucking them, before deciding to have a leg for lunch, before wimping out when I told him I had bought some ox tongue at the butcher), the coffee pot's loitering is a result of a fear of wasting anything. Quite why a furry percolator or rancid birds will be wasted or missed I can't fathom, but one thing is for sure - this is a habit which is showing no signs of slowing down, what with Mr. Brown's encouragement for us NOT TO WASTE FOOD. But we're missing the point. He's not saying 'don't throw food away' thus creating a sub-culture (culture, get it?) of grime in the fridge, he's saying don't let it get to the point where things go off and need chucking - only buy what you're going to eat. So if you only need 200g beans, don't buy 400g just because it is two for one. It's backwards economics and leads to you having a fridge full of crap you don't want or need. 

Dad's a real culprit, in the best possible way. His post-war Yorkshire upbringing led to a frugality often beyond comprehension. One day we had about 40 pheasants to gut. 4 or 5 bin liners were laid out, on which we drew the birds, making an incision in the bird's bottom with a sharp knife and cutting diagonally along towards the thigh for two or three inches, before bravely plunging a hand inside and pulling out the innards. All in all it took us a very messy couple of hours to do this and put the birds in freezer bags. As we were washing our hands, Dad starting washing the bin bags. When asked what the hell he was doing, he explained that he wasn't about to throw away 'perfectly good' bin liners. It beggars belief. Last night I returned from the market with a 3 pound rainbow trout I had bought for our supper. He was horrified - there is a 'perfectly good' river nearby where he could have caught a fish and saved us £4. I apologised, more to appease him than because I was sorry - there weren't many fish in the river, and what there were were tiny - and cooked the thing - 

Gut and clean a 1.5 kg trout, and slash the flesh deeply, four times on each side. Into each incision push a sprig of thyme. Season the fish inside and push in a few slices of lemon and a handful of parsley. Place on foil and half wrap. Pour over a slug of olive oil and vermouth or white wine, wrap up completely and cook for 25 minutes at 190C. 

We ate it with rosemary roast new potatoes and a green salad. As Dad is mopping up the salad juices he confesses that the last fish he caught and ate, a couple of weeks ago, was white-fleshed and muddy tasting. Sometimes it's worth spending a few pounds for something edible.

A summer risotto

My no-alcohol endeavours came to a fairly untimely end after 2 long and sweaty sets of tennis when my friend Anthony suggested a pint in our local. The newly refurbished Bull Inn in West Tanfield sits at the bottom of the Yorkshire Dales and perched along the River Ure which becomes the Ouse later in its south-easterly meanderings. It has one of the prettiest beer gardens I have ever been in, beside a stunning old stone bridge. In short, the idea of supping a lime and soda there seems ludicrous. In spitting distance are the Black Sheep and Theaston breweries, with Timothy Taylors not far either, and a great swathe of smaller breweries all producing sublime bitter and ale. 

But a man must eat, and our foray into the Bull's menu had to be postponed as Anthony's mother had already cooked for him. Me, I had Dad breathing down my neck to eat whatever was in the fridge (he and Mum were going out for supper) - two barbecued partridges which had been in there for God knows how long, and a huge bag of fresh peas from the garden. The partridges, I decided, could wait for the dogs. I set about shelling the peas, a job made less tiresome by the fact that you could pop them in your mouth as you went, but more so because you had to shell double as a result of this practice. The peas are slung in a risotto with some bacon and fresh mint, and although I burn my tongue in my over-zealousness to gobble it down (it would be soothed by Theakstons later) it is comforting yet inherently summery. These quantities serve 1 but can all be multiplied within reason.

I took a photo but it was crap - you know what a risotto looks like.

Pea, bacon and mint risotto

3 rashers streaky bacon

2 tablespoons finely chopped shallot or onion

75g Arborio risotto rice

A splash of white wine or vermouth

650ml hot chicken stock (cubed is fine)

a handful of freshly shelled peas - frozen are perfectly good too though

25g Parmesan cheese

A few mint leaves, sliced

In a saute pan (like a large saucepan that never grew tall) fry the bacon over a medium heat till lightly crispy and pop on kitchen paper to drain a little. Reduce the heat and add the shallot to the pan with a little olive oil and a crunch of pepper (don't add salt at this point - the bacon, Parmesan and, I find, stock cubes all have a fair amount of salt so only add salt at the end if you feel it is necessary). Soften the shallot, increase the heat and add the rice, stirring for a minute or two. Add the white wine and stir till the rice has absorbed it. Then add a ladle of stock. Once this has been absorbed, add another. Continue in this fashion for 15 minutes, stirring regularly but not constantly - there's really no need. Chop the bacon into bits. When the rice is almost cooked but still has a little bite to it, add the bacon, peas, cheese and mint, and a final ladle of stock and stir for another 2 minutes. Taste for seasoning and add a little salt and/or pepper if necessary. Eat. Don't burn your tongue.

The Detox Begins

The last seven weeks have consisted largely of uninterrupted over-eating and over-drinking - my internship with a food magazine has taken its toll on my jowls, while seemingly endless parties and, this past weekend, a festival, are proudly making themselves known in both my liver and belly. I feel utterly deranged. Tired, unhealthy and morose. But I'm back home in Yorkshire now and it's time to sharpen up. A couple of booze-free, healthy-eating days and I'll be right as rain...probably. I mean it's all very well having good intentions, but in the middle of August (I won't say summer - I'm not entirely sure summer is actually a season anymore; more the odd day here and there - like bank holidays) when there are pubs to go to, parties to attend and homemade cider to drink, it's going to be hard staying sober and avoiding naughty food.

What makes it easier is the fact that the garden is producing some of the most wonderful vegetables imaginable. Tomatoes so sweet and juicy that you can eat them like an apple; courgettes and chillies, and anya potatoes that are earthy and delightfully savoury. A light sprinkling of sea salt and a drizzle of olive oil and I'll eat an entire saucepan before you can say spicy zinger burger. Oh! and the salads, so fresh and crunchy they hardly need dressing. This one does however, the punch of the mustard and the fizz of the vinegar going so well with the rich mackerel and poached egg.

Smoked mackerel and poached egg salad

Serves 2

25 ml white wine vinegar (plus a little extra)

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

40 ml extra virgin olive oil

2 fillets smoked mackerel

2 free range eggs (preferably organic)

A few small tomatoes, quartered

1/2 a small red onion, finely sliced

100g salad leaves

Salt and pepper

Put a small pan of water on the boil with a little salt and a dash of white wine vinegar.

Make the dressing by whisking the vinegar into the mustard in a large bowl, then whisking in the olive oil. Season with a little salt and plenty of pepper.

When the water is boiling furiously, pour your eggs into separate espresso cups, or something similar. Whisk the water round so you have yourself a little tempestuous whirlpool, and drop the eggs, one by one, into the middle. Simmer for 3 minutes.

Meanwhile, remove the skins from the mackerel and pull the flesh into pieces. Toss through the leaves with the onion, tomatoes and dressing. Transfer to a plate or shallow bowl, pop the egg on top, season with a pinch of sea salt and scrunch of pepper and serve. 

If you don't like: Mackerel - try it with some crispy smoked bacon.

Ladies and jellyspoons, I give you...The Larder Lout

Oh how I abhor the stereotyping of students - slobbish ne'er-do-wells with government loans, unwashed clothes, several days' stubble and an alcohol problem. Fie on you nay sayers, you! The vast majority of my fellow students are civilised, cultured and diligent. But my God do they eat some absolute slurry. Before I continue, and hopefully before you close this blog, I will say this, however - there will absolutely not be any food snobbery in this blog whatsoever. When I say 'slurry' I mean only that I don't consider a take-away pizza or microwave chicken kiev a suitable supper for a student (you know who you are), the first being uneconomical and greasy, the second quite a health risk. No, there will be no snobbery here. All there will be is delicious recipes made with good ingredients. 

In our house in Bristol last year the five of us ate together pretty much every night - certainly whoever was around would eat together, and it meant that by the end of that year we felt like a family. Food is such an intimate thing, that feeding someone and watching them enjoy it is a real pleasure. I am also convinced that we spent less money than others who didn't cook every night. Good food isn't expensive. Take-aways are.

In an ideal world you should buy organic produce wherever possible. However, I think that much more important than organic produce is that it is local produce. There are environmental implications to eating basil that has been flown over from Israel, or beans from Brazil, but there are gastronomic implications also. A vegetable that comes from soil near to where you're eating it will have grown in the same environment in which you live, breathed the same air you breath, been quenched by the same water you drink. It will taste infinitely better than one that has grown in foreign soils, been sprayed to keep it fresh, packed onto a ship and crossed oceans and time zones. The day you eat a potato that you have dug out of the soil an hour before is the day you eat perfection.

So, here I am, taking a hammer to the public perception of students as kebab-munching, beer-swilling lager louts...I am the Larder Lout.