Ingredients

225g long grain rice
500g quick-frying beef steaks, cut into thin strips
1 tsp mixed peppercorns, crushed
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely sliced
150g closed cup mushrooms, wiped and halved
284ml carton soured cream
2 tsp paprika

The Method:

1. Cook the rice according to packet instructions. Meanwhile, put the beef strips into a shallow dish, add the crushed peppercorns and toss to coat. Set aside.
2. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat and cook the sliced onion for 3-4 minutes or until soft but not coloured.
3. Add the mushrooms and cook for a further 5 minutes. Increase the heat, add the beef strips and fry for 4-5 minutes or until the juices have evaporated and the meat is brown. Add 3 tablespoons water and bubble to deglaze the pan.
4. Stir in most of the soured cream and half the paprika, and gently heat until warmed through. Check the seasoning.
5. Spoon the beef stroganoff onto plates. Top with the remaining soured cream. Season with the remaining paprika and black pepper and serve with the rice.

• 1 large onion or 2 banana shallots, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 red chilli deseeded or keep half with seeds if you like it spicy
• 2 sprigs of thyme, leaves picked and roughly chopped
• Olive oil, for frying
• 500g good quality beef mince
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp sweet paprika
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 3 fresh tomatoes or 1 beef tomato, roughly chopped
• 400g chopped tomatoes
• 100-200ml chicken or beef stock
• 3 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 bay leaf
• 400g kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• Salt and pepper
• Handful of chives, chopped
• 200ml soured cream
• Boiled rice, to serve

The Method:

1. Sweat the onion, garlic, chilli and thyme in 2 tablespoons oil in a large saucepan. At the same time, brown the mince in a separate pan over moderate heat in a little oil.
2. Add the dried spices to the onion mixture and cook until they release their aroma. Then stir in the beef and mix well. Add the fresh and tinned tomatoes and leave to cook down a little for about 5 minutes.
3. Pour in the chicken or beef stock and stir in tomato puree to taste. Drop the cinnamon and bay leaf in then bring to the boil and leave to simmer.
4. Once the sauce is beginning to thicken add the kidney beans and leave to cook for another 5-10 minutes to allow the beans to soak up the flavours. Check for seasoning.
5. Mix the chives and soured cream together. To serve, spoon the chilli into the centre of a mound of rice, with the soured cream and chives in a separate bowl on the side.

A great quick Chilli recipe – if you have time, use the Chilli Deluxe recipe!

The Ingredients:

• 1 tin of kidney beans, drained
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes and if you can throw in some whole tomatoes that have ben roughly chopped it will improve the texture.
• 500g lean minced beef
• Vegetable oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• ½-1 tsp hot chilli powder or cayenne pepper
• 1 rounded tbsp paprika
• 1 tbsp cumin seeds
• 1 tbsp dark muscovado sugar
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 300ml/1 pint beef or chicken stock
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• soured cream or crème fraîche, to serve
• roughly chopped fresh coriander, to garnish

The Method:

This doesn’t really need instructions – just chuck in the onion & garlic, brown the mince and bung everything else in, and spice to taste. Job done

The Secret: for perfect batter, and crisp chips is to remove as much water as possible – this stops the food becoming soggy.

Preparation

You will need a large pan, using vegetable oil (I usually use sunflower oil) but don’t use olive oil as it can do wierd things and become unhealthy when exposed to the very high temperatures we will be cooking with.

Always use Maris Piper potatoes and rinse them in cold running water once cut.

The Chips

Boil the chips vigorously with quite alot of salt in the water – do this until the surface of the chips starts to become loose – this will allow the oil to get in and cook the chip properly and form a nice thick crispy exterior.

With the chips, you can remove the water by drying the chips out in the fridge for 30 minutes before cooking – the moving air in the fridge helps remove the water, so don’t cover them up.

Next is the two step frying process – this is the best way to get the centre of the chip cooked, without burning the outside of the chip. It also helps remove the water in the first step, so that their is less steam, which prevents the chips from becoming wet and soggy.

Heat the oil to about 200-220 celcius (dam hot – so be careful, and don’t leave the kitchen whilst your doing it!) Get the chips in the pan, preferably using a metal sieve to keep them under control. Keep them in for about 5 minutes until the chips just start to go golden, then remove, drain and if you are really keen on getting your chips crispy, put them back in the fridge for half an hour to remove the rest of the moisture.

Once the oil is back up to temperature (and your chips are ready) get the chips in the pan for a further 5 minutes until golden and crunchy!

The Fish

Lots of fish is good for frying, so take your pic Cod, Turbot etc. The secret is the batter and this recipe takes inspiration from Tempura style batter.

For the perfect batter, you want only a little water for the same reasons as making crisp chips. So, use 200g plain flour and 200g white rice flour  together with 300ml of lager, and 300ml vodka. The beer induces bubbles for extra crunch and the vodka will evaporate quickly to keep things crisp.

Make the batter for when you need it, otherwise the beer will go flat and you will have no benefit from the bubbles. Get everything whipped up, dip in the fish, then get the fish in the hot oil (220C and just enough oil to cover the fish). Drizzling batter little-by-little on top of the fish as the batter is getting crisp and firm will give you loads of crunchy flaky batter – tempura style!

After 1-2 minutes as the fish is getting golden, turn it over and drizzle batter on the other side for about a minute and that’s all it should take!

If you really want to go crazy, put the batter in a soda syphon first and charge with CO2 and put in the fridge for 30minutes and then empty into a bowl for dipping the fish in – this will induce loads of small bubbles that will give your batter loads of crunch!!

Mushy Peas

500g of peas, keep 1/5th aside. Defrost then boil with 50ml of water and 65g of butter then remove from pan and blend, add mint, salt and pepper to taste. You can then add the rest of the peas – you may want to par-boil these first as you like.

Easy (peasy).

Ingredients

Ham
2kg mild-cure gammon
1 onion peeled and cut in half
2 litre-bottle coke
The glaze
Handful cloves
1 heaped tbsp black treacle
2 tsp English mustard powder
2 tbsp demerara sugar

Serves 8

Directions

1. If you know that you’re dealing with a salty piece, then put it in a pan covered with cold water, bring to the boil then tip into a sieve and start from here. Otherwise, put it in a pan, skin side down if you can, add onion then pour on the Coke. Bring to boil, then simmer and put the lid on, though not tightly, and cook for slightly less than 2 1/2 hours. If your joint is larger or smaller work out timing by reckoning on an hour a kilo altogether, remembering that it’s going to get a quick blast in the oven later. If the gammon’s been in the fridge right up to the moment you cook it, you will have to give a good 15 or so minutes’ extra so that the interior is properly cooked. Near the end, preheat your oven to 240C.

2. When the ham’s had its time take it out of the pan but DO NOT THROW AWAY THE COOKING LIQUID (great stock for soups or gravy) and let cool a little for ease of handling. (Indeed you can let it cool completely then finish off the cooking at some later stage if you want).

3. Then remove skin, leaving a thin layer of fat. Score the fat with a sharp knife to make fairly large diamond shapes, and stud each diamond with a clove. Then carefully spread the treacle over the bark-budded skin taking care not to dislodge the cloves. Then gently pat the mustard and sugar onto the sticky fat. Cook, in a foil lined roasting tin for approximately 10 minutes or till the glaze is burnished and bubbly.

4. Should you want to do the braising stage in advance and then let the ham cool, clove and glaze it and give it 30-40 minutes, from room temperature, at 180C/gas mark 4, turning up the heat towards the end if you think it needs it.

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 5 tbsp mild curry paste
• 400ml can coconut milk
• 150ml vegetable stock
• 125g fine green beans, trimmed
• 1 large sweet potato, cut into chunks
• 175g baby corn, halved lengthways
• 1/2 small cauliflower (about 375g), broken into small florets
• 100g ground almonds
• 410g can green lentils, drained

The Method:

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan and sauté the onion and garlic for 5-6 minutes, until softened. Stir in the curry paste and fry for 2 minutes.

2. Add the coconut milk, stock, beans, potato, corn and cauliflower. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 10 minutes, until the vegetables are just tender.

3. Season to taste, then stir in the ground almonds and lentils. Simmer for a few minutes more until warmed through. Serve with plain boiled rice

• 2kg  cherry tomatoes
• 2 sprigs of thyme, rosemary and bay (each)
• 1 tablespoon of dried oregano
• 3 cloves of chopped garlic
• Good-quality Cumberland or coarse Italian pork sausage (12)
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Balsamic vinegar
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

The method:

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C. Put in all your tomatoes, the herb sprigs, oregano, garlic and sausages in a roasting tray. Drizzle with the extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar and season with salt and pepper. Toss together, then make sure the sausages are on top and pop the tray into the oven for half an hour. After this time, give it a shake and turn the sausages over. Put back into the oven for 15 to 30 minutes, depending on how golden and sticky you like your sausages.

2. The result should be an intense, tomatoey sauce. If you find it too thin, lift out the sausages and place the tray on the hob to cook it down to your liking – then put the sausages back in. Check the seasoning and serve either with a good-quality loaf of bread, warmed through in a low oven for 10 minutes (great for mopping up the sauce!), or with mashed potato, rice or polenta, a green salad and a nice glass of wine.

Ingredients

• 8 Cumberland Sausages
• Onion (one large)
• Garlic (2 cloves)
• Peppers
• Mushrooms
• Butter beans (2×400g tins)
• Tinned Tomatoes (1 tin)
• Assorted herbs
• Chicken stock (300ml)

The method:

Grill the sausages and put to one side.
Brown the onion with the garlic in a large casserole dish. When the onions are ready, throw in the tomatoes, chicken stock, mushrooms and basil before dropping in the sausages.
Give it a good stir on the heat and add salt, pepper and maybe some coriander.  Place a small piece of rosemary on top (You might like to add chilli’s for some spice, in which case don’t use the rosemary) and cover before putting in the oven at around 160 to 180 for an hour.

Remove from the oven and stir in the butter beans and cook for a further 40 min/1 hour uncovered.

Serve by itself or with rice / potatoes.