Emergency Chicken

Pic: Catherine Grassin Hart

If you follow me on social media you’ll know that I’m finally getting my long-promised cookery school off the ground, hurrah! Planning the courses is enormously satisfying. So is testing them on my long-suffering friends and guinea pigs (see left: I’m not telling you what we were laughing about).

Writing legal requirements like terms and conditions and privacy and cookies policies is less exhilarating. They’re now in the hands of a solicitor for what he rather hilariously and all too aptly calls a sanity check.

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Freekeh with Hot-smoked Salmon

Less a recipe, more a fridge and cupboard raid, but a godsend when you want a summery supper with minimum effort. If it’s still raining where you are, put a woolly on and pretend you’re at the British seaside. A flask of stewed tea helps the illusion but a glass of wine would probably be preferable. Continue reading

Pomegranate Poussins

There’s something pathetically froggy about spatchcocked poussins but my word, they taste good and they cook a lot faster, staying deliciously juicy. They make a fabulous supper and a very good dinner party dish. Minimum effort, maximum flavour. Continue reading

Lebanese Seven Spice Chicken

Sometimes you come home, look in the fridge and think ‘I just can’t be bothered, let’s get a takeaway’. Or in my case, with no restaurants willing to deliver to the Suffolk outback, settle for beans on toast. Reader, this could be our salvation. Continue reading

Mushroom Goulash

I keep reading articles exhorting me to move meat to the status of a relish and to make vegetables the star of my meals. That’s not a bad solution for people who don’t want to give up meat altogether but are cognisant of the arguments against its production and consumption. While it’s unlikely I’ll ever become a vegetarian (bacon!), let alone a vegan (cheese!), I do try to keep a healthy balance. Continue reading

Spatchcocked Poussin with Harissa

Spatchcocking poultry is one of those things that many cooks avoid because they think it’s difficult, but it’s actually very easy. All you’re doing is removing the backbone so the bird can be flattened out for speedy roasting. It means you can have supper on the table remarkably quickly.

I’ve used poussins here, baby chickens which will cook in about three-quarters of an hour Continue reading

Minute Steaks with Chimichurri

Image of minute steaks with chimichurri

I was once whizzing down from the top of a mountain in Argentina in a rather antiquated cable car when its operator fixed with me an evil grin and said: “Remember the Malvinas!” Fortunately for me he was only joking and in spite of any lingering feelings (on either side) about the Falklands War I met with nothing but warmth and friendship as I travelled around the country.

For a month I lived almost entirely on steak. Continue reading