Everyone's Recipes

Ingredients

My friend Adekemi gave me this recipe for Nigerian barbecued beef. It's particularly interesting because the marinade is dry, but even though this goes on the barbecue, the beef remains soft and tender. Traditionally you should use peanuts, but the first time I cooked it, I used almonds, and that seemed to work reasonably well.

A cup of raw peanuts (or almonds)
Chilli powder
Smokey Paprika (La Chinata is good)
Salt
Ground ginger
Garlic Powder
Onion Seeds
Some nice beef, cut into kebab chunks
Some other items for kebabs: peppers, tomatoes, onions, etc.

Method

Grind up the almonds and spices. Rub the meat in the spice mixture, leave for a few hours. Stick on skewers with the kebab veg and barbecue. Badda bing!

Ingredients

Beef
Mushrooms
Carrots
Onions
Guinness ('original', or better still from a beer tap, definitely not the shitty newly canned or bottled versions that are designed to keep the look when you pour it out but have forgotten to sort out the taste)
Brown sugar
Bay leaves
Flour

Method

Chop up the beef and brown it in some oil and (mostly) butter.

Take the beef out for a bit and soften the mushrooms, onions and carrots (all chopped rustically, i.e. left in big chunks) in the beef juices that you've left in the pan. You might also need to add some more butter, just in case. Put some salt and pepper in too. Once the veg is softened put a bit of plain flour in to soak up the juices. Stir it round a bit till you can't see the flour anymore and then add the meat back in and pour in the guinness. Add a bit more salt and a lot more pepper and also the bay leaves.

This is where the guesswork comes in. The guinness is sour and will make the stew sour, so just when you start losing your nerve about how much guinness you're adding, steel yourself, take a swig of guinness and keep pouring in the guinness until the ingredients are almost covered.

Now back the truck holding the brown sugar up to the hob and start tipping it in to counteract the bitterness of the guinness. Don't panic at this point unless you've already run out of brown sugar and all the sugar shops are shut.

You'll need to test the stew regularly (i recommend a piece of bread or an already baked potato to dip in) and every time you do you'll probably need to add more sugar and more pepper. Stop adding sugar when the stew tastes just about bearable, as it'll take a little while for the sugar you've added to cook in. If it's still too bitter half an hour from the end of cooking add half a tonne or so more brown sugar then.

Cover the pan and cook either on the hob or in the oven (which makes it tastier) for 2 and a half hours or longer if you've bought shitty beef and need to wait for it to soften. Serve with potato and cabbage and butter.

Ingredients

(Serves 2)

1 pack Party Eggs (Mini Scotch Eggs)
1 pack Chicken Tikka Pieces
2 Pork Pies
1 pack Fig Rolls

Method

Hail taxi. Tell driver your preferred destination. Offer driver a party egg. Once on the move, eat ingredients individually in the following order: party eggs, chicken tikka pieces, pork pies, fig rolls. Finish by stuffing as many fig rolls into your mouth as you can fit. And dismount.

Ingredients

2 Pork fillets (these are the crazy tube of meat-type things that are just sliced off a pig's back)
Lots of garlic
Lots of ginger
Chillis (I like Scotch Bonnets for Chinese food, but they have a very distinctive flavour, which some might not like. Also, when I cook them, everyone starts coughing and has to leave the kitchen. This is because I live with a bunch of girls).
Spring Onions
Peppers (any colour you like, I like a mixture)
Raw Cashew Nut Kernels
Three Egg Whites
Cornflour
Soy Sauce
Shaoshing Rice Wine (or dry sherry if not available)
Sesame Oil
Cheap Oil
Chicken Stock
Tomato Puree

Method

Chop the fillet, removing any huge chunks of fat, but don't worry about making it all lean, as it's basically impossible. In a big bowl, put the egg whites (I use the retained yolks for Charlie's Fried Rice, in order to prevent too much waste). Throw in a tablespoon of cornflour and whisk up with a fork until you've got the lumps out. Add a couple of teaspoons of soy sauce and rice wine, then add the pork, and coat thoroughly. Leave to soak while you prepare the rest of the ingredients, and ingredients for side dishes, if you happen to live with Seffers, who always insists on side dishes.

Heat up a fair bit of oil to almost smoking point (the pork needs to be cooked in a lot of oil, in order to get the coating fluffy, in order to reduce the fattiness of the dish, once the pork is cooked I put it in a colander over a bowl so that the excess oil drips through, some people use kitchen towel, but I think that's pretty wasteful). Fry the coated pork in batches. You want to avoid stirring it all too vigorously at the beginning, until the surface has a chance to harden, otherwise, you'll end up with uncoated pork, and fried egg all over your wooden spoon. When nicely brown, remove and put in colander over bowl (to get rid of the fat). Once all the pork is done, throw away all the oil in the work, then look in the bowl underneath the pork, you need about a tablespoon of that stuff, trying to get as much of the pork juices as possible. Bear in mind that most of the pork juices are water based, so will foam up and not add to volume of oil once the liquid has evaporated off. What I do is pour the whole lot into the wok, heat until the liquid has evaporated, and then pour off the oil I don't need. In this oil, fry the garlic, ginger and chillis, you will probably find your housemates leave the kitchen now, and will retire to watch telly, all the while squawking "it burns, it burns". Ignore them, they were not made for greater things like you were. Once the garlic has lost some of its potency add the cashew nuts and the peppers. Fry until peppers have softened, and the cashew nuts have started to brown. Then add the pork, stir for a bit, and finally the sauce, which is the stock, soy, rice wine, tomato puree, sesame oil, and a bit of cornflour to make the sauce gloopier. Heat through for a bit, test the pork for rawness (if necessary, cook like this for as long as it takes). Serve. Badda Bing.

Ingredients

Chicken Breasts
A ready made haggis (making your own haggis is a nightmare, so for the purposes of this recipe use a ready-made one. McSween haggises have a good reputation, and are probably the most commonly available in good butchers)

For the sauce:
Olive oil
Leeks
A nice whisky, single malt if possible
Lots of double cream

Buttery, peppery mashed potatoes as a side dish.

Method

Heat an oven to 200C (400F).

Take the haggis out of all its wrapping, and chop into strips. Take the chicken breasts, put them on a chopping board, and bash them with a meat hammer until they are nice and flat. Sprinkle salt, pepper and olive oil on one side of the chicken breasts, then put strips of haggis in a line across the chicken breasts, and roll the chicken breasts up, so it's like a very long chicken sausage with haggis filling. Once you've created however many chicken haggis sausages that you think you need, stick them on a baking tray and in the oven until cooked (maybe half an hour or so).
While they're cooking, chop and fry the leeks, add the cream until you get a pourable sauce, and spice with a dram of the whisky.
Take the sausages out of the oven, and slice nicely in diagaonal pieces, serve with the sauce poured over them, accompanied by mashed potato. Badda bing.

Ingredients

1 Turkey
Duck fat
Chipolatas, loads
Very fatty streaky bacon, get the fattiest you can
Lots of red wine
Lots of shallots, peeled but not chopped
Lots of garlic, peeled but not chopped
Meat thermometer (not vital, but it will make your life a fair bit easier)

Method

As many of you may know, MANT and I are big fans of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, and this recipe is partly his, as well as being partly derived from various folk Thanksgiving recipes on the internet. As Hugh says, the question when roasting a turkey is not "have I got too much fat on the turkey" but "have I got enough". The more fat you smear on, the better, basically. So step number one is to get clouts of duck fat on your hands and rub it all over the turkey, then put this on a wire rack. An important rule to note here is DON'T STUFF THE TURKEY. If you stuff it, you'll have to cook it for longer, and the meat will go too dry. If you cook it only until the meat is nicely done then the stuffing will be underdone and you might get food poisoning. Basically, it might sound counter-intuitive, but just don't bother with actually stuffing the turkey, cook the stuffing separately. This is better anyway, as it means that vegetarians can eat the stuffing (as long as there's no meat in the stuffing). Then chuck your whole shallots and garlic in an oven pan which will sit the turkey and wire rack on top of it. This way the turkey will not be swimming in the fat, but the shallots and garlic will be swimming in the fat that drips off the turkey. Heat the oven to a sizzling 210C. This is for a short "sizzle" to seal the skin. Once the oven is hot, put the turkey in for half an hour. Then turn the heat down to 170C and take it out to fiddle with it.

This can get a bit complicated. Basically you want to do the following things (and you'll need to do then with oven gloves as the turkey will be hot):
- Turn the turkey UPSIDE DOWN, so that the breasts are directly over the pan. This is so that the breast is kept moist by the bubbling wine in the pan (which you will soon put in) so that it doesn't dry out while the rest of the bird gets cooked (as breast takes less time to cook).
- Using a baster or a spoon, take as much of the fat that's now bubbling in the pan and drip it over the top of the turkey. This won't do anything for the moistness of the meat, but it helps to crisp up the skin, and crispy skin is nice.
- Cover the exposed side of the turkey with bacon.
- Drape chipolatas all around the base of the turkey, but above the fat-drip pan.
- Take out any remaining fat in the drip pan and keep separately in a bowl somewhere, the idea is to get as much wine as you can into the fat-drip pan now. You'll need to keep topping this up as time goes by, and if you can be bothered, basting the skin with more fat for crispening.
- Stick a meat thermometer deep into one of the legs, trying to get the probe into the furthest to reach bits, so that you'll know when the very core of the turkey is done.

Stick your creation in the oven for roughly 20 minutes per kilogram. I say roughly, as the eccentricities of your oven may require you to check it constantly as the time approaches. The meat thermometer should be about 170C whereever you stick it in the turkey when it's done. Another test is testing whether the juices run clear when the meat is pierced. All the gubbins beneath the turkey can now be used to make gravy, although you might want to remove as much of the floating fat as you can.

Ingredients

We eat a lot of meat (especially MANT) at our regular barbecues. As a result it's a bit anti-social for our veggie friends. This is an excellent recipe for veggie barbecue food which can be enjoyed by the veggie and the carnivore with meat exhaustion alike.
Peppers, stem taken out and seeded
Cashew Nuts (a few cupfuls)
Ginger
Garlic
Chillies
Charlie's Famous Tandoori Powder
Charlie's Famous Garam Masala
Ground cardamom seeds
Ground fennel
Salt
Pepper
French beans
Carrots, finely sliced
Tomatoes

Method

Stir fry the cashew nuts, ginger, garlic and chillies. Add spices once rawness cooked out. Stir fry for a bit longer, add the veg, keep stir frying until the carrots and french beans taste nice. Stuff the peppers with the mixture and take outside to barbecue. You want to cook the peppers on all sides, save the top so that the skin blisters off. Badda Bing.

Ingredients

Potatoes
Onions
Eggs
Flour
Lots of freshly ground pepper

Method

Grate the onions and potatoes. Beat the eggs with the flour and stir it all up, add the pepper. You don't need the grated potato and onion swimming in batter, just a very light coating. Heat some oil to medium in a frying pan, then tablespoon out the mixture into the oil and cook it for however it takes to get golden on one side, then turn it over and do the other side. Repeat for as many hash browns as you want. Warning! It's important not to heat the oil to high. All this will mean is that the hash browns get burnt on the outside, and you'll set off the smoke alarm in your house.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons raw cashews
3 large tomatoes, chopped
1 coconut (you'll actually only need half the flesh, so this recipe will leave you with extra coconut flesh, if you can't be bothered with this, just get a lump of creamed coconut and use about 100g of it)
1 teaspoon salt
4 green chillies
1/2 teaspoon Charlie's Famous Garam Masala
4 tablespoons coriander leaves
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon chana dal
10 curry leaves
3 carrots, peeled and julienned
1 cauliflower, cut into small florets
1/4 cabbage finely chopped
1 handful french beans, topped and tailed
2 tablespoons yoghurt

Method

Cover the cashews in hot water and leave to soak for an hour. Get your coconut, and a small robust knife that you can live with getting broken (or else use a hammer and nail, that might even be easier, but I don't have either of those), tear off the hairy bits aggressively until your coconut doesn't have a beard any more. Investigate both ends of the coconut, one end should have three spots. You should be able to stick a knife or a skewer in each of these spots. Do so, going as deep as you can. Try to open up the holes as much as you can with a skewer, poking the skewer all the way through. Turn the coconut upside down over a bowl. Clear liquid should come out. Shake the coconut until you think it's mostly all out. If it's not happening, then just move on to the next stage, but be aware that there'll be coconut water in the coconut when you crack it. It doesn't matter if lots of coconut hair gets in the coconut water, you can strain it a couple of times, and the bits that still get through won't kill you. Now, you'll need to do the next bit in a basin. You want to insert a small knife into one of the holes as far as you can, and then turn the knife to try to crack the nut. You'll probably need to try each of the holes. If you have a hammer and a nail, you can just crack the coconut any old how. Once you've cracked it, try to get large chunks of the flesh off. You should find that large chunks will come off if you really encourage it with a knife. You don't want lots of small bits. Anyway, use your initiative. You should end up with three or four large chunks of coconut flesh and lots of random small bits. Take the large chunks, and as best you can, using a peeler, peel off the brown skin. Don't bother peeling off the skin of the small bits, it doesn't matter if some skin goes in.

Right, well done, you have some peeled coconut flesh, and some strained coconut water. Put all the water and maybe half the coconut flesh into a blender, or even better, a liquidiser. Add the tomatoes, salt, chillies, garam masala. Blend like you've never blended before. You'll probably need to do this for absolutely ages, as you really want the coconut to be as finely pulped as possible. Strain the cashews then add them to the blender, blend further (this thickens the mixture significantly, so do this after you've pulped the coconut, otherwise the coconut won't pulp sufficiently). Lastly, throw in the coriander, but then only pulp for a few seconds, as you don't want the coriander all that broken up.

Heat some oil in a large pan (large enough to stir fry all the veg), add the channa dall and the mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds start to pop and the dall turns red, add all the veg and the curry leaves, stir fry until it starts sticking to the bottom of the pan, then add two cups of water to deglaze. Stir around and bring to the boil. Then add the paste from the blender. Simmer gently for a minute or two (long enough to take the rawness out, but to keep the veg very crunchy). Add the yoghurt, stir and serve immediately. Badda bing.

Ingredients

1 Pork Fillet, sliced
Juice of 1 lemon
2 Heaped teaspoons coriander seeds, roasted and ground (or else just bashed up in kitchen towel with a hammer if you haven't got a grinder)
A whole load of garlic, sliced
olive oil
Half pint white wine (or cider, if you're Seffers)

Method

You need to watch out for the pork in this recipe. The key is to cook the pork quite quickly, but leave it a bit undercooked when you put it aside, then it will cook in the marinade when you boil everything up.

Mix all ingredients together and marinade overnight, or however long you have.

In a pan, heat up some more olive oil, then remove pieces of pork from marinade with slotted spoon, and quickly fry, when browned, move to a separate plate, and start more pork cooking. When it's all done, throw the pork back in the pan, and add the marinade back, boil up, and serve when pork is cooked nicely.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons coriander seeds
1 tablespoon cummin seeds
2 teaspoons mustard seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1 teaspoon onion seeds

Method

Dry fry seeds until they start popping. Grind. Badda bing.

Ingredients

Onions
Breadcrumbs (whizz up some cheap, stale bread in a smoothie maker)
Cooking apples
Pecans, shelled
Maple Syrup
Cinnamon
Pepper
Salt
Cider

Method

Chop and fry the onions in some olive oil. Peel, core and chop the apples and add to the pan, cook until apples have softened, add the other ingredients except for the breadcrumbs. Whizz it all down roughly in a blender. Mix in enough breadcrumbs to make a gloopy stuffing, then you can bake with the meat, or just microwave to get hot before serving.

Ingredients

1 Large Bottle Heinz Ketchup (squeezy or glass, it's not important)
1 Bottle Encona Chilli Sauce (if, for some reason you prefer sweeter or milder chilli sauces, such as Sharwoods or Blue Dragon, then you can use it, but you probably need to use less sugar if you do)
1 Bulb Garlic, peeled and mulched, pureed or chopped (note this is a bulb, not a clove, you need at least ten cloves, ideally more)
2 Heaped Tablespoon Brown Sugar (dark molasses sugar is best)
1 teaspoon white wine or rice vinegar
Hickory Salt, or Garlic salt
1 Teaspoon La Chinata Smoked Paprika (they sell it in Sainsbury's, but I'm not sure where else, it comes in a little tin)

Method

Heat a little oil, fry garlic for about ten seconds, add Smoked Paprika and cook, stirring constantly, because otherwise it will stick to the pan and burn, then add all the rest of the ingredients, bring to boil, turn heat down and simmer for fifteen minutes. Badda Bing

Ingredients

2 Aubergines
Ginger
Garlic
Chillies
Charlie's Famous Garam Masala
Salt

Method

Heat the oven up to "scorching". Stick the unprepared aubergines into it, and leave until they go wrinkly. Then take them out and you should be able to just pull the skin off, and the vegetable inside should be very soft, like a banana. Fry up some garlic, ginger and chillies, and add the garam masala. Cook the rawness out of the garam masala, then throw in the aubergine, and mash up into a mush, add some salt, and serve. Badda bing!

Ingredients

Baking Potatoes, peeled and diced
Savoy cabbage
Butter
Roughly ground black pepper
Maldon Sea Salt

Method

Boil and mash potatoes with some of the butter. Finely chop cabbage, boil this very lightly and mix in with the mash. Add pepper and salt. Make a well in each serving of the mash and put in more butter. If you want, you can make a shamrock shape in the mash with your finger like with Guinness.

Ingredients

A pound of: either beef mince (don't need to bother about lean or cheap, as most of the fat can be poured away.) or else some nice steak put through the blender (only do this if you're really trying to impress someone though, the real point of chilli is that it costs almost zero pounds to make, tastes great, and can feed an army, so you're slightly missing the point if you puree steak).
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 large onions, finely chopped
A couple of bulbs of garlic, pulped or finely chopped
However many chillis you can handle, finely chopped
2 heaped teaspoons cummin seeds, ground
2 heaped teaspoons peppercorns, ground
1 stick cinnamon, ground
5 cloves, ground
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon paprika (smoky paprika if you can get it)
1 tablespoon oregano (fresh or dried)
Peppers (1 red, 1 green, 1 yellow), finely diced
800g cheap tinned tomatoes
800g tinned kidney beans

Method

Heat wok, don't bother adding oil. Chuck in the mince and vigorously stir until all the meat has gone a ropey grey colour, and doesn't smell very nice. Once it's cooking like this for a bit, the fat in the mince should melt, and you should have a fair amount of liquid, using a plate to hold the mince in the pan, pour as much as you can of the unpleasant mince fat away.
So, we have taken the dirty animal fat away, but we need to fry the onions etc in something nice, so keep the meat in the pan, and throw in two tablespoons of olive oil, heat and add the onions and garlic, stir fry until softened up, then add the herbs, spices and salt, carry on stir frying until you think you've got the raw taste out of the paprika and cummin. Then add the tomatoes, peppers and kidney beans (including the water from the tins of the kidney beans). It should now be quite sloppy. Turn the heat down to a simmer, and leave for at least an hour, ideally longer. It just gets better the longer you leave it, so it's up to you.

Ingredients

Garlic
Ginger
Chillies
Cashews (Raw)
Nice big fat raw prawns
Yellow Bean Sauce
Soy Sauce
Rice Wine
Sesame Oil
Sugar (not much a teaspoon or something)
Spring Onions

Method

Defrost the prawns (if frozen) then shell and devein them. Chop and stir fry the garlic, ginger and chillies, chuck in the cashews. Stir fry until cooked a bit, then add the prawns, stir fry a bit more then chuck in the rest of the ingredients, cook until prawns are done. Add the chopped spring onions at the end.

Ingredients

Ginger
Spring Onions, finely chopped
Pak Choy, roughly chopped
Broccoli, with as much stalk removed as possible (stalk does not stir-fry very well)
Sugar Snaps
Sesame Oil
Soy Sauce
Rice wine (or sherry)

Method

Fry ginger, and spring onions. Throw in the veg, whizz around for a bit and chuck in the liquids, allow the liquid to steam up for a bit until the veg looks nice (you want it all to be crunchy still, but you might need to take off a little bit more rawness than you managed to with the initial stir-fry, it's up to you as the judge, the important thing is not to overcook it, so check it regularly). Badda Bing.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons cornflour
1 teaspoon five spice powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sunflower oil
dash of sesame oil
4 chicken breasts or thighs, boned and chopped into small pieces
1 bulb garlic, peeled and finely chopped
2 inches ginger, peeled and finely chopped
1 chilli (or more, to taste), roughly chopped
2 tablespoons raw cashews
3 peppers (ideally 1 red, 1 yellow, 1 green, but up to you), seeded and quite finely diced
1 handful sugar snaps
1 bunch spring onions, finely chopped
1 tablespoon Charlie's Famous Curry Masala Powder
1 tablespoon yellow bean sauce
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice wine
1/2 pint chicken stock
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons cornflour

Method

Mix the cornflour, salt and five spice powder. Throw in the chicken pieces and toss until each piece is covered in the mixture. Heat the sunflower oil in a wok and add a dash of sesame oil. When the oil is smoking, add a handful of the chicken pieces (don't put too many in at a time, three separate batches should do it), and stir fry until they've gone golden. When chicken pieces are done, remove them with a slotted spoon and put them in a sieve or colander over a bowl (this is to let as much of the oil as possible drip off), you'll need to do the chicken in batches. When all the chicken is done, pour away all the oil in wok, this will still leave a film of oil in the wok, which is all you need for the rest of the cooking. Heat the wok again until oil is smoking and add the garlic, ginger, chilli and cashews, stir fry aggressively, trying to prevent sticking, until cashews have browned, then add the peppers, and stir fry until they have gone soft, then add the sugar snaps and the spring onions, stir fry for another minute or so, until the onions have gone soft, then add all the rest of the liquid ingredients, and throw the chicken back in the pan, bring it all to the boil and let the sauce thicken slightly, but don't cook for very long, or you'll overcook the sugar snaps. Badda Bing.

Ingredients

Chorizo
Wine (I like to use a Spanish Red, but a white wine will work as well)

Method

Cut the chorizo into thin slices, if the chorizo is very fat, then you might want to cut it into sliced quarters. Heat a wide based pan without any oil and throw in the chorizo slices. The fat in the chorizo should melt and so oil shouldn't be necessary. Stir and fry aggressively until chorizo slices look a bit cooked, then glug in enough wine to cover the chorizo slices, keep heat on high until wine is boiling, then reduce heat and cook uncovered for an hour or so, regularly checking that mixture isn't getting too dry (and adding more wine if it is). You want most of the wine to have evaporated off by the time you serve.

Badda bing.

Ingredients

This is quite a traditional chutney (i.e. without sugar and vinegar) so it won't keep for more than a few hours, but it's very quick to make, and is useful to give to people who aren't used to Chilli Con Carne as hot as you are.

Cucumber
Dessicated Coconut
Salt
Lemon Juice
Cummin Seeds
Coriander Seeds
Peppercorns
Paprika

Method

Roughly peel cucumber (it doesn't matter if there's some skin left on, as it adds texture and colour, but lose most of the skin as it's presumably full of pesticides and stuff). Chop into tiny, tiny pieces. Mix with a teaspoon of the coconut and toss around a bit. Add salt and lemon juice. Roast and grind the spices, but only add a dash of the resultant mixture, as this really needs to be a mild dip.

Ingredients

4 Chicken breasts, sliced up (thinnish slices)
2 tablespoons roughly ground (or bashed between some kitchen towel, or in a pestle and mortar) coriander seeds
Lots of fresh ginger, chopped
Lots of garlic, chopped
Tomato Puree, 4 tablespoons
Lots of roughly ground pepper
Salt
Lemon Juice (about 1 lemonsworth should be good)
2 tablespoons single cream
cashew nuts

Method

Put chicken in bowl with ginger, garlic, coriander seeds, tomato puree, lemon juice, and some olive oil. Grind loads of black pepper on to it, and some salt. Marinade overnight or as long as you have available.

Preheat oven to 175C. Put mixture in a covered casserole or oven dish in the oven until chicken looks tasty (probably 15 minutes to half an hour). Meanwhile fry up the cashews in olive oil, add them to the mix, and then just before serving add the cream, stir and heat through. Badda Bing! Serve with rice, and maybe some kohlrabi.

Ingredients

Breadcrumbs (cheap old bread whizzed up in a blender)
Cranberries
Dried Apricots
Onions
Thyme
Vegetable stock
Salt and pepper

Method

Chop and fry the onions, add the rest of the ingredients (bar the breadcrumbs), cook through, then whizz down in a blender. It's difficult to judge exactly how much breadcrumbs to use, so add these slowly to the mixture until the required consistency is achieved.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons coriander seeds
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon fenugreek seeds
1 tablespoon gram flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons mustard seeds
1 cinnamon stick
10 cloves
1 teaspoon asafoetida
2 teaspoons turmeric
2 teaspoons paprika
1 tablespoon peppercorns
2 teaspoons chilli powder

Method

Dry roast all the whole spices, then grind. Mix up the lot, and add further turmeric and paprika in order to get the colour how you want it.

Ingredients

For the rice:
Sushi rice (pudding rice will also do, it's practically indistinguishable)
Mirin
Rice Vinegar
Caster Sugar
Kombu Seaweed

For the fish topping
Wasabi
Smoked Salmon (or sliced raw tuna, if preferred. Smoked Salmon is very decadent, and obviously rather sacrilegious to the cult of sushi, but it tastes really nice)
Soy Sauce
Mirin
White sesame seeds
Black sesame seeds
Finely chopped wakame seaweed
Pickled Ginger

Method

Put the rice in a saucepan with about 130% volume of cold water (in comparison to the rice). Put the kombu in as well. Bring to the boil, covered, then turn the heat right down until all the water is absorbed. You'll need to stir regularly, as the rice will stick to the pan. Remove the kombu, and add the mirin, rice vinegar and sugar to the rice. Put in the freezer until cold.

Marinade the smoked salmon or tuna in the soy sauce and mirin for as long as possible.

If you have sushi moulds (very cheap, and useful) you should use them. If you haven't, you'll need to hand-craft the blocks of rice, and then balance the fish on top, which is quite fiddly. Put a tiny bit of wasabi on the fish before putting it in the mould/balancing it on the rice. Serve with a soy sauce dip, a wasabi dip, pickled ginger dip, and the sesame seeds/wakame mixture as another dip. (This is known as furiyami seasoning, I think).

Ingredients

I strongly recommend lamb's kidneys, they're a lot nicer than pork kidneys.

Kidneys, ideally lamb's kidneys, chopped in half, otherwise pork kidneys chopped in chunks work, but they're much tougher
Shallots
Butter
Salt and pepper
Worcestershire sauce
Dijon Mustard
Sherry
Chilli sauce

Method

Fry the shallots in the butter, when soft, add the kidneys. When the kidneys have browned, add the rest of the ingredients. Simmer until kidneys are cooked. Mmmm, badda bing.

Ingredients

For the falafel:
2 Tins Chickpeas, drained (I don't know why anyone would use dried chickpeas, soak them for 24 hours and then boil them for two more hours when you can just buy tinned chickpeas)
3 large cloves garlic
1 Small onion, roughly chopped
1 Egg, beaten
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1 chilli, roughly chopped
1 large handful parsley (flat leaf, or curly, don't mind. Flat leaf is more mediterranean, but I think that curly is getting a bit underused now)
2 tablespoons plain flour
2 teaspoons cumin seeds, ground
1 teaspoon salt
lots of freshly ground pepper

Extras:
Oil for deep-frying (sunflower oil is good for this)

Optional Extras:
Tahini, for drizzling
Charlie's Famous Tzatziki, for dipping or smearing
Charlie's Famous Hummus, for dipping or smearing
Pitta breads and salad

Method

Put all the ingredients (bar the oil) in a blender. Whizz it up for a long time until it's nice and smooth. If you have time, whack it in the fridge for a bit, as this will make it easier to manipulate before deep frying.

Heat some oil in a smallish saucepan (or if you have a deep fat fryer, you could use that). To tell if the oil is hot enough, dip the handle of a wooden spoon in it and see if it bubbles furiously. If so, you're ready to go. If it's smoking, it's too hot, turn the heat off, stand well back, and prepare some damp sand to throw over your kitchen when it inevitably catches fire.

Put some flour into a bowl, and use this to flour up your hands before reaching into the bowl of falafel mix, and taking out a golfball sized amount, patting it a bit with the flour so it's not sticky, and flattening it to a disc. Drop this into the pan. Not sure how many your pan will hold at a time, mine's quite small, so it holds three at a time. Don't be tempted to put too many in at the same time, as you need the oil to keep hot in order to cook the falafel crispy on the outside. Once the falafel has hardened and darkened on the outside, take out with a wooden spoon and put either on some kitchen towel or in a colander to let the oil drop off. Once you've done all of them, throw on a plate and drizzle some tahini on top for decoration. Serve on their own, ideally while still hot, with some dips (hummus and tzatziki are nice), pitta breads and salad.

Ingredients

OK, this is a bit of a weird recipe. But it's a good filler for using up weird stuff in the kitchen.

Miso (a little goes a long way, watch out)
Soy
Chicken Stock
Spring Onions
Ginger, whole, but peeled
Sesame Oil
Kombu Seaweed
Wakame Seaweed (finely chopped)
Sake
Pasta shapes (I used the curly ones. Can't remember what they're called, but they're not farfalle or penne)

Method

Mix soy, miso, chicken stock, kombu and whole ginger. Bring to boil, and simmer for about 10 minutes. Remove the ginger and the kombu. Add the rest of the ingredients, and simmer until pasta is cooked.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons Peppercorns
Cassia Bark (or cinnamon)
2 teaspoons Mustard Seeds
Small piece of Star anise
2 teaspoons Ground Ginger
Bay Leaves
2 Nutmegs
1 teaspoon Fennel

Method

Dry fry all whole spices. You'll need to manually cut the nutmeg up into smaller pieces, then grind and mix in the lot.

Ingredients

1 teaspoon dried yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1 pound plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/2 pint milk
1/2 pint live yoghurt
1 tablespoon melted ghee
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon chopped coriander leaves
A lot of very roughly chopped garlic
A lot of very roughly chopped birds eye chillies
More melted ghee (or butter will do)
Onion seeds
Sesame seeds

Method

Warm milk gently, it needs to get to a bit warmer than body temperature, but not much more, about the temperature of a nice bath. Add the yeast and sugar and leave for half an hour. When you come back to it, it should be all frothy and smell like a brewery, if it hasn't you've either heated up the milk too much, or else the yeast is really old, and now dead.

Very gently fry the garlic and the chillies in some ghee (or butter if you haven't got any ghee) for about ten minutes.

Sift the flour with the salt. Add in the yeasty milk, the beaten egg, the milk, the yoghurt, the ghee, the seeds, the coriander leaves, the chillies and the garlic. Knead until the dough is doughy (add milk and flour in appropriate quantities to get the dough the right consistency). Leave for about two hours in a warm place. When you come back the dough should have risen. Beat it down and roll out into amusing shapes. Heat up the flat side of a griddle, and slap a naan down on it. You'll need to flip it very often, and after you've flipped it brush some ghee onto it and sprinkle some onion and sesame seeds. Repeat until it looks cooked, and put in a basket with some kitchen towel in it. Continue for all of them. If you're not serving right away, you can microwave up the naan bread and it will still be nice, but don't leave it longer than a few hours, as stale naan isn't very nice.

Ingredients

Pork Fat
Shoulder of lamb
Lots of garlic
Dried Rosemary
Dried Mint (not too much of this, it's very over-powering)
Salt
Lots of freshly ground pepper
Casings

Method

Mince up items. Stuff them into casings. Badda Bing.

Ingredients

Not much to this bread, but it's fun to make, and looks quite cool.

3 cups flour
2 tablespoons baking powder

Method

Sift flour with baking powder. Add water and stir slowly until you have a good dough. Leave for fifteen minutes or so. Heat a griddle to hot. Flour a rolling surface. Roll a bit of the dough, grab it and slap it on the hot griddle. Keep flipping it over until you've got brown spots. Take it off, put it on some kitchen towel, and make some more. Once you've got a pile of them, microwave them to finish them off for about thirty second. Badda bing.

Ingredients

Man, this is pretty traumatic, and takes an incredibly long time. I'm not sure how many more times I'm going to do this. This recipe is, however, quite nice, and it's reassuring to know exactly what's gone into your haggis.
You will need:

1 Lamb's Pluck (or a sheep's pluck). This is basically the inside of a lamb, scooped out, i.e. the windpipe, with both lungs attached, the heart attached, and the liver attached. It's really fairly horrible. You should be able to get this from a butcher, but you might need to order it in advance, as it's not in high demand.
2 Large onions, finely chopped
Some beef suet, 500g will be easily enough
Oatmeal, 1 kg should be enough
1 nutmeg, chopped finely, then ground in a spice grinder
1 teaspoon allspice
1 chipotle chilli (this is a smoked and dried chilli, optional), this also needs to be cut up and ground in a spice grinder.
Some beef stock
1 Sheep's stomach. I actually used an ox bung, which can be bought from SausageMaking.org for £4 including postage and packing. By the way, if you do go here, don't get the haggis making kit, it's just a bag of suet mixed with oatmeal.
Needle and thread

Method

First you'll need to boil the pluck. You'll need to do this in an enormous pan, and you need to drape the windpipe over the edge of the pan into another pan, as all the nasty gunk comes up from the lungs, and you don't want that stuff in the stock. You'll need to boil this for about 2 hours, I reckon, but if you go short or long of this, you can adjust the second round of boiling accordingly.

Once it's all boiled, take the pluck out of the water, and cut the bits of meat off. Hopefully this should be obvious, but for reminder, you want to get the liver off, the lungs off and the heart off. Anything that looks vaguely meaty, basically. Try to cut anything that looks like a gristly pipe out, but you don't need to worry too much, I didn't find anything too fiddly, just bang-bang cleave the meaty bits out. Easy. Chop the meat roughly and shove it in a blender. Add cups of strained stock from the pot to keep the meat moist (you'll find it blends easier as well if you do this).

Now, take a load of oatmeal, stick it in a frying pan and dry fry, stirring constantly to avoid burning until it's heated through, then add enough suet to make it into a paste (the suet should melt). Then shove the offal paste that you blended in a big bowl, and try to add a similar volume of the sloppy oatmeal mixture (maybe not quite as much). Add the onions and the spices as well. Stir up until you're happy with the relative quantities.

Now, you've got your haggis mix, and your stomach. I think you can guess what to do here. Spoon the mixture in, and sew up the end of the stomach. If using an ox bung you might find you just have tube (if you've cut it in half) so you'll need to sew up both ends. Either way, the important thing here is DON'T COMPLETELY FILL THE STOMACH, leave about a third as much room, as the oatmeal expands, and you don't want the haggis to burst as it's not nearly as nice if it does. If you have left over haggis mixture, then so be it.

Once you've completed making the haggis(es), put them in a pan covered with boiling water, and simmer for three hours. Served with Buttery Mashed Potatoes and Buttery Mashed Swede. Swede is the same family as the turnip, so in Scotland this is known as neeps and tatties.

Badda Bing.

Ingredients

2 Pork fillets, chopped into medium size pieces (you can cut the meat off some chops as well if you can't get fillets. Pork fillets are those weird alienesque long tubes of meat that supermarkets sell in heavy-duty shrink-wrapping. Don't worry, they aren't processed, they're just neatly sliced off the pig's back, I think).
Lots of shallots
Lots of garlic
Lots of butter
A few cooking apples, peeled, cored, and chopped up into bits.
Some crystallised ginger, or else stem ginger that's been stored in syrup, or else ginger preserve. You can even use fresh ginger, but then you really need to pulp it. You can usually find crystallised ginger in the cake section of supermarkets.
A pint of cheap apple juice
A big tablespoon of English mustard (although you can use Dijon, I just wanted to keep the whole thing hearty and English)
2 Tablespoons of cheap honey
1 Teaspoon of ground cloves
1 Tablespoon of roughly ground pepper
A large pinch of salt

Method

Chop shallots and garlic, fry in the butter, when soft, add the pork, and stir until sealed.

Add the rest of the ingredients, turn heat low and simmer until pork is tender. Watch out for this one, as pork switches from underdone within a short space of time, so keep checking regularly.

Ingredients

1 tin chickpeas
3 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon tahini
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon freshly ground cumin seeds
salt and pepper

Method

Mulch all the ingredients in a blender. Sprinkle some chilli powder and toasted pine nuts on top for a sophisticated look. Badda bing.

Ingredients

Leg lamb
Yoghurt
Garlic, mulched
Ginger, mulched
Almonds, ground
Coconut Milk
Salt
Oil
Charlie's Famous Tandoori Masala
Charlie's Famous Garam Masala
1 teaspoon ground cardamom seeds
1 teaspoon ground fennel seeds
2 teaspoons poppy seeds
1 tablespoon dried mint

Method

Stab the lamb all over. Mix up all the rest of the ingredients as marinade and rub it in. You'll need quite a lot of ground almonds, as the marinade needs to be quite sticky, not too runny. Wrap the whole marinaded lamb in tin foil and leave for as long as possible (ideally overnight). Then heat an oven to low (about 150C or 300F) and cook slowly, in the foil, for a couple of hours. For best results, finish off on a barbecue, keeping as much of the marinade as poss, and ladling it on the meat as it cooks.

Ingredients

Together with kippers and kidneys, this makes the tasty, but slightly dodgily named KKK breakfast which I highly recommend over the usual bangers, bacon and beans breakfast.

Smoked Haddock fillets (actually kippers work nicely as well)
Butter
Basmati rice
A teaspoon of Charlie's Famous Curry Masala
Shallots
Dill
Eggs

Method

Boil the fillets for about fifteen minutes, or until flaky and cooked. Keep the water they were cooked in. Heat the butter and fry the shallots. Add the curry powder. Fry out the rawness. Get the fillets out of the boiling water and measure out four cupfuls of water (if you run out, just use tap water, the important thing is to get the proportions right relative to the rice). Put the water in the pan and add two cupfuls of rice (or half the volume of water, basically, you can adjust based on how many people you want to feed. Mush up the fillets with a fork, if you can get rid of the skin, good for you, I can never be bothered. While that's simmering, hard boil the eggs. Add the fillets to the pot. When the water has nearly all been absorbed add the roughly chopped dill, and then shell the hard boiled eggs (top tip: have a big pan of cold water ready to put the hot boiled eggs in, this means you don't scald yourself when trying to remove the shells of the eggs), and chop them roughly and add to the mixture. Stir and serve. Badda bing!

Ingredients

I invented this when MANT was looking like winning the "Inventive Sausage" Competition with his, admittedly brilliant, pork chorizo sausage. I decided we needed a spicy competitor that no-one else would ever have imagined possible.

Lamb shoulder (I actually used chump steaks, basically, the fattier the better).
Bacon (again, the fattier the better, so streaky better than back)
Ground Black Pepper
Salt
Bread (yes, bread, you mince it up with the meat and it should soak up the fat when the sausage cooks to prevent the sausage getting too dry)
Charlie's Famous Curry Masala
Dried Chillies
Casings

Method

Blend, Mince, Stuff. Mmmm.

Ingredients

1 lamb's liver, maybe 100g or so, chopped into bite size pieces. If you're squeamish and don't like offal, then you could use chicken breasts.
5 Tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 onions, finely chopped
1/2 bulb garlic, finely chopped
2 inches of ginger, peeled and chopped
4 green chillies, cut in half
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
5 cloves
small piece of cinnamon, maybe 1/2 inch
1 teaspoon poppy seeds
1 tablespoon paprika
1 large cucumber, peeled
2 tablespoons mango chutney

Method

Heat some oil in a pan, and stir-fry the liver or chicken breasts until not quite down. This will take hardly any time for liver, it will take longer for chicken breasts. Remove from the pan, leaving as much juices in the pan as possible.

Fry the onions, garlic, ginger, and chillies in the pan. Grind the spices, then sieve and add to the pan. Stir fry for thirty seconds, then add the tomatoes. Turn the heat down and let the tomatoes mulch down.

Cut the cucumber in half lengthwise, then scrape out the seeds with a teaspoon. Discard the slimy seeds and keep the meaty cucumber shells. Chop the cucumber into chunks and throw in the pan. Add the mango chutney. Bring the heat up and boil, then add in the meat, and cook until the meat is done (shouldn't be too long).

Ingredients

This is really quite a simple recipe, I've added in instructions for appropriate accompaniments, because I think they work quite well together, but obviously you'll want to play it to your own taste.

For the duck:
4 Duck breasts
1 teaspoon juniper berries
1 teaspoon roughly broken cassia bark (easier to remove than cinnamon quill, but cinnamon is also fine)
1 teaspoon szechuan peppercorns

For the sauce:
1 ripe mango
2 oranges

For the accompaniment
1/2 swede
1 butternut squash
Butter
Lots of spinach
Soy sauce
Sesame oil
Broccoli

Method

The Duck Breasts:
Score the fatty skin of the duck breasts several times deeply, criss-crossing the scores. Take the whole spices and put into the scores.

Heat a frying pan (no oil necessary), and put the breasts in skin side down. When the skin seems to be really crispy (may take five to ten minutes), flip over and cook in the fat (a lot of fat should have been released) for about a minute, then remove to rest. Now, using a small knife, prise out all the whole spices that you can find. It doesn't matter if you miss the odd peppercorn or juniper berry, but you want to make sure you've got rid of all the cinnamon / cassia. Put the spices in a bowl and pour all the fat from the pan into the bowl as well. You now have some seasoned duck fat, and some almost cooked duck breasts. Hopefully the duck should be very rare in the middle, and well cooked on the outside.

The Mash:
Peel and chop the swede and squash. Boil until swede is soft (the squash will be soft quite quickly, but it doesn't matter if it gets cooked for longer as it's being mashed. If you're a real perfectionist, you could boil them both separately, so they are both just right.) Mash up with some butter.

The Spinach:
Heat a small amount of sesame oil in a wok, throw in the spinach in handfuls, the spinach will reduce down as you stir fry it, so although there won't be room for all the spinach at the beginning, there will be if you add the spinach in batches. Add few tablespoons of soy during the process to help with the wilting.

The Broccoli:
Cut the broccoli into floret removing as much stalk as possible, put them in a large oven dish. Remove the whole spices from the duck fat, discard the spices and pour the duck fat over the broccoli. Grill on a high heat until the florets have gone a little brown, the broccoli will still be very crunchy, but the rawness will have been taken out.

The Sauce:
Zest both oranges, and squeeze out their juice into a bowl. Halve the mango around the long plane (so that each half is as wide and flat as possible, you won't be able to cut right through as the stone will be in the way, but feel your way around it with the knife), and cut out the stone from whichever half ends up with it. Then score the flesh in fine criss-crosses making sure your knife goes down to the mango skin BUT DOESN'T PIERCE THE SKIN. You should then be able to turn the mango half inside out, it should now resemble a hedgehog (which is why this process is known as hedgehogging the mango) you can now cut off the chunks of mango flesh quite efficiently. Throw the mango chunks in a blender with the orange juice and zest and blend until smooth.

Putting it all together:
When absolutely everything else is ready, chop the duck into large slices, return to pan with the sauce and heat through. Serve immediately with the mash, spinach and broccoli on different parts of the plate. I find that the sweetness of the sauce is nicely counterpointed by the saltiness of the soy-flavoured spinach.

Ingredients

4 underripe mangoes
A medium handful salt
8 ripe plums (or other soft, juicy fruit)
Lots of garlic
Lots of ginger
Chillies
1 tablespoon Charlie's Famous Garam Masala
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1 cup dark brown muscavado sugar

Method

Peel mangoes. Then you have to remove the massive seed in the middle of them. Unless anyone knows a magic way that I haven't been told about, this is an absolute pain in the balls, and it's even worse if the mangoes are underripe, as they have to be for this recipe. You need to insert knife as if to cut it in half, and sort of feel your way around the mango stone until you've cut it all the way around the stone, then you need to twist it off. This is the theory anyway. Most of the time I had to cut in the three other dimensions as well, and then I had to insert the knife and twist in order to separate the segments. Anyway, good luck, and once you've done it, chop them up to the size you want in the chutney. Sprinkle with the salt, and set aside.

Mulch up the ginger, garlic and chillis in a blender, add the vinegar, and the brown sugar. Transfer this to a saucepan, and simmer for ten minutes, keeping an eye on it to make sure it doesn't dry out and burn. If it looks like it's drying out, add some more vinegar. Once it's thick and gloopy, and the ginger, garlic and chilli look and taste less raw, add the mango chunks slowly, stirring them in as you go. It'll seem like there's too much mango, and not enough sauce, but if you patiently stir it all in, you'll be fine. Turn the heat right down, cover, and leaving very gently simmering for at least an hour, or until it looks nice. Stir regularly. Then put in sterilised jars. If you put the lids on when it's hot, the cooling air should suck the lids in so that you get that satisfying "pop" when you open them.

Ingredients

6 Eggs
Ginger
Garlic
Chillis
Spring Onions
Loads of cracked black pepper

Method

Chop the veg finely, fry it. Beat the eggs, pour it into the frying pan. Turn the heat down, and cook like a spanish omelette, i.e. by pushing the cooked egg at the edge towards the centre, to let uncooked egg dribble past it to get cooked. When the base has a reasonably firm consistency (the top will still have lots of raw egg on, don't worry), put a plate on top of the frying pan, then flip over both the plate and frying pan, and remove frying pan, to reveal the underside of the omelette, then slide the omelette off the plate back onto the frying pan so that the uncooked side can have a go. Sprinle with loads of cracked black pepper and serve. Badda bing!

Ingredients

For the meatballs themselves

Beef Mince, ideally you'd mince up some topside, but this is London, so you'll just buy some from the All-Night Tesco
2 tablespoons Flour
3 Eggs
1 teaspoon salt
About 5 Bulbs of garlic
However many chillies you think you can handle
1 Shallot
1 Tablespoon Oregano
1 Tablespoon Cumin seeds
A handful of walnuts

For the sauce

2 Onions
1 red capsicum
1 tablespoon Olive Oil
1/2 pint stock cube in wine (red or white, whatever you fancy)
Chopped tomatoes, about half a pint (or a tin will do)
2 Tablespoons Tomato Puree
A couple of chillies

Method

Blend the meatball ingredients. Form into meatballs. From here you have two options, either of which work, but produce quite different dishes. You can either fry them, in which case the meatballs have to be really quite small (some recipe books say "golf-ball sized" which is WRONG. They must be smaller. I can't think of a household object with a correlating size, but I suggest you buy a walnut whip, and cut it horizontally halfway up its vertical axis, the top half, when melted down and reformed into a sphere represents a good size, and it'll be chocolatey, creamy, and walnutty as well. Actually, can you still buy walnut whips? I remember buying them as a child, but you could get them for 30p then). Alternatively, you can mix up the sauce, make it a bit more watery, and put the raw meatballs in the mixture, then stew it in a medium oven (about 350F) for an hour or so. You can make the meatballs a bit bigger if you do it this way. Basically, frying the meatballs is nicer, but it's a real pain in the ass frying them in batches, so I quite often just stew them.

Anyway, to make the sauce, just fry the onions, capsicums and chilli, when soft add the rest of the ingredients, simmer until a bit more watery than required consistency, and either add the meatballs and heat through (if you've deep-fried them) or add the meatballs and stew.

It's worth mentioning that if you stew them, the garlic is given even more potency, when we last tried it, two of the house members went blind for a week. The rest of us just suffered severe nausea and bleeding eyes. Badda Bing!

Ingredients

I don't think this is really very Nepalese, but the taste and texture reminded me of an incredibly nice dish as the Gurkha Kitchen in Balham. That was the idea anyway. Either way, it's very nice. Lentils are always a good way to bulk out a meal made from random ingredients.

1 cup masoor dal (red lentils)
1 cup channa dal (not sure what these are in English, they're yellow and much chunkier than normal lentils)
1 butternut squash (goddammit these things are tasty, I should cook with them more)
Loads of garlic
Loads of ginger
Loads of green birds eye chillis
A sprinkle of curry leaves
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon Charlie's Famous Curry Masala
Chopped tomatoes (I use a tin, not sure it's worth the effort to use fresh tomatoes, as they are cooked until mulched anyway)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons single cream

Method

Cover the lentils in cold water, bring to the boil, and cook for an hour, skimming off the foul-looking scum that rises to the surface every so often. When cooked, the red lentils should basically be mush, but the channa dal retains its shape, this, in my opinion, is what makes the dish nice.

Peel the squash, chop it in half then spoon out the seedy gunk in the middle. Then chop the squash up into chunks and boil for a few minutes until yielding, but not completely cooked (this won't take long, squash takes less time to cook than potatoes). Chop up the ginger, garlic and chillies. Heat some oil and stir fry the leaves and seeds, then add the garlic, ginger and chillies. Fry until you stop coughing, then add the curry masala, and fry the rawness out. Then add the tomatoes and cook down to a nice liquid. Add the squash and the drained lentils. Simmer gently until squash is nice and soft. At the end, add the brown sugar and cream, stir in. Badda bing.

Ingredients

For the Marinaded Fish:
Tuna Steaks / Fillets
Salmon Steaks / Fillets
Sesame Seeds
Soy Sauce (Japanese, ideally Kikkoman)
Sesame Oil
Chopped Ginger
Dark Brown Muscavado Sugar
Chinese Rice Wine

For the Salad
Spinach (lots, fresh, young)
Cucumber (chopped)
Soy Sauce again
Sesame Oil
Lemon Juice
Salt
Pepper

Method

Marinade Fish for at least an hour, ideally more. Barbecue the steaks (this is tricky, as the fish has a tendency to fall apart, basically don't flip until you're absolutely sure that the downside is cooked, then flip it in one clean movement). Meanwhile, combine salad ingredients, then mash up the fish when it's ready, and put into the salad. Toss. Badda Bing.

Ingredients

New Potatoes, scrubbed or peeled, about a pound or 500g
Olive oil, probably two tablespoons
2 Red Onions
Lots of garlic, perhaps a bulb
2 nice chillies
Oregano, 1 teaspoon
Salt, pepper
7 plump tomatoes
Red Wine

Method

Cut potatoes into 1 inch chunks, if potatoes are small enough already, you can leave them. Boil them for ten minutes and set aside (if you can be bothered, drain them a bit early and then fry them to get them crispy).
Chop onion, garlic, and chilli very finely and fry in a liberal amount of olive oil. Fry until onions are soft and slightly golden. Grate the tomatoes over the mixture and season with the oregano, salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and cook, covered, for at least an hour, until tomato sauce has mulched down, glug in some red wine if mixture gets too dry. Add the potatoes and heat through. Badda bing.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
5 Cloves garlic, chopped
1 large red onion, roughly chopped
2 leeks, cleaned, and chopped
200g niceish ham, ideally not sliced, but if sliced, then thickly sliced. The ham should be chopped into squares or cubes (depending whether sliced)
250g garden peas in their pods. Basically loads. It's quite cheap to buy garden peas in their pods. You want to pod all these, keep the peas, and discard their pods. If you're lazy, use frozen peas, but it won't be as nice, as the soup has the peas still a little raw (basically beware of overcooking the peas if using frozen peas)
Handful of mint leaves
1 pint of vegetable stock (or chicken stock, don't really mind)
1 tablespoon double cream
salt and pepper

Method

Heat the olive oil and butter in a large pan. Add the garlic, fry for 30 seconds, then add the onions and the leeks. Cook until soft. Add the ham and cook, stirring to prevent sticking for another 2 minutes. Add the stock and the mint. When the soup is boiling, add the peas, cook for another two minutes (if using fresh peas, 30 seconds if frozen). Optional step to give nice consistency: spoon half the soup into a blender, whizz up and return it to the pan. This will make the soup base thick, but still mean you have lots of nice chunky goodies floating around. Finally add the cream, heat through and serve immediately with thick slices of buttered bread. Badda bing.

Ingredients

2 Pheasants, plucked and drawn
Salt and Pepper
Smoked Garlic, chopped (difficult to get hold of, use normal garlic if you can't find it)
Streaky Bacon, chopped up
Onions, finely chopped
Carrots, peeled and cut into huge chunks
Red wine
Honey
Cooking apples, peeled, cored and chopped very roughly
Bay leaf
Thyme
A couple of handfuls of chestnuts
Leeks
Kale
Cabbage
Double Cream

Method

- Take pheasants whole, cover them in salt and pepper, and pan fry them in some olive oil, you should work a fair amount of fat out of the skin doing this. Once skin has crisped up a bit remove and separate into three piles:
1. The breast meat
2. The leg meat
3. The bones, skin and any other meat clinging on elsewhere. Bash this up a bit to break up some bones so that you can boil maximum goodness out.
- In a separate pan, boil some water and add the bones, skin etc. Boil furiously while doing the rest of this recipe.
- In a baking tray, throw in the chestnuts (unpeeled) and bake them until they get quite charred on the outside.
- Take pan you used, and heat the fat and oil again, throw in the smoked garlic, bacon and onions, and big chunks of carrot.
- When onion has softened and browned, add some red wine, a tablespoon of honey and the apple chunks.
- Add the legs to the stew, turn down to a gentle simmer. Add bay leaf and thyme.
- Remove the chestnuts and leave to cool.
- Chop up the breast meat and throw it in the stew
- Once stock has boiled some goodness out of the bones, remove and discard the bones. Add the kale, cabbage and leeks, all roughly chopped to the stock.
- Once chestnuts are cool, tear off the shells, and mulch half of them with some of the stock from the veg. Add this mulch to the stew.
- Strain the veg, reserving the stock. Add some stock to stew if stew is too dry. Add a tablespoon double cream to stew.
- Serve stew on a bed of the mixed greens.

Ingredients

Some pheasants (this recipe assumes two, which should feed three people). Ideally you'd have the giblets as well. It doesn't matter too much if you don't. Also if these are pheasants you've shot yourself, don't bother plucking, just tear off the skin and bin it. The skin's really not that necessary, and skinning a pheasant is much, much easier than plucking it.
Olive Oil
100g nice lardons
Sprigs thyme
1 Onion
3 Carrots
1 Celery plant
500g whole chestnuts
1 tablespoon double cream

Method

Wash, peel and roughly chop the onion, carrots and celery. Throw into a big baking tray with the thyme, and drizzle olive oil on top. Put the pheasants on top, and splash the breasts with a bit more olive oil, if you have giblets, stick those in with the veg, as they can go into the stock. Stick the tray in a pre-heated oven (200C) for half an hour.

While that's in, get a knife and mark a cross in all the chestnuts, this is so that they don't explode when you put them in the oven. Put all the crossed chestnuts in another baking tray.

After half an hour take the pheasants out of the oven. Pull the legs away from the body to check if the meat by the legs is still undercooked, if it is, stick it back in the oven for a bit longer. It doesn't matter if it's a bit undercooked, as there is a chance to stew the meat later.

Once the pheasant is done remove that tray from the oven and stick the tray full of chestnuts into the oven. The chestnuts will take about another half hour, so meanwhile put the pheasants on a chopping board, and proceed to take as much meat off them as possible, and put the meat aside. I find the easiest way to do this is to cut through the top of the wish-bone, then you can slice off both breasts pretty much whole. Then get to work on the legs with your fingers, tearing off meat, but trying to separate off the tendons if you can. Once you've got as much meat off the pheasants as you think you can be bothered with, put the pheasant carcasses (i.e. NOT the meat, just the bones and stuff) together with the vegetables (and thyme) in the bottom of the oven tray, into a big pot. Take a rolling pin and smash up the carcasses as best you can in the pot, this will expose lots of tasty bone insides to the stewing process. Cover with hot water and simmer for at least an hour, ideally overnight.

Take the chestnuts out of the oven and shell them, trying to get rid of the furry husk as well as the outer shell. They should look like shrivelled yellow brains, and they should be incredibly hot.

Once the stock is ready sieve out the carcasses and the veg chunks. Make sure you keep the stock, and chuck away the carcasses (not the other way around - it's all to easy to strain the stock into the sink before you realise it). Strain the stock again with a fine mesh strainer, and then put the nicely strained stock into a pan, and spoon off some of the oil and fat that's floated to the top and bin the fat. Then boil the stock down furiously to reduce it. Meanwhile, gently heat a big pan with some olive oil and throw in the lardons.

Once the stock is reduced down to a strong, gamey liquid, put it in a blender with half of the chestnuts, blend to a paste (the chestnuts probably will remain in small chunks rather than going to a puree, but that's fine). Once the lardons are a bit crispy, chuck the chestnut stock mixture in, then roughly chop the leftover meat and throw that in as well, add the cream and the remaining whole chestnuts, and heat through until meat is cooked.

Serve with mashed potato and cabbage. Maybe some broccoli as well. Badda bing.

Ingredients

Another barbecue favourite. Great hot, but doesn't bear reheating from cold very well.

Pork fillet
Coconut milk
Soy sauce
Charlie's Famous Curry Masala
Chillis, chopped
Garlic, chopped
Mint, chopped
Peanut butter, crunchy

Method

Chop the pork into chunks. Marinade in all the ingredients. Thread onto skewers and barbecue.

Ingredients

Olive Oil
Cheap Whisky (the relative proportions of the whisky and oil should be as with mixing salad dressing, with the whisky taking the place of the vinegar)
Garlic
Bay Leaves
Cumin Seeds
Peppercorns
Dried Chillies (Fresh will also do, but it might still be best to bake them a bit, but it won't matter) (needless to say, you need a lot of these)

Method

Blend all ingredients. Put in a jar. Store for at least a month. If you taste it early, you'll probably go blind, or mad, or both. Huggie's currently only just recovering his vision after being a bit over eager with the premature tasting. Badda Bing.

Ingredients

Onions
Pumpkin, chopped and boiled until soft
Chestnuts, baked until shells are brittle, then peeled (remember to puncture the chestnuts before baking, as they'll explode if you forget)
Honey
Crystallised Ginger
Cinnamon
Pepper and salt
Sherry
Breadcrumbs

Method

Chop and fry the onions, add the rest of the ingredients (except the breadcrumbs). Cook until mixed in, then whizz down in a blender. Add breadcrumbs until it achieves the right consistency.

Ingredients

Nice yoghurt
Salt
Peppercorns
Cummin Seeds
Coriander seeds
Chillis
Cucumber
Garlic
Paprika

Method

Dry fry the seeds and peppercorns and grind. Whisk the yoghurt with the salt. Chop the cucumber, garlic and chillis into tiny, tiny pieces. Combine all ingredients save the paprika. Sprinkle some paprika on the top for decoration, badda bing.

Ingredients

Sausagemeat (maybe a kg)
Onions
Dried Prunes
Armagnac
Breadcrumbs

Method

Fry up the onions, add the rest of the ingredients save the breadcrumbs. Whizz down in a blender, add breadcrumbs until required consistency is achieved. Now you need to bake this (because of the sausagemeat) until the sausagemeat is cooked.

Ingredients

Pint Glass
Ice to half-way up pint glass
Bombay Sapphire to just over the ice mark
Cheap cheap vermouth to brim
Cocktail chilli

Method

Drink. Lose memory. Pass out or vomit according to choice. Badda Bing.

Ingredients

Now souvlaki is basically skewers of marinaded lamb. You can still do that if you like, but what I really like is boneless chump chops of lamb, so this recipe assumes you marinade the chops and then grill them on a bed of lamb. If you want to be more traditional, then chunk up the lamb (leg fillets will probably be the best as you want the meat quite lean), marinade it, then stick it on skewers to grill.

For the Souvlaki:
Four lamb chump chops, thick ones
4 fresh bay leaves, with the thick main stem removed, and the leaves chopped up with a knife
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
2 teaspoons dried oregano
5 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 onion, very finely chopped
salt and pepper

For the veg to go underneath (if grilling):
half a large aubergine, chopped into thinnish discs
2 courgettes, peeled and chopped into discs
Olive oil

Method

Mix up all the souvlaki ingredients and marinade for as long as you can, ideally 24 hours, but a couple of hours will do.

If grilling, arrange the veg on an oven disk and drizzle some olive oil over generously. Stick under the grill (at a reasonable distance from the grill, not too close) for fifteen minutes or so. Then get your lamb steaks and put them on top of the veg in the oven dish, and return to the grill, but this time put as close to the grill as possible. Leave for five minutes, then turn the lamb, and leave until tender (maybe another five to ten minutes depending how rare you like your meat). Take the lamb off, and check the veg. If necessary, return the veg to the oven, although this would a shame, as you really want to eat the lamb as soon as it comes off from under the grill.

If barbecuing, then just whack the souvlaki skewers or chops on the barbecue at high heat. Also whack the aubergine discs, with some olive oil on them, but the courgette discs will fall through the grill, so don't bother with them.

Ingredients

6 Tomatoes
1 Chicken, jointed
Olive Oil
2 Large red onions, sliced finely
Garlic, 1/2 bulb
3 Large Red peppers
100g Chorizo or Jamon cut up into small, thin pieces
1 Tablespoon chopped thyme
2 teaspoons paprika
Handful pitted black olives
Handful pitted green olives
A few dashes of Rioja

Method

Heat an oven to 200C. When hot, throw in the whole peppers, whole tomatoes and unpeeled garlic cloves. Leave in for fifteen minutes, or longer if necessary (the idea here is to make the tomatoes easy to peel, and to take the rawness out of the other ingredients). Peel the garlic and chop, put it in a separate bowl. Seed the peppers and chop the flesh, keep separate. Peel the tomatoes and try to get as much flesh into a bowl with as few seeds as possible (obviously it doesn't matter that much, you're really trying to get rid of the harder, whiter centre, and just keep the really soft flesh).

Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper, heat some oil in a very big pan, and throw in the chicken pieces, cook skin side down until nicely golden brown, turn them over and give them a few more minutes. Take out the chicken pieces with a slotted spoon and put on a plate. Heat the retained juices and oil, then add the chopped onion, chopped garlic, chopped peppers, chorizo, and thyme. Stir fry until onions have softened. Add the tomato flesh and the paprika, bring to the boil and mulch down those tomatoes. Chuck in the chicken pieces, turn down the heat, and cook for about 20 to 30 minutes (basically until the chicken's cooked). Add the olives and the rioja, bring the heat up so it boils, and it's ready. Badda bing.

Ingredients

Eggs, three
Rice, basmati, ideally Tilda, it's the best rice I've used, steer well clear of Supermarket brand, especially American Long Grain.
Chicken, cut up into tiny strips
Sesame Oil
Cheap Oil
Spring Onions
Garlic
Ginger
Chillis
Prawns (optional, I don't particularly like prawns in rice, but they're easy to add, if you've got raw ones, remember to devein and boil before adding to stir fry)
Peppers (2, different colours)
Bamboo Shoots (from a tin will do, must be chopped very finely, as large chunks of bamboo shoots are absolutely revolting)
Soy Sauce
Rice Wine (or sherry)

Method

Boil lots of water, when bubbling vigorously, add the rice (or else prepare in rice cooker). Cook for about 13 minutes, check that it's done at the end of this, different brands of rice need different amounts of time. Actually Tilda basmati is quite quick cooking, maybe check after ten minutes if using that. American Long Grain normally takes twelve and a half minutes. Once it's ready, sieve and leave. Some people say put it in the freezer, but I don't see the point, I think it's just culinary show-boating, to be honest. You want it to be dryish when you fry it, so make sure that if it's in a sieve, the bottom part isn't sitting in some water. I like to rinse out the rice with cold water here, as it's nice to get rid of the starch (as the frying process will make sure the rice is sticky anyway), but it's up to you, a lot of people like very sticky rice.

In a separate pan (ideally a huge wok, but a giant casserole will do), heat up some sesame and normal oil, fry the ginger, garlic, chilli, spring onions, peppers, prawns, bamboo shoots and bits of chicken until the meaty stuff looks done. Throw in the beaten egg and quickly stir around to half cook the scrambled egg. Then chuck in the rice, and stir fry like a mad thing (this will really make your wrist ache). Add the soy and rice wine, and keep stirring. All of a sudden stop, and scream "IT'S REEEEEEAAAAADY AT THE TOP OF YOUR VOICE".

Badda Bing.

Ingredients

A great one for when you just want to mix up a huge tub of cheap tasty curry. Works well as a side dish to bulk out the more spartan meals.

Mince, lots
Onions, chopped
Garlic, mulched
Ginger, mulched
Tomatoes, chopped
Chillis
1 Tablespoon Ground Coriander
2 Teaspoons Ground Cumin
1 teaspoon ground mustard seeds
2 teaspoons turmeric
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon garam masala
1 Tablespoon fenugreek leaves
More Onions, sliced very thin
1 tin tomato soup
1 Tablespoon brown sugar

Method

Fry up mince, try to remove as much fat as possible. Throw in the onions, garlic, ginger, chillis and fry, when soft, add all spices, and fry until cooked. Add tomatoes, mulch down, then add the soup and the sugar. At the end fry the slices of onions in some butter on a low heat until they're super crispy, sprinkle them on top and serve with rice in a bucket.

Ingredients

"Rissoles" are really just burgers that you eat without a bun, so you can treat this as a burger recipe if you like.

Lamb mince, 1 kg
Garlic, chopped, a bulb
Ginger, chopped, 2 inches
Two large onions, very finely chopped
Pecans, roughly chopped (a little go a long way here, so a small handful should be ample)
Two eggs, beaten
1 tablespoon Charlie's Famous Curry Masala
1 tablespoon oregano
Some chillis
Salt and pepper to taste
2 teaspoons cumin seeds

Method

Mix all the ingredients with your hands in a bowl. Form into flat patties. Fry each patty on both sides in oil until surface browns (this is to seal the patties). Remove from oil, and bake in an oven at about 180C until cooked (probably half an hour).

Ingredients

Garlic
Ginger
Chillies
Charlie's Famous Garam Masala
Charlie's Famous Curry Masala
Coriander seeds, roasted and ground
Cumin seeds, roasted and ground
Paprika
Sweet potatoes, grated
Tomato puree
Frozen peas
Lemon juice (optional, and just use a splash anyway)
Filo pastry
Ghee (or oil or butter, if ghee not handy)

Method

Heat some oil, and fry the garlic and ginger. Add the spices, and stir fry to get rid of any rawness. Add the grated sweet potato, and turn the heat right down. Add the tomato puree. You'll need to cook it slowly for about an hour, I reckon, to get the sweet potato soft. If you're lazier, or short of time, you could just boil the sweet potatoes, mash them, and add them to the mix. When it's soft, add the frozen peas, and remove from heat (the peas hardly need cooking, so they will just be cooked when the samosas go in the oven). Squeeze the lemon juice in at the last minute, if you're using it.

Making the samosas is a bit tricky. You'll need to get a sheet of filo pasty, and cut in half down its long direction, so that it's just as long, and half as thin. Then put a small bit at the top, and fold the corner over to form a triangle, then roll the whole triangle over, and carry on until it's all wrapped up, then brush with ghee and put on an oven tray. Carry on, until you've either run out of filo or run out of filling. Bake the samosas in a hot oven until the pastry changes colour a bit.

Ingredients

3 Plantains
Some butter
Crystallised ginger (a handful)
1/2 tin Coconut Milk
1/2 cup cashew nuts
1 teaspoon Chilli Powder
2 tablespoons Dark Brown Sugar
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 cup yoghurt
1 teaspoon roasted and ground cumin seeds

Method

Heat an oven to 200C. Peel the plantains, and chop into thin semicircles. Spread out some kitchen foil and put the plantain pieces on the foil. Chop up the crystallised ginger and the butter, sprinkle this mixture over the plantains and wrap up the foil so it's a neat package. Stick this in the oven for 20 minutes, or until the plantain pieces have gone translucent (difficult to check, given that they are wrapped in foil, but you'll see that when they are done, they have changed colour and texture).

Meanwhile, blend the cashew nuts with the coconut milk, transfer to a pan and VERY SLOWLY bring to the almost boil, if it's too dry, add a little milk (or cream if you want it to be even richer than it is already) when it is just below bubbling, add the rest of the ingredients, stir through, and keep it only just simmering (if in doubt, let it cool down, and reheat it when the plantains are ready) until the plantains are ready. Stir in and serve. Badda bing!

Ingredients

Chicken, probably a breast per person, I will assume cooking for six in this recipe
2 tablespoons Cornflour
1 Teaspoon Chinese five spice powder
Szechuan Peppercorns (ground) (optional)
1 teaspoon salt
Oil
A lot of ginger
A lot of garlic
However many chillies you think you can handle
Spring onions, 5-10
Soy Sauce, if possible, use Kikkoman
Some Shaoshing Rice Wine if available, if not, then dry sherry will do
Chicken bouillon, or else a chicken stock cube
Rice Vinegar (a teaspoon, no more, if in doubt, err on the side of caution)
1 tablespoon white sugar
Sesame Oil

Method

Chop chicken. Mix cornflour, Szechuan Peppercorns (if you have them) salt and chinese five spice together and sprinkle on chopped chicken. Heat quite a thick layer of oil in a wok, or saucepan, add the chicken in batches with a slotted spoon, try to shake off the spare cornflour that hasn't adhered to the chicken, it doesn't matter if you don't get all of it.

Chicken should turn golden brown, remove from heat with slotted spoon and put either on a paper towel, or in a sieve balanced over a bowl or saucepan (this is to get rid of all the oil left on the chicken.

Chop up ginger and garlic and chillies (if you're cooking for people who don't like spice, you might want to leave the chillies really chunky, so just slice them down the middle, that way they can fish them out). Fry this mush in a tiny bit of oil. Add roughly chopped spring onions.

Then add 2 or 3 tablespoons of soy sauce, the bouillon or stock with enough water to make it about a pint, a few tablespoons of rice wine, a drop of vinegar, a teaspoon of sesame oil, the sugar, and a bit more cornflour to thicken up (it's probably best if you add the liquid ingredients and cornflour in a cup together earlier.) Add the chicken, and you're done. Badda Bing.

Ingredients

As yet, I don't have a tandoor, maybe one day, but in the meantime, I'm going to give you instructions for tandoori chicken on the barbecue, which is still very nice.
Chicken pieces (I'm still a big fan of plain old chicken breasts because I hate dealing with bones, but obviously legs, wings, thighs etc. will be very nice, and probably more flavoursome)
Lemon Juice
Yoghurt
Oil
Garlic, mulched
Ginger, mulched
Chillies, mulched
Fresh mint, mulched
Fresh coriander, mulched
Cummin seeds, roasted and ground
Charlie's Famous Garam Masala
Charlie's Famous Curry Masala
Charlie's Famous Tandoori Masala
Salt

Method

Slash chicken pieces with knife to let marinade pentrate deeper. Rub in the lemon juice. Leave for a bit (this is supposed to tenderise the chicken before the marinade, but I'm not sure it really works). Mix up the rest of the ingredients separately in a big bowl and then stir in the chicken. Leave for as long as you can, ideally 24 hours. Then barbecue. Badda bing!

Ingredients

Obviously important for Chicken Tikka and Chicken Tandoori, this masala is also nice as a general barbecue marinade ingredient.
3 Tablespoons Coriander seeds
3 Tablespoons Cummin seeds
3 Tablespoons Garlic powder
3 Tablespoons Paprika
5 Teaspoons ground ginger
5 Teaspoons mango powder (amchoor)
5 Teaspoons dried mint
Chilli powder to taste

Method

Roast and grind whole spices, mix all together.

Ingredients

Tuna steak
Soy sauce (kikkoman if possible)
Mirin
Sake
White sugar

Method

Heat the soy, mirin and sake. Stir in the sugar until it's all dissolved. Leave to cool. Put the tuna in the marinade when it's cooled down. Leave for an hour or so. Take the tuna out of the marinade and grill on both sides for a few minutes. Heat the marinade in a saucepan, and when it's boiled down a bit, add the cooked tuna and coat in the cooked marinade. Then, presto! You're ready to eat. Try it with some ever-so-slightly boiled mange touts and thin slices of carrots.

Ingredients

Chicken, again probably a breast per person, we'll stick with the assumption of six
2 tablespoons Cornflour
1 teaspoon salt
Oil
A lot of ginger
A lot of garlic
However many chillies you think you can handle
Shallots, a bunch, maybe about ten
Basil, very roughly chopped
Coconut Milk, probably about two tins
Soy Sauce, if possible, use Kikkoman
Some Shaoshing Rice Wine if available, if not, then dry sherry will do
1 tablespoon brown sugar
Chicken bouillon, or else a chicken stock cube
Rice Vinegar (a teaspoon, no more, if in doubt, err on the side of caution)
Sesame Oil

Method

Chop chicken. Mix cornflour and salt and sprinkle on chopped chicken. Heat quite a thick layer of oil in a wok, or saucepan, add the chicken in batches with a slotted spoon, try to shake off the spare cornflour that hasn't adhered to the chicken, it doesn't matter if you don't get all of it.

Chicken should turn golden brown, remove from heat with slotted spoon and put either on a paper towel, or in a sieve balanced over a bowl or saucepan (this is to get rid of all the oil left on the chicken.

Chop up ginger and garlic and chillies (if you're cooking for people who don't like spice, you might want to leave the chillies really chunky, so just slice them down the middle, that way they can fish them out). Fry this mush in a tiny bit of oil. Add chopped shallots.

Then add basil, 2 or 3 tablespoons of soy sauce, the bouillon or stock mixed into the coconut milk, a few tablespoons of rice wine, a drop of vinegar, the sugar and a teaspoon of sesame oil. Add the chicken, and you're done. Badda Bing.

Ingredients

Some nice white fish, either fillets or steaks, cut into boneless chunks. I used king fish, but cod or haddock or whatever are great as well.
Some green chillies
Some dried red chillies
Two stems of lemon grass (leave whole, I bruised them, but then I was constantly fishing bits out of the curry)
Lime leaves (ideally fresh, but dried is fine)
Coconut milk
Coconut cream (this makes the sauce even thicker and more luxurious, not vital, but recommended)
Brown sugar
Garlic, chopped
Ginger, chopped
Juice of a lime
Soy
Noodles
Sesame Oil

Method

Heat a wok (with no oil, just the wok) and throw the chillies in. Waggle around until chillies are going brown. Remove the green chillies, but not the dried red ones. Chop the green chillies. Throw in the lemon grass and lime leaves and waggle around for a bit, then add the coconut milk and coconut cream (it should make a satisfying sizzle). When it is boiling, add the brown sugar, garlic, ginger and the fish. Reduce heat and simmer for 5-10 minutes (however long it takes the fish to cook, not long). Meanwhile put the noodles in a separate pan, add a dash of sesame oil, and pour boiling water on top, then heat until boiling, and keep boiling until soft. Fish out the noodles (or strain, whatever) and add the noodles to the curry. At the very end, add the soy and lime juice and serve. Badda bing.

Ingredients

Polenta (100g say)
Flour (100g say)
Eggs (3, beaten))
Salt (a teaspoon)
Baking Powder (a tablespoon)
Butter (a knob)
Milk (However much is needed)
Fresh Corn on the Cob, all the kernels cut off and retained, the cob thrown away.
Spring Onions (three or four)

Method

Mix up polenta, flour, eggs, salt, baking powder and butter. Add enough milk to make a soft sticky dough. Fry up some spring onions and the corn kernels in some olive oil, when the kernels have softened add it all to the dough and stir in. Bake in an oven for about a quarter of an hour, or until dough looks done. I made mine in muffin tins, as this will make an interesting substitute for rolls at a meal (for instance a Thanksgiving meal).

Ingredients

It is vital when cooking this recipe that you refer to it in comedy Trinidad accents. Not because we're racist, you understand. Quite the reverse. In fact it's because Pete's a racist.

2 Onions
Lots of garlic
Lots of ginger
1 Scotch Bonnet chilli (more if you're suicidal), if you're serving to normal people, you'll probably want to take the seeds out.
Some spring onions
Large bunch parsley
Large bunch coriander (or culantro, if you can get it)
Medium bunch thyme
Stewing beef
More garlic
Charlie's Famous Curry Masala
Charlie's Famous Amchoor Masala
Salt
Brown Sugar
One and a half pints of beef stock

Method

Puree the onions, garlic, ginger, chilli, spring onions, parsley, coriander (or culantro) and thyme. Add a small amount of water to make it gloopy. Chop up the beef, and mix it with the marinade you just made. Leave for a few hours. After these hours have passed, fry up the other garlic, then add the two masalas then the beef, then the salt, sugar and stock. Cover and cook gently for an hour and a half. In the last half an hour cook uncovered and turn the heat up to thicken the sauce as much as possible. Badda bing.

Ingredients

1 Cucumber, peeled and finely chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
2 cloves garlic, peeled, mashed with a knife, and then pressed between the blade of the knife and the chopping board while moving the blade backwards and forwards over the garlic so that it's really just pulp, there are no lumps at all.
1 large handful of mint, finely chopped
Tub of thick Greek Yoghurt

Method

Take the chopped cucumber, sprinkle with the salt and the vinegar, stir around, then put in a sieve over a bowl and leave for an hour. This dries the cucumber out, making the tzatziki richer, and giving more texture to the cucumber. A disgusting salty green liquid should have dripped into the bowl by the end of the hour. Bin this. Throw all the rest of the ingredients (except for the yoghurt) in a bowl with the cucumber. Then slowly add yoghurt until you're happy with the consistency (I like a bare minimum of yoghurt, but some people like more).

Ingredients

500g pork fillet, cut into thin slice (the thinner the better, but there's a limit to how thin you can get with pork fillet)
Marinade:
1 tablespoon chinese light soy sauce
1 teaspoon cornflour
2 sticks lemon grass with the rough outer layers removed, and the tender inner bits, topped, tailed, and finely chopped
3 tablespoons finely chopped shallots
3 green chillies, chopped
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 teaspoon Charlie's famous curry powder

Base:
Even more shallots, but this time finely sliced, not chopped. You'll need quite a few, maybe 100g.
5 tablespoons coriander leaves

Method

Mix the meat up with all the marinade ingredients and marinade for at least an hour, ideally overnight.

Heat some oil and throw in the sliced shallots. Fry until browned. Then add the meat and marinade and stir fry for about ten minutes or longer (until the pork is cooked through, basically). Throw in the coriander leaves just before serving. Don't stir. Badda bing.

Ingredients

Beef, doesn't have to be that lean, as you'll stew it for ages, but the nicer it is the nicer the stew will be, obviously.
Onions
Garlic (not much, but obviously you have to have some)
Flour
Olive Oil
Guinness Original
Beef Stock
Salt
Pepper
Marjoram
Rosemary
Chives
Thyme
Bay Leaves

Method

Cut up beef into bite-size cubes. Heat oil in wok, and in small sections, brown the meat and leave aside. In remaining juices fry onions and garlic, add some flour to mop up juices and beat it into a roue. Add the stock, guinness (go easy, too much can make it bitter), seasonings and herbs. Put in a moderate oven for an hour or so, keep topping up with guinness and stock to stop it burning. Serve with Charlie's Famous Colcannon.

Ingredients

There's not much to this recipe, but it's so nice, I wanted to put it down anyway. If you've got a good barbecue and too much money this is a great meal.

Fillet Steak (as much as you can afford)
Kikkoman Soy Sauce
Ginger
Sesame Seeds
Sesame Oil

Method

Chop the steak into large chunks. Chop the ginger and stir all together, leave for as long as you can stand it. Heat up a barbecue to incendiary level. Throw bits of the steak onto the barbecue for about a minute each side. Stuff straight into your mouth. Trust me, it's the nicest thing in the world.

Ingredients

For the pastry:
Four egg yolks
A handful of flour
About quarter of a standard butter chunk
Caster Sugar (about half the volume of the flour)

For the Filling
The egg whites of the eggs you used for the pastry
2 More eggs
Some more caster sugar
Golden Syrup
A dash of Rum
Handful of Walnuts
Punnet of strawberries, hulled and chopped in half.

Method

I first used this recipe the night John Kerry was destroyed by Dubya in the 2004 election. I blame this pie for that fateful day, but it's so sweet and delicious, I can't bear a grudge for long.

Right, you need a blender, so if you don't have one, buy one, also, pre-heat the oven to a medium temperature. Blend up the ingredients for the pastry. If it doesn't look very doughy, add more butter and keep blending. If possible, lay it aside for an hour to "settle". Then dump it into a cake tin, and smear it out over the base, and up the sides, to form a case. In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites until a bit fluffy (you don't need to go to town on this one, you just want to get a bit of froth there. Add the sugar and beat in. Then pour in the rest of the ingredients and stir up. Pour the filling into the case. Whack it into the oven, and check regularly (you need it not to be burning on top, but the filling will take a long time to stop being liquid. Use judgement. Our oven's so goddamn sucky we had to blitz it, then switch the oven off and leave the pie in the oven overnight. Pie for breakfast was good though. Badda Bing.

Ingredients

Lamb (Leg is easiest, but if you've got time, then a shoulder is doable)
Garam Masala (1 tablespoon)
Fenugreek Leaves (1 tablespoon)
Cumin Seeds, roasted if poss. (two teaspns)
Black Peppercorns (two teaspoons)
Cardamom Pods (4, split)
Black Mustard Seeds (1 teaspn)
Fenugreek Seeds (1 teaspn)
Tamarind (if you buy it dry, you have to mush it up in boiling water and then strain off all the gristle, otherwise you can buy tamarind sauce, which is really tasty on its own eaten with a spoon)
Onions, finely chopped
Garlic
Ginger
Chillies (as many as are good, I suggest 5 birds eyes)
1 Capsicum Pepper (red or green, whichever you like, I think green looks best)
Paprika (1 tablespoon)
Turmeric (2 teaspoons)
Coriander seeds, lightly ground
Tiny bit of cinnamon, ground to a powder
Ground almonds (a few tablespoons)
Dark brown sugar (1 tablespoon)

Method

This isn't really a "traditional" vindaloo, it's just a mixture of all my favourite bits of the hot, sour curries. The amount of sugar you put in at the end depends on how pungent you like it, and whether you used sweet tamarind sauce or actual tamarind.

Firstly, with lamb curries, the most important thing is to have ridiculously tender meat. The cut of the meat makes a difference, but there's absolutely no substitute at all for stewing time. You want to get the meat in the oven at least two hours before serving. To do this, chop up the meat into bite-size chunks, trying to get rid of as much fat as possible. Shove the meat in a casserole dish and cover with water, then throw in the garam masala and fenugreek leaves, this will make sure the meat actually tastes aromatic, rather than just stewed. Put this in the oven on a medium to high heat. You literally want to do this before preparing any food, I really can't stress enough that it doesn't matter if the meat's been in too long (it'll just fall apart easier, but I quite like that), but if it hasn't been in the oven for long enough it'll be tough and horrible.

Next get some oil in your wok, and heat it until it's about to catch fire, throw in the whole spices with a flourish and stir-fry for about ten seconds, then add the chopped garlic and ginger (these need a bit longer than the onion and pepper, and need to be just a little burnt to get the flavour out, so they need to go direct into the oil, rather than the pepper and onion and chillies which can sort of mooch in when the other stuff's taken the temperature down a bit), carry on stirring and frying furiously, add the tamarind, onion, peppers and chillies. Keep stirring like a maniac, eventually the peppers and onions will look like they're getting away from rawness. Throw in the ground spices and stir fry until they're smelling good. Take the lamb out of the oven and take it out of the water with a slotted spoon and throw it in the wok. Stir fry a bit more. DON'T throw the water that the lamb was in away! You then want to add some of it to the wok to make it more liquidy, and add enough ground almonds to the liquid to thicken it. You want to end up with something that's a bit more liquidy than your normal curry. Then throw in the sugar, and put the contents of the wok in another casserole and return to the oven. I find it easiest to keep hold of the leftover stock water and then top up the curry with water if I find it's getting too dry. Overall, your lamb wants to be cooking for at least two hours, but this will vary depending on how much there is, and how chunky you cut it, basically check it quite regularly.

Serve with rice, sliced bananas, poppadums, Charlie's Famous Naan Bread (coming soon), chopped cucumber and onion in lemon juice, chopped chillies, chilli sauce, and mango chutney.

Ingredients

Lots of baby aubergines
Garam Masala
Paprika
Ground Almonds
Dried Chilles
Cotton (yes, seriously, to tie the aubergines together)

Method

Mix up the garam masala, paprika and ground almonds, add some water so it's a thick paste. Cut the aubergines from bulbous base, almost to the stem, but not all the way, do this twice, crossways. This way, when you hold the aubergine by the stem, you should have it breaking off into four bits from the stem, but the whole thing should still stay together. Shove these in some water for a bit so that they splay a bit (about ten minutes). Smear the spicey paste between the "prongs" of the aubergine, and then tie some cotton around the thick end to hold the aubergines together. Heat up some oil, chuck in a few dried chillies for flavouring, and then fry the stuffed and tied aubergines in batches until they get soft. I don't normally like aubergines, but this dish makes them so damn tasty I like them.

Ingredients

Picadillo's a kind of ground beef hash. It's reeeeal tasty. Treat it like a chilli con carne, or you could use it as the basis for a pastry pie or shepherd's pie (I've got a recipe that suggests a cottage pie using sweet potatoes and allspice instead of normal potatoes, and picadillo as the filling), if you like. Normally it's made with beef, but I prefer it with lamb.

500g Coarse Ground Lamb Mince
2 Onions, chopped
1 Scotch Bonnet Pepper, seeded (this is important: I love chilli, but these things need to be handled with care. They have an incredibly strong flavour as well, so one is definitely enough)
1/2 Bulb Garlic, peeled and chopped
1 Red Pepper, chopped
4 Tomatoes, chopped
1 Bunch parsley, chopped
2 teaspoons Oregano
1 teaspoon cloves, ground
1 teaspoon cumin, ground
2 tablespoons raisins
Loads of chopped olives (4 tablespoonfuls if you want to be accurate, but don't be afraid to use more)
Salt and Pepper

Method

Heat a wok with no oil, and chuck in the mince, cook through it may stick, but be patient and it should eventually come off if you keep stirring. Once the meat has broken into granules and greyed up, you should cook it until you think no more fat is being melted off. Then strain the meat to get rid of the fat. Throw the meat back in the pan with some olive oil and the onions, chilli and garlic. Stir fry until your eyes stop stinging (this should signify that the onions have softened). Then add the rest of the ingredients. Cook for twenty minutes or so. If it gets too dry, add some water or red wine.

Ingredients

OK, you can add cheese if you want to. But as I don't like cheese, I give instructions here for preparation of a pizza without cheese, as I only recently discovered that a cheeseless pizza, if made right, is actually quite nice. Ideally you'd need a pizza stone (a flat ovenproof non-stick ceramic slab), but a baking tray with a dab of olive oil to prevent sticking will do. Whichever one you use, put a bit of cornmeal on the slab/tray to help prevent sticking and get some air to the dough underneath.

For the Dough:
2 teaspoons dried active yeast
2 tablespoons warm (shouldn't be hot to the touch, but warmer than body temperature, yeast is most productive at 50C if you want to be ludicrously accurate)
Flour
Olive Oil
Water
Honey
Sea Salt
Peppercorns, roughly ground
Garlic, chopped and briefly fried (optional)
Olives, chopped (optional)
Chillies, chopped (optional)

Some cornmeal for sprinkling on the pizza stone / baking tray

For the topping:
Tomato passata
Dried Oregano
Salt
Pepper
Whatever else you like: I used chopped red onion, capers, anchovies, thinly sliced chorizo, thick chunks of ham, chopped chillies, olives. But basically anything goes.

Method

To make the dough, mix the yeast and the water together, and leave on top of a radiator for ten minutes, take a few cups of flour, and sieve it into a bowl, add several glugs of olive oil, two large heaped, dripping tablespoons of honey, the yeast mixture (which should by now have developed a froth at the top, stir this up) and enough water to make it doughy (add it slowly, to get it right). Once it's about the right consistency (soft, yielding, elasticy) throw in the rest of the ingredients, and knead it all around with your hands, until you're satisfied that it's all mixed up nicely. Put it back in the bowl and leave this on a radiator for an hour or more, if possible. When it's ready it should have risen appreciably.

Once you've got the dough, heat the oven to 200C (400F) and, if using a pizza stone, stick that in too. On a dry, clean table, sprinkle some flour, and grab a handful of dough (the amount you've made should make three or four pizza bases, I would have thought. It depends how big you make the bases), bash it around a bit and then try to press it out into a nice circle. I don't have the dexterity to make anything even close to a circle, maybe you'llhave better luck, but it doesn't really matter, just get it as flat as you can. Now, I want you to pay attention here: you need to get whatever it is that you're baking the pizza on out of the oven first (the tray won't necessarily be in the oven yet, but as you'll be doing more than one of these, it'll be in the oven after the first go, remember to sprinkle the cornmeal on the stone before you put the dough on it each time) and put the dough on this tray/stone BEFORE you put the toppings on the dough. It's easy to get the dough on the stone without toppings. It's basically impossible if you've naively put the toppings on first like I did the first time I tried this. Once you've got your dough on spoon some tomato passata on so and smoosh it around so it covers all the dough, no matter how thinly. Watch out for burning your hands on any exposed stone ./ tray. Then add any toppings that you feel like. If you're one of those weird people who likes cheese, you can add some of this as well. When you're satisfied with how your pizza looks (I like to make shapes in the pizza with olives, sometime they say "C" for "Charlie") shove it in the oven for twenty minutes or so (until the pizza appears to be done). Eat it as soon as it comes out of the oven, and then if you're doing this with someone else, they can have the fun of making their pizza on the recently vacated pizza stone or baking tray (or I suppose you could be sophisticated and have two trays) while you chow down on yours.

Ingredients

Now, normally I'm not a fan of Kormas. Certainly the Korma's I've tasted in restaurants have often been soured, and end up just tasting cheesy. However, I do very occasionally cook mild food, and I think a good, thick Chicken Korma can be really nice. The main thing to remember is just to make sure you cook it real slowly, and to check it regularly to avoid overcooking.

You'll need:
Chicken Breasts, chopped
Large, mild onions
Garlic
Ginger
Cashew Nuts
Coriander leaves
Salt
Paprika
Turmeric
Coriander seeds, roasted and ground
Cummin seeds roasted and ground
Cardamom pods, roasted and ground
Cinnamon stick
A couple of mint leaves.
Yoghurt
Single Cream
Saffron
Milk (a couple of tablespoonsful)

Method

First, blend onions, garlic, ginger, coriander leaves and salt to form a paste. Stir fry this until the onions lose their raw taste (this may take a while, and you're best off doing it on medium heat rather than scorching, as it could burn). Add the spices and slowly cook for about ten minutes. Add Chicken pieces, and continue cooking slowly. Warm the milk, and add the saffron to it. Leave for a bit until the milk has turned a good, yellow colour. Add the saffron milk, the yoghurt and cream. Place in a moderate to cool oven. Check very regularly. Serve when chicken no longer pink on inside. Badda bing.

Ingredients

I've been getting into Ayurvedic cookery recently. It sounds very faddy, but it's basically just a large branch of vegetarian Indian cookery. It's probably the nicest vegetarian food I've ever tasted, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to the most committed carnivore.

2 cup Basmati Rice
Ghee (half and half oil and butter if you can't find any ghee)
1/2 cup sliced almonds
salt
Potato (cut into very thin sticks)
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 dried red chilli
1 red pepper
1 courgette, diced
2.5 cups water (basically double the volume of rice plus a bit)
1/2 cup ground almonds
salt and pepper
1 teaspoon garam masala
2 diced carrots
handful green beans, topped, tailed and cut into smaller pieces
handful frozen peas
roughly chopped coriander for garnish

Method

Put the rice in a sieve and soak in water for twenty minutes or so. Take the sieve and the rice out of the water, and drain for a bit. It doesn't matter that the rice will still be wet when it gets added to the pan. Heat the ghee in a wok and fry the sliced almonds until they go a nice brown colour. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Chuck in the potato and briskly stir fry until soft. Remove and put with the sliced almonds (they'll get added at the end together). If necessary add some more ghee if the potatoes soaked up all of the ghee in the pan. heat the ghee, then throw in the cumin seeds and chilli, cook for a bit until you can smell the cumin, then add the courgette, pepper, and the rice, fry until the rice looks a bit shiny (maybe two minutes). Add the water, ground almonds, garam masala and bring to the boil. Add the salt, pepper, carrots and beans. Reduce the heat right down, stir then cover and slow cook for about half and hour. Check periodically to check that the rice hasn't dried out and add more water if necessary. At the end of this, get the frozen peas, and run some hot water through them in a sieve to get the chill off them, and add them, together with the reserved potatoes and almonds to the rice, stir, and heat for a few more minutes before throwing the coriander over the rice and serving. Badda bing.

Ingredients

For the Chicken:
Chicken Breasts
Soy Sauce
Honey
Sesame Oil
Garam Masala
Turmeric

For the dipping sauce:
Sesame oil
Spring onions, chopped
Garlic, chopped
Ginger, chopped
Chillies, chopped
Soy Sauce
Coconut cream
Crunchy peanut butter (lots)

Method

Mix chicken ingredients, leave for hours.
Fry spring onions, ginger, garlic, and chillies in sesame oil, then add rest of ingredients.
Cook chicken, preferably over the barbecue, otherwise in the oven.

Badda Bing

Ingredients

4 Kg's of beef
1 Kg of pork belly or shoulder
Breadcrumbs - about half a loaf
3 Tablespoons of sea salt
2 Tablespoons of finely ground black pepper
2 Pints of strong ale
Hog casings

Method

Try and buy quite fatty beef, stewing steak, or maybe even a brisket would do it. Coarsely mince up the beef. Buy fatty pork, like a belly, and finely mince this up.

Add the salt and pepper and breadcrumbs to the meat along with the beer and mix up really well. Pipe into medium hog casings.

Ideally leave the mixture for 24 hours before making into sausages as the flavours will impart better. Or make the sausages and leave them for at least 24 hours before you eat them.

BBQ, naturally, but try not to overcook them.

Ingredients

Beef - 5kg's
Pork belly 1kg
Sea salt - 5 tablespoons
Coarse ground black pepper - 4 tablespoons
Red wine - 1 bottle
Breadcrumbs - half a loaf of Brown bread
Mango - 4 large diced
Aleppo paprika - 5 tablespoons
Hog casings

Method

Mince up the beef on a coarse setting, try to buy beef which is fatty as it’ll be juicier. Or Kobe / Wagyu beef if you are even more frivolous than Charlie and I. Mince up your pork belly too. Place this is a large mixing bowl.

Mix up the sea salt, coarse ground black pepper and Aleppo pepper in a bowl. Sprinkle all over the mixture.

Make the breadcrumbs and add those too, and add all the wine.

Peel and chop the mango, cutting it as little as possible. Add to the mixing bowl.

Mix everything up and then pipe into hog casings.

Add more Aleppo or chili for more of a bite.

Ingredients

4 KG's Pork
2 Tablespoons of finely ground black pepper
4 Tablespoons of cayenne pepper
2 Tablespoons of fresh thyme
4 Tablespoons of sea salt
2 Tablespoons of hot paprika
1 Tablespoon of crushed dried hot chillies
20 Cloves of garlic
Breadcrumbs - about half a loaf
Water - about 3 cups
Hog casings

Method

Coarsely mince up the pork.

Mix the pepper, cayenne pepper, thyme, salt, paprika, chillies, breadcrumbs and the crushed or finely chopped garlic in a bowl. Add to the pork. Add the water and mix thoroughly.

The mixture will be a deep red colour, if you want very hot sausages then add more chillies. Leave the mixture for about 24 hours in order to mature slightly.

Pipe into hog casings and BBQ.

Serve with MANT's Cooling Egyptian Dip, as they can be quite hot.

Ingredients

4 Kg's of Pork
Breadcrumbs - about half a loaf
4 Tablespoons of sea salt
2 Tablespoons of finely ground black pepper
1 Whole ground fresh nutmeg
2 Teaspoons of mace
2 Teaspoons of cayenne pepper
2 Teaspoons of marjoram
2 Teaspoons of dried sage
Cold water - about 3 cups
Hog casings

Method

This recipe is my adaptation of the traditional Cumberland sausage, of which there are lots of variations.

Mince up the pork on a thick setting making sure you have some lean and some fatty pork. Pork belly is best but whatever you can find.

Blend all the spices together in a bowl and add these to the mixture too along with some breadcrumbs which will help bind it all together. Mix it up. Now add some water which will make it stick together.

Pipe into hog casings and coil in the Cumberland sausage-stylie we are all accustomed to.

Cook on a BBQ, as all sausages should be.

Ingredients

3kg's of Duck breasts
3 Tablespoons of sea salt
1 Tablespoon of freshly ground black pepper
300g Raspberries
Fresh thyme
200ml Orange juice
200ml Red wine
Breadcrumbs
Small Sheep Casings

Method

Skin your duck breasts but leave as much fat on them as possible. Mince your Duck Breasts and place them in a bowl. Place the raspberries in three plastic bags and then smash them up a bit with a rolling pin. The three plastic bags are necessary so that they don't split and you get raspberries everywhere. Add the raspberries to the bowl with the duck.

Now add the salt, pepper, fresh thyme, orange juice, wine and enough breadcrumbs so make a reasonably solid mixture. Mix thoroughly.

Pump into the little sheep casings to make slim sausages.

Cook on a BBQ, but be careful as the duck is fatty and is liable to catch fire. Also as these are duck you can leave them a little pink in the middle.

Ingredients

4 KG's of pork
2 Tablespoons of sea salt
2 Tablespoons of orange zest
2 Tablespoons of lemon zest
1.5 Tablespoons of finely ground black pepper
1 Tablespoon of fresh chopped coriander
8 Cloves of garlic
1 Tablespoon of ground nutmeg
1 Cup of vermouth
Breadcrumbs - about half a loaf
1 Cup of water
Hog casings

Method

This is a variation of an old Roman sausage recipe, so you might like to wear a toga whilst you make it. And have some slaves around. And a hypocaust system.

Coarsely mince the pork.

In a bowl add the salt, lemon zest, orange zest, pepper, coriander, crushed garlic and the nutmeg and mix them all up a bit. Add the vermouth, water, breadcrumbs and the mixed up spices to the bowl of meat. Mix thoroughly.

Pipe into hog casings.

BBQ.

Yum.

Ingredients

2 KG's lamb
1 KG pork
10 Cloves of garlic
10 Teaspoons of harissa (See MANT's recipe for Harissa)
5 Teaspoons of finely ground black pepper
4 Teaspoons of sea salt
1.5 Teaspoons of ground cinnamon
Breadcrumbs - about half a loaf
Water
Sheep casings

Method

Finely mince up the pork and coarsely mince up the lamb. It's best if you use fatty lamb as lamb is naturally very lean, that's why you need to add some pork too in order to keep them moist when you BBQ them.

Crush the garlic and add to the harissa you have previously made in a bowl along with the pepper, salt, some freshly ground cinnamon. Add all the spices to the mixture. Add some breadcrumbs and a small amount of water just to bind it.

Mix together and leave for at least 24 hours. You must do this in order to get the flavours to mix together. Pipe into small sheep casings.

BBQ.

N.B. Make loads of these, possibly doubling the recipe, as they are so damned tasty. The only thing holding you back is that it takes ages to put the mixture into the sheep casings, so you could put into larger casings i guess.

Ingredients

3.5 kg of Pork
3 Tablespoons of coarse sea salt
3 Tablespoons of black pepper corns
A Pint of cider
1 Bulb of garlic
15 Cloves
7 Apples
2 Whole nutmeg
2 Cinnamon sticks
Breadcrumbs - about half a loaf
Hog casings

Method

Make sure you buy fatty pork as this will make juicier sausages. I suggest you buy a large shoulder joint from the butchers and tell them you are going to make sausages from it so you get a nice fatty piece. Don't worry about it being fatty as this only adds to the taste and doesn't make the sausages nasty or anything. You can also buy pork chops as these have a lot of fat around the edge and also have nice lean meat.

Mince up your pork in a mincer, doing about 75% of the meat on the fine setting and the remainder on a coarser setting. This will give you a good balance of meat and texture.

Peel the garlic and blend this to a paste with 5 of the peeled apples. Add this to the mince. Grind the sticks of cinnamon, the nutmeg, the cloves and the pepper corns and add these too. The fresher the spices the better the flavour. Make some breadcrumbs from about 6 inches of a loaf of bread and add these too (use the crusts). Chop up the other 3 apples to little pieces and add these. Now add about half to two-thirds of a can of cider, drinking the rest. Add all the salt, it may look like a lot but it's imperative for taste.

Using your hands mix the whole mixture together, you can add more cider and breadcrumbs which will make it more moist when cooked, but you don't really want the mixture 'wet'. Once it's all nicely mixed it's best to leave it in the fridge for a few hours or overnight to cool down and for the flavours to permeate through. The cooler it is the easier it is to fill the sausage skins.

Now take the hog casings and flush them out with water, as per the instructions. It's a good idea to put them in water and some white vinegar for a few minutes as they will then become translucent. As they are natural they stink so don't do this with a hangover. Now stuff the sausages on the "fat sausage" setting. You should make about 36 sausages once you've twisted them to size. Grill and serve.

Ingredients

5 Kg's of pork
3 Tablespoons of sea salt
10 Tablespoons of paprika
1 Pint of Harvey's Bristol Cream Sherry
2 Teaspoons of finely ground black pepper
2 teaspoons of allspice
1 Bulb of garlic
1 Kg of dried apricots
Hog casings

Method

Coarsely mince up the pork.

Crush the garlic and add to a bowl along with the salt, pepper, paprika, allspice and some very finely diced dried apricots. Mix together. Add to the pork. Add the sherry, serving yourself a large glass of every grandmother's favourite Christmas tipple, and mix together.

Pipe into hog casings and leave for 24 hours before cooking.

Cook on a BBQ.

Ingredients

1kg Venison
500g Pork belly
1 Teaspoon of chilli powder
8 Cloves of garlic
Rosemary
Half a bottle of red wine
5 Slices of white bread
3 Large pinches of sea salt
1 Large pinch of freshly ground black pepper
Sheep casings

Method

Finely mince up the pork belly and mince the venison slightly thicker if possible, however venison is a bit sinewy and so this might be hard to achieve, if so then magi-mix the venison. Add the meat to a bowl along with the chilli powder, salt and pepper and all the red wine. It will seem like a lot of red wine but it will all be absorbed.

Finely chop a lot of rosemary and garlic and add this too. Mix up the meat mixture so that most of the red wine is absorbed. Now make breadcrumbs from the bread, excluding the crusts and add all this too, mix this in and then place in the sheep casings. Sheep casings are much smaller than hog casings as such you will make chipolata sausages. Very good on the bbq, they should be nice and moist.

N.B. This is MANT's recipe although Charlie did buy all the ingredients.

Ingredients

To make approx 60-70 large sausages

7 kg's Pork
8 Tablespoons of sea salt
25 cloves of Garlic
6 Teaspoons of freshly ground nutmeg
10 Tablespoons of muscavado sugar
150g of smoked Spanish paprika
100g Aleppo pepper
2 Cups of water
Half a loaf of white bread
Hog casings

Method

Buy some lean pork and some fatty stuff too. The fat makes the sausages more tasty and juicier so don't be afraid of it. Mince up about half of the leanish pork on a thicker mince setting, and do the rest of the pork on the finer setting. Chop up the garlic very finely and add it to the bowl of pork. Add in the sugar, the salt, the freshly ground nutmeg, the paprika and the Aleppo pepper. Make breadcrumbs from the bread and add these too, this will give the sausage more substance and retain moisture too. Finally add 2 cups of cold water.

Using your hands thoroughly mix everything up so that all the pork goes red with the pepper. Leave to rest overnight before putting into thick hog casings.

The sausages will not be particularly hot, but will have a smokey/peppery flavour to them.

Serve with mashed potato and MANT's Tasty Mango Chutney, or in part of MANT's Tasty Sausage Cassoulet.

Ingredients

3 KG’s Pork
250g Raisins
250g Prunes
250ml Madeira (Duke of Malmsey is particularly good, but if you can only find the Duke of Clarence that will have to do)
150ml Orange juice
2 Sticks of cinnamon
1 Tablespoon of nutmeg
2 Tablespoons sea salt
1 Tablespoon of freshly ground black pepper
Breadcrumbs
Hog casings

Method

Mince your pork up and place it in a large mixing bowl. Dry fry the cinnamon and then grind this up and add to the mixture. Add the salt, pepper, nutmeg, orange juice, Madeira too. Chop up the prunes and add those along with the raisins and enough breadcrumbs to pad it out a bit and absorb some of the liquid.

Mix thoroughly and pump into large hog casings.

Makes a nice sweet sticky sausage.

Ingredients

Duck legs & thighs (or you could use a whole duck)
Garlic
Ginger
Fresh coriander
Soy Sauce
Honey
Sweet chilli sauce
Sea salt
Water
Coriander seeds
Red peppercorns
Sesame seeds
Pine nuts
Cornflour
Chilli flakes

Salad leaves
Cucumber
Red onions
Sugar snap peas
Bean sprouts

Method

Take the duck or pieces of duck and make slits into the meat with a sharp knife. Roughly chop the garlic and ginger and push bits into the duck. Ideally you now want to leave this in the fridge for 24 hours tightly wrapped in cling film with some fresh coriander and chilli flakes in order to get the flavour into the duck. However if you don’t have time then it doesn’t matter too much.

Now take a steamer which will take all the duck. Line the bottom of the steamer with garlic, ginger, chilli flakes, toasted coriander seeds and the red peppercorns and some fresh coriander. Add a layer of duck and repeat with the garlic, ginger etc. Add sea salt to the skin of the duck at each stage. Add some sesame seeds too. Once the duck is stacked you should have a big looking pile of duck. Place over some boiling water and now drizzle quite a lot of soy sauce over the duck, but only do this once the duck is over the water so that you catch the soy sauce in the pan. The water in the pan will form the basis for your dressing.

Steam the duck for about 60-90 minutes. Remove the duck from the steamer and place in a hob proof and oven proof pan. Brown the duck skin in the pan on the hob, now insert in the oven with all the left over bits of marinade, Some whole red onions, a splash of red wine, and a splash of the water that was steaming the fish. Make sure you retain a lot of this water though. Cook the duck in the oven for around 60 minutes partially covered on about 160 degrees, you are trying to cook the duck slowly.

Meanwhile reduce the water from the steaming by about half, adding a lot of honey and some sweet chilli sauce, this should be a bit sweet. Add cornflour mixed with water in order to thicken it all up.

When the duck is ready remove from the oven and de-bone it all in order to get little tasty bits of duck.

Steam the sugar snap peas and bean sprouts in the same steamer used for the duck.

Make a salad of leaves and finely chopped cucumber. Add the peas, red onions and bean sprouts on top. Add the shredded duck. Spoon over some dressing.

Toast the sesame seeds and pine nuts and sprinkle over the salad.

Ingredients

Large belly of pork (You can get this from a good butchers, one about 18 inches long will feed about 8 or 9 people, depending on how hungry they are)
Lots of rosemary
Lots of thyme
Sea salt
Coarse ground black pepper

Method

This recipe is very simple, however people sometimes have problems making nice crispy pork so here is how I do it.

First get a decent piece of pork. One the size of the one needed for this is about £20 from a good butchers, and this is a great dish to cook for lots of people as it's cheap and relatively easy and very tasty.

Buy the meat the day before you plan to cook it. Score the skin all over in 3-4 inch lengths spaced about 1 inch apart using a very sharp knife. On the underside of the belly place a huge pile of fresh thyme and rosemary and fold the belly in two and place it back in the fridge.

Take the meat out of the fridge a few hours before cooking. Take a huge handful of a mixture of thyme leaves, sea salt and the coarse black pepper and rub this all over and into the meat, particularly into the cuts you made. Place in a roasting tray, don’t add any oil or anything else.

Heat an oven to 230 degrees and place the pork in for 30 minutes, then turn the oven down to 180 degrees and cook for at around another 90 minutes. The skin should be crisping up nicely, but if it's not then turn the oven up for 5 minutes, then turn the grill on as high as it goes but keep an eye on it as it'll brown very quickly indeed. The exact cooking time isn't important as it's hard to overcook pork belly and will depend on your over, but i think that 2 hours is about right for a pork belly.

Leave to rest for a bit and serve with apple sauce.

Ingredients

You can use probably any flaky fish for this recipe, large lumps of Salmon or Trout are good, but any white fleshy fish or Monkfish will also work too.

I'm assuming you are cooking for 4 people

Fish - One boneless salmon steak per person
Natural yoghurt - about half a pint
Sweet chili sauce - 2 tablespoons
Ginger - one tablespoon chopped
Soy sauce - 2 tablespoons
Black pepper
Sesame oil - 1 teaspoon
Sesame seeds - 4 tablespoons
1 Teaspoons of crushed coriander seeds
Pinch of ground cumin
1 Teaspoon of chili powder
Tinfoil

Method

Heat your oven to 200 degrees.

Take a bowl and into it place the yoghurt, chili sauce, chopped ginger, soy sauce, grind some pepper, sesame oil, sesame seeds, crushed coriander seeds, cumin, and as much chili as you fancy. Mix it all up. If you want to you can taste it and add more of whatever you think it might be lacking. Equally if it's the wrong consistency then add more yoghurt.

Now take a large piece of tin foil and place this on a baking tray. Put the pieces of salmon on the tinfoil. Smother the sauce over both sides of the fish and then seal the tin foil parcel so it can steam in the oven.

Place in the hot oven and cook for 15-20 minutes until done.

Serve with rice / noodles.

Ingredients

1 Rack of ribs per person (This is assuming this is a main course, usually you get about 12 ribs which is enough. Baby Back ribs are nicer as they are juicier and sweeter, but you can use normal ribs too. Also Kurobata pork is pigs that have been fed on beer, so they are extra tasty and extra expensive. But worth it)

These ingredients for the marinade are per rack of 12 ribs, so increase depending upon how many you are cooking.

Tomato Ketchup
Half a bulb of garlic
Coriander seeds
Sesame oil
Olive oil
Dried pepper flakes (or chilli powder, or fresh chillies, or paprika)
Honey
Soy sauce
2 finger sized bits of ginger
Sea salt
Coarse ground black pepper
White wine vinegar

Method

Take a saucepan which will reasonably snugly fit all your ribs.

Per rack of ribs -

Into the saucepan place a dollop of tomato ketchup the size of a broken egg. Add about half a bottle of soy sauce, half a bulb of chopped garlic, a tablespoon of crushed coriander seeds, a tablespoon of crushed pepper flakes (or similar to taste. Add loads if you want hot chilli ribs), a load of chopped ginger, a large pinch of salt and same of pepper, a large amount of white wine vinegar, sesame oil and olive oil.

Mix this up until it's all mixed properly, add the racks of ribs and smear them with the mixture. There should be enough mixture to generously cover them. Now ideally leave it all overnight to marinade, if not it won’t really matter though as you are cooking these in a special way they will be tender.

Place on a medium heat and top up with cold water to cover the ribs fully. Simmer for 45-60 minutes on a low heat. Remove the ribs from the pan and then turn the heat up on the marinade in order to reduce it to a sticky paste. This may take 15-20 minutes. Make sure it doesn't stick. Add cornflour if it's not thickening up much.

Then cook the ribs under a medium grill basting constantly with the mixture. You could also pop these in a very hot oven, or slowly fry them in a frying pan. All the time baste with the mixture. Do not worry about overcooking them, you won't as they are very moist.

Finally serve on a platter with a large dollop of the extra sauce, which will be super tasty and will have little bits of pork in it.

Serve with MANT's Tasty Spicy Potato Wedges

Ingredients

A whole fore-rib of beef (As always the quality of this is the key. It needs to be the full 4 ribs, it's usually about 5-7 kg's and you must get it on the bone as this enhances the flavour. If you can afford organic beef then go for it. Expect to pay between £6 up to £20 per kilo)
Maldon sea salt
Ground black pepper
High quality olive oil

Method

This is simple. Smother the whole piece of beef in salt and pepper, rubbing it in really, really well into ever nook and crannie. Drizzle some olive oil over it and rub this in too, this will hold the salt and the pepper on.

Cook over an open fire, initially very hot for about 30 minutes. Then the fire will naturally cool down. You need to keep the fire warm though by adding more charcoal every 10 minutes or so. The beef will take about 3-4 hours to cook and should be rare if you are careful about it and don't cook it on too hot coals.

You could roast this, if you do cook on 220 degrees for 30 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 160 degrees and cook for 20 minutes per kilo for rare meat.

Leave to rest for 30 minutes however you cook it.

Ingredients

A large piece of organic beef, topside or silverside is best as it isn't fatty and it isn't good for much else
A bottle of good red wine
Sea salt
Black peppercorns
Bay leaves
Juniper berries
Fresh rosemary
Fresh thyme
Garlic

A large wooden or plastic sealable container
Muslin
String
An outside toilet (or cool & airy room)

Method

When you buy your beef get the nicest stuff you can afford. You will be eating this beef raw so it's important that it's good quality. There is no limit to the size you can make, however for the effort required it's worth buying a large piece. I suggest topside or silverside as it usually has no fat in it, which is what you are looking for.

Take the beef and smear it in a load of sea salt and roughly crushed black pepper. Place the beef in the container you have chosen. This needs to be put in the fridge or a cool place for a while so it's a good idea to get one that is sealed. Do not use a metal container, it'll soil the taste of the meat.

Once the beef is in the container, add a huge pile more of whole peppercorns, about a dozen bay leaves, a huge heap of rosemary and thyme, some very coarsely crushed garlic and a whole bottle of red wine. Thoroughly slosh the whole mixture around and then seal the container and place in the fridge.

Every 12 hours take the piece of beef and turn it over in the mixture. Do this for 5 days.

After 5 days remove the piece of beef from the wet mixture, remove any clingy bits of marinade and pat dry.

Now wrap tightly in muslin and tie up with string. Hang this in an outside toilet (or other cool and airy place) for about 10 days.

When done the braesola should be very firm to the touch, but should keep for a couple of months in the fridge.

It's only worth making this if you have a strong industrial style meat slicer as you have to slice this meat very thinly indeed. It's tasty served on bit of bread or crackers with a drizzle of high quality olive oil.

For extra flavour to the braesola add sun-dried tomatoes, chillies, or anything else to the marinade mixture.

Ingredients

Enough for 2 people

For the chicken -

2 Chicken breasts
Sesame seeds (2 Tablespoons)
Sesame oil
Chilli Powder (1 Teaspoon)

For the Ramen -

12 White mushrooms
2 leeks
Half an organic tasty chicken stock cube, or home-made chicken stock if you have it
Half an organic tasty Veggie stock cube, or home-made veggie stock if you have it
1 Pint of boiling water
1 Hot red chilli
1 Large green chilli
6 Cloves of garlic
Fresh coriander
Ginger (three times the size of the garlic)
1 Medium sized onion
Spaghetti or noodles

Method

This dish is ripe for adaptation in many ways, by seasoning the chicken differently, to using beef or chicken instead of chicken, or by adding different things to the Ramen soup such as beansprouts, glass-noodles, mange tout, carrots, baby corn, lemongrass or anything else you have around really.

However you make it though it will taste nice, and this is just a rough idea of how it should be done and a simple version.

First take the chicken breasts and splat them down a bit with your fist, then sprinkle a little sesame oil over them and half a teaspoon of chili powder to colour and all the sesame seeds. Make sure everything is sticking together then start them griddling on a hot griddle. They'll take about 10 minutes, and cook quicker if you put a saucepan lid over them as they are cooking.

Meanwhile finely chop the onion, garlic, ginger and slice the mushrooms and leeks into little pieces. Boil the kettle. Fry off the onions in a little olive oil for a few minutes, then add the garlic and ginger for a few more minutes. Then add the mushrooms and leeks and put the lid on to let them sweat a bit. Roughly chop up the 2 chilis and add these to the pot too, leave the seeds in and leave them in quite big pieces.

Now melt the stock cubes in about a pint of water and add this to the saucepan with all the veg in it. Bring to a vicious boil and break up the spaghetti into 3 bits and add that in now too. Leave to cook for about 10 mins for the pasta to soften, add more water if necessary. Bear in mind the pasta will absorb the water.

Serve in deep bowls with lots of the juice, and slice the cooked chicken breast and place this on top of it all.

You could garnish with some fresh coriander, cut up spring onions etc.

This should make your tongue tingle as will be quite hot.

Ingredients

This will feed 3/4 people, and you'll need a nice shiny casserole dish to cook it in, like a Le Creuset

1 Whole chicken (or chicken thighs if you don't want to joint your own chicken which you should do as it's easy and tastier and works out cheaper)
Bacon/Lardons
1 Red onion
1 Bulb of garlic
1 Large onion (or a few shallots)
Olive oil
Sea salt
Black pepper
4 Carrots
16 Mushrooms (any kind)
Half a bottle of red wine
1 pint of chicken & vegetable stock
Rosemary
Thyme

Method

Joint your chicken and brown the bits in a little olive oil. Sprinkle salt and grind some pepper over it all. Once brown all over remove from the pot and leave in a dish. Meanwhile brown off the lardons or the bacon (if it's bacon then cut it very small). It might be a good idea to do this in another pan as you have to cook them slowly in order to get them crispy, so it's quicker this way.

Peel the onions/shallots and quarter them, chuck in the casserole pot in the chicken fat and begin sweating them off. Meanwhile roughly chop up the garlic and add this to the pot too and stir. Chop the mushrooms into quarters and the carrots into small bits and add these to the pot too, put the lid on and let everything sweat down a bit for 5 mins. Stir a lot. Once the mixture has a bit of colour on it turn up the heat and add a dash of wine and use this to scrape off all the tasty bits that have probably stuck to the bottom of the pan. Once you've done this add at least half a bottle of wine. Now add all the chicken back in to the pot, and pour in 1 pint roughly of chciken and veg stock. If you've made your own then all well and good, if not just use 1 chicken and 1 veg stock cube, but use nice ones. Add more wine if you fancy.

The chicken should be poking out of the top of the juice. Add the lardons/bacon and give it all a great big stir. Add some more pepper and a pinch of salt. Add some chunks of rosemary and thyme, maybe chop some up if you want. Bring to the boil and then add to the oven on about 210 degrees for about 30 minutes with the lid on, then stir and take the lid off and cook for a further 30 minutes uncovered. This will make the juice reduce and taste nicer. It's ready when the chicken is falling off the bones and the juice has reduced a bit.

Serve with some green vegetables / baked potato perhaps.

Ingredients

To make about a pint

Half a punnet of strawberries
One sixth of a Galia melon
Two thirds of a banana
Three glugs of apple juice
3 Large ice cubes
4 Big blobs of strawberry yoghurt
1 Dash of orange juice
About 4 shots (100ml) of raspberry Smirnoff

Method

Get a large blender, place all the ingredients in it and whizz until it's all pulped.

Serve with a cocktail umbrella and a glace cherry.

Ingredients

A bottle of Rosé wine
Red onions
Shallots
Garlic
Spring onions
Olive oil
Sea salt
Pepper

Method

This dish can only be made (and was invented) when you are blind drunk and when you have decided to start drinking Rosé.

Peel the shallots, onions and garlic and leave whole.

Heat some oil in a frying pan or wok. Add all the onions, shallots and garlic and begin to fry them on a moderate heat. Add the whole spring onions. Splash on some Rosé.

Add some salt and pepper to them.

Splash more Rosé on them at irregular intervals to stop them burning too much and to get extra flavour into them.

Cook until golden and crispy. Serve with a glass of Rosé.

Ingredients

5/6 kg Gammon joint (Or you could use a fresh leg of Pork. In which case buy a massive one)
4 Litres of cider
6 Bay leaves
Tablespoon of peppercorns
Tablespoon of allspice
1 Pot of English mustard, or mustard powder
1 Pot of dark marmalade
1 Tablespoon of cloves

Method

Take your gammon or leg of pork and soak it overnight in some water. This will take any of the salt out of the meat and also soften the fat a bit too.

Place the gammon in a large saucepan and cover with cider. Add the whole peppercorns and also the bay leaves to the pot. Add the cloves too.

Bring to the boil and simmer gently for about 3 hours for a 5kg piece of meat.

Remove from the liquer and then carefully remove the skin with a knife. This will leave the fat exposed. Score the fat with a sharp knife to make a diamond shape all over.

Meanwhile mix all the mustard and the marmalade with the allspice. Smear this all over the exposed fat of the gammon.

Place in an oven of 220 degrees celcius for about 20-30 minutes. It's important that the oven is hot, you aren't trying to cook the pork any more, you are just trying to glaze it. Keep an eye on the meat and every 5 mins glaze with all the remaining marinade and juice around it.

When the meat is a dark brown colour remove from the oven. You can eat this hot, but it's great to keep and eat cold over a period of a few days. And of course it's great at Christmas.

You can also make some tasty soup from the cider juice you boiled the gammon in in the first place.

Ingredients

This will make one large piece of ham, and from the start it takes about 8-10 days, so plan ahead.

1 Whole front leg of pork (You really want to buy this from a good butcher and make sure it's at least Free Range but Organic if you’re feeling very rich (extra £2 per kilo). Mine came from Moen & Sons. in Clapham. When you order it be sure to explain to the butcher what you are going to do with the Ham so he'll choose a suitable one for you. A large leg will be about 6-7K Kg's which is big enough really. When you pick it up ask him to cut out the funny feather bone as this will aid the whole process. He'll also chop the trotter off too for you, but if you want you can get him to leave it on. I also got Moen to prick the skin so that the dry rub, brine, smoke and marinade will all permeate the meat. You could get the skin taken off but it will mean that you'll lose a lot of the flavour as it'll be impossible not to cut off some of the fat too. Moen will also offer advice on the brining method and cooking, and they'll even offer to vacuum-pack the ham for you whilst it's brining. I love Moen's)

For the dry rub -

8 Tablespoons of MANT's Meaty Rub

For the brine -

About 10 litres of cold water
750g Salt
750g Brown sugar
1 Bulb of garlic
13 Teaspoons of Prague Powder (13 teaspoons is one teaspoon for 500g of meat. If you don't know what Prague Powder is then don't worry. It's a curing agent, and whilst not strictly necessary for what we are making (as the sugar and salt is a natural brining agent) the Prague Powder does two things; firstly it gives the pork that nice friendly pink colour, and secondly it stops Botulism in the meat. Well that's the idea of it anyway. You can buy this on the internet, of course)
2 Tablespoons of MANT's Meaty Rub

For the marinade -

1 Pot of good quality (or homemade by my 92 yr old uncle) marmalade
2 Tablespoons of olive oil
2 Tablespoons of MANT's Meaty Rub
2 Tablespoons of Colman's mustard powder
Enough cider to make the marinade liquidy

Other stuff you will need -

1 Large plastic box with a lid that fits in your fridge and will fit the leg of pork in completely
1 Heavy non-metallic roasting dish or similar
1 or 2 bricks
Cling film
An axe
4 Food bags of medium size
1 BBQ with a lid (a Weber is a good one)
Charcoal
Apple wood
Metal roasting dish that you don't mind destroying
A Meat syringe (or a normal syringe if you have them spare)

Method

Rubbing -

Take your piece of pork home and give it a name, after all it's going to be with you for about 10 days so you'll need to be on first name terms.

Place the pork in the plastic box and using your hands rub the 8 Tablespoons of MANT's Meaty Rub all over it. Make sure you get it in all the holes. This will make your hands red and smell nice for a few days.

Cover the pork with the lid and place in the fridge for 48 hours.

Brining -

Fill a pan with the 10 litres of water. Add all the salt and the sugar and the 2 Tablespoons of MANT's Meaty Rub. Chop the whole bulb of garlic in half sideways (like an orange) and add this to the pan too. Add all the Prague Powder. Bring the water to the boil and then leave boiling for 12 minutes, stirring occasionally, until everything has dissolved.

If you can then place this in the fridge to cool down. If your fridge can't cope with a large plastic box full of oozing pork as well as a massive bowl of brown salty water, then leave it to cool outside if it's winter (or you live in Canada) or just leave to cool inside. When you come to use the brine it needs to be cool so I suggest that you put about 1.5 litres in the fridge to cool and then just before you get to dealing with the pork then you place a whole bag of ice in the brine to cool it down.

Once the brine is cool, and the meat has been marinading for 48 hours, take your jug of cold brine out of the fridge and fill your syringe up with it. You have to inject the pork with the brine solution. About 500ml per 3 kg's might be enough, but to be honest I’m not sure. Anyway, you have to inject this evenly into the pork. it has to be even along the bones and each of the three muscles in the leg. As you inject each amount then you should withdraw the needle to get it even.

As you inject the pork then it will swell up a bit, don't worry this is normal.

Once the pork is fully injected then pour over the rest of the brine over the pork. Make sure it is covered in brine. It will float so get your non-metallic roasting dish and place this on top of the pork to weight it down. Get two bricks and place these in plastic bags and then wrap them in cling film. Place these on top of the dish to keep it weighted down properly.

Place the box back in the fridge at about 3 degrees Celsius and leave for about 8 days. It really has to be very close to 3 degrees otherwise the brining process won't work properly.

One day before cooking the Ham cut some small pieces of apple wood off a nearby apple tree and soak it in water.

Cooking it -

You have to cook the ham quite slowly and there are two stages to the cooking process.

Firstly remove the ham from the brine and place it in a large saucepan big enough to fit the whole Ham. If you don't own one big enough, then go and buy one. Cover the Ham with cold water and leave for 1 hour. Pour away the water and refill again with cold water. Bring this to a boil and then leave to simmer gently for about 2 hours.

The other part to the cooking is to BBQ it. You need a BBQ with a lid, this is imperative.

Fill your BBQ with charcoal and open the air holes at the bottom. Light the BBQ at least one hour before you will be cooking on it, maybe a bit longer; you do not need fierce heat. Take an old metal cooking tray which you don't mind destroying and fill it with small pieces of the wet apple wood you chopped down the night before and some more water, about 1cm deep probably. Place this in the middle of the hot coals and place the grill over the top. Place the piece of ham on the grill but over the pan of wood. This way there will be no direct heat on the meat. Add a few small bits of wood around the meat onto the fire, these will burn slowly as they are wet and produce the smoke you are looking for.

Place the oven thermometer next to the ham and cover the meat with the lid of the BBQ lid and leave for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile take a saucepan and empty the marmalade, olive oil, Meaty rub and the mustard powder to the pan on a very low heat. Stir. Add a splash of cider to make it more liquid but keep it thick. Leave to simmer for 20 minutes.

Go back to the Ham now and have a look at it. It should be quite smokey under the lid. Add more water to the pan, or wood underneath, or wood around the side depending on the state of the fire. The temperature in the BBQ should be about 200 degrees, but it doesn't matter if it's much hotter or cooler as long as you keep an eye on it. The idea is to cook the Ham quite slowly again, so cooler is better.

Now, every 15 minutes for the next 90 minutes you need to baste the ham with the sticky marmalade marinade and turn it over every other time you do so.

The Ham will be nearly done when the outside is beginning to go a dark golden colour.

Take the Ham off of the heat and leave to rest for 30 minutes or more before carving. If you carve the Ham properly you should be able to get whole slices off of it about the size of an A4 piece of paper.

Ingredients

6 Litres of cider (not Diamond White)
250ml Orange juice
250ml Apple juice
3 Oranges
40 Cloves
1 Lemon
3 Cinnamon sticks
1 Whole nutmeg
500g Brown sugar
Calvados or apple brandy (optional)

Method

Bung the cider in a cauldron. Stud 2 of the oranges and the lemon with cloves and add these to the cider. Cut up one of the oranges and add this too. Add the cinnamon sticks, the nutmeg, the orange juice & apple juice and the sugar and mix and heat slowly.

Leave for a few hours for extra taste but don't boil it very much at all otherwise you'll lose a lot of the booze.

Taste before serving and add more sugar or spice if necessary. If you have any Calvados or apple brandy then add some of that too.

Ingredients

Leeks
Shallots
Salami (or Chorizo)
Salt
Pepper
Butter
Water

Method

This recipe is easy to make, and is for use when making all roast meals.

Peel the shallots and leave whole. Chop some salami (or chorizo) into small pieces. Add the salami and the shallots to a roasting tin around whatever meat it is that you are cooking. Cook until the shallots goes nicely brown and caramelised.

Meanwhile roughly chop some leeks and add to a pan with a little butter and water, a lot of pepper and a bit of salt.

Remove the shallots and salami from the pan and add these to the leeks along with some of the juices/fat from the roasting tray.

Now briskly cook the leeks in the juice.

Serve with your roast meat.

Ingredients

For the Filling:

1.25 Kg's of pork shoulder
300g Pork belly
250g Streaky bacon
500g Turkey breast
25 Sage leaves
Small bunch of thyme
Sea salt
Normal salt
Ground black pepper
1 Teaspoon of mace
1 Teaspoon of cayenne pepper
1 Egg

For the Pastry:

125g Butter
125g Lard
750g Plain flour
3 Eggs
1.5 Teaspoons of salt
250ml water

For the "Pork Pie Jelly":

1 Pigs trotter
Pigs bones - a rack of ribs will do
Cold water
Peppercorns
3 Bay leaves
Thyme
Sage leaves
1 Large onion
4 Sticks of celery
6 Large carrots

Method

Everyone loves a good tasty Pork Pie, and this is a giant Christmassy offering for sharing. As with all things like this it relies heavily upon the quality of the ingredients you are using, so specifically for the meat make sure you get quality free-range or organic meat from a good butchers, as opposed to water injected pork from a supermarket. What I'm trying to make here is a succulent and juicy offering, not really anything like you'd buy in Tesco's.

Begin by preparing the pork stock, which will take about 3 hours or more to make. Buy a pigs trotter and get the butcher to cut it in half for you. You need this to provide natural gelatine in the stock which will make the jelly set. Get some bones too, I bought a rack of ribs with very little meat on them which was perfect. Heat an oven to very hot, put the bones and the trotter in the oven in a pan with nothing else for 20 minutes until they begin to go crispy. Add these par-cooked bones to a saucepan. De-glaze the pan with water and add this to the pot. Add the chopped 4 sticks of celery, the chopped carrots (don't peel anything, no point), a whole onion including skin (this gives the stock a 'sheen'), a few whole peppercorns, about 10 sage leaves, a small bunch of thyme and 3 bay leaves. Cover with cold water, bring to the boil, and allow to simmer for about 3 hours or more. Once the stock looks darker and begins to smell really good strain the stock through a sieve throwing away all the bits in it. Now you have to fiercely boil the stock until you have about less than a pint left. Leave to cool.

Now make the pastry. Sieve the flour into a large bowl, and 1.5 teaspoons of table salt. Melt the butter and lard with the water in a pan, do not let it boil. Beat 3 eggs and add to the centre of the flour, mix this in roughly with a knife. Now add most of the butter/lard mixture to the flour and mix it around thoroughly. Add more of the mixture or more flour until you have a mixture which is sticky, but doesn't stick to your hands. Roll into a ball, wrap tightly in cling film, and then place in the fridge for an hour.

Now for the pie filling. Cut up the pork shoulder into little pieces the size of a fingernail, leaving a few large juicy bits of pork. Mince the pork belly. Finely chop the bacon. Finely chop the sage and thyme. Add everything to a mixing bowl along with a teaspoon of sea salt, a teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper, a teaspoon of mace, and a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. Mix everything together.

Now take out your pastry, take a piece off for the lid, roll out the rest. Take a spring-formed cake tin about 20 cm in diameter and about 10 cm's deep, and fill this with the pastry. Smooth down the edges. Add a layer of pork mixture about an inch deep, then cut some strips of the turkey, layer these around, spoon on some cranberry sauce, and then repeat with more pork mixture and more turkey so there should be about 2 layers of turkey in the pie, which should make it look pretty when you cut it.

Make a lid with the rest of the pastry. Use beaten egg to moisten the top sides of the pastry inside the pie, affix the lid and crimp the pastry securely to the top. Make a finger sized hole in the top of the pie.

Bake in an oven at 180 degrees for 30 minutes, then at 160 degrees for about 75 minutes. Then take out of the oven, carefully remove the cake tin surrounding the pie. Brush the whole pie with beaten egg and replace in the oven for about 20 minutes more until golden brown.

Leave to cool naturally, this will take at least 3/4 hours I think.

Heat the pork jelly you made earlier until it's just runny, now use a funnel or ideally a turkey baster to inject this through the hole in the lid into the pie. Shake the pie around a bit to get the liquid to go everywhere, and try to try and get as much into the pie as is humanly possible. Stop only when juice is running out of the top of the pie. Or if your pastry sides aren't sealed properly, out of the sides and all over the kitchen.

Place in the fridge to set.

Serve with more Cranberry sauce, cutting slices to display your proud effort.

This should keep for about a week or more in the fridge.

Ingredients

These are measurements, you can use anything from a thimble to an empty swimming pool depending on the quantities of meat that you want to rub.

2 x Paprika
1 x Ground cumin
1 x Cayenne pepper
2 x Garlic powder
2 x Onion powder
1 x Chilli powder
2 x Mustard powder
1 x Cinnamon
3 x Sea salt
3 x Brown sugar
2 x Dried thyme

Method

Thoroughly mix everything in a bowl.

Rub on to any types of meat and then BBQ the meat. If you use your hands to do this they will turn red and smell for days.

Ideally leaving this for 24 hours or more to make the meat extra tasty.

This can also be used as a base mix for sticky marinades, and basting sauces.

Ingredients

This will make enough for 6 people, and is best served with couscous and some pitta or crusty bread. If you're just going to eat meatballs you could make even more, and if you do you can always pop them in the fridge and heat them up the next day.


For the Meatballs:

1.5 Kg of good quality lamb mince
500g of good quality beef mince
1 Bulb of garlic
1 Tablespoon of ground cumin
4 Tablespoons of freshly chopped coriander
3 Red onions.
1 Tablespoons of aleppo paprika powder (this is smokey paprika)
1 Tablespoon of sea salt
Half a lime

To improve the sauce
1 Tablespoon of ground cumin
1 Tablespoon of Paprika

Method

Take about one pint of the MANT's Tasty Old Mammas Tomato Sauce that you've either just made or have had in the freezer. If you have just made it then all the better. Add 1 tablespoon of ground cumin to the mixture and stir it in, also add 1 tablespoon of paprika too and stir. Put this is a Tagine dish or a deep frying pan, not a saucepan, this is important as you'll need this kind of pan to make the meatballs cook well.

Place the mince in a bowl and add the salt. Crush the garlic and lightly fry it for a minute then add this too. Chop the 3 red onions as finely as possible and sweat them with the garlic. Add 1 tablespoon of ground cumin and 1 tablespoon of the aleppo paprika. Add the juice from half a lime. Chop up the coriander very finely and add this too.

Using your hands mix all this very thoroughly indeed. You want to make sure all the meatballs have the same flavour. Make the meatballs into spheres about 1 inch in diameter.

Your tomato sauce should now be bubbling away nicely on a low heat. Add the meatballs in one layer and place into the sauce. Swirl the pan around a bit to cover the meatballs in sauce. Turn the heat up to medium and then leave to simmer for about 20-30 minutes. Give them a shake every now and again. The fat from the meat will come out and flavour the sauce even more. This is not a very healthy dish at all.It's very important that when you cook them the lid of the dish is sealed otherwise the meatballs won't cook properly at all. Don't let the sauce bubble up under the lid.

Before serving sprinkle some more freshly chopped coriander over the whole dish and serve the cooking dish on the table too.

Serve with some bread to mop up the sauce.

You could also softly fry some onions before adding the sauce. Will give extra flavour and body to the whole dish.

Ingredients

This will make about 12 large muffins

3 Large eggs
150g Butter
5 Tablespoons of brown sugar
250g Plain flour
Half a pint of whole milk
6 Cadbury's Flakes
1 Tablespoon of baking powder
3 Tablespoons of cocoa powder

Method

Now this is very easy to make, and quite tasty.

Begin by heating an oven to 220 degrees Celsius.

Place the beaten eggs, softened butter (but not melted), sieved flour and the brown sugar with half the milk in a magimix and blitz until combined. Now place this mixture into a mixing bowl and add the rest of the milk, the baking powder and the cocoa powder. Mix it all up until it's the consistency of nearly set glue.

Now smash up the flakes whilst they are still in their packets, open the packets up and add all 6 crushed flakes to the mixture. Don't worry if there are big bits, these will be nice. Mix up the mixture again.

Place into either one large greased dish, or into individual cup cakes, or a non-stick pan. Bake for 10-12 minutes. DO NOT open the oven door or they will not rise. Probably best to buy an oven with a see-through door. If you don't have an oven with a see-through door then maybe don't bother making my muffins.

Ingredients

Potatoes
Red Onions
Olive oil

Method

I use red onions as they are sweeter than white ones, so more palatable in the morning which is the only time you are allowed to eat this. As for quantities, then make lots as this is super tasty when served with a fry up.

Roughly chop the potatoes into bits the size of a walnut, don't bother peeling them, and boil for about 8 minutes in salted water, or until they are still slightly firm. Don't overcook them as otherwise they'll break up into mash later. Leave to drain in a colander.

Peel and roughly chop the onions. Begin frying these slowly in olive oil in a frying pan until they go soft / brown. Remove from the pan and place in a bowl.

Now add some more olive oil and fry the potatoes for 10-15 minutes until nice and golden. When they are nearly ready add the onions back in and whack up the heat a bit.

Serve with bacon, sausages and toast. For breakfast.

Ingredients

1KG of Lamb Mince
2 Bay leaves
2 Large carrots
250ml Red Wine
250ml Chicken Stock (or beef stock if you prefer)
Fresh Thyme and Rosemary
1 Red Onion
2 White Onions
Worcester Sauce
Tomato Puree
About 15 button mushrooms
Sea salt
Black pepper
Olive oil
5 Cloves of garlic

1KG of potatoes
3 Large leeks
1 Tablespoon of butter
Milk

Method

This will feed 4 very hungry people, or a whole netball team of girls.

Peel and finely chop the onions and begin to gently fry these on a low heat in a little olive oil. Meanwhile finely chop up the garlic and add this too. Now chop the carrots and mushrooms into small pieces and add this to the pan. Place the lid on and leave to sweat for 5 mins or a bit more.

Now peel the potatoes and chop small and boil these in salted water. Turn the oven on to 200 degrees.

Now turn up the heat under the pan with the onions in it, add all the mince, and fry this off for about 5/10 mins breaking it all up and colouring it all. Don't worry about draining the fat off. Now add a pinch of sea salt, grind some pepper, about 4 dashes of worcester sauce, about 1 tablespoon of tomato puree, the red wine, the chicken stock, the thyme and rosemary (chopped) and the bay leaf. Stir it all up together and leave it to simmer with the lid on for 20-30 minutes. Taste and add more seasoning if required.

Now chop up the leeks really finely and steam these over the potatoes.

Once the potatoes are cooked mash with some butter and milk and salt and pepper. Don't make them too runny though. Add cream if you want to be fatter. Now stir in the cooked leeks.

Once the mince is done place this in a baking dish and then add the mashed potato on top. Use a fork to make a nice pattern on top and bake for 30-40 minutes until the potato begins to go nice and crispy.

This should be served with some more steamed vegetables. You might burn your tongue like I did as you'll be so impatient to eat your tasty creation.

Ingredients

1 Chicken (small or medium is best as they cook easier)
2 Metal skewers

Marinade

Anything you fancy really, this probably works best with a more liquidy marinade rather than lumps of garlic etc. You can but bottle of marinade which work well, or make up your own, but as you are bbqing it it's best to have stronger flavours. I suggest you see the other recipes for marinade suggestions.

Method

This method of cooking chicken is great for a few reasons. You can BBQ chicken and it retains moisture as it’s cooked on the bone; it’s cheaper than buying bits of chicken; it also looks quite cool if you’re cooking for your friends.

Take the chicken and place it breast side down on the table. Take a large sharp knife and stab the chicken in the middle cutting lengthways through the chicken. Fold out the chicken until it's flat. Cut off any extra bits that you won't be eating, like the funny extra bits on the end of the legs and the wings, any flappy bits in the middle of the chicken.

Now carefully cut the skin on the sides of the breast and pierce the breast underneath with the knife. Do the same for the thighs. Now smear your marinade underneath the skin right into the chicken and ideally leave for 24 hours.

Place 2 skewers diagonally through the chicken, this will hold it together whilst you cook it.

Cook on a BBQ carcass side down for about 20 minutes before turning over for roughly another 10-20 minutes depending upon the heat of your BBQ.

Ingredients

6 Eggs
6 oz Castor sugar
6 oz Self-raising flour
1 Packet of chocolate chips
3 oz Butter
2 Drops of vanilla essence
Squirt of lemon juice
4 Tablespoons of icing sugar
2 Oblong baking tins

Method

Have the eggs at room temperature & heat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius.

Sieve the flour into a bowl and heat in the oven for 2/3 minutes. Whisk the eggs and castor sugar in a separate bowl until they leave a solid trail when the whisk is held over the mixture. This will take at least 10 minutes and it's helpful to have an automatic whisk. Now fold in the flour with a spoon, be very careful not to bang out the air you've spent 10 minutes trying to put in. Now add half the chocolate chips.

Melt a little butter and grease your tins. Then lightly dust them with flour, this will help to get the sponges out at a later date. Bang off any surplus flour.

Tip the mixture into the two tins getting half in each then drop the rest of the choccy drops on the top - they will sink a bit.

Place gently in the oven and carefully close the door. Do not open the door for 18 minutes or the cake won't cook at all.

Once risen and cooked then turn out onto a cooling tray.

To make the butter cream to stick the two bits of cake together mix 3oz of butter with the vanilla essence, lemon juice and the icing sugar. Spoon onto one of the cakes and sandwich them together.

Eat it all yourself with a large mug of tea.

Ingredients

1 Whole large Salmon (Make sure when you buy your salmon you ask the fishmonger for sushi salmon, that way you'll get really good stuff. A 5kg salmon is very big, and will cost about £25 roughly. Ask the fishmonger to fillet the whole fish, leaving the 2 fillets whole. Get him to descale it too as this is hard when the fish is filleted.)
2 Large pieces of ginger
3 Cloves of garlic
5 Sticks of lemongrass
10 Fresh hot chillis
1 Tablespoon of red peppercorns
1 Tablespoon of green peppercorns
3 Tablespoons of sea salt
3 Tablespoons of brown sugar
100ml Vodka
1 Bunch of coriander

Method

You are making a cross between sushi and gravadlax, kind of marinaded salmon, served raw really.

Wash, descale, and thoroughly dry the fish fillets. Lay one on a large dish that will fit in the fridge. If it doesn't fit in the fridge, buy a bigger fridge. Score the salmon on the skin side every 2 inches, about 1 cm deep.

Mix the sugar and salt together. Pour the vodka over both the salmon fillets and then thoroughly rub the salt/sugar mizture over the skin side and flesh side of the fish.

Roughly chop the garlic, chillis, ginger, lemongrass and coriander. There is no need to peel any of this either. Add the peppercorns to the mixture too. Rub this mixture all over the fish, flesh side and skin side. Now take the fish and place it skin side down on the dish. Place the other fillet flesh on flesh on the lower fillet. Now wrap the fish really, really tightly in cling film.

Place in the fridge and on top of the fridge place a row of bottles of wine, or anything esle heavy.

After 36 hours take the fish out and swap the fillets over so the skin sides are now together. Pour of any excess liquid there may be. Place back in the fridge for another 36 hours, and weight it down again.

Remove from the fridge prior to serving. Rinse off any excess marinade under a tap.

Cut into little strips and serve on a plate as sushi.

You can also make a delicious little topping for this with a little sesame oil, sesame seeds and oilve oil.

You can also use this sushi to make really nice Nigiri.

Take 500g's of sushi rice and cook it as it says on the packet. De-starch it with boiling water so it doesn't stick together, and a teaspoon of sugar, salt and Japanese rice vinegar and mix together. Add more of anything in order to create a nice tasty rice.

Use a sushi mold to make little blocks of rice, add the salmon on the top. Badda-bing.

Ingredients

1 Packet of shelled walnuts
1 Packet of cooked chestnuts (in the shops at Christmas)
Breadcrumbs (4 fistfulls)
1 Red onion
100g Butter
10 Mushrooms
1 Orange
100ml Port
Pinch of cinnamon
Salt
Pepper

Method

This is really simple.

Finely chop the walnuts, chestnuts, red onion and mushrooms. Chop them really small.

Add the breadcrumbs, melt the butter and add that too along with the cinnamon and port, a pinch of salt and pepper aswell. Squeeze the juice from the orange in asweel and mix thoroughly with your hands.

Make into little balls and bake on a sheet in a medium oven for about 15-20 minutes. Or stuff into a chicken or turkey if you fancy too.

Ingredients

Adziki Beans - sprouted
Cucumber
Little gem lettuce
Carrots
Pine Nuts
Spring Onions
Sugar Snap Peas
Olive Oil
Sea Salt
Lemon juice
Pepper

Method

Grow and sprout your adziki beans. This will take around 5 days. You might want to have other food in the house whilst you are waiting to make this salad.

Peel and finely chop the cucumber and carrots. Chop up the spring onions and the lettuce too. In a pan gently heat up the pine nuts until they become coloured. Add these to a salad bowl. Now add a little olive oil to the pan, add the adziki beans and carrots and sugar snap peas. Stir round for a few minutes to heat through a bit.
Add the lettuce and the spring onions to the salad bowl. Add the ingredients from the pan and some salt, pepper and lemon juice.

Toss the salad and serve.

Ingredients

1.5kg of fresh Cranberries (you can use frozen, but they arent as good)
1 Cheap bottle of Port
4 Eating apples
3 Oranges
800g Caster sugar

Method

Heat a huge saucepan on a very low heat. Squeeze the orange juice into the saucepan trying to stop any pips going in as these won't be very nice. Then add about 800g of the sugar, mmmmm, sugar. Stir until the sugar dissolves. Peel and chop the apples and cut them into real little pieces. Add these to the saucepan. Then add about half a bottle of port, pouring a large glass for yourself to celebrate your wonderful creation. Then add all the cranberries and cover with a lid. Leave to bubble away for about 30 mins on a very low heat. Give it a poke if you feel it needs it. Then get a potato masher and pummle the mixture until it looks like it should do. Now add a bit more port, mix again and then place in jars.

Ingredients

Pork Bellies
2 kg's of Salt
Black pepper corns
Brown sugar

Method

Buy organic pork as the whole point of this is to produce tasty bacon which is not full of colourants and preservatives.

Mix the salt, sugar and crushed black peppercorns together in a bowl. Bone the pork bellies or get your butcher to do this for you as it's a bitch to do without trying to do it when it's covered in salt. Rub the mixture all over the pork and leave in a bucket in a cool place.

Every 24 hours for 5 days drain off the liquid from the bacon and re-apply the salt mixture. After 5 days remove the bacon and soak in water fro 36 hours to remove the incredibly salty taste you will have inflicted on the pork. You now have bacon.

Keep in the fridge wrapped in muslin and chop off bits whenever you want it. This makes great bacon for stews etc., but also good streaky bacon for bacon sandwiches.

You can also try smoking the cured bacon, or use a different cure, such as more herbs or maple syrup or chillis.

N.B. Bacon can be from any part of the pig. "Bacon" refers to the end product as defined by the process the meat has gone through to get there. Streaky bacon comes from the ends of the pork belly, the bacon we normally eat comes from pigs which are specifically reared as bacon pigs which are fattened in a specific way in order to get more bacon from them, of the kind we are used to purchasing in Tesco's.

Ingredients

Big tuna steaks
Red onions
Balsamic vinegar
Red wine
Butter
Pepper

Pasta / Noodles / New Potatoes

Method

Roughly chop up a load of red onions and soften in a saucepan with the butter. Add a large amount of balsamic vinegar and an equal measure of red wine, allow to simmer and reduce until the liquid just covers the onions and they are all sticky with balsamic vinegar. Add a bit of pepper.

Griddle the Tuna in order to get nice black diagonal lines on it and serve with a huge pile of the oniony sauce all over it. Serve with some pasta or noodles, or maybe even new potatoes.

Ingredients

I’m assuming quantities to prepare 8 Quail

8 Quail
1 Bulb of garlic
Half a bottle of red wine
3 Tablespoons of honey
1 Lemon
Fresh rosemary
1 Tablespoon of coarse ground black pepper
Large pinch of sea salt
Fresh thyme
1 Tablespoon of olive oil
1 Tablespoon of hot cayenne pepper

Method

It’s best to make this the day before you cook it, in order to marinade the meat and make it tastier.

Take a tupperware dish or a bowl and into this place the cayenne pepper, black pepper and the salt. Add the red wine and the honey too. Juice the lemon and add that.

Roughly chop up the garlic in slithers, and also roughly chop up the thyme and rosemary. Add this to the bowl too.

Mix it all up thoroughly.

Take the Quail and cut them in half using poultry shears or a big knife. Now add these to the bowl and cover in the marinade. Leave in the fridge for about 24 hours.

BBQ on a high heat for a few minutes, then move to a moderate heat and cook for about 15 mins on the BBQ, keeping them juicy and adding more marinade as they cook.

Serve in a bap. Yum.

Ingredients

French Beans
Half a thing of butter
Lots of Shallots
Sea Salt
Black Pepper
Lots of Garlic

Method

Finely chop up the shallots and the garlic. For one pack of French beans you'll probably need about one shallot per person, or more if you're feeling generous.

Melt all the butter in a pan on the lowest heat possible, then add the chopped garlic and shallots. Let this slowly cook for about 20 minutes, making sure the shallots just soften and don't brown.

Meanwhile steam the French beans for a few minutes until still slightly stiff. Then add some pepper and salt to the butter/shallot mixture. Place the beans into a serving pot and pour the mixture over. Mix it up a bit and there you have it, a tasty accompaniment to any dish.

You can also use mange tout, baby corn, broccoli, runner beans, and sugar snap peas for this recipe.

Ingredients

This should be enough to make about 24 large burgers
Beef mince (Ideally minced up fillet steak, but this is very expensive so pop to Sainsbury's and buy a pack of theirs)
3 Lagre onions
2 Bulbs of garlic
Olive Oil
Butter (About the size of a golf ball and a half)
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Fresh thyme
Fresh rosemary
Fresh mint
500ml of beer or lager (any beer will do, probably the best one is what's on special offer)

Ingredients you DON'T need
Eggs (horrible foetus things)
breadcrumbs (for girls' burgers)

Method

Empty all the mince into a big bowl. Chop up the onions as small as you can, you don't want big bits of onion as this will make the burgers fall apart when cooking. Chop up the garlic very small too. In a saucepan add the butter and a tablespoon or two of olive oil, now soften the garlic and onions for about 10 minutes, but don't brown them. Add this to the mince in the bowl.

Chop up the rosemary, mint and thyme (should be roughly a handful before chopping) and add to the mince in the mixing bowl. Add about 1.5 tablespoons of salt and as much pepper as you can be bothered to grind. Then add 500ml of beer.

Ensure you have washed your hands, we know where they've been, and then knead the mixture with your hands. They will get really oily as you do this and it's rather unpleasant. Make sure all the mixture is very well mixed and is sticking together well, if its not then add more beer. Pour any remaining beer down your throat. If making extreme burgers now is the time to add Vodka / chillis / anything else. Divide up the mixture into as many burgers as you want to make, try not to make them too thick as they will take ages to cook. To get burgers that will cook evenly and look good then use a burger mould.

Ideally you want to leave them in the fridge for at least 6 hours to harden up, but if you are hungry cook immediately. (For BBQ's it's best to put them in the fridge or they WILL fall apart when cooking)

Cooking

The best way to cook burgers is on a BBQ, however if you can't be arsed then use a frying pan or a griddle pan. They will always take longer than you think to cook, I always reckon on about 20 mins. The secret is to make sure they are very well coloured (black) on one side before you try and turn them over otherwise they may well fall apart. Griddle pans are pretty good as you can get nice lines on them and pretend you're working in Burger King. If you have made ridiculously large burgers you can sear them first then bung them in the oven if you want to.

Serving suggestion

Obviously depends on who's eating them but they MUST be served in a bun, try and get ones with sesame seeds on top. Bacon is good, never ever let people put cheese on them as cheese is horrible. A good accompaniment to the burgers are spicy potato wedges.

Ingredients

To make about 8 litres, which is almost enough for a bath, you will need:

3 Huge butternut squashes
2 Large Onions
6 Standard sized leeks
4 Medium sized Potatoes
4 Exact pints of milk
2 Measured pints of water
2 Normal chicken stock cubes
1 Little vegetable stock cube
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 Whole pint of Creme Fraiche (or double cream if you are fat)
Butter

Method

Peel the potatoes, onion, leeks and butternut squash. Scoop out the pips from the squash and cut all the ingredients into pieces about the size of a walnut and place in a huge saucepan. Add a large knob of butter. Melt all three stockcubes in about 2 pints of water and pour over vegetables. Then add the milk and make sure the vegetables are covered. Grind a large quantity of pepper over it and add some salt.

Boil it for about 30 minutes, or until it is all very soft, you can't really over boil it so don't worry.

When it is mushy add the cream/crème fraiche, and then use a handheld Whizzer thing to nuke it all until it's all smooth.

You might want to add a bit more pepper to make it taste. If you are making it for stupid vegetarians don't tell them that it has chicken stock in it, or if you are gay just use vegetable stock. You can also add curry powder to the recipe for more bite. When eating it's very good with some sweet chilli sauce over it all. Oh, and eat with crusty bread.

Ingredients

For the Marinade:

2 KG's of fillet steak - basically a whole fillet
2 Heaped tablespoon of whole coriander seeds
1 Handful of rosemary
1 Tablespoon of sea salt
1 Tablespoon of freshly ground black pepper
6 Fresh red chillis

For the dipping sauce:

Ginger
Fresh coriander
Sesame oil
Soy sauce
Sesame seeds
1 Lime

Method

Marinading -

Toast the coriander seeds and then pound them in a pestle and mortar. Finely chop the rosemary and the chillis and add to the pestle and pound a little more.

Sprinkle on a board or work surface and sprinkle on the salt and pepper too. Roll and press the fillet of beef over this, making sure the meat is completely covered with the coating.

Wrap very tightly in clingfilm, and marinade for 24-48 hours.

To cook & serve -

On a hot barbecue, sear off the meat for around 5 minutes until brown and slightly crisp on all sides. Remove from the bbq. Allow it to rest for 5 minutes before slicing as thinly as possible and lay the sliced beef on a large plate.

Finely chop the ginger and coriander. Add to a a small dish with a small amount of sesame oil, some soy sauce, black sesame seeds and freshly squeezed lime juice.

Drizzle half of this over the sliced beef.

Place this bowl in the middle of the dish so everyone can dip their beef in.

Ingredients

Chestnuts - you can either buy fresh ones and poach them, peel them & mash them, but this is loads of effort so just buy the packs of ready cooked ones which are just as good. Don't get puree though
Cranberries, or use your ready made Cranberry sauce as I did as I forgot to buy any more cranberries
1 loaf of 2 day old bread to make breadcrumbs, not mouldt though, and not cheap sliced bread
3 Red Onions, not white
Sea Salt
Freshly Ground Black Pepper
Fresh Coriander
Fresh Basil
Fresh Parsley
Fresh Rosemary
Half a thing of Butter
1 Lemon
2 Oranges
3 Eating Apples
Brandy
Port

Method

Finely chop the chestnuts, onion and apples and place in a huge bowl. The bigger the bowl the better as you'll definitely make more than you plan to. Then add the chopped up cranberries / or the cranberry sauce, about one jar will do. Chop up all the herbs as small as possible and add them. Squeeze in the juice from the lemon and orange. Melt the butter in the microwave and pour that over. Grind loads of pepper into it all and a good lump of salt. Then glug some port and brandy all over it. This is where it gets messy. You have to use your hands to mix it so get stuck in. Get someone else to add the breadcrumbs until the consistency is right. Then place in a bowl and cook for about 1.5 hours under tinfoil. You can always stuff this up the arse of a turkey if you wish, but it is veggie, so up to you.

Ingredients

Chicken thighs (2 large ones per person)
Shallots
Whole bulb of garlic
White wine
Chicken stock (good stock)
Lardons
Shitake mushrooms
Chestnut mushrooms
Porcini mushrooms
1 Red onion
Cornflour
Pine nuts
Fresh thyme
Fresh rosemary
Sea salt
Fresh ground black pepper

Method

Begin by taking a large casserole pot and in that brown the lardons in a little olive oil. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Now brown off the chicken thighs which will take about 15 minutes, the juice and fat should start to leak out leaving some nice residue in the pan. You will probably need to do this is 2 batches.

Now add the whole bulb of garlic which has been finely chopped and a finely chopped red onion. Sweat these off in the juices in the pot. Now add some whole peeled shallots, about 1 shallot per chicken thigh, and turn the heat up to get some colour on them. Add the lardons back in the pan. Now add about half a bottle of wine and simmer until reduced to about half. Now add a packet of pine nuts, a pile of thyme and rosemary and a load of very roughly chopped mushrooms. Give a generous stir. Add some salt and pepper to season. Add the chicken back to the pot and then top off with a 50/50 mixture of good chicken stock and white wine. Add a little cornflour which has been mixed with cold water in order to thicken it all up. Stir it all up.

Cook in an oven at 200 degrees for about 80 minutes until the chicken is very tender. The sauce should have thickened nicely. If not add more cornflour.

Serve with Dauphinoise potatoes and french beans. Drink french wine. Pretend you are in France.

Ingredients

Chicken Breasts (one per person)
Good Bacon (2 bits per breast)
Garlic
Olive oil
Lemon
Rosemary
Coriander
Chillis or chilli Flakes
Butter
Mushrooms
Shallots
Salt
Pepper
Cheese (if you like cheese, which I don't, but if you did you could use some cheese I guess)
Cocktail stick

Method

Take your large chicken breast and kind of flatten it out a bit with your fist. Then chop up the shallots, garlic, mushrooms, chillis, coriander and rosemary and make into some kind of powdery fine mush. Then spread this over the middle of the chicken breast. Add a good dollop of butter, the salt and pepper, and a slice of lemon.
Flatten out the bacon a bit, again with your fist. Then wrap the chicken breast up in the bacon and put a cocktail stick through the entire thing.
Place in the oven at about 200 degrees for 30 ish minutes, just before it's ready, if you like cheese, then put some cheese on top to melt over it all.
I suggest you serve with salad and MANT's Tasty Spicy Potato Wedges.
And remember not to eat the piece of lemon.

Ingredients

8 Fresh hot chillies
4 Dried hot chillies
Tamarind skin
7 Lime leaves
5 Shallots
6 Cloves of garlic
6 Stems of lemongrass
Ginger - lots
Blue ginger
1 Teaspoon of black peppercorns
1 Teaspoon of coriander seeds
Curry powder
Dried turmeric powder
Fresh turmeric
Coconut milk
Cold water
Hot water
Olive oil
Chicken (On bone will be juicier, or use boned thighs if you can get them)
Palm sugar
Salt
Coconut paste (Or you can use coconut cream or cornflour)
A blender

Method

Roughly chop both types of chillies and place in a bowl. Add the tamarind skin, lime leaves, whole shallots, garlic, lemongrass, ginger and blue ginger. Don't worry about chopping all this stuff up as it's going to be blended. Pour boiling water over the ingredients and leave for 15 minutes, then empty of the water, rinse in cold water and empty this off. Then put it all in the blender.

Toast the peppercorns and coriander seeds in a saucepan and add these to the blender. Put the curry powder and the two types of turmeric into the blender too with a little bit of water, and blend until you have a thick paste. Heat some olive oil in a pan and fry the paste for about 8-10 minutes, stirring frequently.

Pop your chicken into the mixture, add some salt and the palm sugar and leave to simmer for 10 minutes or so. Then add the coconut milk and leave for another 10 minutes. Add either coconut paste, coconut cream or cornflour to thicken.

Try to ensure that you don't overcook the chicken....

This dish is pretty hot. The Malaysians do this with 25 fresh chillies and 25 dried chillies, which has to be tried at some point but I think it would be inedible.

Serve with rice, and maybe MANT's Tasty Malaysian Squid as a side dish.

Ingredients

400g Packet of digestive biscuits
100ml Brandy
400g Chocolate - you can use either milk or plain, or a combination of both, and you can also use Cadbury's Dairy Milk or Green & Blacks. Basically whatever you fancy. I do however think that a combination of milk and plain is best.
1 Packet of unsalted shelled mixed nuts
300g Icing sugar
Some raisins (optional)
1 Pint of double Cream
3 Cadbury's flakes

Method

Melt the chocolate in a saucepan, or in a glass bowl over boiling water, with a few glugs of brandy. Smash the digestive biscuits to a powder and add them to the pan. Break up the nuts to small pieces and add them too with the raisins. Mix up the whole thing until it looks like mud. Then place it in a bowl, flatten out the top and put it in the fridge for a few hours where it will cool and harden.

Now beat the cream until fluffy and add the icingsugar. Spoon the cream over the cake until it's about the same depth. Then decorate with more chocolate on top. I like flakes so I put them on, but you can also put other types of chocolate on if you want to.

Ingredients

One big tub of Fresh Natural Yoghurt
Half a Cucumber
A few sprigs of Mint
Freshly ground pepper

Method

Tip the yoghurt into a big bowl. Peel the cucumber and then chop into little squares as finely as possible. Add these to the yoghurt along with some ground pepper. Mix it all up well.

This is a wonderfully cooling dip which is great with all veg, or is good to eat with spicy food. You can also add some paprika to it which will give it a slight kick if so desired.

Ingredients

1 Whole cucumber
Lots of fresh mint
White wine vinegar
Sea Salt

Method

Peel the cucumber and chop as thinly as humanly possible and place in a bowl. Sprinkle a good pinch of sea salt all over it and splash a few glugs of the white wine vinegar all over it. Chop up the mint really finely and sprinkle over the cucumber. Then mix it all together, cover with cling film and place in the fridge for 30 minutes before serving.

Very tasty with bbq'd food and hot stuff.

Ingredients

This is my version of a traditional dish, and it's mightly fine if I say so myself

Potatoes - 1 Large potato per person. I'll assume you're making enough for 4 people
4 Cloves of garlic
1 Red onion or 2 shallots
100ml of Chicken stock (optional)
50g of Butter
Sea salt
Fresh rosemary
Freshly ground black pepper
200ml Skimmed Milk
200ml Double cream
1 Pack of lardons, or finely chop up 6 rashers of streaky bacon (optional, but makes the dish extra tasty)

Method

Begin by slowly frying off the lardons until they are crispy.

Grease your dauphinoise pan with some butter. Peel and slice the potatoes thinly. In a pan heat up the cream, milk, butter and chicken stock until it is just about to boil. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Chop the garlic into thin slices and do the same with the onion/shallot.

Do one layer of potatoes and then add some slithers of onion/shallot and some garlic and a few sprigs of rosemary and about half of the lardons. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Pour on a little of the cream mixture. Do another layer of the potatoes and do the same with the onion/shallot, garlic, rosemary and lardons and season again. Add some more of the cream mixture. Do the final layer of the potato and add enough creamy mixture to just about cover the potatoes. Season again. Press them down slightly. Go easy on the salt if the bacon is very salty.

Palce in an oven set at 200 degrees celcius and cook for about 20 mins. Then push them down again and cook for a further 20-30 mins until cooked and golden brown on the top.

Serve on their own as a tasty dish with salad, or with some meat. Something like a good fillet steak, or lamb maybe. Not pork as the Dauphinoise is very rich and pork too fatty to complement it.

Ingredients

The key to this dish, as to most dishes really, is that you really have to have the finest and freshest ingredients that you can get. So go for organic, wild, fresh, grown and killed yourself, if at all possible.

I'm assuming you are making this for 6 people, you'll need a very large Le Creuset casserole dish, or similar, to cook it in.

6 Whole duck legs, or 12 thighs
Pork chipolata sausages
5 Small onions
3 Red Onions
2 Large bulbs of garlic
Mushrooms
Small Shallots or mini-onions
8 Carrots
Lardons
Kidney beans
Flagolet beans
White beans
Borlotti beans
Pine Nuts
Chicken stock
Vegetable stock
1 Bottle of red wine
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil
Bread
Bay leaves
Fresh rhyme
Fresh rosemary

Method

Firstly chop up the red onions and normal onions, mushrooms and carrots into small pieces. Finely chop the garlic. Place the casserole dish on a hob on high heat and add some olive oil and fry the lardons until they are going golden, not crispy, and then take them out and leave them in a dish.

Brown the duck on both sides and remove this from the pan too. By now you should have a nice pool of oil/duck fat/lardon fat in the pan. Add the garlic and fry for 30 seconds, then add the onions and stir until they begin to soften. Now add the mushrooms and carrots and stir. Add the lardons back in, the small shallots (or mini-onions if you could find them in the shops) and stir for a few minutes. Now add the pine nuts and the four tpes of beans, draining any liquid off that doesn't look too appealing but adding any tasty juices. Add a large pinch of salt, a lot of pepper and a jug of strong chicken and vegetable stock (ideally freshly made).

Add a bouquet garni of the fresh herbs and stir it all in. Now add the duck back to the mixture. Now leave in the oven on a moderate heat of about 180 degrees for about 2 hours with the lid on.

Take out of the oven and layer the top with the sausages and then break up some bread into little pieces, sprinkle with fresh thyme, salt, pepper and olive oil, and then place it all over the top of the cassoulet in order to form a thicker crust. Leave the lid off and cook for about another 30 minutes on a slightly hotter heat until it goes golden brown. Now give it a rough stir, then put more bread on top to form another crust. Leave until golden brown.

Serve with hunks of fresh bread and salad.

Ingredients

Duck legs & thighs (or you could use a whole duck)
Garlic
Ginger
Fresh coriander
Soy Sauce
Honey
Sweet chilli sauce
Sea salt
Water
Coriander seeds
Red peppercorns
Sesame seeds
Pine nuts
Cornflour
Chilli flakes

Thin pancakes
Cucumber
Spring Onions

Method

This is a variation of MANT’s Amazing Oriental Duck Salad, which differs at the end product and in the way it’s served to create a fairly different dish.

Take the duck or pieces of duck and make slits into the meat with a sharp knife. Roughly chop the garlic and ginger and push bits into the duck. Ideally you now want to leave this in the fridge for 24 hours tightly wrapped in cling film with some fresh coriander and chilli flakes in order to get the flavour into the duck. However if you don’t have time then it doesn’t matter too much.

Now take a steamer which will take all the duck. Line the bottom of the steamer with garlic, ginger, chilli flakes, toasted coriander seeds and the red peppercorns and some fresh coriander. Add a layer of duck and repeat with the garlic, ginger etc. Add sea salt to the skin of the duck at each stage. Add some sesame seeds too. Once the duck is stacked you should have a big looking pile of duck. Place over some boiling water and now drizzle quite a lot of soy sauce over the duck, but only do this once the duck is over the water so that you catch the soy sauce in the pan. The water in the pan will form the basis for your dressing.

Steam the duck for about 60-90 minutes. Remove the duck from the steamer and place in a hob proof and oven proof pan. Brown the duck skin in the pan on the hob, now insert in the oven with all the left over bits of marinade, Some whole red onions, a splash of red wine, and a splash of the water that was steaming the fish. Make sure you retain a lot of this water though. Cook the duck in the oven for around 60 minutes partially covered on about 160 degrees, you are trying to cook the duck slowly.

Meanwhile reduce the water from the steaming by about half, adding a lot of honey and some sweet chilli sauce, this should be a bit sweet. Add cornflour mixed with water in order to thicken it all up.

When the duck is ready remove from the oven and de-bone it all in order to get little tasty bits of duck.

Now add all the duck to the sauce you have made. Toast some pine nuts and add these to the mixture too. Mix it all up.

Also chop some spring onions and some more cucumber lengthways and very finely. Take a pancake and make your very own crispy duck pancakes. Smear more of the sauce over it.

If you can't find pancakes, then get some tortillas instead, they'll still taste good.

Ingredients

1.5kg of potatoes, ideally fluffy Maris Piper ones, but i guess any type will do
1.5kg of fresh fish, salmon and cod are good, but I also think that decent Smoked Haddock is good too
3 bunches of spring onions
Half a thing of butter
Freshly ground black pepper
Fresh parsley
Sea salt
Bread for making breadcrumbs
Flour
Eggs
Olive oil

Method

Boil up the fish in unsalted water, make sure you don't over cook it though. Take it out and leave it to cool somewhere. Your house will now stick of fish.

Boil the potatoes in salted water and mash without adding anything to them. Place the potatoes in a huge bowl, and then flake the fish and add that too. Add lots of fresh pepper, sea salt and the chopped up parsley.

Melt the butter in a frying pan and chop up the spring onions into little pieces and slowly cook until soft, then add these to the fishy/potatoey mixture.

Stick your hands into the mixture and mix it up. Then form into balls about the size of a tennis ball, dip into the flour, then the egg, then the breadcrumbs to coat the fishcakes. Ideally you'll want to put the fishcakes in the fridge to harden up a bit before cooking them.

To cook, brown them off in a frying pan with some olive oil, then pop them in the oven for about 20 minutes to cook. This recipe will make about 20 fishcakes, and you can probably eat 2 each I reckon. Serve them with my lemon sauce (see previous recipe) made from the fish stock left over from boiling the fish. Also good to serve with sweet chilli sauce and spinach. Note that they don't freeze well so eat them all at once.

Also please note, I've had complaints in the past that this recipe bears very close relation to one that "Rick Stein" may have published in a book, however my recipe contains spring onions and so is completely different.

Ingredients

Chicken Breasts (on the bone is best but you could also use thighs, boned or otherwise but just plain old chicken breasts may get a bit dry)
Lemons
Thyme
Rosemary
Sea salt
Black pepper
Leeks
Grapes
Spring onions
Shallots
White wine
Cream or creme fraiche
Watercress
Olive oil
Mushrooms
Cornflour
Chicken stock

Method

Marinade the chicken breasts in the white wine, rosemary, lemon juice, thyme, salt and pepper, ideally overnight if you have time. Chop up the leeks into large chunks and chop the mushrooms and the spring onions into little chunks. Chop the grapes in half. Brown off the chicken, in a casserole pot or large saucepan, in some olive oil. Then add the leeks and the mushrooms to the pot and soften for 5 minutes. Add the chicken back to the pan and season with salt and pepper and add more rosemary and thyme and also the spring onions. Peel the shallots and leave whole, add these too. Add some wine and chicken stock to cover it all, squeeze in more lemon juice, and place the lid on and put in a hot oven.

After about 30 minutes add the grapes and stir in some crème fraiche or cream. Once the chicken is ready add some cornflour to thicken the sauce and also a load of water cress which makes it all tasty looking.

Serve with baked potatoes or pasta.

Ingredients

1 Duck breast per person
Soy sauce
Sesame seeds
Clear honey
Fresh ginger
Black spaghetti (Dyed with Squid ink)
Broccoli
Bean sprouts
Peppers
Sea salt
Black pepper
Chilli flakes
Mange tout
Baby corn
White wine

Method

Marinade the duck breasts over night in the soy sauce, sesame seeds, honey and ginger. Fry the duck breasts skin side down on a hot heat until golden brown, then sear the meaty side and place in a hot over for about 10-12 minutes. Keep an eye on the duck to make sure it doesn't over cook. Remove the duck and allow to rest for 5 minutes before serving.

Meanwhile, steam the baby corn, mange tout and broccoli. Cook the Pasta. Once you've drained the pasta add it back to the pan with the steamed veg. Add a splash of white wine, some chilli flakes, some of the water that steamed the veg, and all the left over marinade juice. Stir until it's all mixed in.

Serve in large bowls with a big pile of the vegetables/pasta and a sliced duck breast on top of it all.

Ingredients

Parsnips
Butter
Salt
Pepper
Honey
Olive Oil

Method

Peel the parsnips and chop them into finger sized pieces. Load up a roasting tin with them and sprinkle liberally with olive oil. Mill some fresh black pepper over all of them and sprinkle on some sea salt too. Then cut some butter into little finger nail sized bits and place these over the parsnips.

Place in a hot oven, like 200 degrees or something. Every 15 minutes or so take them out and shimmy them about a bit. Once they are turning brown, pour lots of honey all over them and put back in the oven until they go a deep brown colour. Then they are ready. Yum yum.

Ingredients

Assorted Nuts
Good Quality Olive Oil
Paprika
Dried Chilli Flakes
Rock Salt

Method

Place all the assorted nuts into a metal baking tray and place into the over set to really hot. Don't forget to check the nuts every couple of minutes as they can turn golden brown very quickly. When they are just turning brown, usually after 10-15 minutes, then drizzle a small amount of Olive Oil over the nuts, then a good pinch of the tasty salt, then grind some chilli flakes and sprinkle paprika over them, place back in the oven for a minute or two.

Remove from the oven and place in decorative bowl, you then have Hot Hot Nuts. Ideal snack preceeding a Pig/Lamb roast.

Ingredients

Venison steaks
Jack Daniels
Olive oil
Red wine
Coarsely ground black pepper
Salt
Cream or crème fraiche
Green peppercorns

Method

The secret to this is the marinade.

Take the steaks and rub with black pepper and bit of salt. In a bowl place the steaks and add a very generous amount of Jack Daniels, and I mean generous, probably covering them. Then add a dash of red wine too. Leave to marinade for at least 2 days, but ideally longer.

To cook pan fry in a frying pan. When you remove the steaks you can then make a great sauce with the residue in the pan and all the Jack Daniels mixture, adding a little cream or Crème fraiche to thicken it and a few green peppercorns.

Ingredients

2KG’s of Kobe beef mince (It’s very important that you use Kobe beef as the idea of this recipe is to experience the tastiness of the Kobe beef. Kobe beef is very juicy, some say fatty, which is why this recipe is simple as opposed to MANT’s Tasty Burgers which need more flavouring as they are made with normal mince. You can buy Kobe beef on any good Kobe beef website for £9 per Kilo)
Sea salt
Black pepper
3 Shallots
1 Clove of garlic
Beer
Butter
Olive Oil
Rosemary
Coriander

Method

Place your mince in a big bowl and grind some black pepper over it and add a couple of pinches of salt.

Finely chop the coriander and rosemary and add this too.

Finely chop the shallot, crush the garlic and soften in a bit of butter and olive oil in a pan, then add to the pile of mince. Add a few glugs of beer, but not too much as you are trying to maintain the flavour of the beef.

Mould the burgers into burger shapes and cook on a flat griddle. Season each side with salt and pepper. Only flip them once one side has browned or they will fall apart. Don’t overcook them, they can still be pink in the middle as it’s such good quality beef. Serve in a high quality bun, with some gourmet bacon, mushrooms, cheese and some spicy potato wedges.

Ingredients

Lots of Left over roast Lamb, or ideally lamb left from one of MANT's famous whole animal roasts
Onions
Garlic
Chillis
Shallots
Broccoli
Beans
Chicken Stock
Vegetable Stock
Lamb Stock
Two bottles of Red Wine (one cheap, one expensive)
Cornflour
Mint
Rosemary
Olive oil
Butter
Kidney Beans
New Potatoes
Creme Fraiche

Method

Chop up the onions and garlic and chillis and gently fry in some olive oil and butter until soft. Chop up the lamb into little pieces and add this to the pot along with the chopped mint and rosemary, the drained kidney beans, chopped new potatoes, and whole peeled shallots. Then stir whilst gently cooking it all.
Then add about 2 pints of stock and a whole bottle of cheap red wine. Add the creme fraiche and stir it in.

Now is the time to open the expensive bottle of wine and start drinking it. Leave the stew covered and simmering very slowly for about 90 minutes whilst you watch a movie, until the fibres on the meat break up. When the stew is nearly ready add the broccoli. Serve in a steaming bowl and eat as much as you possibly can.

Ingredients

Salmon (One boneless fillet per person, ideally skinless but this is not essential. Also try and buy the best salmon you can as it will probably taste nicer if old Uncle Jimmy caught it himself up on his estate in Scotland)
3 Lemons
Black Pepper
Chicken Stock Cube (Or if being posh fresh stock)
Vegetable Stock Cube (Or if being posh fresh stock)
Cornflour
White Wine
Butter
Water (Hot and cold)
Double Cream
Bacon (3 rashers per person, plus an extra 4 rashers)

Method

Get a big frying pan kind of thing that you have a lid for (a saucepan will do if you don't have a special pan). Crumble half of the vegetable stock cube and half of the chicken stock cube into the pan (throw away excess stock cube), add a little bit of boiling water and beat with a whisk until all is dissolved. Add enough water to cover the pan by about 2 cm's. Then add a few glugs of wine, drinking the rest whilst cooking. Add a nob of butter. Squeeze the juice of 2-3 lemons into the sauce, trying to catch the pips as you do. (Don't worry if you miss a few pips, your guests will sh1t them out eventually). Add about half a pint of cream. Grind loads of pepper into the sauce. By now the sauce should be simmering slowly. Leave it like this for 10 mins. Mix up some cornflour and cold water and add to the sauce to thicken it so that it's the consistency of a Chocolate Frijj. Taste the sauce, if not lemony enough add more lemon juice, if not peppery enough then add more pepper, if not thick enough then add more cream and/or corn flour.

In the mean time take all the bacon and cook in the oven. It's important that you cook it in the oven so it dries out a lot. Cook until crispy. Take out of the oven and chop into small pieces. This is when the extra 4 rashers come in handy as the bacon will be so goddamm tasty that you'll eat loads of it as you chop it up. Leave the bacon for the moment but try not to eat it all.

Take the salmon fillets and wash them and de-scale them if they still have the skin on. Place the fillets into the sauce on a very low heat and leave for about 10 mins to cook. Near the end of cooking add the chopped up bacon to the sauce (if you haven't eaten it all) and then serve.

Serving suggestion

Good to serve with new potatoes and spinach, or you can serve with rice, or MANT's Tasty Spicy Potato Wedges.

Ingredients

4 Chicken breasts
4 Large, hot dried chillies
1 Tablespoon of cumin seeds
2 Teaspoons of black pepper corns
2 Teaspoons of sea salt
1 Tablespoon of sesame seeds
1 Tablespoon of coriander seeds
1 Cup or about 150ml of lemon flavoured olive oil

Method

Dice the chicken breasts into small square chunks. Toast the coriander seeds, peppercorns and cumin seeds and then grind them up and place them in a bowl with the sea salt. Grind the chillies too and add these and all the olive oil and the sesame seeds. The whole mixture should be quite thick. Add the chicken and smear it all over and leave to marinade for 24 hours.

Place on a skewer and BBQ for that summery burnt taste.

Ingredients

This will feed two people for a large starter, or 4 people if you aren't feeling very generous, or one person for a main course.

And you have to plan this 7 days in advance...

1 Lobster - A 1 kilo one will do
Adziki sprouts (these are like mung beans but tastier, and I accidentally bought about 40 kilos so if you want any, just ask. Anyway you have to sprout these and grow them in a jar, this takes 7 days, hence the 7 days in advance planning needed for this dish)
2 Little gem lettuces
1 Lemon
Sea salt
1 Tablespoon of olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper
1 Tablespoon of sweet chilli sauce
6 Spring onions

Method

Grow your beans. I suggest you find something else to do for the 7 days other than watching them grow.

Cook your lobster by filling a pan with salted water and plunging the living beast in for 18 minutes per kilo. Once cooked remove to cool completely. Remove the meat from the lobster, keeping the big bits separate from the little bits.

Mix up some adziki sprouts, the chopped little gem lettuce leaves and the finely chopped spring onions in a bowl and add all the little fiddly bits of lobster, keeping the big bits behind.

Mix the sweet chilli sauce, salt, pepper, lemon juice and olive oil in a dish. Drizzle the dressing over the salad/lobster mix and arrange on a plate.

Now take the big bits of lobster, the claw and the tail, and arrange over the salad. Leave the claw meat whole but cut the tail into slices and arrange in a line.

Serve and eat, drink some Chablis.

Ingredients

Lofa (which is a bit like water chestnut I think)
Carrots
Lemongrass
6 Fresh squid
4 Garlic cloves
Black pepper
Olive oil

Method

Chop up the garlic and the lemon grass and fry in a little olive oil. Chop up the lofa and the carrots into little pieces and add these to the wok.

Remove the bone from the squid and cut them into little pieces and add them in along with a generous amount of freshly ground pepper. Stir it all for a few minutes until the squid is cooked.

Ideal to serve as an unusual side dish to a larger main course.

Ingredients

Fresh tapioca root
Pannan essence (like vanilla)
Sugar
Coconut milk
Sago (These are coloured tasteless little jelly balls, that I think you can only really buy in Malaysia)

Method

Chop up the tapioca root, which is a bit like ginger. Wash it to get the starch off of it and boil it for about 20 minutes until it is soft. Then add the coconut milk, sugar, pannan essence, sugar and sago, and stir for about 5 minutes. Serve in a bowl.

Ingredients

3 Mangos (ripe or unripe)
White wine Vinegar
7 Cloves of garlic
Sea salt
2 Hot dried chillis
3 Tablespoons of caster sugar
1 Teaspoon of allspice
9 Shallots
1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
Black Japanese sesame seeds
Poppy seeds
Fresh coriander

Method

Add a few glugs of white wine vinegar to a blender along with the peeled garlic cloves, whole hot dried chilli, a teaspoon of allspice and a teaspoon of cayenne pepper and some fresh coriander. Whizz this up until it is all blended.

Chop up the Mango into little pieces and throw a good pinch of sea salt all over them. Chop up the shallots as fine as possible. Place the blended mixture and the shallots in a saucepan and cook for 5-10 minutes on a low heat, add 2 tablespoons of sugar (you can also use muscavado sugar which will give you a darker coloured chutney and thus not as good looking) and stir until dissolved. Add all the mango to the pan and stir thoroughly. Leave to gently simmer for an hour or more, until most of the mango is soft. It's nice to leave a few big bits of chunky mango though as these taste nice, You could also mash it a few times with a potato masher to get some big lumps and some mush.

Add the sesame seeds and the poppy seeds which give it little black flakes and extra taste. Place in a pot and leave to cool.

Serve as a tasty accompaniment to any MANT sausage.

Ingredients

Mince
Tin of chopped tomatoes
Onions
Bulb of garlic
Tin of red kidney beans
Flageolet beans
Carrots
Salt
Pepper
Red wine
Chicken stock
Mushrooms
Cornflour
Dried mixed herbs
Chilli powder

Method

This is a cheap way of making a big pot of slop to feed yourself when the night's are chilly and dark. It's tasty too.

Roughly chop the onions and gently fry them off in a large casserole pot. When softened add a load of mince and cook that. Roughly chop up the garlic and add that in too. Cook the mince until it's all broken up.

Now chop the carrots and mushrooms into little bits and add them to the pot. Add a large spoon of chilli powder, some sea salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper. Stir all the time.

Now add the chopped tomatoes, drained kidney beans, flageolet beans, some chicken stock, and enough red wine to cover it all up.

Simmer for a few hours on the hob or in the oven and serve with jacket potatoes or if you are a Latham, Jacobs Cream Crackers.

This dish actually tastes better the day after it's been made and when reheated.

Ingredients

For about 8 people:

A piece of fillet steak roughly the size of a large fist
Garlic
Chilli powder
Coriander Seeds
Olive Oil
Lemons
Ciabatta bread
Hummus
Cumin seeds
Water
Salad

Method

Marinade the fillet steak in some freshly ground cumin, finely chopped garlic, olive oil, lemon juice and chilli powder. Do this overnight for maximum flavour, and don't skimp on the spices as the flavour needs to get into the meat.

Make a dressing using a dollop of hummus, some olive oil, lemon juice, ground cumin and a little bit of water to get a think dressing.
Cook the fillet steak in a hot frying pan on all sides until browning, then place in a very hot oven for about 5 minutes. Leave to rest for about 5-10 minutes.

Slice the steak into equal and large round pieces.

Take a piece of toasted ciabatta and add some dressing. Then add a small amount of salad, then more dressing, then add the warm steak on top, and add some more dressing.

Serve as a starter.

Ingredients

10 Bottles of Red wine (Any wine will do really as you're going to change the taste of it a lot)
4 Oranges
About 50 cloves
4 Cinnamon sticks
4 Whole nutmeg
500g Caster sugar
200ml Brandy
1 Bottle of cheap Port

Method

I know this is only a recipe for mulled wine, but when it's Christmas and I go to a drinks party at someones house and they have a small saucepan of wine with a couple of "Mulled Tea bags" in it, and they say "Have some Mulled Wine". Well my first thought is "You lazy bastards, why didn't you actually make some mulled wine instead of adding teabags to a box of plonk?". So here is my easy recipe.

Fill your saucepan with the red wine, port and brandy. Stud the oranges equally with the cloves and add these to the saucepan too. Add all the sugar. Add the cinnamon sticks. And also add the nutmeg, grating some of it in as you go.

Now gently heat it all up, stirring it to melt the sugar. Taste it to make sure it tastes nice, if it doesn't then add some orange juice or more sugar.

Don't let it boil, or the alcohol will disappear.

It's best to make this the day before, or a few hours before to let all the flavours merge.

You can also add more Brandy to get everyone more drunk at any point.

So there you have it. The easy way to make mulled wine. People drink obscene amounts of this so it's best to make a lot.

I don't wish to see a mulled tea bag at Christmas 2006.

You have been warned.

Ingredients

Increase quantities as appropiate depending on what you are stuffing, from a Quail to an Albatross

1 Pack of Chestnut Mushrooms (or any type of mushrooms you have available)
Sea Salt
Black Pepper
1 Fistful of Breadcrumbs
2 Fresh Red Chillis
1 Red Onion
50g Butter
1 Orange
Fresh Rosemary
50ml Port

Method

Finely chop the onion and mushrooms and place in a large mixing bowl. Melt the butter and add this along with some salt and pepper. Chop the chillis width ways so they make little chilli circles and add these to the bowl too. Juice the orange and add the juice. Add the breadcrumbs and the Port. Finally, chop up the rosemary and add this, about 1 tablespoons worth in total.

Mix it all up using your hands and place in an oven proof dish that's about 1-2 inches deep. Cover in tinfoil and bake for about 45 minutes. Then remove the tinfoil and bake for a further 15 minutes to crisp up the top.

This makes an excellent accompaniment to roast meats, specifically Goose or Roast Pork where you wouldn't necessarily be eating roast potatoes anyway. It's also not very hot, the chilli just gives it a slight kick, and non-chilli lovers can pick the chilli out very easily.

Ingredients

This recipe is for a basic tomato sauce.

You can use it as it is on Pasta, add it to Lasagne, Shepherds pie, add other flavours to it for MANT's Tasty Moroccan Meatballs, eat it as soup, use it as a base for a chilli con carne or a stew, use it as a tomato spread for pizzas, freeze it for later use, even use it cold as tomato sauce.

The strange thing is that I don't really like tomatoes, but this tastes great. It relies on using fresh tasty ingredients, particularly the tomatoes, to make it so rich though.

For the Sauce

1 Heap of tomatoes - If you can, use ones you've grown yourself or buy organic ones. This recipe assumes you are using 20 tomatoes of the highest quality
2 Medium sized onions
1 Bulb of garlic
1 Tablespoon of sea salt
1 Tablespoon of freshly ground black pepper
5 Whole green or red chillies (I used some I had grown myself)
2 Teaspoons of caster sugar
6 Tablespoons of olive oil (good stuff)
1 Bottle of red wine
Half a chicken stock cube
200ml Water
A Fistful of fresh rosemary and thyme

Method

Roughly chop the onions and add these to a large saucepan with all the olive oil on a very low heat and cover with a lid to begin to sweat. Finely slice the garlic bulb and the chillies and add to the pan. Quarter the tomatoes and add to the pan and stir. Add the salt, sugar, pepper, stock cube mixed with 200ml water, red wine. Tie up the rosemary and garlic in a garni and add this too.

Stir, cover with a lid, and leave on a very low heat for approx 4 hours. Remove the lid and allow to reduce by 30-50%.

Now taste, add any more pepper or salt as required.

Use a handheld blender to blend the mixture into a sauce.

Use immediately, or freeze as desired.

Ingredients

4 KG's of pork
2 Tablespoons of finely ground black pepper
4 Tablespoons of salt
100 Sage leaves
Lots of parsley
Lots of rosemary
Breadcrumbs
Water

Method

Mince up the pork on a coarse setting, or if you can be bothered to mince half of it coarse and half fine, but this is a lot of hassle so i don't bother. Add the salt and pepper to the mixture.

In a blender add all the herbs and a few cups of water and whizz until you have a green milkshake like liquid. Add this to the meat along with some breadcrumbs and then mix thoroughly. You could chop the herbs up, but blending it works just as well and is a lot less effort.

Make into Burger shapes.

Alternatively you could put into sausage casings.

BBQ, of course.

Ingredients

1 loaf of bread to make breadcrumbs
4 big onions
1.5kg-ish of Sausage Meat - make sure its not cheap stuff though as sausage meat is the really sloppy leftover bits of dead pigs, so make sure you get yours in M & S, Waitrose, Selfridges, Harrods, or somewhere suitably posh otherwise you may vomit when you eat it
Sea Salt
Freshly Ground Black Pepper
Fresh Coriander
Fresh Sage
Fresh Basil
Fresh Rosemary
1 whole butter thing
1 pack of plain Cashew Nuts
2 bulbs, that's BULBS, of Garlic
1 Lemon
Brandy
4 eating apples
1 bottle of tasty Cider

Method

Get a very big mixing bowl, a large wok will do it. Place the sausage meat in the wok. Finely chop the onion, garlic, all the herbs and the apples and place in wok. Then add a big pinch of salt, loads of pepper. Melt the butter and pour that in. Smash the living hell out of a packet of cashews and add them too. Glug in some brandy and half a bottle of cider, drinking the rest obviously. Squeeze the lemon juice in. Then mix using you hands, this is really messy but erotic in a weird kinda way…

Then add the breadcrumbs until a good stuffing consistency. You can then either ram it up the Turkeys arse or you can cook it for 90 minutes in a pan in the oven covered in tinfoil.

Ingredients

Little peeled shrimps, usually bought frozen but these are fine particularly if you get them near the coast where they should be quite fresh
Loads of butter
Cayenne Pepper
Crushed cumin seeds
1 Lemon
Fresh bread

Method

Melt the butter in a saucepan and add a pinch of cayenne papper, the cumin seeds and the lemon juice. Then add the shrimps and stir until covered in butter. Then place the shrimps in little ramkins and place in the fridge to set. Leave for an hour or two, then make some melba toast with the fresh bread. Spread the shrimp mixture over the toast and eat.

An ideal starter that is very easy to make, and is very, very tasty.

Ingredients

1 KG of fresh prawns
Fresh tagliatelli
1 Lemon
1 Tin of French lobster bisque
100ml water
Sugar snap peas
Fresh chilli - 1 whole red chilli
Fresh ginger - 1 finger sized bit
Fresh garlic - 2 cloves
Sesame oil

Method

Begin by de-shelling your prawns and leave them to one side.

Finely chop the chilli, ginger and garlic. Heat some sesame oil in a wok until smoking and then add in the chilli, garlic and ginger and stir for thirty seconds. Meanwhile place the tagliatelli into some boiling & salted water. After 30 seconds of stirring round in the wok add the prawns and lower the heat slightly, stir until pink on all sides.

Now add the peas to the wok and continue stirring. Drain off the tagliatelli. Open the lobster bisque and pour this into the wok with the prawns, add half the tin again of water and stir.

Now add the tagliatelli back into the wok and stir it all until it's piping hot.

Serve in bowls with a wedge of lemon.

Ingredients

Tuna steaks
Soy sauce
Balsamic vinegar
Sesame seeds
Garlic
Chilli flakes or fresh chilli
Shallots
Sesame oil
Pine nuts
Olive oil
Mange tout
Broccoli
Baby corn
Red wine

Method

Marinade the tuna steaks in a lot of balsamic vinegar, some soy sauce, sesame seeds, sesame oil, garlic and chilli. Make a lot of marinade as it will form the basis of the sauce for the whole dish. Marinade over night if possible.

Meanwhile roughly chop up the shallots. Chop the broccoli into bite size pieces and steam them along with the baby corn and the mange tout until just done, but still crispy. Fry the shallots in a little olive oil until soft, then add the tuna and all the marinade and cook the tuna until it's still pink on the inside. Add the pine nuts. Then remove the tuna from the pan, whack up the heat and throw in the steamed vegetables and a splash of red wine. Bring to the bubble and serve in a large pile.

Ingredients

This will serve 2 people

1 Whole pheasant
1 Bulb of garlic
5 Slices of streaky bacon
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Fresh thyme
Olive oil
Butter
Soy sauce

Method

Roasting pheasants generally dries them out so the aim of this recipe is to cook it so it's still moist but in a way that isn't too complicated.

Peel the garlic and chop the cloves in half. Lift up the skin of the pheasant and place the garlic on the flesh. Stuff 3 pieces of bacon under the skin. Add some salt and pepper to the butter is a dish and then finely shop the herbs and add these too. Mix up the butter until you have herb butter and add some of this under the skin aswell.

Season the whole bird well and place the two pieces of bacon you have left over the bird. Drizzle a little olive oil and also some soy sauce over the whole pheasant and place in a hot oven at 220 degrees for 10 minutes, then turn the pheasant upside down and turn the oven down to 180 degrees for about another 15-20 minutes.

Test the flesh of the meat and allow to rest for 5 - 10 minutes.

Hack the bird in half and serve with veggies.

Ingredients

I'm assuming you are cooking this for 2 people

4 Whole Quail
8 Cloves of garlic
2 Tablespoons of olive oil
Half a lemon
1 Teaspoon of cayenne pepper
2 Tablespoons of soy sauce
1 Teaspoon of salt
Black pepper

Method

Heat your oven to 220 degrees.

Crush and then roughly chop the garlic and place it in a small bowl. Add the olive oil, soy sauce, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, sea salt and some freshly ground black pepper. Mix everything up.

Now place each quail in the bowl with the marinade, generously cover the quail with the marinade, then place in a roasting tray. Repeat with all the quai. Pour any remaining marinade over them.

Roast in the oven for 5 minutes at 220 degrees. Then turn the oven down to 180 degrees and cool the oven down. Roast for a further 15-20 minutes and serve.

The quail should be slighly spicey and a little sticky. Eat with your fingers as they are impossible to eat with cutlery.

Ingredients

Tofu skin
Glass noodles
Dried lotus flowers
Cauliflower
Carrots
3 Garlic cloves
Mushrooms
1 Potato
White fish (Sea bass, haddock, cod, halibut etc.)
Ginger
Olive oil
Hot water
Salt
Black pepper
Fish stock
Fish sauce
Coriander

Method

Soak the tofu skin and the glass noodles in hot water for a few minutes. Chop up the cauliflower, mushrooms and carrots into little pieces. Roughly chop the garlic and mash the ginger. Peel and chop the potato into little pieces. Chop the fish into small chunks.

Heat some olive oil in a saucepan, add the ginger, garlic and potato and fry for a minute or so. Then fill the pan with water, add the mushrooms, cauliflower, carrots and lotus flower to the pot. Add the fish stock and fish sauce. grind some pepper in and add a pinch of salt. Simmer for 10 minutes until the fish is done and the vegetables are soft. Add a little chopped coriander and serve.

This soup is a water based soup. You could add lemon grass and chilli in order to make it hotter. You could also use chicken instead of fish, or maybe prawns too.

Ingredients

Hundreds of pork chipolata's (Now that Charlie and I have our own sausage making machines, these may well be home made)
2 Red onions
Streaky bacon
Mushrooms (One pack, the more exciting mushrooms the tastier the meal, you can also used dried porcini mushrooms)
4 Sticks of celery
3 Large carrots
1 Tin of chopped tomatoes (You can use more than one tin if you want to)
1 Tin of kidney beans (or any other beans)
Baby corn
Half a bottle of red wine
Thyme
Rosemary
2 Bay leaves
Whole shallots
Sea salt
Pepper
Olive oil
Bread
Spinach

Method

Pre-heat your oven to 220 degrees Celsius. Take a large casserole pot, the bigger the better as you can then make loads of this tasty stuff, and heat some olive oil. Chop up the bacon into little pieces and fry until it's getting crispy. Meanwhile, roughly chop up the celery, carrots, red onions, baby corn and mushrooms. Add these to the pan and gently fry for 5 minutes. Wrap up all the herbs and add these into the pot. Now add half a bottle of red wine and reduce the liquor by half.

Peel some shallots and leaving them whole add these too. Now if you want to you can add a few of the sausages to the dish now. They don’t have to be chipolatas, you can put bigger ones in. I suggest you cut them in half first though, they'll slowly poach and add more flavour to the dish whilst it cooks. Now strain the kidney beans and add those, you can put more than one tin in if you want to, and other beans will taste just as good. Add the tin of tomatoes too and then let the whole thing simmer for 15 minutes.

Now take the bread and break it up into rough breadcrumbs. It doesn't matter if you use brown or white bread, but if it's a bit stale it'll be easier to use. Then season the bread with sea salt and black pepper. Add some thyme leaves to the bread and some olive oil and toss them so they are evenly covered. Take the chipolata sausages (you can use thicker ones, but they won't cook so quickly) and place them all over the top of the stew like mixture you've been making. Add the breadcrumbs and bed the sausages down well. Now place in the oven and allow to cook until the sausages appear brown and crispy, which will probably take about an hour.

To serve place some uncooked spinach in a deep plate and spoon the sausage cassoulet over the top, making sure everyone gets their fair share of the tasty crispy topping. The spinach will then wilt in the heat.

Also...
You can do other variations of this dish, adding other vegetables to the dish like French beans, potatoes, turnips etc. Also you could add more tomatoes to make it more tomatoey. Different types of sausages will also change the dish. You could also add garlic and chilli from the outset to make it spicier and more French, but there are plenty of flavours in there anyway so it isn’t essential.

Ingredients

Whole tuna loin (you'll need about 250g per person and you'll also want to keep the loin whole. As you will be eating this mainly raw, buy good quality tuna)
100ml Soy sauce
Sesame seeds - about 150g, or a large handful
1 Teaspoon chilli powder
Olive oil

For a drizzly sauce:

Rice wine vinegar
Fresh red chillies
Fresh ginger

Method

Mix the soy sauce and the chilli powder together in a bowl. Place the whole loin of tuna in the dish and make sure all the tuna is covered in sauce.

Remove the tuna and roll it in the Sesame seeds.

Heat a pan on medium and add some olive oil. Gently fry the tuna making sure all sides of it are golden brown.

Once cooked remove from the pan and slice it in 1 cm thick slices, serving each person with about one or two slices.

The tuna will be cooked for about 1 cm round the outside and raw in the middle.

Finely chop the chillies and the ginger and mix with the rice wine vinegar. Drizzle this over each individual portion of tuna.

This dish is best served with some stir fried garlicky greens, like pak choi or green beans

Ingredients

200g Butter
100g Caster sugar
50g Semolina
250g Plain flour

Method

Cream the butter and the sugar together in a mixing bowl, this will be easier to do if the butter is left out of the fridge for a bit and if it is warm. Stir in the semolina. Using a fork stir in the flour until it is all mixed up, then use your fingers to draw all the mixture into one piece.

Place in a baking tin and cook at 140 degrees Celcius for 40 minutes, checking on it near the end so it goes light brown. Remove from oven when ready and lightly sprinkle with more caster sugar and mark with a knife to segment it to make it easier to separate later on.

Allow to cool and store in airtight container.

Ingredients

Natural yoghurt - 300ml
Chives
Smoked salmon slices 500g
Smoked salmon trimmings 500g
Fresh salmon 1kg
Butter 50g
1 Lemon
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
20 Stems of asparagus

Method

Line a terrine dish with cling film. Then line it with smoked salmon leaving some overlapping which will form your lid.

Poach the salmon in salted water until cooked. Now blanch the asparagus in the same water until softish

Flake half of the poached salmon and leave the rest whole with the skin off. Add the butter to the warm flaked salmon so it will melt.

Take the smoked salmon trimmings and add these to a blender along with all the yoghurt, some salt and pepper to season and some lemon juice. Blend until you have a tasty smoked salmon mousee. Now add this to the flaked poached salmon and mix, and add in the finely chopped chives at this stage.

Place a layer of the mousse on the bottom of the dish. Now add three straight lines of the asparagus running from one end to the other. Add another thin layer of the mousse, now add one line of the asparagus down the centre and place all of the whole poached salmon down the length of the terrine. Add another single layer of the asparagus and then some more mousse surrounding all of it. Now add three more lines of asparagus and top with the rest of the mousse.

Hopefully you will have enough mousse.

Now wrap the rest of the smoked salmon over the top and chill in the fridge for a few hours.

You can alternate your pattern of the asparagus, or leave it out if you fancy, but i think it makes it look cool, and green.

You can also make this recipe without surrounding the whole thing with smoked salmon. This kind of makes the whole dish lighter.

Serve with melba toast as a starter.

Ingredients

Fresh smoked haddock (Not the manky yellow stuff you get in Sainsbury's but posh expensive stuff from a proper smokery, there's one in Dymchurch in Kent that is very good, you can actually go inside and look at the smokery. It's a shack on the right as you drive towards the weird pub in the centre of the village, just past the RNLI life boat. He sells really good fish, not just smoked but fresh stuff too, so buy as much as you can afford and stick it in your freezer for a rainy day)
200ml Milk
200ml Cream
Chopped up fresh parsley
50g Butter
Freshly ground black Pepper
1 Lemon
1 Tablespoon of cornflour
A saute pan

Method

Place the milk in the warm pan, about an inch deep, add the cream, the butter, the juice from the lemon and lots of black pepper. Bring to the simmer but don't boil. Add some cornflour that's been mixed with water in order to thicken the mixture. When the sauce is slowly bubbling and quite thick then add the haddock into the sauce and cover with a lid. The fish will take about 7/8 minutes to cook, just until it falls apart. Remember the fish has been smoked so doesn't need to be nuked. When the fish looks ready remove it from the pan and place on a hot plate, then add the parsley to the sauce and thicken slightly more. Then pour the sauce over the fish. Then eat it.

I suggest you serve this with minted new potatoes and some green veg, probably something like spinach or broccoli.

This whole recipe rests on the quality of the fish, so make sure it's good stuff or don't bother. You can of course do this recipe with other white fish, but smoked fish is best.

Ingredients

This will make enough for 2 hungry people

1 Large fillet of high quality smoked haddock (I bought mine in Billingsgate market and suggest you do the same)
2 Potatoes
250ml Pot of creme fraiche or cream or some of both
250ml of milk
250 ml of fish stock
Black Pepper
1 Leek
Fresh parsley
1 Lemon
50g Butter

Method

Peel the potatoes and cube them into bits the size of your little finger nail. Boil these in salted water until they are cooked through. Leave to drain. Meanwhile finely chop the leek and steam this over the potatoes whilst cooking. Set aside for the moment.

In a large saucepan place the milk, creme fraiche and/or cream and the fish stock along with some black pepper and juice from half the lemon. Bring to a simmer. De-skin the haddock and then chop up into small pieces the size of postage stamps and add to the pan. Cook for approx 4/5 mins until the fish is cooked. Place the potato and the leek back into the liquid to heat up and add the butter to the liquid.

Finely chop the parsley and stir.

Serve with some tasty fresh bread.

Ingredients

This is enough for about 4/5kg's of chicken or about 20 Chicken Breasts

2 Tablespoon of cumin seeds
2 Tablespoons of coriander seeds
12 Whole dried chillis
1 Tablespoon of lemon juice
1 Pint of natural Yoghurt
A fistful of fresh mint
1 Bulb of garlic
2 Tablespoons of olive oil
1 Tablespoon of black peppercorns
1 Tablespoon of ground ginger
2 Tablespoon of fresh ginger
1 Teaspoon of turmeric
1.5 Tablespoons of paprika
1 Tablespoon of sea salt

Method

Toast the cumin seeds, coriander seeds and the black peppercorns for a few minutes and then grind them up with the dried chillis to form a powder. Add these to a bowl.
Crush the garlic up and finely chop the mint and the fresh ginger and add to the bowl.
Add the lemon juice, olive oil, sea salt, turmeric and paprika to the bowl too. Add the yoghurt and mix it all up until it forms a gloopy paste, add more yoghurt if not gloopy enough.

Score the chicken breasts with a knife and rub the marinade all over it and allow to marinade for around 48 hours if possible.

BBQ and place in a bun.

Ingredients

1 sack of potatoes
Lots of Olive Oil
Paprika
Sea Salt
Pepper
Chilli grinder

Method

Don't peel the potatoes, instead cut them into wedge shapes, not too big otherwise they'll take ages to cook. Place them all in oven trays. Douse in lots of olive oil and liberally sprinkle Sea Salt all over them. Dust with the paprika until every wedge has some on, so that they all look a bit pinky, like freshly cut off fingers. Grind some pepper over the top and use the spice grinder too for extra hotness. Then place in a very hot oven, our oven really only has one setting but around 200 degrees Celcius will do it. (You could pre-heat the oil in the pan first, but be careful as I did this once and Kiwinkey managed to pour hot oil all over himself, so assuming you're not as dumb as Kiwinkey, you should be ok).

Leave the wedges for a while until they are going crispy brown before you try to shimmy them around the pan. If you begin shimmying too early then the half-cooked wedges will mulch down and will look rough. Cook until crispy, eating a few of the tasty burnt bits as you go along, then serve in a big bowl with burgers (see MANTBurger recipe)

Ingredients

For the Sauce

1 Bag of spinach
1 Lemon
1 Nob of butter
2 Tablespoons of crème fraiche or cream if you want to be fat
Water
Sea salt
Black pepper
4 Tablespoons of pine nuts

For the Fish

1 Fillet of fish per person (any fish but trout or salmon works well)
Sea salt
Pepper
Butter
Olive oil

Method

Fish - Heat your grill to super hot. If you have fillets with the skin on then you'll want to grill them skin side up. Melt a little butter, and a very small amount of olive oil and some sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Use a brush and lightly brush the salmon with the mixture on both sides. Place on a baking tray and grill until cooked, probably 2-4 minutes in total. If they are thin fillets they won’t need turning over.

Steam the spinach, about one pack for 2 people, until it's limp. Toast the pine nuts in a dry saucepan until they begin to go brown. Save a few whole pine nuts back for later but place the rest of them in a blender with the spinach. Add a knob of butter, some salt and pepper, a squeeze of lemon juice, the crème fraiche or cream and 2 tablespoons of the water which was underneath the spinach as you steamed it.

Whizz it all together and taste. Add more of anything to make it nicer, or thinner. It should be think enough NOT to run all over your plate though, so quite gloopy.

Place the sauce on the plate and the fish on top. Sprinkle the other pine nuts over it all and serve with other vegetables.

This is a seriously tasty sauce, and it looks really cool as it's so green.

Ingredients

1 Large fresh Sea bass (gutted with or without head)
Water
1 Bulb of Garlic
2 Dried hot chillies
3 Fresh hot chillies
1 Teaspoon of peppercorns
1 Carton of coconut cream
Ginger
Coriander Seeds
Cloves
Sesame seeds
Sesame oil
Sea salt
3 Shallots
Soy sauce
Rice wine
Star anise
Olive oil
A blender
A fish kettle
Crème fraiche (optional)

Method

Take your sea bass and scrape off the scales, clean it thoroughly and enlarge the surface area of the cavity inside the fish by cutting the flesh to make the area bigger. Dry the fish off.

Take your fish kettle and suspend the metal tray on a couple of ramekins and fill with hot water. Place the fish on the metal tray ensuring that the water does not touch the fish. This is very important as you are going to steam the fish, not boil it. (If you don't have a fish kettle, then go and buy one you cheapskate. You must get a copper one though as the stainless steel ones won't last very long, and the copper regulates the heat better.)

Roughly chop the garlic, shallots, ginger and both types of chillies, leaving all the seeds in. Place these in the blender. Get a saucepan and put the peppercorns, coriander seeds, sesame seeds, cloves and star anise in over a moderate heat to bring the flavour out of the spices. Add these into the blender. Then add the coconut cream, sea salt, a glut of rice wine, some soy sauce and a bit of sesame oil into the blender too. Now blend up the mixture until it's as smooth as possible. it should be a dark red colour, if it's too thick then add a bit more coconut cream.

Using the saucepan from before heat some olive oil in the pan, then add the blended mixture. it should sizzle as you do this. Cook the sauce for about 5 minutes on a high heat, stirring regularly. Now pour the mixture all over the sea bass, making sure that you fill the inside up too. Then steam the fish very gently for about 15 minutes.

The mixture will run into the water below the fish, if you want to you can take some of the water and reduce it to produce some more sauce for the dish, although you might not need to do this as the fish will be moist and juicy. Alternatively you could just spoon a bit of the aromatic water over the fish when you serve it. Adding crème fraiche to the water would make it thick and tasty too.

Serve with stir fried vegetables and rice.

Ingredients

4 litres of sparkling water
About 30 lemons
1 Kilo of caster sugar
Cocktail umbrellas
Straws

Method

Squeeze the juice out of all the lemons and place in a huge saucepan. Add the sugar and gently heat until the sugar dissolves. Then place this mixture in the freezer to cool down. Add the sugary/lemony mixture to the cold water, add lots of ice and a straw and a comedy umbrella to each glass, and drink.

Beware though that this will stick to your teeth like nothing else you've ever drunk.

Ingredients

1 Large duck (One duck will probably feed 2 hungry boys, maybe 3 if it's huge but there is never as much meat as you think on a duck, and also it's so damned tasty that you'll end up eating more than you think you can.)
Half a pot of runny, clear honey
Freshly ground black pepper
Sea salt
2 Bulbs of garlic
1 Pot of sweet chilli sauce (The stuff you add to stir fry's etc, not the dipping stuff)
Chilli flakes

Method

Take your duck and score some slits into its skin about 2 cm apart through to the meat. Rub a large pinch of salt into the skin and grind a load of pepper over the bird.

Roughly chop up the garlic and put it inside and around the bird in a roasting tray. Then pour most of the sweet chilli sauce into the cavity in the bird, don't put any on top as it will burn. Then grind some chilli flakes over the whole thing and empty the honey all over, making sure the whole duck is covered with honey.

Place in an over at about 210 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes, then reduce the temperature to about 150 degrees Celsius and cook for about 2.5 hours, basting with all the fat and juices every 15 minutes or so. The duck should cook slowly. When it is ready the duck will be quite black. Rest for about 20 minutes before serving.

Ingredients

25g Dried Chilli Flakes
25g Whole dried chillis
200ml Water
175 g Caster sugar

Method

Bring the sugar and the water to boil in a non-stick saucepan. Meanwhile grind up the whole chillis in a spice grinder until quite fine, leaving the seeds in. Add these ground chillis and the chilli flakes to the saucepan and mix together. Leave on a very low simmer for 45 minutes stirring now and again.

Allow to cool and keep in the fridge.

Ingredients

Enough for 2 hungry people

1 Whole medium chicken
Sweet chilli sauce marinade
Peri-peri or chilli powder
Lemons
Garlic
Salt
Olive Oil
1 Pack of spinach and ricotta tortellini (Sainsbury's are easily the tastiest)
Mange tout
Spring onions
Carrots
White wine

Method

Heat your oven to 220 degrees Celsius. Take the chicken and cut off the string releasing the legs, wash the insides. Lift up the skin on the chicken breasts and using a spoon smear uder the skin and directly onto the breasts with lots of sweet chilli sauce. It's best to use the stuff for stir fry's as opposed to dipping sauce. Then roughly chop the garlic and the lemon and stuff that inside the cavity. On the top of the chicken liberally sprinkle the peri-peri or the chilli powder. Place in a roasting tray greased with olive oil and then sprinkle with salt and place in the oven. After about 20 minutes turn the chicken over so that the breasts are facing down, this will keep them moist when they cook. Once the chicken is nearly done (about 60-70 minutes) turn it back over to brown the top which will go brown very quickly due to the sugar content in the chilli sauce, so be careful. Remove the chicken from the oven and take all the meat off including the tasty skin. Pour some wine in the pan to get the juices off and pour this over the bits of chicken which should be sitting in a bowl.

Meanwhile chop the carrots into little strips and steam them with the mange tout for a few minutes until they are ready. Once they are done boil the tortellini under the vegetables for a minute or two, add the chopped spring onions to the steaming veg at the same time you put the pasta on, as you'll want them still crunchy.
Drain the pasta and place back into the pan, add all the vegetables into the pan and then pour over all the chicken juice you can find and add the bits of chicken. Stir everything together to make sure it's all coated in chicken juice, then serve in large bowls, maybe with a hunk of crusty bread?

Ingredients

2 Chicken breasts per person (I'll assume cooking for 6)
4 Hot chillis
2 Bulbs of garlic
Kikkoman soy sauce
Chilli flakes
Shallots or 3 onions
Ginger
Baby corn
Mange tout or sugar snap peas
Fresh coriander
Coconut cream (2 cartons)
Coconut milk (2 tins)
Cashew nuts
Sesame seed oil
Olive oil

Method

It's best if you can marinade the chicken overnight in garlic, soy sauce, chilli flakes and sesame oil. This will give the actual chicken more taste, but obviously needs a bit more forward planning.

So, chop the chicken into chunnks half the size of your thumb, and marinade as above. Finely chop the shallots or onions. (Shallots are better but much more fiddly to peel.) Chop up the other bulb of garlic and also the chillis and the ginger. Chop up the coriander, and chop the baby corn and also the mange tout and the cashews into small pieces.

Begin by lightly browning the chicken in a wok. Don't brown it very much though, we don't want to over cook the chicken like Charlie always does. Once all the chicken is browned leave it to one side. Place the garlic, chillis and ginger in the wok and fry on a very hot heat, then add the onions/shallots about 1 minute later. Your eyes will be bleeding by now. The onions should soften, but not brown, so stir a lot. When the onions are soft add the chicken back in, and also the baby corn and the peas. Stir for a few minutes before adding all the coconut products. Stir again adding half a pot of soy sauce. Bring to the simmer and add the chopped coriander. Leave to simmer for about 5 minutes, until the chicken is just done, remember not to over cook it like Charlie always does. Then serve with rice.

Ingredients

Lots of large fresh whole prawns
Lots of garlic
Lots of fresh red chillis
Lots of ginger
Fresh coriander
Limes
Sea salt
Coconut milk
Sesame oil

Method

Get some fresh un-cooked prawns, as many as will fit in your wok or saucepan. You can buy these from a fishmonger or buying the frozen packs is just as good as they also taste really nice.

Rinse off the prawns and make slits down either side of the shell with a little knife, this will allow flavour to go into the prawn as you marinade it. Alternatively you could butterfly the prawns which will mean the flesh gets more contact with the marinade and becomes tastier, up to you.

Roughly chop the chillis, garlic and ginger and place in a bowl with the prawns. Add a pinch of salt, some sesame oil and a carton of coconut milk. Squeeze the limes all over and chuck in the bits of lime too. Mix together, cover, and place in the fridge for 24 hours.

Heat a large wok or saucepan to very hot and chuck all the prawns in at once. Stir constantly until all the prawns are pink which will take about 4-6 minutes probably, careful not to overcook the prawns though. Add some chopped fresh coriander before serving.

Serve in a large communal bowl. There will be lots of juice in the bottom, hence the name Prawn Mariniere. Dipping bread or chips in the sauce is very tasty indeed.

Alternatively you could BBQ the prawns, or griddle them, pouring any excess marinade on as you do so.

Ingredients

Turkey (Leftover turkey from your Christmas meal is best so you have lots of juicy brown meat)
2/3 Large white onions
6 Cloves of garlic
5 Carrots
4 Potatoes
Cauliflower
Turkey stock or leftover turkey gravy
White wine
Black pepper
Sea salt
Olive oil
Fresh rosemary
Fresh coriander
Cornflour
Crème fraiche

Optional:
Bacon
French beans
Broccoli
Baby corn
Mange tout
Chillis
Leftover stuffing
Cranberry sauce

Method

Take your turkey carcass and take off all the left over meat and place it in a bowl, eating a few of the juicy bits as you go along. Chop up the garlic and onions and soften them in a large saucepan. Chop the potato, cauliflower and carrots into small pieces and add them in too with some olive oil. Once all the ingredients have softened add a good glug of white wine and then let that infuse into the vegetables a bit. Then add the turkey, the turkey stock (or gravy), a pinch of salt, some black pepper, the crème fraiche and some cornflour to thicken it all up.

Now place on a very low heat for at least an hour to allow the meat to break up into little pieces. When it's nearly ready taste it and season again, add the chopped up herbs and any other vegetables you may want to put in that don't need lots of cooking (like beans, broccoli, mange tout, ready crisped up bits of bacon etc.) Then it should be ready. Serve and eat.

Ingredients

1 Large red snapper (you can buy these from Billingsgate market for about £30 for one about 2-3 feet long)

For the marinade
3 Hot chillis
12 Cloves of garlic
Lots of ginger
750ml of Coconut cream
Lemongrass
Fresh Coriander

Method

Descale the fish, i suggest you use a proper descaler as the scales on a red snapper are large and spikey. Make large slits in the flesh of the fish.

Finely chop all the ingredients for the marinade and combine with the coconut cream to make a thick paste.

Smear the marinade into the slits in the fish and place directly over a medium heat fire for about 60 minutes. The fish is quite thick and meaty and so takes a while to cook.

Ingredients

1 Whole Lamb (About 30-40 kg's will be the average size, should feed about 20 people)
Piles of Garlic
Piles of Rosemary
Baps

Method

* See the Whole Pig cooking recipe to see how to make the hole, fire, and frame for cooking.

Strap the lamb to the grill, stud it with lumps of garlic and rosemary, as much as you can possibly fit in to the beast without it exploding. Then pop it over the fire. Cook for about 90 minutes skin side down, then turn for a further 60-90 minutes till cooked.

Then hack off the flesh, pop it in a bun, and enjoy.

Ingredients

1 Pig (About a 30kg Pig will feed 8 people, well we ate it all in one go, and i know it sounds like a lot of meat per person, but we were so hungry and it was so good we ate it all, so figure on about 4kg of pig weight per person, and invite girls as they eat less so more pig for you)
1 Large hole
3 Standard spades
1 Large garden fork
1 Pickaxe
1 Small Digger (Optional, but loads of fun)
16 Concrete blocks
Assorted large stones
5 rolls of tinfoil (about 100m should do)
8 six-foot stainless steel tubes (from B&Q, not galvanised)
1 Roll of bin bags
5m of thin & strong wire
Pliers
Screwdriver
About 20 bolts
2 Torches
A Torch-holder (Anyone called Alice will do)
Some nice cold bottles of Chablis
1 Big drill
1 Skewer
1 Big saw
1 Packet of cheap salt
10 Bulbs of garlic
Some Paprika
4 Hot chillis
Olive oil
Cinnamon
Lots of ginger
Ground black pepper
Orange Juice
Cooking apples
Baps
Apple tree branches
Bay leaf branches
Rosemary branches
15 bags of lumpwood charcoal (approx 75kg)
Matches
Lighter fluid
Lighter blocks for BBQ's
A Hose

Method

Click Here to see how to do this

Firstly dig a large hole. This will need to be about 30 inches deep, or deeper if you can be arsed, depends on what you're digging into. We dug into clay which nearly killed us. Anyway, make the hole about 4 foot wide and about 5 foot long. This will take a lot longer than you think it will, and is best to do it at night, by torch light, whilst drinking Chablis, giving you the air of a band of unruly but cultured murderers disposing of a naughty accomplices body. Line the hole with tin foil all along the bottom and the sides weighing it down with the assorted stones, these will also keep in the heat from the fire. Around the ends of the hole place the concrete blocks, the pig frame will balance on these so make sure it's sturdy. The pig will need to be about 3 foot from the fire, and possibly higher if the fire gets too hot so make sure you can make the blocks higher if necessary.

Now you have to make the frame. What you are aiming for is a kind of ladder looking thing with extra long poles at each end to balance on the concrete blocks. You need to make two frames, one for either side of the pig as you don't want little piggy falling into the flames of doom. Use the bolts and wire to hold the frame together. Drilling into the poles can be hard, so get a Kiwi to do it.

Marinade. You can marinade the inside of the pig in virtually anything. What Charlie did was nuke all the ingredients above except the apples and the baps and then slap it on the pig. Make sure you make a lot though, probably about 2 litres at least as you'll need a lot to cover the pig.

Pig. Collect the pig from the butchers, it should be about £1 per lb. Get them to cut the trotters off and also the head, or you can have it left on if you fancy exploding skulls and Lord of the Flies behaviour. Get the kind butcher man to split the pig in two along the inside of the spine, leaving the pig butterflied. It's very important that you keep the skin intact though so that the fat stays in the beast whilst it cooks. Take the piggy home in your car, getting him to wave a passers by with his bleeding stumps. Once piggy is home wash him thoroughly inside. Then dry with paper towels. Then heavily salt the skin. Spread the marinade on the inside of the pig. Now attach the pig to one side of the frame, pushing the wire through the pig and securing the pig to the frame, make sure it's very secure as when the pig cooks it goes limp. Then turn the pig over and attach the other side of the frame. Piggy should now be very stable.

Fire. Place about 3 bags of the charcoal in the ends of the pit and light it, leaving about an hour to get hot. Don't put charcoal in the middle of the pit under the pig as it'll get too hot. The fire should be hot enough to hold your hand above it for about 6 seconds before burning your skin. You'll need to add a bag of charcoal roughly every 30 minutes. It's very important that the fire stay's hot, so add charcoal when the fire is hot in order to maintain heat. Place the frame and pig skin side down over the fire.

You will now need to get yourself a drink and watch the pig cook. Very quickly little drops of fat will come out the pig, have a hose nearby in case the fire flares up or gets too hot, or you get drunk and find yourself on fire. The skin will slowly darken and the marinade will dry out. After about 3 hours turn the pig over, by this point there should be juices running upwards through the pig that you can see. At this point take your saw and chop down bits of apple tree, rosemary bush and bay tree and place the wet branches under the fire in order to smoke the pig. Leave the pig meat side down for about an hour then turn it over again and get the skin crispy for the final hour. To test the pig stick a skewer though the thickest part and it should go through very easily with juices running clear.

Take the pig off the fire and place on a table covered in bin liners and then tin foil. Take the pig off the frame and take a photo of your efforts. At this point the temptation to nibble little bits of crackling will be too much to bear. But don't worry, you've worked hard and deserve it, so gorge yourself.

Make a vat of apple sauce by slowly cooking down apples in a little water.

Cut open some baps.

Hack the pig up in a frenzied fashion, all the while eating crackling. Place pork in a bap, smother in apple sauce and eat.

Try to eat all the pork whilst hot, as cold pork isn't so tasty as hot pork.

Ingredients

For the fish:

1 Large salmon (However you can use any large whole fish that has large flaky flesh, such as snapper or cod)

For the marinade:

8 Hot bird eye chillies OR Dried chillies
500ml of coconut cream
Large bunch or Coriander
Fresh Ginger
6 Garlic Cloves
Sea salt

Method

Take the salmon and make sure it's clean and take off all the scales using the back of a knife or a fish de-scaler which if you don't own is bloody useful, so get one. Leave the head and tail of the fish on as it looks better and will help it stay together a bit better. Near the tail end of the fish make an incision inside the cavity into the flesh where you'll be poking more marinade. Score large cuts in the salmon flesh so that the marinade will permeate the fish.

Marinade: Finely chop the garlic, ginger, coriander and chillies and add to the coconut cream. Add a pinch of salt. Mix fully. Liberally spread the marinade all over the fish into the cuts you have made, and also inside the fish. It’s a good idea to do this the day before to let the marinade flavour the fish.

To cook: Place in a BBQ fish cage and BBQ on a moderate heat for about 30 minutes. Turn occasionally. It's important to cook the fish slowly though.

Ingredients

For the fish:

1 Large salmon (However you can use any large whole fish that has large flaky flesh, such as snapper or cod)

For the marinade:

1 Jar of crunchy peanut butter
White wine vinegar - half a cup
8 Large dried chillies
1 Teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 Teaspoon of hot paprika
3 Large pinches of sea salt
1 Tablespoon ground black pepper
Juice of 1 lime
White wine
3 Tablespoons of olive oil
1 Tablespoon of cumin seeds
Fresh coriander
8 Cloves of garlic

Method

Take the salmon and make sure it's clean and take off all the scales using the back of a knife or a fish de-scaler which if you don't own is bloody useful, so get one. Leave the head and tail of the fish on as it looks better and will help it stay together a bit better. Near the tail end of the fish make an incision inside the cavity into the flesh where you'll be poking more marinade. Score large cuts in the salmon flesh so that the marinade will permeate the fish.

Marinade: empty the jar of peanut butter into a bowl and add the cayenne pepper, paprika, salt, pepper, lime juice, olive oil and some whole cumin seeds. Meanwhile grind up the dried chillies and the rest of the cumin seeds until they are finely ground, and add these too. Add the white wine vinegar and the peeled garlic to a blender, along with a heap of coriander, and blend until you get a nice green sludge. Add this to the bowl too. Mix up all the ingredients really well, adding white wine in order to thin it out a bit as it will be pretty thick because of the peanut butter.

Now spread the marinade all over the inside and outside of the salmon making sure that you rub lots of it into the flesh of the fish into the cuts you made earlier. Ideally leave overnight wrapped up in the fridge.

To cook: Place in a BBQ fish cage and BBQ on a moderate heat for about 30 minutes. Turn occasionally. It's important to cook the fish slowly though.

This marinade also works very well on tuna steaks.

Ingredients

For the fish:

1 Large salmon (However you can use any large whole fish that has large flaky flesh, such as snapper or cod. I bought my salmon from Billingsaget market which i highly recommend as it's very fresh, a great colour of salmon and a lot cheaper than elsewhere))

For the marinade:
1 Pack of salted butter
Lots of fresh dill
Sea salt
Coarse ground black pepper
5 Lemons

Method

Take the salmon and make sure it's clean and take off all the scales using the back of a knife or a fish de-scaler which if you don't own is bloody useful, so get one. Leave the head and tail of the fish on as it looks better and will help it stay together a bit better. Near the tail end of the fish make an incision inside the cavity into the flesh where you'll be poking more marinade. Score large cuts in the salmon flesh so that the marinade will permeate the fish.

Marinade - mix up the butter, dill, salt and pepper in a bowl. Squeeze 3 of the lemons into the mixture, retaining the squeezed lemons for later. Smear the buttery mixture deep into the cuts you made in the salmon, pouring any excess lemon juice into them. Seal these buttery slits with cut up pieces of lemon. Stuff the inside of the salmon with bits of lemon too and use a skewer to seal up the inside.

Cook on moderate heat coals for about 40 minutes until the inside is still a bit translucent.

Ingredients

1 Large whole seabass (I used one which was about 4/5 kg's and it fed loads of people)
1 Large bunch of fresh coriander
1 Tablespoon of sea salt
6 Stems of lemon grass
2 Large lumps of ginger
8 Whole red chillis
2 Limes
2 Lemons
Lemon Thyme
1 Glass of white wine

Method

Gut your fish and then de-scale it.

Score lines, about 1 cm deep, in the flesh with a sharp knife every inch or so along both sides of the fish.

Take around 3/4 metres of tinfoil and double up a piece about 4 or 5 times to creat a thick piece of tinfoil for the base on which you are going to place the fish. Make sure that this is thick as you don't want it to split at all as you are cooking the fish. You also need to ensure that you leave a length or two at one end to form the top bit of your steaming parcel . Ify u are going to cook this in the oven then it's a good idea to place it on a baking tray and then assemble the fish because if you have a large fish it can be difficult to manoeuveur once it's parcelled up. You could also cook it in a fire-pit as I did, or on a BBQ, or in any other hot areas.

Roughly chop the coriander and then place in a bowl. Add the salt. Roughly chop the ginger and chillis and add these too. Halve the lemons and limes and extract the juice to the bowl. add the lemon thyme too. Mix it all up a bit.

Now place your fish onto your pile of tinfoil and using your hands smear some of the mixture into all the lines your scored in the fish and then turn it over. Do the same on this side. Fill the centre with any extra marinade left over. Place the halves of limes and lemons next to the fish.

Now begin to seal up your seabass with the tinfoil. Make sure the sides are really securely sealed, you don't want it leaking when it's cooking. Just before you seal the top add the white wine to the package. This will keep it moist as it cooks.

Now place in a hot oven at 200 degrees celcius for approx 20-40 minutes, depending entirely on the size of your fish.

Ingredients

1 Large Mars bar per person
2 Tablespoons of milk per person
2 Tablespoons of double cream per person

Method

Get a non-stick saucepan and put set it on the lowest heat possible.

Add the milk and cream and stir.

Chop up the Mars bars and add these to the saucepan.

Stir now and again until fully melted which will take about 20 minutes.

Pour over anything and eat.

Ingredients

1 Leg of lamb
5 Tablespoons of cumin seeds
5 Tablespoons of coriander seed
2 Tablespoons of peppercorns (Green or Red ones look good)
1 Tablespoon of sea salt
Olive oil

Method

If you are buying your lamb from the butcher then get them to bone it for you. If you’ve bought a cheap one from a supermarket then you’ll have to bone it yourself. This is easy to do. Get a small, thin bladed and very sharp knife, and cut around the bone getting the meat off. Once you have the slab of meat then cut it so it’s roughly one inch thick the whole way along, but don’t worry if there are some thicker or thin bits.

Score the meat about 5mm deep all over, this will get more of the marinade in.

Dry fry the cumin seeds, coriander seeds and peppercorn. Roughly crush these in a pestle and mortar and add the salt too.

Place the lamb on a piece of cling film and smear some olive oil all over it. Now rub the dry spice mixture into the meat making sure you cover the whole of the meat and rub it in deeply. Do this both sides.

Now wrap the lamb up tightly in the cling and leave to marinade for between 24 and 72 hours.

To cook, heat a BBQ to moderate heat and cook for around 20 minutes. Turn occasionally. It’s important you don’t overcook it so keep an eye out.

Ingredients

This will make enough for 2 hungry people

1 Large fillet of high quality smoked haddock (I bought mine in Billingsgate market and suggest you do the same)
2 Potatoes
200ml Pot of crème fraiche or cream or some of both
200ml Milk
200 ml Fish stock
200 ml White wine
Black Pepper
Fresh parsley
I Large white onion
4 Cloves of smoked garlic
50g Butter
Olive oil

Method

This recipe is very similar to MANT’s Tasty Smoked Haddock Chowder, however it tastes very different and is made in a fairly different way too.

Peel the potatoes and cube them into bits the size of your little finger nail. Boil these in salted water until they are cooked through. Leave to drain.

Finely chop the garlic and the onion and sweat for 10 minutes in a little butter and olive oil in a pan on a low heat until soft. Do not brown. Add the milk, crème fraiche and/or cream, the fish stock and the wine along with some black pepper. De-skin the haddock and then chop up into small pieces the size of postage stamps and add to the pan. Bring to a slow simmer. Cook for approx 5-7 mins until the fish is cooked. Place the potato back into the liquid to heat it up.

Sprinkle with the chopped parsley and serve with some tasty fresh bread.

Ingredients

I’ll assume you’re making this for 4 people, so 8 thighs

8 Chicken thighs - 2 per person is a good amount, but do more if you are feeding hungry people
2 Bags of spinach
4 Medium sized Onions
1 Bulb of garlic
1 Hand sized piece of ginger
4 Red chillies
Chilli powder
Sea salt
1 Teaspoon of Turmeric
1 Tablespoon of Masala / Curry powder
2 Teaspoons of ground coriander
1 Teaspoon of ground cumin
Olive Oil
200ml Single Cream

Method

Bone your chicken thighs yourself if you haven’t been able to buy boned ones from a shop or a butchers. Place a little bit of olive oil in a wok and brown off the whole chicken thighs until lightly brown on both sides. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Meanwhile roughly chop the onions and set aside. Peel the garlic and ginger and place in a magimix with 2 of the chillies and blend to a paste type consistency. Roughly chop the other chillies into circles and set aside.

Now fry off the onions and the garlic / ginger / chilli mix in the fat from the chicken on a medium heat for 5 mins to soften. Do not brown. Add the turmeric, curry powder, ground coriander, salt and ground cumin and stir for a few minutes.

Meanwhile, in a separate pan, place the spinach on a medium heat with a dash of water and wilt it. Place in the magimix with the cream and blend until liquid.

Chop the chicken into large chunks, the middle will still be a bit raw. In the wok of onions add the chicken and stir everything in for a few minutes. Add the spinach, the chopped chillies, and stir. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes or until the chicken is cooked.

Serve with rice & naan.

Ingredients

I’m assuming you’ve got a Tagine pot as big as mine which’ll feed about 10 people

Chicken thighs and legs (about 20)
6 Large onions
4 Peppers
6 Fresh chillies
Fresh coriander
2 Tablespoons of paprika
1 Large tin of green olives
3 Tablespoons of cumin seeds
3 Tablespoons of coriander seeds
2 Lemons
1 Tablespoon of sea salt
1 Chicken stock cube

Method

Get a big bowl that will take all of your chicken and place the chicken into it. Squeeze the lemons and then roughly chop the lemons up and add the skins to the bowl too. Chop up the olives and add these. Toast the cumin seeds and coriander seeds and roughly crush them in a pestle and mortar. Add these to the bowl of chicken. Add the paprika and the salt. Mix all the chicken together and ideally leave to marinade for 24 hours or more.

When you are ready to cook your tagine chop up the onions and peppers into 50p sized chunks and place a layer in the bottom of the tagine dish. Add the chicken over the top of the onions and then mix everything together. Pour over about a pint of chicken stock and sprinkle some more paprika over the whole thing. Then add the rest of the onions and peppers over the top of the chicken.

Place your tagine dish on the fire or gas and slowly heat.

Make sure that the juice from the tagine dish does not overflow otherwise there will be no seal on the dish and it won’t steam properly.

Allow to cook for about 2 hours, stirring now and again to make sure everything is juicy. If it looks like it might be drying up at the bottom then add some more chicken stock or water to keep it moist.

Sprinkle with the chopped fresh coriander before serving with cous-cous.

Ingredients

Bread – It is best to use a whole loaf of slightly stale bread so it doesn’t instantly absorb all the oil
Olive oil – If you use garlic or chilli infused olive oil then this is good as it’ll flavour the croutons even more
Fresh thyme
Sea salt
Black pepper
Kitchen roll

Method

In terms of quantities it’s hard to say because it depends how much you are making and what flavours you want.

Take your bread and using your hands tear it into pieces the size of acorns. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper and some thyme leaves.

In a frying pan heat some more olive oil and once hot add the bread. Constantly shake the croutons around whilst they are browning, add more oil as and when necessary. You are wanting the croutons to be golden brown, not to go black. They will blacken if there is no oil in the pan. Once they are all browned off place them on a dish lined with kitchen roll, this will take out some of the grease. Sprinkle more salt, pepper and thyme over them.

Serve with soups or in salads.

Ingredients

1 Large tin of Flageolet Beans (about 1kg)
1 Large bulb of garlic
6 Shallots
50g Butter
200ml Chicken stock
200ml White wine
Olive oil
Sea salt
Black pepper

Method

Roughly chop the garlic and the shallots. Sweat these off in the butter and a little olive oil for 5 minutes. Once they have softened add the beans, chicken stock, white wine, salt and the pepper to the saucepan.

Leave to simmer for 10 minutes to burn off the alcohol.

Serve with anything but particularly good with lamb. Also if you make this quite liquidy it’s good to spread over the whole base of a plate and then serve things on top of it as it makes a dish look really appetising.

Ingredients

I had a lot of ingredients and so I made a lot of Chutney, but you can scale down the quantities to make less.

6 Enormous marrows (about 12-15 inches long each, probably 3 Kg’s in total approx)
6 Large onions
1.5 Kg’s Cooking apples.
1 Kg Raisins
1 Litre pickling vinegar
1 Kg Castor sugar
2 Tablespoons of ground cinnamon
500g Stem ginger
3 Tablespoons of sea salt
Cold water

Method

Peel the marrows and take out the pips. Chop them into small pieces the size of a peanut M&M and place in a massive cauldron on a very low heat. Add a little cold water and begin heating.

Peel & chop the apples and the onions to the same size as the marrow (peanut M&M size). Add this to the saucepan too and stir vigorously. Add the sugar, salt and cinnamon to the pan.

In a blender pour the vinegar and add the stem ginger. Blend this up until the stem ginger is all liquidy. Add this to the pan too. Add the raisins to the pan and stir completely.

Leave to simmer for 90 minutes to 2 hours on a very low heat until it’s all mushy.

Place in jars and seal.

Give to people as cheapo Christmas presents.

Ingredients

To make a big pile of little lamb burgers:

2 Kg’s of minced lamb (in an ideal world you’ll have a dead lamb freshly killed off your own farm which you’ll then strip of meat and mince, but if not get some in Sainsbury’s)
1 Handful of fresh coriander
1 Handful of fresh mint
1.5 Tablespoons of sea salt
1 Teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper
50g of Butter
300ml of beer
3 Red onions
2 Bulbs of garlic
2 Tablespoons of olive oil
1 Tablespoon of coriander seeds
1 Tablespoon of cumin seeds
1 Tablespoon of smokey paprika

Method

Take your lamb mince and place it in a large mixing bowl. Finely chop the garlic and the red onions and sweat these off for about 7 minutes over a moderate heat with all the butter and the olive oil.

Meanwhile finely chop the mint and the coriander and add to the bowl. Add the salt, pepper and paprika. Toast off the coriander seeds and the cumin seeds in a saucepan and then grind them. Now add these to the onions and stir them in. Now add the beer to the saucepan of onions to cool them down a bit.

Add the onion mixture to the bowl with the mince in and mix thoroughly with your hands.

Make small burgers. I reckon the best size is about the size of a ping-pong ball and then squash it down a bit. Make these and place on a tray and then put them in the fridge for at least 3 hours but ideally overnight. This will firm up the burgers and allow the flavours to permeate the meat too.

BBQ for a short time until ready and tasty. Serve in a mini bun.

N.B - if you want these even tastier add some chillis and more spices.

Ingredients

This will make enough for 2 hungry people

1 Large fillet of high quality smoked haddock (I bought mine in Billingsgate market and suggest you do the same)
2 Potatoes
250ml Pot of crème fraiche or cream or some of both
250ml of milk
250 ml of fish stock
Black Pepper
1 Leek
Fresh parsley
1 Lemon
50g Butter

Method

This recipe is very similar to MANT’s Tasty Smoked Haddock Chowder, however it tastes very different as a liquid soup as the texture is entirely different.

Peel the potatoes and cube them into bits the size of your little finger nail. Boil these in salted water until they are cooked through. Leave to drain. Meanwhile finely chop the leek and steam this over the potatoes whilst cooking. Set aside for the moment.

In a large saucepan place the milk, crème fraiche and/or cream and the fish stock along with some black pepper and juice from half the lemon. Bring to a simmer. De-skin the haddock and then chop up into small pieces the size of postage stamps and add to the pan. Cook for approx 10 mins until the fish is really cooked. Place the potato and the leek back into the liquid to heat up and add the butter to the liquid.

Now place all of the hot mixture into a blender and blend for about 3-5 minutes. You have to blend for this long because the fish is hard to break down (That’s why you cooked it for so long too).

Once blended place back into the saucepan, re-heat and then serve with finely chopped parsley over the top.

Serve with some tasty fresh bread

Ingredients

Oil and ghee, if possible
4 Green Chillies, chopped
Ginger, chopped
Garlic, chopped
Onion (half, chopped)
Tomato (chopped)
Yellow lentils (masoor dhal), soaked in twice dry volume of water, retain water
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon turmeric

Method

Heat oil and ghee until hot, add chillies, ginger and garlic, fry until aromatic, add onions, and add salt and turmeric, then reduce heat, when onions are soft, add the chopped tomato. Cook until sloppy, then add lentils. Cook slowly for ten minutes and serve. Badda bing.

Ingredients

Lots finely sliced onions
Some garlic cloves chopped finely
Vegetables sliced (courgettes and mushrooms recommended)
Creme fraiche
Pesto
Meat - chicken best, bacon good
Dash of white wine, rest for Chef
Salt, pepper
Pasta

Method

Fry onions on a low heat until soft.
Add chicken (or bacon) and cook till just done.
Add wine, vegetables, garlic, seasoning and cook till veggies soft.
Cook the pasta.
Mix as much pesto as desired with the creme fraiche. When pasta nearly done add creme/pesto mix to the meat and veg. If needed only heat slightly as don't want to cook the creme.
Serve on plate/bowl or simply shovel in to your gaping face - its that easy.
To turn in to Carbonara with a twist (twist being the veggies) use bacon and when pasta has cooked stir in a couple of whisked eggs. Pasta should be hot enough to cook the eggs but use gently heat if required.

Ingredients

Potatoes
Red peppers
French beans
Onions
Ground cumin
Ground coriander
Paprika
Salt
Butter
Olive oil

Method

This recipe is a variation of Sag Aloo, that famous tasty potato and spinach based Indian dish. I had potatoes but no spinach, so came up with this, but you could probably substitute other vegetables to make other "Saggy Graham" variations.

Peel and chop the potatoes to bits the size of half of your thumb. Boil until soft, but not until they begin to fall apart. Drain them off then place them back in the saucepan with a load of butter and put the lid back on, leave for a few minutes to melt the butter then shake around to ensure all the potatoes are coated. Add a dash of oil to stop them from burning, but only a small amount as you don't want oily Saggy Graham.

Meanwhile roughly chop up the onions, peppers and cut the French beans in half. Place all this back in the same pan with the potatoes, add some salt, a teaspoon of the cumin, coriander and paprika, and some more butter. Heat on a moderate heat with the lid on. This is important as you don't want the potatoes to crisp up very much at all, and the vegetables need to steam in their own juices to cook.

Cook for about 10 minutes shaking occasionally, try not to mix too vigorously as the potatoes may start to fall apart. Add more butter if it's looking dry.

When they are nearly ready taste and add more spices if necessary. Turn up the heat a bit and lightly brown off the potatoes.

Serve with curry

Ingredients

Per muffin:
1 Cheese Muffin
Butter
2 slices Tesco value processed cheese
2 rashers of bacon (grilled)
1 egg (fried, in butter)

Method

This recipe was taught to me by one of my old flatmates who once worked at McDonald's and is now a dentist. So presumably recommended by the GDC.

Lightly toast the cheese muffin. Put a dollop of butter on each half when cooked and let it melt through. Once it's melted pile the remaining ingredients onto the lower half of the muffin in the following order: one slice processed cheese, one rasher bacon, the egg, one rasher bacon, one slice processed cheese, top half of buttered cheese muffin.

To eat make sure you're sitting down, that you have a jug of water and a respirator handy and that you have something you can use to mop up the dripping fat/butter from your lap. A hooker is good for this.

I would suggest cooking just two egg muffins per person (the third tends to bring on breathing difficulties) unless: (i) that person has a history of heart disease in the family; (ii) they're a girl; (iii) they haven't spent years building up a resistance to eating fat. If any of these are the case that person should be restricted to just watching you eat yours.

Ingredients

6 cans lager (strength depending on users - I like to adjust according to head size, so Tenants super for 6 on the Krunzfeld-Gaarder scale, Calsberg for an 8 and so on) some do it according to title or biomass, its your choice
6 cans cider (as above but obviously etiquette would demand the use of an inverted K-G, excepting the weeks surrounding Pentecost when a Super Strongbow can be combined with a Tennants Super)
1 bottle of Vodka (the rules should be obvious by now - except gin should be used on Ascension Sunday)
1 bottle of Ribena

Method

Empty a bin of its rubbish and decant all fluid simultaneously. Don't worry too much about cleaning as the alcohol should sterilize. If done correctly a thick foam should form on the top. Scrape off with hands and, throw some cocktail sticks in and freeze for a sophisticated snack.

Ingredients

A bag of onions (you won’t need all the bag, but buy a whole one as it’s nice to have some onions around the house for emergencies such as not having enough onions)
A bag of potatoes (get bigger potatoes as you’ll have to peel them and it’s ball-achingly boring to peel small potatoes)
At least 1 pint Stock (Rindessen (Austrian powdered meat stock) is best, next best is some sort of bouillon, but normal cubes will do. Most soups will be vegetarian so unless you’ve got homemade meat stock or rindessen then err towards veg stock)
1 pint milk
Cream (optional)
Oil
Lots of salt and pepper

Method

Soup base method:

Chop up the onions relatively small and cube the peeled potatoes, again pretty small. Put the onions and potatoes into a big casserole dish and cook in a bit of oil as gently as possible on the hob for ages or until you get bored of waiting (stirring it now and again so it doesn't stick to the bottom). Once softened add the stock and milk and seasoning. Cook for at least an hour, either gently on the hob or in a low heat oven, giving it an occasional stir (Try not to let it boil). If you want to add cream, leave it until the end of the cooking time. Put into a magimix and churn it all up to get rid of the lumps, then heat it on the hob for another 15 minutes or so, or eat it straight away if you’re hungry.

To give it more flavour:

Add pretty much anything to the above base to give it a particular flavour. Bulky ingredients like carrot or sweet potato can be added at the start to soften with the potato and onion. Spices (like cumin) and dried herbs (e.g. coriander) can also be added then to infuse into the potato. I’d tend to leave fresh herbs to add right at the end. Likewise more delicate ingredients like spinach or watercress should really only be added after the bulk of the cooking has been completed. If you are adding meat, like bacon, cut it up fairly small and sear it quickly before adding it to the soup.

The soup usually tastes better warmed up again the next day, so to be sure to make far more than you can possibly eat at the first sitting. As it has milk in it, however, it won’t keep more than a couple of days. Soup’s pretty hard to go wrong with so the exact proportions of ingredients can be decided by estimation; depending on how liquidy or lumpy and how creamy or watery you prefer your soup (I tend to put only 1 pint of milk in a big pan of soup, then make up with stock any extra liquid needed to cover all the solid ingredients)

Ingredients

This gluttonous recipe is named after my gluttonous cooking partner, MANT. Inspired by the even-richer Steak Rossini, its secret lies in the fact that everyone thinks tuna wouldn't stand up to fillet steak on the same plate, but as usual, everyone else is wrong, and I am right.

Small piece beef fillet, the rounder and softer, the better
A paper-thin slice of tuna steak (this is tricky, you'll need an unbelievably sharp knife)
Ginger, chopped
Soy
Brown sugar
Shaosing rice wine

Method

Press, but don't bash, the steak so it's a bit flatter. In two separate bowls, marinade the steak and the tuna in the rest of the ingredients. The tuna will not need cooking. The steak will need to be shown a griddle or barbecue for about 10 seconds before being deposited on a plate and left to cool. Once cool, put the tuna slice on and serve. Badda bing, incredibly expensive, bloody, gluttonous heaven.