The end is in sight...

After 15 years, in three different corners of the country, I am now 3 days away from finishing my education. Give or take, that's 3,750 days of schooling, approximately 22,500 different lessons (can this be right?), 7,500 school dinners (only one of which I can actually recall ralphing, though I'm sure there were more), and a few pieces of paper with various letters on them denoting generally underwhelming grades. And I still feel pretty ignorant. This might be because I was more interested in playing cricket or going to the pub than studying, or that I was so easily seduced by the work-shy notion that grades were meaningless, or because I am prattling on about poor work ethic when I ought to be revising for two exams tomorrow - I'm not really sure which.

Whatever the reason, without wanting to drift too close to cliche (though I fear that is inevitable), you never really stop learning. I learned a great deal at cookery school, but nothing compared to what I have picked up since then. Every split custard or mayonnaise, every loaf of over-risen bread, every poorly-executed sorbet, every piece of overcooked fish - they have all taught me something. Life is, after all, one big lesson, man, and the world is one big mutha-effin kitchen.

Unfortunately for me, at least as far as Italian grammar goes, I never quite started learning, so the last few weeks have been a semi-frantic rush to try and get through tomorrow without humiliating myself too much, hence lack of postage. The nice thing about working hard is that you feel you can treat yourself at the end of the day - nothing fancy, but it's lovely to be able to put the books to one side for an hour or two and get cooking. What follow are a couple of the things we've eaten lately.

Thai green prawn curry



You can certainly use jarred curry paste, but the flavour is incomparable to what you get if you make it yourself...

Serves 4

For the curry paste
A big handful of fresh coriander, stalks and leaves
2 cloves garlic
2 green chillies, seeds in
1 stalk lemongrass, outer layer removed
A few Kaffir lime leaves (you can find them in big supermarkets)
A thumb of ginger
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tablespoons coconut milk
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tsp sugar
For the rest of the curry
1 large red onion, peeled and sliced
1 aubergine, roughly diced
1 tin coconut milk
200ml fish stock
200g raw prawns

Coriander to serve

Make the curry paste by blending the ingredients together.

Heat some oil in a saucepan or wok and add the onions. Season with salt and pepper and stir over a medium heat for a couple of minutes until soft. Whack up the heat and add the paste. Endeavour not to choke on the fumes that kick up and keep the stuff moving for a minute or so before adding aubergine, coconut milk and stock. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes or so until the aubergine is cooked.

Add the prawns and simmer for a further two minutes. Serve immediately with some chopped coriander and rice.

Lamb kebabs with tomato and mint salad



Serves 4

One shoulder of lamb, bone removed and diced into 2 inch chunks
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp chilli flakes
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
1 tablespoon finely chopped rosemary
Juice of half a lemon
Olive oil

A good handful of tomatoes
Good olive oil
A handful of fresh mint
Salt, pepper and sugar

Mix spices, garlic, rosemary, lemon juice and olive oil and toss through the lamb with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate for as long as possible.

Prod the pieces of lamb onto skewers, cover and leave out of the fridge for a decent hour.

Preheat the oven to 230C, and stick the lamb kebabs in for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, chop the tomatoes into hearty and uneven sized chunks. Season with salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar, toss through some good olive oil and shredded mint and serve with the lamb kebabs and some couscous.

Saturday lunches

Why is Sunday lunch so revered as a mark of Britishness, while Saturday lunch tends to be swept under the carpet somewhat? True, a good roast is something we Brits do extremely well - nomenclature alone attests to that, with Yorkshire puddings being a staple of a roast lunch, and even the usually anglophobic French deigning to name custard crème à l’anglaise. Sunday lunch is undoubtedly a huge contribution to the gastronomic tapestry.

But what of Saturday lunch? You barely ever hear of the notion, yet I think it's something that ought to be celebrated, embraced, indulged in. Let's imagine, for a second, that we don't live in a Godless country, and that some people do actually go to church on Sunday (or, for the sake of argument, let's put this in the context of Christmas Day when everyone really should go to church, if only to give abstract thanks to the possibly less abstract man who gave us an excuse to spend an entire day shitfaced once a year). Trying to cook lunch around churchgoing is a complete nightmare, especially if you have demanding and habitual grandparents who insist on sitting down for lunch at 1. On Saturday, however, there is no such problem (unless you are observing the Sabbath, in which case cooking anything is pretty much out of the question). It is a wonderful day, especially at this time of year.

For students it's a good day to get stuck in to an essay or revision without the interruption of lectures. For young professionals, it's a day to have a lie in, watch Soccer A.M. or Friends repeats in your dressing gown before spending the afternoon in a beer garden. For parents, you can take the kids round the park, to the zoo or a city farm (probably avoiding the pig section), and stick 'em in front of Britain's Got Talent while you do the crossword with a hefty glass of wine. Whatever it is you get up to, what I am getting at, is that it is also the perfect day for cooking. I have, of late, been using my Saturdays to bake bread using a sourdough starter (indeed, the latest batch is rising at the moment). It works well - I feed the starter on Tuesday, build it up for baking on Friday, and bake on Saturday. The method (which I will write about, I hope, in the not too distant future), requires your effort every couple of hours for about 3 minutes at a time, and by 6 you have a couple of beautiful sourdough loaves, ideal for bruschetta for supper, or toast on Sunday morning. It's an incredibly therapeutic process.

Lunch ought to be similarly reparative. While a Sunday roast requires a pretty large amount of work and washing up, Saturday lunch is at its best when mediterranean in feel. Breads, salads, cheeses - that kind of thing. Today I bought (though next Saturday I will make and tell you about it) a wedge of focaccia from the deli, a ball of mozzarella, a few slices of parma ham and some tomatoes. Between two of us (and it could have fed more) it cost £3 each. Less than a sandwich and coke from the library cafe, much less than a pub lunch. The recipe follows. Beer essential.

Focaccia pizza

Serves 2-4

1 good hunk of focaccia bread (home-made version to follow in the next week or so)
1 small red onion
4 sage leaves
150g mozzarella
1 tomato
A few slices of Parma ham
A few mint or basil leaves

Preheat the oven to 240C.

Peel and slice the onion and scatter over the bread. Finely chop the sage, tear up the mozzarella and slice the tomato. Spread out over the bread, season with salt and pepper, and put in the oven for 8-10 minutes, until the mozzarella is starting to colour. Remove from oven and plonk the Parma ham on here and there, with a few torn mint leaves. Drizzle with olive oil and serve with a green salad.

Pork chops with rhubarb chutney

Ever more rhubarb arrived on the doorstep over the past week or so, either tucked shyly in the vegetable box or splitting the sides of a plastic bag brought down from home. With a view to providing sandwich filling, roast pork accoutrements and an opportunity for sycophancy with the neighbours, I made a big batch of chutney, which we have slowly been chipping away at when not forcing jars of the stuff on our guests.

The other night it made an excellent companion to pork chops. I had a bit of an epiphany with the chops too. The rind, I find, however much you score it, tends to amount to little more than an inedible, chewy annoyance on what otherwise is an excellent piece of meat. However, by cutting off the rind, drying it with a paper towel, rubbing it with salt and sticking it in a really hot oven for 10-15 minutes, you end up with a rather handsome, dainty stick of crackling to serve with your rind free chop.

To make the chutney:

50g butter
2 onions, peeled and sliced
A thumb of ginger, peeled and grated
1kg rhubarb, washed and chopped into chunks
500g caster sugar
150ml red wine vinegar
150ml red wine
Salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a saucepan and soften the onion with the ginger over a low heat for 10 minutes or so. Add the rhubarb, sugar, vinegar, wine and season. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for an hour to an hour and a half, until it has reduced and thickened (it will continue to thicken on cooling). Store in the fridge in sterilised jars.

Serve with pork chops that you have fried for 4 minutes or so on each side, grain mustard and parsley mash, and a stick of crackling. Some broccoli wouldn't go amiss.

First exam tomorrow. I ought to be working.

Rhubarb cock-ups and the godfather cocktail

I had a complete, abject kitchen disaster last night. And not just cooking for myself (which ought to be the time for experimentation and culinary abandon). Lachlan, a family friend of my flatmate Sam, was in Bristol for a conference and needed feeding. It seemed like a good moment to make use of some of the meat and veg that I had brought back from home after Easter - in particular the groaning bag of rhubarb that was firing wonderful, earthy, acidic notes out of the fridge every time I opened it. I settled upon the idea of rhubarb and custard. But my mind was elsewhere, completely distracted from the important issue of belly fodder and rather more focused on my dissertation. I poached the rhubarb in far too much water, which robbed it of its delightful astrigency while diluting the caster sugar I had added, leaving me with a colourless and fairly tasteless rhubarb soup. I should have chucked it and started again. I didn't. Develop the soup idea, that seemed like the thing to do. A hot and cold rhubarb and custard soup - that is what this ruddy dissertation has reduced me to. I made custard, curdling it then only semi-rectifying it in the same way one might try and salvage a split mayonnaise - whisk another egg yolk and pour your curdled mixture, ever so slowly, into it, whisking all the while. By this point it had been about half an hour since we had finished our pearl barley risotto and I feared Lachlan might start banging his spoon on the table. I ended up serving a custard that was neither hot nor thick nor sweet enough, and a tasteless rhubarb slop. I reckon there is a recipe there though, if executed well - the reverse effect of cold cream on hot crumble, in hot custard on cold rhubarb? I just don't know anymore.

The pudding aside, it was an evening that has proved disastrous for the aforementioned dissertation. It is 11.40 and I am writing this in bed with a stinking hangover, mainly thanks to Lachlan's reckless off license purchase of whiskey and amaretto to make the Godfather - 1 part of each with ice. Tasted amazing. I feel terrible.

And yes, the writing as gone astray, and I fear I will be able to offer little before June, what with my finals coming up and that. I'll try posting something every now and then, but don't get your hopes up.

Meantime, here is something I knocked up at home, using the wild garlic that carpets the woods at this time of year.


Steamed sea bass with couscous and harissa mayonnaise

Serves 4

4 whole sea bass
Wild garlic leaves if you have 'em
Couscous
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp dijon mustard
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
200ml groundnut oil
1 tablespoon of harissa

Fill a roasting tray 3 inches deep with water, stick it on the heat and bring to the boil. Stuff the sea bass with the wild garlic, season and place on a rack above the water. Cover tightly with foil and steam for 20-30 minutes, depending on the size of your fish.

Meanwhile, whisk the egg yolks, mustard and vinegar with a pinch of salt and very, very slowly, pour in the oil. It should start to thicken pretty quickly, at which point you can marginally speed up the pouring operation. If it starts to split you can add a little milk, or follow instructions above. When you have your finished mayonnaise, stir in the harissa. Some chopped garlic leaves too, if you fancy.

Cook the couscous according to the pack instructions and serve with the steamed fish, harissa mayonnaise, and a green salad.

Supermarket scavenging

It's remarkable what you can sniff out at the meat counter in the supermarket if you time your run. In Sainsbury's yesterday I managed to purloin 3 sirloin steaks for £4.50 (down from £20/kg to £.650!), a kilo of sausages for £2 and a lamb neck fillet for £1.80. The trick, I believe, is to rock up a couple of hours before closing, when they are really just trying to fob off any meat that will be past its sell-by in the next couple of hours.

I had never tackled lamb neck before, but was aware that, like squid or octopus, it's a case of either fiendishly hot, quick cooking, or long and slow. Anywhere in between and you will end up with something akin to a handbag in texture. In spite of giving the meat a good rest, I was still a wee bit alarmed by how rare it was, as in my book, lamb is best served medium to medium well done, having the tendency to be chewy if served too pink. Yet the neck was incredibly soft and tender and, sat lazily on a bed of pearl barley, with the zip of vinegary roast beetroot to lift this rich and frugal supper, was a very successful foray into the latest and trendiest 'cheap cut'.

Lamb neck fillet with pearl barley and roast beetroot

Serves 1

1 large beetroot
A few thyme leaves
Cyder vinegar
Olive oil
Tin foil

1 tablespoon chopped shallot
A good handful of chopped parsley
80g pearl barley
50ml red wine
500ml hot chicken stock

A 300g lamb neck fillet
A little red wine and stock

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Quarter the beetroot or cut into chunks. Place on a large sheet of tin foil, drizzle with vinegar, olive oil and thyme leaves and season with salt and pepper. Wrap up in the foil and roast for 45 minutes. Allow to cool - this only needs to be served a little warm.

Meanwhile, soften the shallot in a little oil with salt and pepper. Stir in the parsley and pearl barley and add the red wine. Simmer for a minute or two, then add the stock. Simmer gently uncovered for an hour, stirring occasionally.

Season the neck fillet with salt and pepper and rub with olive oil. Get a heavy-based frying or griddle pan smoking hot and add the lamb. Fry for 4 minutes on each side, remove to a warm plate to rest for a good 10 minutes.

Add some wine and stock to the frying pan and scrape up all the lovely caramelised juices. Slice the lamb thickly and serve with the pearl barley and beetroot, drizzled with the remaining cooking juices.

Fish and Chips

Are there two happier words in the gastronomic world, honestly? I'm not suggesting this would be my final meal, not by a long shot. Roast chicken remains firmly at the top of that list, followed by, I suppose, roast lamb in some form or other, or a beautiful, quivering tarte a l'oignons, with buttery pastry that crumbles in the mouth. Or perhaps a steaming bowl of pasta, the noodles hugged generously by a rich ragu, a snowdrift of Parmesan on top might be a worthy last mouthful.

It's just that there is something completely and wonderfully naughty about fish and chips. Maybe it's our culture of instant gratification, but I think the lines run deeper. As a young boy we'd go every Saturday to Drakes in Ripon (though the slightly further Southgate Fisheries was always superior), and I remember the drive home being utterly interminable, the waft of vinegary, crisp batter and slightly soggy newspaper making my tongue do a little jig all of its own, as if warming up for the heavenly onslaught that edged ever closer. Later, when in my teens, I'd spend August driving a tractor for Dad during harvest, often late into the night. When this was the case he'd pitch up at some point in the evening clutching that paper parcel of joy and a can of Tetley's. Reward for hard work. Fish and chips remains, in my eyes, the last bastion of completely acceptable British fast food.

It must be the association of hard work with fish and chips that led me to making some yesterday. I'd been in the library most of the weekend and needed some relief. There's actually a chippy nearby in Clifton that I haven't ventured into yet, but I felt doing it myself would be lighter, cheaper and, well, better. Incidentally, does anyone know the chippy I mean? It's round the corner from the Quadrant on Princess Victoria Street....let me know if it's any good. (I have since been. It's bloody awful).

Trout and chips with crushed peas and parsley

Serves 1

2 medium spuds
2 medium trout fillets
1 egg
2 heaped tablespoons plain flour
A good handful of peas
1 tablespoon freshly chopped parsley
Lemon
Salt, pepper, paprika and oil

Cut the potatoes into wedges and bring to the boil in a pan of salted water. Simmer until cooked (15 minutes or so), drain. Heat a couple of tablespoons oil in a frying pan and add the wedges, frying on each side until golden. Remove from the pan and keep warm in the oven.

Put a small pan of water on the boil for the peas. Season the flour with salt, pepper and a tiny bit of paprika. Beat the egg. Dip the fish into the egg, shake off a little, then toss in the flour, again shaking off the excess. In the same pan that you fried the spuds in, add the fish, skin side down. Fry for 3 minutes on each side. Meanwhile, boil the peas for 3 minutes. Drain, add the parsley and season with salt and pepper. Gently crush with a potato masher.

Dry the fish on kitchen paper and serve with the chips and peas, and a good squeeze of lemon.

Stuffed fillet of pork

I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to let this thing slip again, but unfortunately I have been under the academic kosh these past couple of weeks so any gastronomic scribing has had to be put on hold. My new year's resolution was actually to keep a food diary - scribblings of recipes and recipe ideas, and magazine cut outs of foody stuff. What is it with starting things and not carrying them through? I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Lent is not a time for abstinence, but instead for making everyone feel thoroughly rotten about their failure to stick to their lenten fasts. That said, I'm doing OK. My theory (and it was one shared by the chaplain at school) is that, because lent is actually 47 days long, once a week you can let it slip. So since lent began I have allowed myself two beers, which is not bad going....My parents cut out the booze altogether except for Sundays, Dad going so far as to fast during daylight hours. Nutjob. I'd be interested to hear people's reasons for lenten deprivation - I would gingerly suggest that most of them do not do it on religious grounds, but health. It certainly seems that the vast majority abstain from chocolate, or crisps, or cigarettes. It's a good moment to do it - less indefinite (and thus absolutely no chance of sustaining) than a new years resolution. Let me know how you're getting on.

And what of the new, dairy free life? It's really not all that bad. Well, I say that, I probably dream about cheese or butter in one form or other about 5 days a week, but, rather like when you give up smoking, it is in the context of horror when you dream you've relapsed. Last night I made the first dairy free mash potato, using rapeseed oil instead of butter and milk, and it was really good. When pushed through a ricer, the mash is incredibly smooth, and the oil gives it an interesting texture. Definitely thumbs up. Similarly soya yoghurt - with honey and granola, it is an excellent breakfast. The only thorn being that my blood test results arrived, telling me to avoid sesame seeds and nuts. If anyone has a good homemade granola recipe that I could tinker with, fire it my way - jteramsden@hotmail.com - thanks.

This recipe errs towards restaurant-y, but in a pretty homely way. It doesn't feel too heavy, and is remarkably easy.

Stuffed loin of pork with swede and parsnip bubble and squeak cakes

Serves 4

For the bubble and squeak
A small swede
2 parsnips
1 small savoy cabbage
For the pork
1 shallot or small onion
2 flat field mushrooms
1 tablespoon freshly chopped parsley
1 apple
A little cider vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 fillet of pork, trimmed of any excess fat
6 slices of prosciutto
100ml cider
100ml hot stock
Salt, pepper and oil

N.B. If you're allowed, I'd recommend adding butter to the bubble and squeak.

Kick off by peeling the swede and parsnips, chopping into chunks and bringing to the boil in salted water. Meanwhile, finely slice the cabbage and steam or boil until tender, drain and blanche in cold water. Once the root veg are cooked, drain and mash thoroughly, or ideally whizz up in a magimix until smooth, adding butter if using, and lots of salt and pepper. Mix with the cabbage and allow to cool (they hold their shape better this way).

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Peel and finely chop the shallot and soften in a little oil. Finely chop the mushrooms and add to the pan. Increase the heat and stir for a minute or two until the mushrooms start to soften. Grate the apple into the stuffing, add a dash of vinegar and the mustard. Stir through, season, and take off the heat.

Lay the prosciutto slices out alongside each other, overlapping at the edges. Lay the thicker half of the pork fillet over the ham and pile the stuffing on top. Fold the other half of the pork over the top of the stuffing, and wrap up tightly with the prosciutto. Tie up, if necessary, though the natural oils in the prosciutto should act as a glue. Heat an oven proof-frying pan over a lively flame with a little oil, and quickly brown the pork on all sides, before popping in the oven for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, shape the bubble and squeak into cakes. After 20 minutes are up, remove the pork to a warm resting plate, and put the pan back over a medium flame. Add the cider and stock and simmer for 10 minutes or so, scraping any caramelised meat juices off the pan. Meanwhile, heat a little oil in a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat, and fry the bubble and squeak cakes for 4 minutes on each side.

Slice the pork and serve with the bubble and squeak and a drizzle of gravy.