I thought I knew how to make hummus but a few trips to top quality mezze restaurants later I realised I didn’t – not how they made it anyway. Mine, like shop or deli-bought versions, was thicker and far less smooth. The stuff they serve in Sofra in Covent Garden or Ozer in Oxford Circus for example is far superior, more refined, creamier and more elegant by far.

Never one to be beaten on this sort of thing I spent a few hours on Sunday trying to work out how they made it. And I did. And I’ll tell you – but that’s all I will do. Luxury hummus recipes are easy to find on the web. All you need is a few tips:-

1) You have to soak and boil your own chick peas, tinned won’t work. Keep some of the cooking water back.

2) Look for the type or recipes that include natural yogurt and use the full fat version. No watery, weak imitations!

3) Now here’s the thing; once the chick peas are cooked, cool them and pop the skins off. They come off easily.

Is it time-consuming? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes. Oh, and what is the cooking water for? To add to the recipe to thin it down to a luxurious, thin silky texture about the consistency of double (or if you’re American ‘heavy’) cream; follow the recipe you have chosen and then bit by bit add the chick pea water and continue blending until you have that beautiful thinner, totally lump-free hummus served in good mezze restaurants. Slug a bit of good quality oil on, sprinkle on some chilli or smoked paprika, bung in a few olives, serve with some warm flatbread and you have yourself a gorgeous and inexpensive starter in these recession-hit times!

One of the standing jokes in our house is to do with how Michael wouldn’t let us have tapas in the Bocceria on our honeymoon in Barcelona, because he didn’t trust it. Oh how I laugh about it now. Not. Still, I don’t go on about it. I just look at him every time it’s mentioned by food critics, friends – everyone – that the Bocceria does the best tapas in Barcelona and raise an eyebrow. That’s all it takes. He knows.

I’m not going to give a recipe for all the tapas pictured here but instead I’m going to pick out a couple of the more authentic dishes and, I think, more interesting. Prawns, patatas bravas, tortilla – they’re all pretty standard and as for the broad bean tapas above, unusually for me, I nicked that from Ramsay’s latest book.

The two recipes I’m going to give from our tapas night are the chicken livers (which no-one apart from me ate but they should have – the look of them puts people off but they taste delicious) and the giant stuffed squid.  First up, the chicken livers. The recipe is simple – a pound of chicken livers, one medium onion, 3 cloves of garlic, a dash of madeira, oil for frying and salt.

Chicken liver tapas - tastes better than it looks!

 Prep the livers but snipping off any connective tissue and set aside. Finely chop the onion and garlic and saute gently in a little oil and enough salt to season generously. Add a good slug of madeira and reduce it back down until the liquid has gone – you want the flavour not the volume. The madeira adds a beautiful sweetness. Finally add your chicken livers and cook over a medium heat for five minutes, stirring all the while. That’s it, done. You can sprinkle a bit of parsley over the top if you have it.

Giant squid stuffed with spicy merguez sausage.

Again, this recipe is simple uses only a few ingredients: 4 giant squid tubes (a good fishmonger should be able to source them for you), 6 merguez sausages, a medium onion, 4 cloves garlic, oil, salt, a thick slice of bread, enough milk to soak it and one tsp smoked parika. Squeeze the insides out of the sausages and set aside. Put the bread into a bowl and pour enough milk over it to just cover, don’t drown it. Saute the onion and garlic in a little oil and a 1/4 tsp salt. When they’re soft add your paprika and cook through for a few more minutes. 

Put the sausage meat in the pan and cook through. Use a wooden spoon and continually break it up so you don’t end up with big lumps. Allow to cool and then work the soaked bread through it  until everything is thoroughly combined. If you have parsley around add a big, finely chopped handful. Divide the mixture into 4 and stuff into the squid tubes using a teaspoon. Don’t overfill them. Secure the ends with a toothpick and bake in a medium oven (gas mark 4) for 10-15 mins. To serve, cut them into 1 cm slices. Some of the filling will escape but don’t worry about that. It’s not meant to look neat!

When I started this blog a very dear friend of mine asked me to do a post about making sushi so she could make it herself, which is a complete lie because she never makes any of the things she asks for the recipe for. That aside, quick as a flash, a year later, here is that recipe.

Why brown rice? Well, because although I’ve always liked sushi it’s always bothered me that it’s mostly made with white rice, which just isn’t that healthy. Then one day I saw brown rice sushi in Waitrose and thought, aha, so you can have a healthier version of sushi. Through trial and error and lots of swearing I have worked out how to make this brown rice sushi and it’s not actually that hard.

The are two tricks to making brown rice sushi rolls and they are to make the rice sticky enough to hold together and to roll firmly and tightly. I used rice which I bought in Planet Organic labelled as brown risotto rice but I believe any short grain brown rice would work. I’ve yet to try it with brown basmati rice but somehow I just don’t think it would stick together.

Before you start making the sushi rolls you need to get everything assembled along with a bowl of water for dipping your fingers in. I’ll tell you why in a moment. I made this batch with vegetarian ingredients because they were for  weekday lunch boxes and I try to stick to vegetarian food during the week and only eat meat at weekends. There is no reason why you can’t put fish in them, though. Just make sure it’s scrupulously fresh and preferably organic. There are lots of other filling options like avocado, chinese omelette, mushroom – whatever takes your fancy.

I’ll start with the method and give ingredients last. Cook the rice in the usual way, i.e. a 2:1 ratio. When the rice is just cooked that’s when you get in there with your vinegar and your soy sauce and start turning it over and over, mixing the vinegar/soy thoroughly through the rice but also getting the rice to release it’s starch and become sticky. This is what will ensure the sushi comes together and holds together. Once the rice is feeling nice and gluey put the lid back on and allow it to cool completely. While you’re waiting, chop up or otherwise prepare your fillings and lay them out.

Place one square of nori on your rolling mat, shiny side down. Use a quarter of the rice and spread it out on the two thirds of the square nearest to your body. Wet your fingers to stop the rice sticking to them and don’t take the rice right to the very edges, leave a small gap instead. Be patient and re-wet your fingers if you have to. Try to get the rice in a nice, even layer as this will help when you come to roll it up. Then place a small selection of your fillings slightly off centre - a tad nearer to you than not – and prepare to roll!

This may take a bit of practise or you may get it straight off but I’ll do my best to describe how it’s done (by the way, if you can make a decent roll up it’s the same principle). Pick up the end of the rolling mat nearest to you. Your thumbs should be behind the mat and all your fingers should be free to tuck and guide and tighten the sushi roll. Do it slowly, you can’t rush this – tuck everything under at the end nearest to you and start to take your end of the rolling mat over. Keep it tight against the roll. Appy enough pressure with your thumbs to make the roll tight but not so much pressure that you burst the nori. Keep tucking in as you go and gathering up the slack of mat with your thumbs. Get your head right over the mat and keep an eye on what’s going on so you can see if anything is escaping or it’s not rolling evenly.

When you about to come to the end, wet your fingers and run them along the far edge of the nori to seal the roll. Once it’s rolled you may find it ‘s not completely round but that’s fine because you can use the mat to gently reshape. You will find the roll is surprisingly sturdy. There will be a section at each end that is not filled properly and can’t really be served. This is inevitable but the good news is, they yours; chef’s perks. To cut the rolls into slices you will need an extremely sharp knife which needs to be wet so there’s a lot of wiping and re-wetting to do but it’s worth it. Serve with wasabi, soy and pickled ginger.

Ingredients

1 cup short grain brown rice

2 cups water

5 tbsps rice wine vinegar (or failing that cider vinegar)

2 tbps soy

4 sheets nori (seaweed) – available from Chinese supermarkets or online

Fillings of your choice

Soy sauce, pickled ginger and wasabi to serve.

Summer on a plate. That’s how I would describe this starter. It has so many different gifts to offer – sweet asaparagus, rich salmon, tangy parmesan and aoli that manages to be both creamy and piquant at the same time. As it’s little more than assembly job (apart from making the aoli which can be done in advance) it’s a simple and quick option for dinner parties.

Making aoli is simple and once you’ve mastered the basic sauce you can then add what you want to it. Even if it goes wrong, like mine did for this dish, it’s easily saved. To make aoli you put a very fresh egg yolk in a bowl and then drip in good quality oil whilst whisking continously.  For one yolk I guess you’d add around 125ml oil but if you want the aoli thicker or thinner you adjust this accordingly. (Some oils may behave differently to others so I’m loathe to give exact measures – basically, when it’s the consistency you like it, stop adding oil).

To make this aoli I added the zest of half a lime and a crushed garlic clove to my egg yolk before I started whisking. As I said, I was a bit cavalier with this batch and it split. To deal with this I just put another egg yolk in another bowl and (slowly, this time) added my split mixture to it whilst whisking on high speed.  Season generously and you’re done. It’s worth making your own aoli (or mayonnaise if you must call it that) because nothing you can but even comes close.

Parmesan Crisps are also extremely easy to make; to make each crisp place a baking ring or a  biscuit cutter on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper and sprinkle one tsp grated parmesan into it. Don’t press it down. Remove the baking ring/biscuit cutter and bake at gas mark 3 for 8 – 10 mins.

Once out of the oven they will cool quite rapidly. As soon as you can touch them roll them around something circular. I used an apple corer. You have to be quick. Once rolled leave them on the baking tray to cool. That’s it.

Once you’re ready for starters, steam the asparagus for 3 – 5 mins depending on thickness. It should be just tender, a sharp knife should only just go through it.  Once that’s done it’s a case of layering the cooked asparagus with strips of smoked salmon, a generous spoonful of the aoli and topping it off with a parmesan crisp.

A recipe is uneccessary here as it’s obvious that it’s a case of a portion of asaparagus per person, a portion of smoked salmon per person, a tsp of parmesan per person and a good dollop of aoli each. 125 ml would do about 3 people.

Spoots make an easier and cheaper alternative to lobster.

After buying random choices of different shellfish this weekend at the fantastic Wing Yip, the Munchkin and I were deciding what to do with it on the way back to the car. We were both throwing round ideas (this is our default food shopping modus operandi – be it fish, vegetables or meat – buy what looks good and work out what we’re going to actually cook with it when we get home, aka ’playing Ready, Steady Cook’ as it is known in our house).

I came up with the idea of trying to use the shellfish we’d bought – razor clams (or ‘spoots’ to the Scots) and mussels - to make a ‘shellfish thermidor’, a cheaper, easier play on the famous lobster dish created by Marie’s restaurant in Paris to celebrate the opening of the Victorien Sardon play Thermidor at the Comedie Francaise.  As you might expect it is an elegant, luxuriant seafood dish of the high end variety using cream, cognac and Gruyere cheese.

 But here’s the thing with seafood, various types of; different values are placed on different types of seafood depending on the cultural and historical context it is eaten in. I won’t repeat the myth that paupers ate lobsters in Victorian times but you get the idea – who knows how razor clams/spoots will be seen in future times? They may be attributed a higher place in the seafood pecking order, especially if they become more rare, so the trick is not to judge a food by what it currently costs. If it’s good but unpopular - maybe because it’s harder to prepare or is simply out of vogue – take advantage while you can because you never know how long it will be before people catch on!  

Although this shellfish thermidor is a less labour-intensive, more economical version of the original it is no less delicious or luxurious than the dish which emerged in Paris in 1894. The work is all in the prep and it can then be assembled and ready in minutes to serve. It is therefore a perfect dinner party dish. Impressive, too, I think. They key to to it is in lightly cooking the shellfish beforehand and then cooling it down immediately before it becomes overcooked and tough. This is easily achieved by steaming them in a bamboo (or any type of) steamer for two minutes and quickly running under ice cold water.

The razor clams, or spoots as the Scots affectionately call them, need to be cleaned and the soft, sweet flesh seperated from the gritty, inedible bit and the mussels need to be gently prised from their shells. For presentation purposes the shells need to be dry so I tend to spread them out on a baking tray and put them into an oven that has been on high for a few moments and then turned off. The residual heat is all the shells need to dry off.

Ingredients

9 razor clams/spoots (or 3 per person)

1/2 kilo mussels between 3 (admittedly greedy) people, multiply up or down according to need.

1 oz butter

1 tbsp flour

Glug white wine

200 ml milk

100 ml double cream

1 oz parmesan

1 tsp mustard

2 cloves garlic 

Salt

Couple tablespoons breadcrumbs

Method

Steam the razor clams/spoots and mussels for two minutes and immediately run under cold water to chill down. Remove the shellfish from their shells and place the mussels in one bowl and the razor clams/spoots in another (as I said, you will need to take away the inedible part of the razor clams/spoots but the part that you eat is very easy to identify – take that part and cut it into 2cm pieces). Pat both types shellfish dry before you put them in the bowl, by the way.

Next, make your ‘thermidor’ sauce (this is not authentic, for one thing, we’re using Parmesan not Gruyere but there is no point trying to please the purists on this one seeing as I’ve already fundamentally changed the dish by substituting the lobster); melt the butter in a small pan and add the finely chopped or crushed garlic. Cook very lightly, making sure you don’t let the garlic brown. Pour in your glug of wine and sizzle it down until it has evaporated – you want the taste of it not the volume. Add the flour and stir like the clappers. Proceed from here pretty much in the usual bechamel-type sauce way. Add the milk gradually until it’s all incorporated, do the same with the cream and stir over a gentle heat until the sauce thickens. Finally stir in the mustard, the grated parmesan and salt to taste. Set aside too cool.

Dry off the shells as I’ve described above. You will only need to reserve one razor clam/spoot shell per person and half of the mussel shells (use the half of each shell that the mussel was not attached to – obviously!). When choosing which razor clam/spoot shells to use for presentation look for ones whose hinge has remained intact as this will help when you come to finish them off.

To assemble the dish you simply pour half the cooled sauce into each bowl of shellfish meat, combine thoroughly and divide between the shells. For the mussels this simply means placing one mussel in each half shell and for the razor clams/spoots divide the mixture into three and spoon into your chosen 3 shells.  Sprinkle over the breadcrumbs and grill for one to two minutes or until the breadcrumbs begin to brown.

Serves three.

Recently I decided I wanted to make my own ‘house blend’ of a  Morroccan spice called ras el hanout (translates as ‘head of the shop’ and each spice vendor has their own version) after watching  Jamie Does .. Marrakesh. I looked at lots of different blends on the web and from them came up up with my own spice combination. A trip to the Marble Arch end of the Edgware Road saw me right for all the the things I needed, one of them being rose petals (dried). The problem was – well, not really a problem – is that they come in fairly big bags, more than you need to make a generous jar of ras el hanout. Therefore I had lots left over and I’ve been looking for a use for them.

Using them in a slow cooked lamb dish came to mind because I use lavender in this way but I wanted something more, too. I wanted something slightly spicy, even though I intended serving the lamb shanks on a roast dinner. In the end I borrowed from various cuisines – Carribbean, Indian, French and Morrocan – to make the final dish. The long slow cooking married all those flavours to produce a deep, rich, very slightly perfumed result. Lamb can take on strong flavours and still hold it’s own. The barberries add a slightly sharp counterpoint and the brown sugar rounds out the perfume, wine and spices.

Ingredients

2  lamb shanks

2 tbsp dried rose petals

2 tbsp dried barberries

1 tbsp pimento/allspice

1/2 tsp cardamom seeds

1 tsp caraway seeds

1/2 bottle red wine

3 tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp sea salt

3 shallots

4 or 5 fat cloves garlic

Oil for frying

 Method

Warm all the spices in a dry frying pan until they start to give off a fragrant aroma and then grind them in a pestle and mortar. Roll the lamb shanks in the ground spices and brown them off  in a little oil in a heavy based frying pan. Brown the shallots and garlic in the same pan – just cut them roughly, they won’t be in the final dish; you’re just using them for their flavour. Place the lamb shanks in a slow cooker or oven proof dish. Deglaze the pan with the red wine and add the sugar and salt to dissolve it. Pour the wine plus enough boiled water to cover over the lamb shanks. Add the rose petals and barberries and cook on the lowest heat for about six hours.

Carefully lift the lamb shanks out and transfer to a plate and keep warm. Drain the flavourings out of the cooking liquor and reduce to a consistency you like. You can thicken it if you wish but I prefer not to. Serve with roast potatoes, etc or maybe creamy mash and dark greens.

Serves two.

I fell in love with French Salted Caramels without ever having tasted one. As soon as I became aware of their existence I wanted some but couldn’t find any in London (I’ve since been told that they can be found in Selfridges and Fortnum & Mason). I knew instinctively that they were going to taste wonderful and different to most other sweets – the addition of crunchy organic sea salt would make sure of that. Also, they are Barak Obama’s favourite sweets and from what I can see he’s a man with good taste.  

Eventually I could wait no longer and decided I’d just have to make some. I’ve never been particularly good at sweets so my hopes weren’t overly high but they were, if I might say so, perfect. So perfect, in fact, that I had to get the damn things out of the house. They are evil. They are pure, unadulterated temptation. I was getting up and eating them in the night and that’s just wrong! I took the whole box to work and off loaded as many as possible but it was pointless. I just made more. Try them, if you dare.

Ingredients

I cup double cream

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup golden syrup

4 oz butter

1 tsp crunchy sea salt plus extra for sprinkling on top

You will also need:-

10 inch x 10 inch tray lined with buttered greaseproof paper

Sugar thermometer

Wooden spoon

Method

Gently melt the butter into the cream and at the same time put the sugar and golden syrup into a large heavy-bottomed pan over a low heat. The sugar will gradually melt and become liquid. You must not stir it. You can swirl the pan but stirring it is a no no. Once the sugar granules have all disappeared and the resulting caramel has started to bubble, slowly pour in the cream and butter mixture. Be careful, it may spit a bit. Now you can stir it! Add the salt and pop in your sugar thermometer.

Turn the heat down to a medium to low simmer and stir every 3 or 4 minutes. The temperature will creep up very gradually. Once it hits just below 260 farenheit/ 125 centigrade (I say just below because the pan holds heat and will take it up a degree even after the heat is turned off).

Pour it into the prepared tin. Wait five minutes, sprinkle with sea salt then allow to cool completely. It takes a large heavy knife to cut it up and it’s best to then wrap the pieces in squares of wax paper or greaseproof paper. It makes really nice gifts and believe me, it’s wise to get the majority of it out of the house asap.

Makes about 40 pieces, depending on how big or small you cut it.

As promised, here is the recipe which was the final fate of the 3lb river trout (purchased for the bargain price of a tenner!) I picked up at Muswell Hill Farmer’s Market. I had personally never seen a trout of that size and was delighted with it. I was even more delighted because the fishmonger had been able to tell me which river it had been caught in(the Stour). It was extremely fresh, having been caught only the day before and of such good quality that I really didn’t want to do that much to it but instead to allow the fish be the star.

If you’re lucky enough to know someone whose into fishing and throws the spoils your way you might occasionally end up with a large fish on your hands – or indeed if you turn up to the last knockings of the farmer’s market and score a bargain like I did – you could apply this procedure to most types of fish.

Ingredients

1 very large river trout (or other large fish that comes your way)

1 jar/tin anchovies

2 lb new potatoes, sliced into 1/2 inch slices and steamed until tender

1 lb cherry tomatoes, salted and lightly roasted or even grilled

Handful chopped fennel tops or other fresh herb plus extra to garnish

Lime or lemon wedges to serve plus maybe some home-made aoli or similar

Method

Take a sharp knife and slash the skin of the river trout, about 3 or 4 slashes per side. Set aside while you deal with the anchovies, which you do by simply putting them in a pan and stirring over a medium heat until they break down completely.  Mix the steamed new potato slices, the chopped fennel tops and the lightly roasted cherry tomatoes and, in a large heavy gauge roasting tin, roughly make the shape of your fish with the mixture (season the mixture first, of course). Place the slashed fish on top of this potato/tomato pile and spoon over the melted anchovy.  

Bake the fish at gas mark 5 for about twenty minutes. You can test to see if it’s done by inserting a sharp knife right at the fattest part of the fish and prizing the flesh apart. If it’s still translucent pop it back in for a few more minutes. When it’s done, lift it onto a cutting board and carve the fish up in exactly the same way you would a smaller one. Place the potato mixture onto a serving dish and then add the carved the fish pieces on top with a sprinkle of fresh herb and a few lime or lemon wedges. We had some home made garlic aoli too but you could knock up a creme fraiche based alternative in seconds if you’re pushed for time.

Serves 4.

Restaurant/Inn: The Rising Sun

Location: Mill Hill, London, NW7 4EY

Meal: Light lunch

Price; £30 for two plus (very nice) wine

The Rising Sun in Mill Hill have got it so so right. It is a beautiful 17th century pub perched at the top of Mill Hill. A listed building with an interesting history it was sadly stagnating until it’s recent take over by a fantastically welcoming family who have stamped their mark on the place and breathed new life into it. The food leans towards fresh fish and Italian classics accompanied by a well thought out wine list and a small but  sufficient choice of expertly kept ales. It is a tiny, tiny little place built in the times when Mill Hill still had it’s mill and maintained in strict keeping with it’s listed building status. There is a restaurant adjoined to the main pub but you can eat in the two small (beautiful) rooms which, along with the fantastic little square bar, comprise the internal areas - and you can also eat out on the sun terrace at the back or the tables at the front on a sunny day.

Anyway, onto the food: it was a Sunday and we had just returned from Muswell Hill farmer’s market (see previous post) where we had bought a fabulous river trout which I was planning to cook for dinner later that evening (see next post!) so we were only looking to have a light bite to eat and a bottle of cold white wine. We ordered the cured meat and cheese platter and some calamari with harissa to share. To drink we ordered a bottle of Gavi. First the platter; it was incredibly well put together, offering a comprehensive choice of Italian tidbits. The cured meats were soft, unctious and had a good amount of healthy, flavoursome fat. The parmesan was crumbly and fruity, just as it should be. The fresh buffalo mozarella was creamy, light and perfectly complimented by the home made pesto drizzled onto it. In fact, everything was divine with special mention for the Pugliese bread, which was chewy with big, irregular holes and a dark, salty crust.   

The calamari was crisp on the outside, soft and sweet on the inside and the home-made harissa was just the right side of chilli-hot and really piquant.  And finally, the wine. Oh the wine! I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed that chilled, dry, flinty bottle of Gavi. It was just perfect and at £18, a fair price for the quality of the wine.

Now, I would tell you to go but then I might not get a table next time I’m there, so, erm, don’t.