Guineafowl and nectarine tagine

One thing I love about cooking is that it's a constant learning curve. I've often found myself feeling nostalgic for my school days recently; being a tutor makes me envious of all these kids who moan about school and homework and don't realise quite how lucky they are. School gives you a purpose, a legitimate way to spend your day constructively, without having to actively put that much effort in. What you're learning that day is all decided for you; how to learn it is decided for you; the timeframe is decided for you. How I miss having my constructive activities scheduled in such a way. It's so much harder to fill your day constructively and positively when you have to actively think up activities to ensure this purpose is fulfilled. Even though I'm going back to university in October for my PhD, it's not quite as easy as just turning up to school, being entirely a question of self-motivation. Luckily my PhD basically involves reading kids' books about knights and damsels and witches, and occasionally incest, so it's all good.

Learning has always been what I enjoy doing. I'm only truly happy when I have a hobby or interest that caters for that, allowing me to pick up new skills and absorb new information. I used to be heavily into tropical fishkeeping, a hobby my mother deplored as not only is it expensive, it's also often very messy and time-, space-, and electricity-consuming. Oh, and stressful, especially when your fish start attacking each other or dying and you don't know why. Nevertheless, it was immensely rewarding, and I still have a pretty enormous aquarium in my room which I find very therapeutic. My best friend Laura (who is always harassing me for a mention in this blog, so I hope she's pleased to read her name here) enjoys this aquarium even more than I do; when she visits we sit in front of it like a TV, watching the fish cavorting merrily.

Everyone has a general field in life in which they excel, and mine is learning. I've never been a very practical person - for me, the practical side of fishkeeping was definitely less of a strong point than the theoretical side. I can talk to you until I'm blue in the face about the finer points of different types of filter, gravel, underwater plants, fish food and fish choices, but I once nearly electrocuted myself after disconnecting the filter and siphoning a good ten litres of water all over myself, the floor, and a live plug socket. Oops. 

I think this may be why my passion for food has lasted so much longer than all of my other momentary hobbies and interests. The ancient Egypt obsession that I nursed as a deeply uncool, straight-fringed seven-year-old has faded to the extent that I can no longer read hieroglyphics, and the love for small creatures that led me to keep and breed giant African land snails has pretty much evaporated (although on a rainy day if I see a snail wending its way dangerously across a busy pavement, in grave jeopardy of being trodden on, I will still always stop to move it safely to a grassy verge) - but I've been obsessed with food for a good five years now and it seems to grow stronger rather than weaker. 

Food means learning.

I am always reading about food, when I'm not eating it. I love absorbing new information about ingredients, methods, cultural cuisines. I have a frankly scary amount of random knowledge about food. 

Did you know that the reason rhubarb leaves your teeth feeling kind of furry and weird is because it contains a small amount of oxalic acid, which is present in large quantities in the leaves, meaning they are poisonous? 

Did you know that English pies were originally called 'coffins'? 

Did you know that the seeds of a papaya are an effective laxative? 

Or that grapefruits are so called because they grow in clusters on the tree, like a giant bunch of grapes?

I always feel a sense of accomplishment when learning a new culinary technique for the first time. The first time I filleted a fish, and the flesh didn't come away in ragged chunks leaving me despairing, I was aglow with satisfaction. The first time I made chocolate ganache, and watched as a selection of the world's most fattening ingredients transformed themselves from a runny, silky sauce to a thick, rich, spreadable paste, was pretty magical. The first time I made creme patisserie, feeling as the vanilla-scented milk started to stiffen under the pressure of the wooden spoon, I couldn't quite believe I had produced something that adorns those beautiful delicate French fruit tarts so beloved of cafe counters everywhere. 

For this recipe, I had to joint a guineafowl. 

My butchery skills are pretty limited, because like any sensible person I normally rely on the butcher for such things. If I buy a rabbit or chicken from the butcher, he can joint it for me. I listen anxiously to the swish of the cleaver as it slices through the air and lands with a sharp thud on the chopping board, a part of me always waiting with bated breath for the howl of agony as it misses and finds a live limb instead (fortunately this has never happened). If I want the breasts off a pigeon, I either buy them ready-prepared, or ask him to slice them off for me. If I want lamb shoulder diced and ready for stewing, a butcher's knife can accomplish this far more easily than I could with my humble kitchen knives. 

I've only really had to venture into the world of home butchery a couple of times before, when I wanted just the breasts off a pigeon or wild duck carcass. They're so much easier to cook that way and look much more attractive when presented on the plate. I gingerly sliced away with great trepidation, sure that I would end up with a bloody mess. When the breasts came away cleanly, leaving something that you wouldn't be dismayed to see on a butcher's counter, I was pretty thrilled. It took about half an hour, mind, and I had to use scissors a couple of times, but I was still pleased.

So when I bought my whole, plastic-wrapped guineafowl from Sainsburys, I knew I was in for a bit of trouble. No friendly butcher there to joint it for me, and my recipe required it in four pieces. Not to worry, though - I looked up Delia's instructions online for jointing a chicken, grabbed my sharpest knife, and started to hack through this yellowish carcass before me. It wasn't easy. I'm pretty sure my knife is now totally useless, as the cringing sound and feel of it attempting to slice its way through solid backbone and breastbone was not pleasant. I resorted to scissors at several points on this occasion, too. 

But, to be honest, when I had finally hacked my way through the poor bird, it actually resembled something I might have brought home from the butcher. I felt a great sense of lightness, like a major obstacle in my life had suddenly been lifted. It may sound silly, but I felt independent. I no longer need to rely on a butcher and his knife; if I have to, I'm perfectly capable of cutting a dead thing into pieces. You can't quite appreciate how much of a mental block I'd had about this before; as if, if I brought a fish home that hadn't been gutted or filleted, or meat that hadn't been diced or jointed, it was the end; it was unusable. It may seem totally silly, but there's a great sense of freedom accompanying the knowledge that you can conquer all these obstacles armed with nothing but a knife (and maybe a pair of scissors...). 

So, what did I do with my quartered guineafowl? I've had this recipe for guineafowl and nectarine tagine in my book of recipe cuttings from magazines for years, and finally got round to giving it a go. You know how much I love my meat and fruit pairings, and this one sounded irresistibly intriguing. I've never cooked with guineafowl before, and I've only eaten it a couple of times - it seems to be the knee-jerk option for 'posh' formal dinners at Oxford colleges, I think because it's easy to cook (treat it like chicken) yet it sounds exotic, even though it's basically chicken. It has a slightly stronger flavour than chicken, particularly the legs, which have a lovely rich gameyness to them. Because of this, it stands up well to assertive flavours.

So I bombarded my guineafowl with spices, rubbing it in a heady mixture of turmeric, ground ginger, cinnamon and cloves. It sat in this for a while, before I browned it in hot olive oil, sauteed an onion, then covered the lot in a bit of water and a dash of honey. This simmered until the fowl was cooked through, resulting in a shockingly yellow sauce from the turmeric, but one that was warm, fragrant and sweet. 

Then, the nectarines. These wouldn't look out of place in a pudding, actually, perhaps alongside sweetened mascarpone and gooey meringue (which now I really want to try). They're sliced, tossed in a little olive oil and honey, then griddled on both sides until attractively charred, which releases all their sugars and juices and makes them gloriously soft and sweet. They go into the guineafowl sauce for a few seconds, to impart their lovely sweetness, along with a dash of orange flower water, which gives a beautiful intriguing floral note. I threw in a load of herbs - parsley, basil, coriander and mint - to lift the rich, earthy sauce and to contrast with the sugary nectarines. Nectarines and basil are a perfect partnership, both in sweet and savoury food - I love nectarines in a salad with salty parma ham, torn basil and milky mozzarella. 

The first time I ate this, I left the guineafowl pieces whole. But the next evening, I decided to shred the meat from the bones and spoon over the nectarine sauce, which I think is a better idea - it's a lot easier to eat that way, and means you can get a proper mouthful of all the components without fiddling around separating meat from skin and bone. 

I served this with bulghur wheat - though couscous would also be perfect - and greens beans the first night, swapping them for a large tangle of watercress, rocket and spinach the next night. Either (or both) are excellent accompaniments. A handful of toasted flaked almonds is a delicious garnish, complementing all the flavours, while a final sprinkling of fresh herbs lifts the dish and gives it a lovely summery freshness. 

This might sound like an odd combination, but it's really lovely. The guineafowl, rubbed in spices, has a deep savoury flavour to it that is pleasantly complemented by the sweet, smoky nectarines and the delicious perfume of orange flowers. I also think this is a beautiful-looking dish (although my photos, taken al fresco just as an enormous thunder cloud was about to break overhead, don't really do it justice), perfect for summer days when salad isn't quite substantial enough and you want something warm, fragrant and exotic to lift your spirits to sunnier climes. 

Guineafowl and nectarine tagine (serves 3-4):

• 1 guineafowl, jointed into four pieces
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 pinch ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
• Olive oil
• 1 white or red onion, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp honey
• 500ml water
• 3 nectarines, stoned and cut into eight slices
• 1-3 tsp orange flower water
• 1 tbsp each chopped mint, parsley, basil and coriander (or a mixture, depending on what you have)
• Toasted flaked almonds, to serve

Mix together the ginger, cinnamon, cloves and turmeric. Rub all over the guineafowl pieces and leave, covered, for at least an hour in the fridge.

When ready to cook, heat some olive oil in a large non-stick pan over a high heat and brown the guineafowl all over (it's easiest to do this in two batches). Remove to a plate, lower the heat and saute the onion until starting to soften. Then return the guineafowl to the pan, pour in the water, add 1 tbsp of the honey and some salt and pepper, then simmer for around half an hour, turning the pieces over halfway through, until the guineafowl is cooked through and the sauce has reduced. If it hasn't reduced enough, remove the guineafowl pieces and boil it for a bit, adding a little arrowroot or cornflour to thicken.

When nearly ready to serve, mix the nectarine slices with the remaining honey and a drizzle of olive oil. Get a griddle pan very hot, and griddle them on both sides until charred in places (you can also do this under the grill, but they tend to disintegrate). Add them to the sauce along with the orange flower water - how much you need will depend on the strength of the brand you have. It should taste and smell floral, but not too much or it will be like eating soap. Allow to warm through, taste and check the seasoning (it might need a bit more salt, as the fruit is so sweet), then stir in the chopped herbs, reserving a few to garnish.

You can either serve a whole guineafowl piece per person, simply pouring the sauce over it on the plate or - if you can be bothered - allow the pieces to cool slightly (keep the sauce hot), remove the skin and shred the meat using your fingers or a fork, then mix it all back into the nectarine sauce and ladle it onto plates to serve. I prefer it this way. Scatter with flaked almonds and the remaining herbs and serve, preferably with some couscous or bulghur wheat, and something green - green beans or a tangle of watercress are both good.

Gluten-free Challenge: Day Five

Let's talk a bit about risotto. Risotto is perhaps, I have decided, the ultimate gluten-free dish. This is because it's 100% naturally gluten-free. No need to make any changes or substitute any ingredients with inferior variations. No need to skimp on delicious creamy, starchy goodness. Take your basic mixture of olive oil, butter, risotto rice, onion and stock, and add to it whatever meat, fish, cheese or vegetables you like. The only thing you have to watch is your stock cubes, some of which may contain gluten in the form of various starches. I know that Marigold bouillon powder, though, which many chefs regard as the superior stock brand, is gluten-free.

If you know a gluten-free eater, make this for them. Don't let them suffer a diet of salads. Slap a big plate of creamy, gooey, chewy rice in front of them, grate over a mountain of cheese and a good grind of black pepper, maybe a handful of fresh herbs, and watch a glazed look of delight pass over their face. At least, that is always my response to a good risotto.

On my last day of this gluten-free challenge, I tucked into a plate of mushroom and bacon risotto, kindly made for me by my mum. I think this divine Italian combination of rice and stock has to be the ultimate comfort food. It's also incredibly easy to cook, and so versatile. I must have made at least fifty different types of risotto in my life, but these are some of my favourite combinations, and ones I would urge you to try if looking to inject some life and delight into a gluten-free diet:

Leek, blue cheese and bacon
Lemon, broad bean and ricotta or goat's cheese
Wild mushroom and truffle oil
Sausage and radicchio
Butternut squash, bacon and chestnut
Chicken, lemon and rocket

Apart from this lovely dinner, I pretty much ate the same as yesterday - porridge for breakfast; pasta salad for lunch, and an apple.

All in all, I haven't found going five days without gluten challenging at all. This may be due to the fact that I rarely eat that much of it anyway, but it was still a really interesting experiment, and has made me realise a few important things. Here is a little video to summarise my findings:

To celebrate the end of my gluten-free challenge, here's a list of some of my favourite recipe creations that are naturally gluten-free. There are even a few cakes on there!

Spiced dried fruit and blood orange compote, to be served on gluten-free porridge

Rhubarb, blueberry and almond baked oatmeal (use gluten-free oats)

Clementine and chocolate cake

Orange-flower, pistachio and almond polenta cake

Roasted loquat meringues

Vanilla and blood orange torta di riso

Smoked chicken and mango rice salad

Squid and chorizo salad

Cobnut, cherry and goat's cheese salad

Beetroot, blood orange and carrot salad with peppered mackerel

Cherry, smoked chicken and goat's cheese salad

Smoked duck, pear, goat's cheese and walnut salad

Grilled spiced sardines with fennel and grapefruit salad

Rare duck and wild rice with pecans and cranberries

Smoked duck, mozzarella and baby fig salad

Sweet and sour dhal with grilled aubergine

Mexican spiced chicken salad

Who says going gluten-free has to feel like deprivation? I'd say it should be an adventure!

Gluten-free Challenge: Day Four

In a bid to find a gluten-free alternative to all my favourite grainy lunchtime carbohydrates (couscous, bulgur wheat, pearl barley), I have fallen in love with buckwheat. Buckwheat, although it might look, cook and taste like your ordinary gluten-filled grain (and, of course, it has 'wheat' in its title) is actually a seed. In fact, it is related to rhubarb. It's not a grain and therefore is totally gluten free. You can buy it as flour, which is perhaps more commonly known - it's what the French use to make those gorgeous dark, nutty crêpes that they fill with savoury stuffings. This is ideal for a spot of gluten-free baking, although it has quite a strong flavour so is usually best 'diluted' with another more neutral gluten-free flour.

You can also buy it as groats, however, which is where it really comes into its own. 

These are a funny little convex triangle shape, looking at first glance a bit like giant, angular couscous granules. They can be cooked in the same way as rice - boiled in twice their volume of water or stock - to result in creamy, nutty pellets of deliciousness. They have a similar sort of chewy texture to pearl barley, but not as dense. In fact, the closest similarity is probably with cooked risotto rice - tender and starchy, but still with a little bite. You can use them to make a risotto, and you can even cook them in water and milk to make gluten-free porridge. Incidentally, they are also packed with protein and other nutrients, so not only are they a lovely comforting carb-blanket, but they are even healthy, and very low in calories for something so squidgy and delicious.

I like to cook them simply in water or stock, and then use them as the starchy, comforting, chewy base of a delicious salad. The first time I tried buckwheat, I made this wonderful salad from Sonia over at The Healthy Foodie. The combination was irresistible: sweet, chewy pieces of dried fruit coupled with toasted nuts and tangy goat's cheese. Buckwheat works so well in salads because it has a slight nutty flavour of its own, which means it can assert itself well against both sweet and savoury ingredients. 

For dinner this evening, I was really craving a favourite salad of mine: pomegranate-glazed roasted aubergine with couscous, mint, feta cheese and pomegranate seeds. Obviously, couscous was out of the question, but then I had the brainwave of replacing it with buckwheat.

I think I actually prefer it. Buckwheat has a creaminess that you don't get with couscous, which can be quite dry if not drenched in oil. It also has that deliciously moreish risotto-like consistency, so can easily be voraciously ingested, mouthful by starchy mouthful. 

To my base of cooked buckwheat, I added broad beans - I can't get enough of them at the moment, and wanted something green and something with a crunchier texture than the soft aubergine - chopped fresh mint (goes so well with aubergine), aubergines tossed in a mixture of olive oil, honey and pomegranate molasses then roasted until soft and squishy, crumbled feta, and fresh pomegranate seeds. I dressed the buckwheat with a little tahini paste, for added creaminess and because in my mind nothing works better with aubergine, and Dijon mustard, for a bit of a kick. 

Basically this was a salad born of my cravings and of what I had in the fridge or just thought might work well if I chucked it into the mix. It ended up being utterly delicious, a simple meal with simple ingredients that tasted perfect and wonderful. It's super-healthy, but in an utterly satisfying, starchy way. You'd never believe something gluten-free could be so creamy and delicious. I'd highly encourage any gluten-free dieters out there, if they haven't already, to give buckwheat a go - it could be the answer to that empty, couscous-shaped hole in your life, and is the basis for so many wonderful and versatile recipes. If I can get my hands on some buckwheat flour, which I've totally failed to do so far, though I've been trying for months, I'd be really interested to experiment with some gluten-free baking.

Other than this pretty and perfect plateful, my gluten-free eating today has been as follows: porridge with grated apple, sultanas and blueberries for breakfast; more of yesterday's creamy smoked trout pasta salad for lunch, with a nectarine; a post-teaching snack of a mango and a banana. I've had a great day, feeling very energised throughout despite desperately not wanting to leave my bed when my alarm went off early this morning. I wouldn't say it's a hugely dramatic difference, but I definitely feel cleaner and healthier somehow. It might all be in my head, but it's still a pretty good feeling. I'm not even that happy it's the final day of my gluten-free challenge tomorrow; in truth, there's nothing I've really missed.

Apart from couscous.

But now I have buckwheat, so even that doesn't haunt my gastronomic dreams any more. Hurrah.

Buckwheat salad with pomegranate-glazed aubergine, feta, broad beans and mint (serves 3-4):

• 3 medium or 2 very large aubergines
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp pomegranate molasses (or balsamic vinegar if you can't find this)
• 1 tbsp honey
• Salt and pepper
• 180g buckwheat groats
• Water
• Two large handfuls frozen broad beans
• 3 tsp tahini paste
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 20g fresh mint, leaves shredded
• 100g feta cheese, crumbled
• Half a pomegranate

Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Cut the aubergines into 1-inch cubes. Mix together the olive oil, molasses, honey and some seasoning, then toss the aubergine in this mixture and spread the pieces out on a baking tray. Season again and roast for 30-40 minutes until soft and sticky. Set aside.

Put the buckwheat in a pan, add 400ml water, bring to the boil and simmer, covered, for 10 mins. After this time, add the broad beans to the pan, cover, and cook for another 5 mins or so, until all the liquid has been absorbed and the buckwheat is tender (if there's any liquid remaining, drain it off). Mix the buckwheat and beans with the tahini and mustard, and season well.

Mix the buckwheat with the aubergine pieces and most of the mint. Crumble in the feta cheese. Using a rolling pin, bash the seeds out of the pomegranate over the bowl and combine gently. Serve garnished with the rest of the mint.

Gluten-free Challenge: Day Three

Today has been the perfect day for avoiding gluten. After the dismal monsoons of the last couple of months, Cambridge has suddenly been blessed with sunshine. Not just any sunshine; this sunshine has returned with a vengeance, angry at being barred by miserable and threatening clouds for weeks on end  and ready to show the citizens of this humble town what it's made of. With the result that the weather is swelteringly hot, and therefore it's completely impossible to entertain the notion of eating very much at all. It's definitely not a day to be craving a huge, freshly baked loaf of gluten-packed bread.


I had breakfast before it got properly hot, though, so my usual bowl of porridge didn't seem out of place. To be fair, I still eat porridge even in the height of summer, because it's delicious and the perfect blanket for all that ripe and ready summer fruit around at the moment. I still had some rhubarb left over from yesterday, so I had that on top with a large handful of raspberries and blueberries, both of which go deliciously well with rhubarb.

For lunch, I decided to try out some gluten-free pasta. In a pasta salad, though, to be eaten just warm or cold, rather than a hot, steaming plate of carbs. They are not the thing when you are hot and steaming yourself. I was intrigued to see if it tasted any different to normal pasta, being made with maize and rice flour instead of standard flour. It certainly looked the same in the packet.



I wanted a vaguely creamy sauce for my pasta salad, something with a generous kick of mustard to spice it up when eaten cold from the fridge. I get very specific cravings when it comes to pasta, you see. Then I needed some protein to bulk it out. Chicken, tuna or smoked mackerel would have been wonderful, but there was some smoked trout on offer in Waitrose, so I decided to use that. I also wanted a lot of nice green veg, for a bit of contrast and to make it a vaguely healthy option. Peas and broad beans work well in pasta salads, and go very well with trout. Finally, I added a couple of chopped hard-boiled eggs. I don't know if this is weird or not. I love eggs with smoked fish, but I don't know if that's a normal thing. But hey, it's my salad, so in they went. Plus eggs are good for you.

To this I added a dressing made with cream cheese, creme fraiche, lemon juice, salt and pepper, a huge amount of lemon thyme leaves (my favourite herb, and delicious with fish and anything creamy) and two heaped teaspoons of mustard. Not just any mustard - Tracklements horseradish mustard, from back in July last year when I went on an exciting tour of their mustard factory and received enough free mustard to last several years (literally - I've only used two jars out of six, and that's taken me an entire twelve months). Horseradish is normally perceived as solely reserved for beef, but actually it partners very well with rich smoked fish, particularly trout and mackerel.

Incidentally, I received a very nice email from Becky at Tracklements today, who informs me that all their products (apart from the Fruity Brown Sauce and the Beer Mustard) are gluten-free, and recommends stirring one of their chutneys into a bowl of quinoa or carmargue rice, adding some leftover chicken or lamb and some sultanas, and digging in for a wonderful gluten-free plateful. That's definitely something I'll have to try.



The result of my pasta experiment was a deliciously comforting plateful full of fresh flavours - crunchy, slightly bitter broad beans, sweet peas, the rich trout and eggs, plus the zingy lemony dressing that manages to be creamy and soothing yet sharp and exciting at the same time.

But I know what you really want to know is: does gluten-free pasta taste the same as normal pasta?

Yes! Yes it does! I have to admit I couldn't tell the difference at all while eating it. Perhaps if you ate it dressed with nothing more than good olive oil and seasoning, and were a connoisseur, you might be sharp enough to spot the difference, but I really didn't notice, and seeing as I usually like my pasta laden with other lovely things, it's certainly good enough for me.

Great news for gluten-free dieters everywhere.

To celebrate, here's a jaunty little video of me making the pasta salad.

After a banana, tea and medjool date snack (a repeat of yesterday), I went to my usual Tuesday kickboxing class. I noticed a huge improvement in my energy levels from last week, when I could barely lift my arms and legs and just felt horribly sluggish. This time I was bursting with energy and had a really great class. I don't know if it's the gluten-free diet or just coincidence, but I've certainly noticed only positive effects so far. It was doubly surprising given I spent most of today asleep in the sun, which isn't exactly great for boosting energy levels.


For dinner, I made a wonderful salad which I will be giving a proper dedicated post soon in the future, because it was just that good. Suffice to say that my mum had a few bites, then said: "If this is what being gluten-free is like, then I'm all for it."

It's a salad of smoked prosciutto, feta cheese, grilled peaches, green beans and rocket. Sounds an unlikely combination, but tastes like summer on a plate and is utterly wonderful. A perfect example of how a gluten-free diet can lead to the most imaginative and delicious recipe creations.



Creamy smoked trout pasta salad (serves 3-4):

250g short pasta shapes, gluten-free if necessary (I used fusilli)
2 large eggs, at room temperature (so they don't crack when boiling)
A large handful each of frozen peas and broad beans
150g light cream cheese
1 heaped tbsp creme fraiche
2 tsp wholegrain mustard
Juice of half a lemon
Salt and black pepper
A few sprigs lemon thyme
2 tsp olive oil
125g smoked trout fillets
Fresh herbs, to serve (optional)

Put the pasta on to cook in a large pot of boiling salted water, adding the eggs to the water. After 6 minutes, remove the eggs and run under cold water to stop the cooking. Add the peas and broad beans to the pasta, wait for the water to come back to the boil, then cook for 3-4 minutes (make sure the pasta doesn't overcook; this timing should end up with it just right). Peel and dice the eggs and set aside.

Mix together the cream cheese, creme fraiche, mustard, lemon juice, a generous amount of pepper and the leaves of the lemon thyme sprigs in a small bowl. Taste and check the seasoning - it should be quite sharp and lemony.

When the pasta and peas/beans are cooked, drain them, reserving a small cup of cooking water. Return them to their pan, then add the cream sauce. Stir together well, adding the olive oil and a little of the cooking water to loosen the sauce if necessary, then flake the trout into the pasta and stir again. Check the seasoning - you might want more lemon juice or mustard. Add the chopped eggs and stir together again. Serve hot or cold, sprinkled with fresh herbs, if you like (dill, basil, parsley and lemon thyme all work well).

Gluten-free Challenge: Day Two

One thing especially impressed itself upon my mind during this, my second day of eating gluten-free (for day one and the reason behind this gluten-free challenge, click here). That is:how incredibly hard it is to find food on the go that doesn't contain gluten. It seems that the pesky thing lurks everywhere, in the most unexpected and surprising places. Nor is its presence particularly well-labelled. To be on a truly gluten-free diet is exhausting, especially when it comes to grabbing a 'quick' lunch from a supermarket; it requires the constant checking of labels and analysing of ingredients, plus the inevitable and tragic disappointment of finding that basically everything you want to eat is cruelly denied you.

For breakfast today, I had a bowl of gluten-free porridge with some rhubarb compote and fresh blackberries. It was delicious; I love the combination of comforting, creamy porridge laced with the potent tang of stewed rhubarb, and the juicy burst of sweet blackberries.

I didn't have much time between doing various errands and starting work in the early afternoon. I definitely didn't have time to make something gluten-free for lunch, mainly because I wanted something a bit healthier than a gluten-free bread roll filled with whatever was in the fridge, which consisted of mostly cheese. So, naturally, I went to M&S on the way to work, my destination of choice for packaged salads, sandwiches and the like because they generally seem much more inviting than cheap and horrible Tesco varieties. Yeah, that's my excuse. Actually it's just because I'm painfully middle class, and never more so than when it comes to food.

My gaze hovered over all the attractive options, and I came pretty close to picking a few up before I realised: couscous, bulgur wheat, pasta salads were all out of the equation. Never mind, I thought, there are a couple of nice-looking quinoa salads, and I know quinoa is gluten-free. One check of the label, however, boldly informed me 'Contains: Wheat, Gluten'. Where this could possibly be in a salad of quinoa, feta and vegetables, I'm not quite sure. 

I went for sushi, one of my favourites. The components of sushi are normally pretty basic: rice, sugar, salt, vinegar, fish. So how on earth could the label tell me that there was gluten involved? I assume because of the soy sauce; perhaps you didn't know this, but soy sauce contains wheat. 

I was even more shocked, though, when I picked up a salad of edamame beans and sugar snap peas to discover that it contained gluten. Where was the gluten hiding?! Seriously? It was just vegetables! I can only assume that the little pot of dressing provided contained soy sauce or something, but I didn't want to eat a pot of vegetables without anything to season them. The same went for various other salads: mixed bean, Greek...all of them innocently concealing gluten. 

I genuinely found this quite surprising, and it also gave me a great deal of sympathy for coeliacs and those wildly allergic to wheat or gluten. There was nothing on the M&S shelf proclaiming itself to be gluten-free; I imagine for such sufferers, finding lunch on the go is a tiresome and frequently fruitless guessing game.

Fortunately - and this was a real stroke of luck - it happened that my favourite M&S salad, one I discovered recently and can't get enough of - didn't contain gluten.

It's a salad of wild rice, lentils, aubergine, peppers and celery with a garlicky dressing. Doesn't sound that great, and definitely doesn't look particularly appetising, being mostly beige and slimy-looking, but it tastes fantastic - sharp and garlicky, creamy from the roasted aubergine and nutty from the lentils and rice. It probably made my day discovering that I was allowed to eat this. I sat outside in the sun and devoured it with a plastic spoon, then had a delicious ripe white nectarine afterwards. 

Ripe nectarines are a rare thing, to be treasured when one can get their hands upon them. 

The M&S salad was not very filling, however. Especially not when one has been undertaking the tiring job of teaching fourteen rowdy 16-18 year olds for the afternoon. I had a banana and a medjool date (the fattest, stickiest, most toffee-like dates you'll ever eat, which is why I only had one - they're very satisfying) with a cup of tea (these dates have to be consumed with a hot beverage, to melt the sugar off your teeth!), before I went for a pretty gruelling run in the sweltering heat. 

Can I tell you a secret? It wasn't as good as the run I went for two weeks ago, which was fuelled by a substantial afternoon tea featuring scones, jam, clotted cream and a huge amount of caffeinated tea. In that respect, I don't think the gluten-free diet has given me a manic burst of energy all of a sudden, but the kind of energy one gets from floury scones is probably the bad kind that will give you a huge sugar low an hour or so later...I was just clever enough to go for a run before that low hit, while I was still high as a kite. I imagine the gluten-free kind of energy is more sustainable and keeps you going for a longer period of time. I still ran seven kilometres, so am not doing too badly without any gluten to sustain me.

Dinner this evening is an example of how - fortunately - some of the most delicious meals are naturally gluten-free. Instead of viewing a gluten-free diet as all about everything you can't have, it seems logical to me to embrace it, to find new and more exciting ways of filling yourself up than by simply gorging a vat of bread or pasta. To me, it seems about much more than simply swapping your bread or pasta for a gluten-free variety, which is a perfectly viable option but seems somewhat lazy and unimaginative.

Instead, I'm thinking about meals that are delicious, and coincidentally naturally lacking in any form of wheat whatsoever. These are the ones I'll be sharing over the next few days. You'll be amazed at how tasty some dishes are, despite the lack of a gluten factor. I tried a recipe from Diana Henry's Food From Plenty, for sea bream cooked Spanish-style. It's one that I've always skipped over before because it just looked too simple. I tend to shy away from simple recipes, favouring more unusual flavour combinations and ingredients. I'm now going to have to rethink my entire philosophy, because this was fantastic.

Sea beam, gutted and scaled (they were on offer in Tesco), baked in the oven under a thick blanket of breadcrumbs, smoked paprika, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and parsley. The olive oil and the paprika mingle to form a pungent, aromatic, shockingly scarlet oil that permeates and infuses the fish with its deliciously rich, smoky flavour - think chorizo but without the meat. The lemon juice adds tang, the garlic depth, while the breadcrumbs turn crispy in places and soggy in others, saturated with oily, smoky juices. The fish flesh remains deliciously moist, its creamy texture the perfect balance to the assertive bread topping.

I used gluten-free bread to make the crumbs, naturally. To be honest, I think that was all it was good for - the loaf had the texture of dry sponge. However, I did receive it in the post on Thursday, so it is probably just old, a result of my neglect. It would have been fine toasted, though, and I'm sure gluten-free loaves are much nicer when fresh.

I served this fish with boiled potatoes (yay for gluten-free carbs) and a lovely little salad of chargrilled courgettes, broad beans, green beans and basil, dressed with garlic olive oil, lemon juice, and salt and pepper. It was the perfect green and crunchy partner to soak up all the delicious sweet and smoky juices from the fish. Such a simple meal, but one that is much more than the sum of its parts, and is a perfect recipe for a balmy summer evening.

It's now late, and I'm probably heading to bed soon. I feel pretty good -  nicely exhausted from running, and wonderfully nourished from my lovely vegetable-heavy dinner. Much better than if I'd eaten a giant bowl of pasta or similar, I'm sure.

Spanish-style sea bream (serves 4):

(Barely adapted from 'Food From Plenty', by Diana Henry)

• 4 sea bream, gutted and scaled
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• 50g breadcrumbs (gluten-free if necessary)
• 5 tsp smoked paprika
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 lemon
• 4 tbsp flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped

Pre-heat the oven to 190C. Lightly oil a baking dish. Rub olive oil over the fish, inside and out, then season well. Lay in a single layer on the oven dish. Drizzle with olive oil and squeeze over half the lemon.

Mix together the breadcrumbs, garlic and paprika, and season well. Spoon this over the top of the fish, then squeeze over the remaining lemon and drizzle over some more olive oil. 

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, then sprinkle over the parsley. Bake for another 5 minutes, or until the fish is opaque and flakes easily away from the bone at its thickest part.

Serve with a salad (perhaps some green and broad beans) and some boiled new potatoes.

Going gluten-free for five days: Day One

I was recently invited to participate in the 'Making Sense of Sensitivity' Blogger Challenge, in order to help raise awareness of the newly recognised condition of gluten sensitivity. Unlike coeliac disease, there is no formal test for diagnosing gluten sensitivity, yet it is six times more prevalent than coeliac disease, affecting up to 6% of the population and causing unpleasant physical symptoms which are related to a heightened sensitivity to gluten in food. (For more information on the condition, click here).

As part of the challenge, I will be living gluten-free for five days, blogging about my experience and recommending delicious things to eat while on a gluten-free diet, while highlighting the potential pitfalls of cutting out such a prevalent food group.

I agreed to the challenge mainly out of curiosity; it does seem to be generally accepted nowadays that a huge amount of gluten in the diet is not particularly good for you, and I was keen to see if cutting it out completely would have any drastic effects on me. Eating toast for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch and pasta for dinner has never left me feeling at my slimmest and healthiest, so while I generally try not to eat too much gluten anyway, I think I rarely go for days at a time without consuming any.

I was sent a booklet of recipes as part of the challenge, along with some gluten-free products (mainly bread and pasta, but also cornflakes, which I'm intrigued about). I'll be trying out a couple of these as well as suggesting my own recipes for a gluten-free diet, in an attempt to prove that living without gluten can be pretty painless.

I've also been sent a pretty stylish little video camera to record my experience, so expect Nutmegs, seven to be branching out into the world of video blogging!

Day One

In my head, most of the meals for these five days are sorted. I eat a lot of salads for dinner at the moment, which are naturally gluten-free anyway (unless, of course, I add a large pile of crispy, garlic-scented sourdough croutons, which has been a regular feature lately. Out with those, I guess). Lunchtime is slightly more tricky, in that my usual lunchtime staples, while healthier than bread, turn out also to contain gluten. No more bulgur wheat, pearl barley or couscous salads for me. However, I luckily recently discovered buckwheat and quinoa, both of which I love and work in a similar way to couscous, so that should be fine, and I have lots of lovely plans for those. Yes, I'm a bit of a health freak. But I promise you, they actually taste really good.

No, the real difficulty is breakfast. I'm not really a fan of bread for breakfast, because it doesn't fill me up and I end up starving mid-morning, so it's not quite as simple as just buying gluten-free bread for my toast. Normally I make myself a giant bowl of porridge or muesli, with lots of fruit. You might be surprised to learn, though, that oats are not gluten-free. This is because they're often contaminated with wheat in the milling process. My yummy homemade granola, then, which contains not only oats but barley and wheat flakes, is out of the question.

Fortunately, you can buy gluten-free oats. They're prohibitively expensive (£3 for 450g, as opposed to under £1 a kilo for my normal oats), but you can get them. Given that I use 100g of oats per bowl of porridge, I'd be spending a fortune on these if I were to live gluten-free in the long term. It's going to be gluten-free porridge for breakfast for these five days, though.

Except for today, which is Sunday. Sunday means special brunch, something more exciting than a bowl of porridge (although, tragically, to me even the most humble bowl of porridge is still exciting). Armed with gluten free oats, and some of the finest summer fruit in season at the moment, you can make this utterly delicious cherry, vanilla and apricot baked oatmeal.

It's a summery adaptation of my hugely successful rhubarb, blueberry and almond baked oatmeal, an irresistible cross between breakfast and dessert, rather like a fruit crisp but healthy. A layer of sliced marigold apricots bakes to a fragrant, jammy tangle of sweetness, while tart sweet cherries ooze their subtle perfume and scarlet juice into the mix. The milky layer of oats, bound with an egg and peppered with cinnamon, vanilla and a little sugar, bakes to a tender, chewy crust, crispy round the edges where the fruit juices have permeated it stickily. A scattering of almonds and some more cherries finishes it off, adding crunch and juiciness.

Incidentally, I call it 'oatmeal' because it's adapted from an American recipe, but it is basically baked porridge. Scroll down for the recipe, if you're interested.

I stumbled across another pitfall while making this - baking powder. It's incredible how many products that we take for granted contain traces of gluten; I realise I'm going to have to think very carefully about this over the next five days. Baking powder often contains corn starch, which means it isn't gluten free. However, you can buy a lot of gluten-free brands of baking powder. Even better, though, I discovered (via Google) that Tesco and Waitrose own brands don't contain gluten, and the former (which uses rice flour as its bulking agent) is what I happened to have in the cupboard.

I decided to experiment a little with the new video camera, so here's a delightful little 'how-to' video of me making this baked oatmeal for breakfast. I think Stephen Spielberg can feel pretty safe, however.

After tucking into a pretty generous portion of this for brunch, my lunch consisted simply of a nectarine and a pear. I think if fruit weren't gluten free, I'd be totally unable to do this challenge, as I eat a huge amount of the stuff every day.

If you need proof that a gluten-free diet needn't mean deprivation, look no further than my dinner this evening. Because, for the first time in approximately three months, the sun had actually come out, it seemed only fitting to celebrate by turning on the barbecue. We had some delicious barbecued sausages - I like them when they're black and crispy on the outside, because those carcinogens are just so damn tasty - along with a sweet, colourful tangle of roasted vegetables, a mound of salad, and jacket potatoes with a generous helping of cheese.

Not quite haute cuisine, but probably the most satisfying meal I've had in a long time. Just make sure, though, that if you're eating sausages on a gluten-free diet, they are suitable - sausages often contain rusk to pad them out, which contains wheat flour. Check the label, and if you can't get the gluten-free variety, choose some less processed cut of meat instead - a lovely steak, for example.

I didn't really notice any difference in how I felt today, probably because it's only day one and, as I mentioned above, it's not like I'm a gluten addict suddenly forced to go cold turkey. But I did feel pretty  good after that barbecue! Who needs spongy, tasteless, processed burger buns when you can have a lovely crispy-skinned jacket potato instead? No gluten in those bad boys!

Rhubarb, blueberry and almond baked oatmeal (serves 4-6):

(Adapted from 'Super Natural Every Day', by Heidi Swanson)

• 7-8 large ripe apricots, sliced
• 300g cherries, halved and stoned (or 200g blueberries if you prefer)
• 200g gluten free oats (try and get the whole or 'jumbo' oats if possible)
• 40g flaked almonds, toasted
• 60g light brown sugar
• 1 tsp gluten-free baking powder
• 1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 475ml milk
• 1 large egg
• 3 tbsp melted butter
• 2 tsp vanilla or almond extract

Pre-heat the oven to 190C. Butter an 8in x 8in baking dish, or a similar-sized dish (I use a small Le Creuset one). Scatter the apricots over the bottom and add half the cherries.

Mix together the oats, half the flaked almonds, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.

In a large jug, whisk together the melted butter, milk, egg and vanilla/almond extract.

Sprinkle the oat mixture on top of the cherries and apricots and spread out so it forms a fairly even layer. Pour the milk mixture evenly over the oats, and give the dish a couple of bashes on the worktop to make sure the milk is evenly distributed. Sprinkle over the rest of the cherries and the flaked almonds.

Bake for 40 minutes or until the oat mixture has set and turned crunchy on top. Leave to cool for 5 minutes before serving.

Blueberry and elderflower upside-down cake

[Just a quick - and excited! - note to say that I've been nominated for Best Food Blog in the Cosmopolitan Blog Awards 2012!]

I'm pretty sure that there has never been an occasion over the last three years when I haven't had at least one punnet of blueberries either in my fridge or freezer. I would hoard them obsessively during my time at Oxford, where they could regularly be found at the Wednesday market priced at a mere pound. Given that I've seen punnets fetching up to £4.49 in Marks & Spencer, this was a pretty bargainous find. (Luckily I have a mother who insists on blueberries with her morning muesli, so we now have a constant supply in the fridge, which I don't have to pay for - win). I'd stash them away for a later date, a date which actually rarely happened to be much later, because the uses for blueberries in my kitchen are numerous. 

I like to use them to stud a moist, squidgy loaf of banana bread, perfuming the crumb and creating sweet little pockets of purple. Continuing the banana theme, they also work well folded into banana pancake batter, or simmered gently in a pan until their skins burst and they release tart inky juices, which can then be spooned dramatically over a pile of pancakes. I also use them in every variation of this baked oatmeal I make - sometimes the chewy crust hides a hot-pink bed of tart, tender rhubarb, sometimes a comforting blanket of baked banana, and sometimes a marigold shock of jammy soft apricot slices, but there are always blueberries infusing their mild sweetness into that molten fruity puddle.

I like them folded through hot, bubbling porridge, engulfed in its nutty, milky blanket, sending ribbons of juice twisting through the creamy canvas like capillaries. They work well in this context with all fruits, but particularly - again - chopped banana, or grated apple. 

They're also rather good in savoury dishes, for example as a sauce for venison steaks, and sometimes I use them instead of pomegranate seeds to add a welcome burst of sweetness to a wild rice or couscous salad with shredded duck or chicken. 

Yet I rarely bake with blueberries. Maybe I consider them too obvious - I generally like to bake vaguely unusual things with tragically underrated fruits, such as rhubarb and gooseberries. In fact, maybe that should be my blog's new tagline.

'Nutmegs, seven. Baking vaguely unusual things with tragically underrated fruits.'

Catchy, no?

I was leafing through this month's delicious magazine when I came across Signe Johansen's recipe for blueberry and elderflower cake. It's taken from her latest book, Scandilicious Baking, and I was drawn in both by the title - a combination I'd never come across before, having only used elderflower with gooseberries - and the enticing photo, depicting a rustic-looking wedge of cake topped with a juicy, dimpled purple carpet of squishy berries. The colours really struck me - such an intense, vibrant blue-purple, a hue you very rarely see in food. 

Today, in need of a summery cake to combat the distinctly un-summery torrential rain occurring outside my kitchen window, I put on my apron, rolled up my sleeves, unearthed several punnets of blueberries from the freezer, and got to work.

This is an upside-down cake. The blueberries are scattered over the base of a cake tin, drizzled with elderflower cordial, left to steep while the cake mixture is made, then covered with a layer of batter before being baked. After its spell in the oven, you turn it over to reveal a beautiful purple topping that has soaked down into the crumb, as if the whole thing has been drenched wantonly in ink.

I made a few changes to Signe's recipe, using a sponge recipe that I came up with myself and always use in upside-down cakes, mainly because it uses a lot less butter than standard recipes but still tastes incredible, therefore I can justify eating more cake. (Right?) However, it actually relates pretty closely to her original, just with fewer eggs and less butter and sugar. I added ground almonds to my cake mixture, as she does, for a light texture and to help give a moist crumb. I also used spelt flour, as she suggests, because I think it lends a lovely nutty texture to the finished cake, which is a great contrast with the sweet, vibrant fruit.

This emerged from the oven everything I hoped it to be. The crumb has a really lovely mellow flavour to it, from the use of yoghurt in the sponge and from the almonds and hint of vanilla. It tastes robust, somehow, because of the spelt flour - subtly nutty, with a hint of biscuit about it. It has the perfect light, crumbly texture. The blueberries burst and drench the cake in their sweet juices, lightly perfumed by the elderflower cordial, giving a delicious contrast in both texture and flavour. Rich, earthy cake, and juicy, sweet berries.

Above all, I just love the look of this cake. It's so vibrant and joyful; just the thing to perk up a somewhat lacklustre British summer. The berries glisten in a jewel-like fashion; dark, inky and mysterious. Fresh from the oven, it is exquisite with a cup of tea in the afternoon - it's substantial enough to raise your energy levels and fill that sad gap between lunch and dinner, and it's not too sugary or sweet so still feels vaguely nutritious. It's also delicious served warm with ice cream for dessert.

I'm ashamed to admit this, but I ate half of this entire cake in one day. That's how good it is.

Blueberry and elderflower upside-down cake (serves 6-8):

• 200g blueberries
• 50ml elderflower cordial
• 50g soft butter
• 2 eggs
• 150g caster sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 160g spelt flour
• 40g ground almonds
• A pinch of salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 200ml plain yoghurt

Grease an 18-22cm springform cake tin with butter (I used an 18cm tin, but a 20/22cm tin would also work fine, it will just give you a shallower cake). Tightly wrap a piece of foil around the outside edge of the tin to prevent any juices escaping. Scatter the blueberries over the base and pour over the elderflower cordial. Toss them together and leave them to soak.

Pre-heat the oven to 170C/160C fan oven. Put an oven tray under the shelf you'll be baking the cake on, just in case some of those lovely purple juices do escape.

Mix together the butter and caster sugar in a large bowl using an electric whisk until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well. Sift in the flour, baking powder and ground almonds then add the salt and vanilla. Fold in until you get a stiff dough, then mix in the yoghurt to form a soft batter.

Ensure the blueberries are arranged in a fairly even layer over the bottom of the tin, then top with the cake mixture. Bake in the oven for 40-60 minutes (a smaller tin will mean a thicker cake, which will mean longer in the oven) - it's ready when a skewer comes out clean, or when the top springs back when pressed and isn't wobbly inside.

Leave to cool for five minutes in the tin, then run a knife around the outside of the cake. Open the side of the springform tin, then put a plate over the top. Carefully invert the cake and remove the base layer of the tin to reveal gorgeous moist inky berries. Serve warm, with a cup of tea or some ice cream.

Picota cherry, smoked chicken and goat's cheese salad

I generally consider myself a sweet rather than savoury kind of girl. By that I refer, of course, to my tastes in food, rather than implying that if you came over and licked my arm it would taste sugary. I enjoy baking and the gentle crafting of desserts more than I do the assembly of savoury dishes, and I have a completely unlimited appetite when it comes to the final course of a meal. Especially if it involves crumble and ice cream. Seriously. I have been known to eat half a cheesecake in a single sitting.

Yet when my attention is drawn to a specific fruit - something on sale in the supermarket, maybe, or something that's just come into season and is appearing in ripe, plentiful boxes at the market - I seem to instinctively bypass the natural reaction of contemplating desserts to showcase it, and instead jump straight to thinking up savoury recipes.

I put this down to my desire to think up slightly unusual pairings (perhaps a consequence of being achingly uncool as a child and therefore desiring to be edgy and different nowadays), but perhaps also to my love of fruit in all its guises, particularly as a sharp, sweet and zesty way to perk up the richer ingredients in life, from smoked fish and braised meat to oozing cheeses and plates of sexy wholegrains. 

No, that's not an oxymoron. Believe it or not, I actually like wholegrains.

No, I don't wear socks with sandals.

A couscous or pearl barley salad, for example, wouldn't be the same without the explosive magenta snap of a jewel-like pomegranate seed. Rice, particularly the brown variety, is always tastier with some chopped dried apricots folded through, perhaps with a little cinnamon too. Then there are the endless possible pairings of meat and fruit, or fish and fruit, many of which appear on this blog already. Pork and apple, standard, but also more interesting ideas like duck and figs, or steak and mango.

Or chicken and cherries.

I think this delightful combination was first introduced to me by the wonderful food writer Diana Henry, in her book 'Food From Plenty'. She features a stuffing for roast chicken comprising cherries - dried or fresh - goat's cheese, dill, breadcrumbs and onion. It worked wonderfully. I've tried it with both fresh and dried cherries, and the dried ones are actually more successful, possessing a stronger, resinous flavour that can stand up to the assertive cheese and dill. 

Perhaps that's what was bouncing around in my subconscious when I suddenly came up with the idea for this salad.

Largely responsible for the raw materials are the wonderful people at Picota Cherries, who have been sending me gorgeous cherry-based goodies (including a mug, which has quickly become my favourite thanks to its sturdy shape and ample tea-carrying capacity) to mark the start of the season for this excellent fruit. Incidentally, I also love them for sending me the most incredible hamper of Spanish foodstuffs and making me feel like Christmas had arrived in the middle of summer.

I'd never heard of these Spanish cherries before. They're grown in the Jerte Valley in the Extremdura region of Spain, where they are ripened for twice as long as other cherry varieties, lending them a deep red colour and sweet flavour. They're notable for being the only naturally stalkless cherry available - as the fruits fully ripen, the stalks just fall away. Proudly bearing the Denomination of Origin status, these are special cherries indeed. I was thrilled when I received some in the post last week.

They're great cherries. Beautifully dark and heart-shaped, with a strong and lovely fruity flavour. You can slice them in half lengthways and admire their gorgeous dark-veined interiors, a pale gold colour with a crimson blush radiating out from the middle where the stone had been cosseted only seconds before.

As I said, my mind immediately turned to the savoury rather than the sweet. I've made sweet things with cherries in the past - notably this cherry and amaretti cheesecake, or cherry and chocolate cake with almond icing - but I've always thought that the lovely subtlety of the cherry's flavour is masked by the sweet things we naturally pair them with, like chocolate. It tends to blend into the background like a shy girl at a party, swamped by those dominant flavours who hog the limelight. One of my favourite ways to use cherries is in a cobnut and goat's cheese salad with shaved fennel, and this recipe is basically a new and different version of that. Similar, in fact, only in that it uses goat's cheese too.

Goat's cheese, because it works so well with cherries (as it does with most fruits - particularly pears and apples). It has a chalky, tangy richness that needs the bite of a crunchy fruit to cut through it.

Smoked chicken, because - unlike normal chicken - it's cloyingly rich and can take the strong crispness of fruit as a partnering flavour. In fact, the fruit positively balances the strength of the smoky meat. 

Fresh basil and mint, to add a citrussy snap that lifts the whole plateful. Plus these herbs both work very well on their own with goat's cheese or chicken.

Watercress and rocket, for a peppery hit to counteract all those intense flavours.

A drizzle of hazelnut oil, for a rich, nutty flavour to soften the sharp edges of the cheese and fruit.

Finally, a hefty dash of balsamic vinegar and a squeeze of lemon juice to brighten up the palate. Don't be shy.

This is just a gorgeous summer plateful. The colours are so striking when it's all piled together. The flavours are like a small rave going on in your mouth with every bite - sweet, salty, smoky, crunchy, peppery. It feels indulgent, yet is terribly healthy. It's unusual, so will win you dinner party points, with people oohing and aahing over the exciting and frightfully modern use of cherries in a savoury dish.

I can't think of a better way to showcase these lovely Picota cherries.

So much more exciting than a chocolate cake. 

The best thing about this salad is its adaptability. I added some cooked brown and wild rice to make it a more substantial meal (meals without carbs frightne me). I also think some toasted nuts - particularly flaked almonds or chopped hazelnuts - would add a welcome flavour and texture dimension. You could swap the smoked chicken for smoked duck, or any smoked meat really. Smoked mackerel would be surprisingly good, I think, or even Parma ham (though to keep it vaguely Spanish, let's say Serrano ham). Blue cheese might work instead of goat's, or possibly some feta or mozzarella. 

Picota cherry, smoked chicken and goat's cheese salad (serves 1 generously):

• A large handful of watercress or rocket, or both
• 12 Picota (or normal) cherries, halved and stone removed
• 1 smoked chicken breast, shredded
• 2 sprigs fresh basil, leaves roughly torn
• 2 sprigs fresh mint, leaves finely chopped
• 50g soft goat's cheese, crumbled
• Hazelnut oil (optional - use olive if not)
• Balsamic vinegar
• A squeeze of lemon juice
• Salt and pepper
• Additions: toasted flaked almonds or chopped hazelnuts; cooked brown/wild rice or lentils

This is the easiest recipe you will ever make. Place the watercress and/or rocket, the cherries, the chicken breast, the herbs and the goat's cheese in a large bowl. Toss gently together. Drizzle with the hazelnut oil, balsamic vinegar and a squeeze of lemon, to taste, and season with salt and pepper.

Where to eat in Cambridge

[Note: this page was created in 2012. While many of the recommendations are still current, it's always worth checking reviews before you visit these places in case things have changed!]

It was pointed out to me recently that, while I have a page devoted to extolling the very best highlights of the Oxford restaurant scene, my blog is sadly lacking in culinary recommendations for Cambridge.

In case you're wondering: yes, I grew up in Cambridge and then went to university in Oxford. The amount of people who have pointed out this crazy paradox to me as if a) it's wildly unusual that I'd want to leave the small town where I'd spent eighteen years of my life for somewhere new and b) I didn't realise this fact myself is slightly ridiculous, and it kind of pains me to have to put on a forced smile every time it's pointed out to me and be like "yes, well, I quite wanted to go somewhere new".

Oh and, in answer to the other inevitable question, I support Oxford in the Boat Race.

There is a reason that I have a huge list of detailed restaurant recommendations for Oxford and not Cambridge. Cambridge is widely acknowledged to be the place where gastronomy goes to die. It has the highest concentration of chain restaurants out of any town in the UK, apparently. You're hard pressed to find somewhere to eat that isn't a Cafe Rouge or a Pizza Express, and generally the standard of independent restaurants is pretty appalling, especially when compared to Oxford.

However, there are a few places that I would recommend, should you be on the hunt for somewhere to eat moderately well in this wasteland of culinary ingenuity.

Fitzbillies - 52 Trumpington Street. A Cambridge institution, Fitzbillies is most famous for its Chelsea Buns - soft, sweet rounds of dough twirled around an impossibly sticky, sweet, cinnamon-spiked filling. It also offers a wide array of excellent cakes and is perfect for a spot of quintessentially British afternoon tea. On the savoury side, they offer hearty, rustic lunch dishes such as mushrooms on toast and delicious soups and salads, as well as more exciting combinations like venison pâté with toast and quince compote, or rare pigeon salad. I can't comment on dinner as I haven't yet been lucky enough to go, but the food at lunch is thoughtfully prepared, and simple yet delicious. Just make sure you have enough room for one of those buns and be warned: sharing one is not an option and you will need to wash your hands afterwards. Don't even attempt to eat it with a fork.

The Oak Bistro - 6 Lensfield Road. I used to work here, many moons ago when I was a young and carefree undergraduate on her holidays. This may make you claim I'm biased for putting it up here, but I would suggest that it's actually the opposite. Working in a restaurant often puts you off the food they serve, either because you just can't stand to see another plate of confit duck waiting at the pass for you to pick up, or because you see the dodgy stuff that goes on behind the scenes, like using ready-made ingredients out of a bag, microwaving things, and - god forbid - spitting in the food of annoying customers. Fortunately, none of these apply to The Oak.

Instead, I go and eat there on a regular basis as a paying customer. Why? Because it's one of the best restaurants in Cambridge, by all accounts. The atmosphere is always buzzing (there's a lovely outdoor garden seating area for that brief two-week period in the British calendar when it's warm enough to dine al fresco), the staff are fantastic (obviously), and it's not too expensive; a three-course à la carte meal will probably set you back around £30-£35. Often fully-booked (best to call in advance if you don't want to be disappointed), The Oak serves hearty, gastropub style food with a bit of a twist. Think Cajun-spiced swordfish on a mango, green bean and walnut salad; crispy pork belly with a mustard and apple compote; fillet of sea bass with palm hearts, tomato and coriander. They also do simple, big flavours very well: braised lamb shank with winter vegetables; crispy confit duck leg with red cabbage and mash (the mash is so soft, unctuous and creamy you could sleep on it); salmon fishcakes with tomato salsa; wild mushroom and truffle risotto. Apparently, their steak is the best many people have ever eaten; it comes with a melting slab of flavoursome truffle butter, chips (The Oak does incredible chips...my favourite ever shifts were the ones where the chef would make a bowl of chips for the staff to eat) and is always cooked to perfection, however you order it. I once asked the chef if he's able to tell when the steaks are cooked just by touching them, and he scoffed at me, with a look that said 'Of course I can, you idiot. In fact, I can tell just by looking at them from the other side of the kitchen.'

 Leave room for the melting chocolate fondant that has never moved from the menu because, quite simply, it's worth making a pilgrimage for.

Cotto - 183 East Road. OK, I've worked here as a waitress too. But again, it only made me more likely to pay for the food. Chef and chocolatier Hans Schweitzer is an absolute genius in the kitchen, taking simple ingredients and turning them into something utterly fabulous. The emphasis at Cotto is on well-sourced, high quality produce, treated simply to maximise its potential. While on the expensive side, it's widely acknowledged to serve some of the best food in Cambridge. Again, it's often fully-booked, so call in advance. Mouthwatering dishes from the past include salt marsh lamb with a garden herb crust, pan-fried fillet of turbot with hand-dived scallops, and a trinity of wild sea trout. As you might expect from a restaurant whose chef is a chocolatier, Cotto produce some incredible cakes and desserts; when I worked there the Tunisian citrus cake, plum crumble tartlets, Mocha layer cake and fruit custard tarts were always popular, and the creme brulée was so good that even I, a creme brulée hater, had to try some. What really stands out in my mind, though, is the chocolate dessert he used to produce, featuring a mini grand piano made out of various textures and types of chocolate. It had to be seen to be believed. Don't leave without trying something sweet.

Charlie Chan - 14 Regent Street. Charlie Chan is a Chinese restaurant in the heart of Cambridge. If you go for dinner, you can sit upstairs in their quaint, old-fashioned dining room, where some of the tables have lazy susans to make reaching for your favourite dish a little easier, and there's live jazz at weekends. They serve an extensive menu of meat, fish and vegetable dishes, as well as a selection of complete noodle and rice dishes. My favourite, however, is the dim sum menu served at both lunch and dinner. For an incredibly low price, you can enjoy a succulent array of tender steamed or fried dumplings, filled with rich and intriguing flavours. My favourites are the cha siu steamed pork buns, a pure white, cloud-like fluffy dough encasing a tangy, sweet, sticky pork filling. Also excellent are the 'half-moon' steamed prawn dumplings, the fried taro croquettes (like a potato croquette, but with a juicy meat filing) and the minced pork and prawn dumplings. For about £15, you can completely stuff yourself with dim sum and jasmine tea to the point of collapse.

Efes - 80 King Street. Efes serve classic Turkish food in a small, buzzing restaurant painted with charmingly gimmicky frescoes of ancient ruins. The place is dominated by an enormous grill, on which they cook everything from lamb kebabs to swordfish. The menu is a homage to the best of Turkish food; start by ordering a mezze selection and tuck in to classics like taramasalata, hummus, stuffed vine leaves, feta cheese, stuffed aubergine, falafel, red pepper puree and lots of warm pitta bread. Proceed to a kebab which, far from resembling hideous drunken student fare, involves tender grilled meat or fish - mostly lamb and chicken - served with deliciously fragrant basmati rice and a selection of crunchy salads. For dessert, you have to have the sweet, syrupy baklava, a perfect antidote to all that rich meaty fare. The set menu is great value and comprises a mixed hot and cold mezze, a mixed kebab and salad, baklava, and coffee. Serve is always ultra-friendly and the atmosphere is great. Perfect for a convivial meal with friends.

The Hole in the Wall - Primrose Farm Road, Little Wilbraham. Run by Masterchef finalist Alex Rushmer, The Hole in the Wall serves exquisite food in beautiful and relaxed surroundings. It has a lovely cosy country pub feel, with rustic wooden tables and simple yet elegant tableware - there are little plants on each table and the butter is served on a wooden slate, sprinkled with sea salt. Everything I ate was delicious, from the homemade soda bread and sourdough we slathered in said butter, right through to the incredible dessert. I had a perfectly-cooked fillet of wild sea bass on a bed of pecorino tortelloni with asparagus and pea puree. The tortelloni were the best I've ever had - the pasta was perfectly al dente, giving way to the rich cheese filling within. The asparagus was fresh and crunchy, and the sea bass meaty and delicious. My boyfriend had the roast sirloin of beef, which arrived so beautifully pink I could have cried with joy on his behalf. It came with two perfect Yorkshire puddings - the right balance of crispy and gooey - and the best duck fat roast potatoes I've ever eaten. They were so crispy you could hear one being cut into across the other side of the restaurant.

For dessert, I agonised over a choice between the lemon and passion fruit tart with pineapple sorbet, or the sticky toffee bread and butter pudding. Yes, that's right - not sticky toffee or bread and butter pudding, but both in one. Why have I never thought of that before? I told the waiter about my dilemma, and he actually laughed at me for being so ridiculous as to even have a dilemma. He rightly pointed out that I would hate myself if I ordered the tart. I saw why, when my pudding arrived.

It was a quivering, custardy square of gooey bread and juicy raisins. It came drenched in a molten puddle of sticky toffee sauce with more of those plump, caramelly raisins. There were blobs of passion fruit coulis. There were two little strawberries for decoration. There was a scoop of - wait for it - clotted cream ice cream, perched atop a crunchy biscuity mixture. The texture of the pudding was just sublime - you couldn't detect the individual bread layers, as it had all melded together into one tender, creamy mass, slightly gelatinous and subtly sweet. The raisins gave a perfect bite to the whole thing, and the toffee sauce was so fabulous that I nearly picked the plate up and licked it clean. The coulis gave a welcome sharpness to the whole thing, and the clotted cream ice cream helped lift the richness of the sticky sauce. When the waiter came to collect my plate, he actually laughed at me and said "How insane were you, thinking about having a different pudding?"

Alex Rushmer is a genius. Go and eat his food now, while you can get a table. Service is really friendly, the atmosphere is fantastic, and the food is beautiful. And don't even think about ordering the lemon tart over the sticky toffee bread and butter pudding.

De Luca Cucina & Bar - 83 Regent Street. Want Italian food in Cambridge? Please don't go to Zizzi, Ask, Bella Italia or Pizza Express. Go here, where the food is slightly more interesting, unusual, and thoughtful. From chorizo arancini (deep-fried risotto balls) to fillet of beef with gorgonzola sauce and calves liver with duck pâté crostini, this is a decent independent restaurant and much nicer than your bog-standard chain. The inside is classy and they offer a range of good-value menus offering genuinely interesting food.

The Belgian waffle stall at Cambridge market is not to be missed (as if you could miss it - the smell wafting from it around the city is enough to reel you in and make you part with your cash in exchange for a sumptuous, buttery waffle topped with anything from nutella and bananas to strawberries and cream). You can see, at the top of the page, me eating one. I always made my boyfriend swear he'd never upload this photo to the internet, so I've decided to pre-emptively do it myself so I won't be embarrassingly surprised should he do so one day. I have pink hair. That might distract you from the gaping enormity that is my greedy open mouth.

Finally, although I've never been, Midsummer House is the obvious choice for Cambridge dining excellence. With two Michelin stars, it has received rave reviews, and chef Daniel Clifford recently made it through to the final of Great British Menu with his amazing and inspired deconstructed modern dishes. It hurts me that this restaurant is literally 200 yards from my family's house, but I have never managed to get there. One day, perhaps. If you're looking to splurge, the food is apparently amazing and the service faultless. 

Gooseberry and elderflower cheesecakes

I find it strange that the gooseberry has become a metaphorical signifier for social awkwardness. When one remarks that one "feels like a gooseberry", for example when forming the third person in an uncomfortable triangle whose other two members are romantically involved, it would make sense to identify oneself with a fruit that is as culinarily awkward as one feels socially awkward at that moment in time.

And yet the gooseberry is by no means an awkward and incompatible ingredient. In fact, it couples beautifully and harmoniously with many other things; so much so that I simply cannot understand why it has become sadly underrated and used more as a metaphor for uncomfortable isolation than as the delicious kitchen treat it really is.

Gooseberries identify very closely with rhubarb, both in my mind and in my kitchen. In fact, they are pretty much interchangeable in all recipes.

They are both unpromising when raw, tough and bitter and crying out for the sweet tempering treatment of a snowy sugar coating and a gentle heat. They are both available for a certain period of the year, outside which it is impossible to source them from abroad as there simply isn't the demand to produce them. Gooseberries especially - you're lucky if you can find them outside the months of June and July.

They both mellow and transform into something soft, pastel-hued and delectable with the brief heat of a flame or oven and a generous few spoonfuls of sugar to round out their aggressively acidic edge.

They both have similar sweet and savoury applications. If you want to be a bit risqué, try pairing your cooked rhubarb or gooseberries with fatty meats or fish, such as pork belly or mackerel (fresh or smoked). They provide the perfect foil to its cloying strength, a refreshing partnership that takes both ingredients to new heights.

On the more mainstream sweet side, you can't beat a pie or crumble. You really need something lovely and buttery to stand up to all that sweet tartness. Perhaps a fool, where the collapsed fruit is folded into softly whipped cream (although being a hater of cream, I'm not really a fan of fools. In fact I loathe them and would rather eat Ryvita).

Or a cheesecake.

I can't think of many fruits that don't go well with a creamy cheesecake batter. Something about that soft, bland, blank canvas just begs for a vibrant and flavour-packed fruit to decorate it.

The gooseberry is your fruit. It's soft and delicate to look at, collapsed from its heat treatment like a deflated football but still possessing that jade hue and tart juice. It has a fragrance reminiscent of muscat grapes and sweet dessert wine; mellow, honeyed tones that partner perfectly with cream. Or cream cheese.

Rhubarb has many friends, from ginger to strawberries, but gooseberries have their fair share too. Cream, for one, but also elderflower, a completely classic and divine pairing that makes you wonder, rather like the combination of apple and cinnamon, which genius discovered it. Ideally you'd simmer gooseberries with heads of freshly picked elderflowers, but I can never find any, so I settled for elderflower cordial, which also provides the benefit of sweetening the berries as well as imbuing them with a heady floral fragrance.

These cheesecakes (aren't they gorgeous?) were inspired by a recent trip to York, which will be my home for at least the next three years when I embark on my PhD this October. I've visited Cafe No. 8 Bistro twice now on visits to this beautiful city, and really cannot wait to make it a regular haunt as I love their food. On my most recent visit, I couldn't resist ordering the 'Gooseberry crumble cheesecake' that I saw scrawled on the blackboard dessert menu. A dessert whose name literally just takes three of my favourite food-related words and puts them together? It was obviously going to happen.

It was pretty as a picture and tasted even better. The cheesecakes had been individually made in little moulds, so I got a circle of biscuit base all to myself, with a very light, creamy topping, lots of sweet-tart berries, and generous shards of buttery crumble. The whole thing was drizzled with cream, which I initially thought might be overkill, but I loved the way it mellowed the tangy edge of the gooseberries.

I knew it was going to be good before I even tucked in, because the biscuit base to cheesecake ratio was approximately 1:1, which is obviously going to result in a damn fine eating experience.

I've been thinking about that little cheesecake ever since, and dying to replicate it at home. Now that gooseberries are on the market once more, it had to happen. I also picked up these beautiful little trifle glasses for the princely sum of 20p each on a recent impulse visit to the charity shop, and I just loved the idea of serving individual cheesecakes, with all their pretty pastel layers of goodness on display.

This recipe is very simple, using a mixture of melted butter and digestive biscuits for the base, which is chilled before the topping goes on, for maximum crunch. The topping is a simple mixture of Quark (fat free cream cheese), cream cheese, icing sugar and elderflower cordial, set with gelatine to a soft, quivering creaminess. It's sweet and unintrusive, setting the scene for the burst of flavour provided by the gooseberries, which I simmered with sugar and elderflower cordial until they were fragrant and delicious.

These, for me, are a perfect summer dessert. They showcase this tragically maligned fruit to its full potential. They look simply beautiful, with their subtle colours and defined layers. They taste fabulous, the buttery crunch of the biscuit coupled with the sweet creaminess of the cheesecake, all lifted by the tart, floral berries.

They're very English, very summery, very understated, and just very tasty.

So please, next time you feel socially awkward, please pick a more apt fruit to identify with. Surely the durian fruit, which reportedly smells like rotting flesh and is actually banned in several countries for this reason, is a more realistic candidate. Leave the poor gooseberry alone.

How do you like to eat gooseberries? Have you discovered any good friends for them in terms of ingredients?

Gooseberry and elderflower cheesecakes (makes 6 mini cheesecakes or one large one):

• 10 digestive biscuits
• 60g butter, melted
• 250g Quark
• 250g light cream cheese
• 150g icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 tbsp elderflower cordial
• 1 sachet powdered gelatine
• 350g gooseberries, topped and tailed
• Sugar, to taste (probably around 2 dsp)
• 1-2 tbsp elderflower cordial

Blitz the biscuits in a blender to fine crumbs, then mix with the melted butter. Spoon the mixture into six individual trifle glasses, or into a greased and lined 20cm springform cake tin. Place in the fridge for an hour to chill.

Whisk together the quark, cream cheese, icing sugar and vanilla extract. Place the elderflower cordial in a small heatproof bowl and microwave until hot and starting to bubble. Sprinkle the gelatine over the top and leave for a minute or so, then stir vigorously to dissolve. If it doesn't all dissolve, blast in the microwave for another few seconds.

Add this to the cheese mixture, then quickly whisk it all together. Divide the mixture between the six glasses or pour into the cake tin. Place in the fridge for a couple of hours to set, or overnight.

For the gooseberries, put the berries in a small pan with a couple of tablespoons of sugar and heat until starting to burst and release juice. If the berries release a lot of liquid, drain it off as you go - you want it to be the consistency of a compote, not watery. Stir the berries to squish them together a bit. Add the elderflower, then taste the mixture to check the sweetness - it should be quite sharp, but not unpleasantly so. Add more sugar if necessary. Leave to cool, then chill the mixture in the fridge.

When ready to serve, spoon the gooseberries over the cheesecake mixture. You could scatter with some flaked almonds, if you like.

Grilled spiced sardines with fennel and grapefruit salad

Britain. You need to eat more sardines.

In this current age of austerity, economic climate, blah blah blah, when food prices are continually rising, supermarkets are trying to pull the wool over our eyes by proffering multibuy offers that actually involve spending more, and there is barely a single source of protein available that doesn't carry a heavy cost both literally and in terms of animal welfare, I honestly believe the solution lies in the humble sardine.

I went to the fish counter the other day and asked for five sardines. The woman behind the counter scooped up their plump, shimmering bodies and dropped them on the scales to weigh them. I could barely believe my ears when she told me that those five beautiful specimens, plump, meaty and very decently sized, were going to cost me a grand total of £1.60. 

Therein lies the first major bonus of sardine consumption. It's cheap. I make that 32p a sardine, and given that two or perhaps three will quite adequately feed a normal adult (I've been known to eat four at a time), you're not exactly breaking the bank. 

The second pro is of course the nutritional benefit. Sardines are one of those much-heralded 'oily fish' that we all know are hugely good for you. Or if you don't know, then have you been living in a cave? Get out there and ingest some omega oils before you waste away and die. 

If only they weren't given such an unfortunate branding...calling anything 'oily' is hardly going to get people flocking up to put it in their mouths. I think maybe "firm-textured deliciously rich and meaty fish" might be a better tagline, but it's not quite as easy to cram onto packaging labels.

Thirdly, they're ethical. Sardines are one of the few sustainable fish species left to us now. Eat them with a clear conscience, and let your cod live out its happy life under the sea rather than meeting a speedy and ignominious end encased in batter and served on a piece of newspaper.

The fourth plus point of sardines, and oily fish in general, becomes apparent when you get them into the kitchen. There you can assault them with your entire arsenal of flavourings and spices, and they'll just sit back meekly and let you get on with it. These are tough creatures; I can't think of a single ingredient that an oily fish couldn't stand up to. These are fish you'd want on your side if you were ever getting a fish army together. Which, let's face it, is probably unlikely, but I thought I'd just mention it in case the occasion ever arises and you're stuck choosing between a mackerel and a monkfish. Monkfish may look impressive and threatening, with their hideous faces, gaping mouths and creepy spines, but the cool and unassuming mackerel will always win.

I literally have no idea what I am talking about. Back to the sardines.

There you have it: I can't think of a reason not to enjoy these lovely fish. They're so cheap, so ethical, so versatile and so good for you.

And please, to those of you who whine about all the little bones, I really, really don't have time for you. Nothing annoys me more than people who complain and say they don't eat fish because of the bones. Jesus, get over yourself. Take the five minutes to pick out the bones and just man up.

Here's a lovely way to eat sardines. Their skins are rubbed with a mixture of olive oil, salt and pepper, ground cumin and sumac (a lemony Middle Eastern spice, but you could use lemon zest if you can't find it). They're grilled until crispy. Then they're served on a bed of vibrant, fresh, zingy, citrussy salad. It has wafer-thin slices of crunchy raw fennel, for that aniseed bite that works so well with our oily friends. It has curls of red onion, to add savoury depth. It has a handful of fragrant mint, for freshness, and lemon juice, for zingy bite. Finally, it has thin segments of pink grapefruit to deliver a punch of zesty flavour that works so well with the creamy flesh of the fish.

The salad on its own is lovely, but it needs something rich to mellow all those vibrant flavours. Mackerel would work beautifully - either fresh or smoked. Spicy chicken could be an excellent substitute if you're one of the above annoying fish-bone-haters. Even a tangy cheese like goat's cheese or feta, or slices of grilled halloumi, could replace the sardines.

But, given my highly cogent and persuasive argument above, why would you want to replace the sardines? They are the answer to Britain's problems, and possibly the world's. 

Grilled spiced sardines with fennel and grapefruit salad (serves 2):

• 1 bulb fennel, thinly sliced on a mandolin
• 1/2 a red onion, thinly sliced on a mandolin
• Salt and pepper
• Olive oil
• A small bunch of fresh mint, leaves picked
• Juice of half a lemon
• Two pink grapefruits
• 5 sardines, filleted (yes, the ones in the photo are whole, but only because my fishmonger apparently misheard 'filleted' as 'gutted' - if using whole ones whack them under the grill rather than pan-fry)
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp sumac
• A couple of handfuls of spinach, rocket, watercress, or a mixture

First, make the salad. Mix together the thinly sliced fennel and red onion with the lemon juice and a good glug of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper, add the mint, and toss together well. Use a sharp serrated knife to cut the skin off the grapefruits, then cut in between the pith all around the grapefruit to release the segments. Add these to the salad and toss gently to mix.

Rub the sardine fillets with olive oil and season with the cumin, sumac and some salt and pepper. Get a non-stick pan very hot and cook the sardines, skin side down, for a couple of minutes until crispy, then flip over and cook for another minute.

Divide the spinach/rocket/watercress between two plates and top with the grapefruit salad. Place five sardine fillets on each plate and serve.

Reza's Indian Spice

I'd like to introduce you to a new contender for my 'favourite cookbook of all time' award. It's a keeper. It's going to be adorned with sauce splatters, anointed with oil smears, christened with overkeen garlicky fingers and placed in pride of place on my shelf before the summer is out.

When I first picked up my copy of Reza's Indian Spice, kindly sent to me to review by Quadrille Books, I flicked through the pages briefly. I'm pretty good at surmising from the quickest of flicks whether I'm going to be interested in a new cookbook or not. There are several factors that contribute to this:

1. The amount and quality of photography (sad to say, but I'm generally not interested if there are no photos - how are you supposed to be drawn in by a dish if you can't see it presented to its full potential?)
2. The general style and layout of the pages (although I enjoy the sparseness of - for example - Nigel Slater's books, sometimes simple can mean boring)
3. The way the book falls open (yes, this may sound silly, but if the pages aren't going to fall open for you to cook from without holding the book open manually, then that's a pretty useless cookbook - Dan Lepard wins points for Short and Sweet, whereas Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Every Day is severely lacking in this area, requiring the machinations of several pieces of kitchen equipment to keep the pages apart long enough to glance at the ingredients)
4. The desserts section (always the one I flick to first, reading the book from back to front, rather like the way a keen sports fan reads a newspaper)
5. And, of course, the titles of the dishes and whether they appeal.

Reza's Indian Spice wins on every count. Honestly, I cannot stress what an incredible cookbook this is. I'm not just saying that because I'd very much like Quadrille to continue letting me review their publications; I'm saying it because I was truly stunned by this book and would heartily recommend it to everyone with vim, vigour, zest, passion and gusto.



Reza Mahammad is a TV chef, and also owns the 'Star of India' restaurant in London. The philosophy behind this book, as it proclaims on the title page, is 'Eastern Recipes for Western Cooks', and I couldn't think of a better summary. Reza was brought up in London, educated in India, and has a house in France. He is passionate about all kinds of cuisine, but even more so about combining them to result in new and fabulous recipes.

This is evident from many of the dishes in the book; 'Frindian' (French/Indian) ideas such as 'Paupiettes of lemon sole with saffron sauce', or a dessert combining a very English ingredient, rhubarb, with the Indian flavours of almonds and oranges. Reza adds cinnamon to a classic celeriac gratin to serve with duck and orange, takes Italian polenta and adds a hefty dose of Indian spice, stuffs a haunch of venison with dried fruit and chilli after rubbing it with anise, cardamom and allspice, puts a spin on meatballs with mint, coriander, ginger, chilli and cumin, uses the very European beetroot in a lemongrass- and lime-infused salad, and even provides recipes for an Indian High Tea, featuring crab samosas, masala tea, sweet potato cakes and saffron halva with pistachios.



The book is simply divided into sections. 'Quick and chic' dishes are exactly what they proclaim themselves to be: chilli-seared mackerel, spicy beef salad, lemon and coriander chicken, and several lassi recipes (mint and cumin, roasted fig, rhubarb, minted mango, strawberry and cardamom) which I thought was a nice touch - you can complete your Eastern feast by stretching the theme as far as the drinks. 'Slow burners' are those that require a bit more cooking time, like sweet and sour stuffed chicken, or 'Royal leg of lamb'; 'Showing Off' are those perfect dinner party dishes designed to impress, like stuffed chillies, stuffed quail, and spice-crusted monkfish; 'Classic Curries' are fairly self-explanatory - think tandoori prawns, red fish curry, chicken in a cashew nut sauce, lamb and potato korma; 'Perfect Partners' are where you'll find all the side dishes and chutneys to accompany your chosen recipe, like mooli and pomegranate salad, roast potatoes with chilli and chaat masala, saffron-roast cauliflower; and, finally, 'Sweet Like Candy' contains the dessert offerings.

So, let's go through my checklist, in case you need any more convincing as to the merits of this book.



The photography is absolutely gorgeous. Truly stunning, with a rather dark and moody aspect that really highlights the exotic qualities of the food, allowing its amazing colours to stand out. The photos of myriad spices scattered over bold backdrops and beautiful crockery are some of my favourite, as is an image of pomegranates on the contents page. Whereas some recipe books post photos of the dish simply to provide a reference point, these images are works of art in themselves, vibrant still lifes that really bring the book alive and infuse you with a zest and passion for the heady spices that are boldly used in each recipe.



The pages are beautifully laid out, with a little description of each dish (I always think this is essential - my favourite part of reading a recipe book is learning about the provenance of each dish; how it relates to others in the country's cuisine, where it originated, how the author feels about it). The font is simple and undistracting, and the ingredients clearly listed. What I particularly like is the little note at the bottom of each recipe recommending a side dish or accompaniment, ranging from simple coconut rice to something more elaborate, like 'sambal with lemon grass', or 'kidney beans with dried lime', all of which can be found later in the book. It's sometimes so hard to know what to pair complex spiced food with, especially if you are a 'Western cook', but this takes all of that stress away, while inspiring you to cook not just one but maybe two or even three dishes from the book at the same time.

Also, the book easily stays open on each page. Towards the beginning and end you might need to gently weigh it down with something (my iPhone normally serves this purpose), but generally it's very easy to cook from. Points for that.



The dessert section is relatively quite small, and I have to say I'm not hugely drawn in by any of them, but that's mainly because quite a lot of milk and cream is involved - think white chocolate, cardamom and rose pannacotta, Vermicelli milk pudding with pistachios, mango creme brulée, and rice pudding with rose petal jam. They all sound lovely, exotic and sweet, but I'm not a big fan of dairy in desserts (apart from cheesecake). This is totally personal, though - I'm sure they taste fabulous if you're a fan of that sort of thing, and once again the photography is gorgeous.

Finally, the titles of the dishes and whether they appeal. You only have to read 'Five jewels dal', 'Persian chicken with saffron and cardamom', 'scallops with coconut and ginger', 'spice-crusted monkfish in tomato sauce', 'duck breasts with orange, ginger and cinnamon', 'lamb pasanda with green mangoes', 'beansprout salad with chargrilled asparagus and coconut', and 'gingered carrots with maple syrup' to understand why I couldn't wait to get cooking. The dishes are at once exotic and familiar, putting an Eastern spin on well-loved European classics, or giving us an authentic version of things we love already - tandoori prawns, chicken masala, beef tikka.



I dived in the day after I received my book, and made the 'sweet potato and goat's cheese samosas'. These use filo pastry and are baked not fried, which Reza seems proud of - it "both makes them healthier and somehow intensifies the flavour of the filling". The filling consists of chunks of cooked sweet potato, mixed with ground toasted cumin seeds (toasting them first gives a wonderful aromatic flavour, which you just don't get with ready-ground cumin), goat's cheese, spring onions, coriander, chilli, cinnamon and garlic. This is wrapped in little filo parcels, which are brushed with butter and scattered with cumin seeds before being baked.

They were a real surprise, one of those dishes where the end result is so much more than the sum of its parts. All the filling ingredients melded together to provide a beautiful soft, rich, deeply aromatic taste sensation, given freshness by the cheese and herbs. Reza recommends serving them with an 'Indo-Italian pesto', using watercress, rocket and coriander with chilli, parmesan, lemon and pine nuts. I didn't have time to make this, so served mine with a simple watercress and pomegranate salad, which was a lovely fresh match for the rich filling. These would be a great dinner party starter; the crunch of the flaky filo against the soft, flavoursome filling is so delicious, and they're great sharing food. I couldn't stop picking them up off the baking sheet and eating them. Allow them to cool a bit, though, and don't eat straight from the oven as I did, or you'll burn your mouth. That's how inviting they are.



I was particularly intrigued by the 'Braised and Fried Beef' recipe. Reza calls it "rich, dark and reminiscent of a Malaysian rendang". It involved an unusual method, in that the beef is braised in rich spiced liquor first before being drained and fried. I couldn't resist the gorgeous combination of spices: cloves, coriander seeds, cinnamon, turmeric, ginger, garlic, curry leaves, plus plenty of chilli - the recipe suggested three dried chillies for the spice mix, three fresh green chillies for the braising, then another two green ones for the frying.

I'm so glad I followed my gut feeling and used only one dried chilli and one fresh. If I had followed the original, I think I might be in A&E right now with third degree burns to my mouth. Instead, I was rewarded with a really gorgeous dish. The meat was meltingly tender, with a very deep, rich flavour from all the aromatics, particularly the curry leaves which give off a curious earthy fragrance. It combined wonderfully with the onion and red pepper during the second frying stage, though I wasn't quite sure about the method - Reza suggests frying it along with the remaining cooking liquid, which means that the meat doesn't fry properly as it's soaked in liquid. Instead, I added the liquid bit by bit and ended up with more of a saucy curry (oo-er) than a dry dish, but it was delicious nonetheless. I served it with the coconut rice from the book, which was subtle and a perfect partner to the rich dish, tempering its heat (it wasn't too spicy at all; it had a pleasant kick which enhanced all of the other flavours and I rather enjoyed).



I can think of only one improvement that could be made to this book, and that would be to have a nice glossary at the front or back explaining some of the more unusual ingredients, and giving advice on where to source them. Certain types of chilli, for example, or elusive beasts like asafoetida and fenugreek. They're not the easiest things to get hold of, but if you know what you're looking for and are given the name of a decent online stockist or a recommendation to seek out your local Asian grocer, you'll be on the right track. It's also quite nice to know about the provenance of each of these exotic ingredients, and how they are generally used in Eastern cuisine.

But that is honestly my only slight criticism. I absolutely adore this book. It's beautiful, inspiring, tantalising and truly one to be savoured and cooked from at every possible opportunity.

Alphonso mango, coconut & cardamom cheesecake

OK, so I'm kind of cheating with this one. In that I posted this recipe already, approximately a year ago. But a) I felt it was only fair that it had another moment in the limelight, as it's so damn good, and b) my photography has improved slightly since then, so I wanted to do the cheesecake its full justice by taking half-decent photos of it. Actually, they're kind of odd photos, because I took them al fresco, so the sunlight is doing weird things with shadows and exposure. However, I quite like them because they remind me that today was beautiful and sunny in the afternoon, so I could actually take a cake outside. Had I tried to shoot these photos approximately four hours earlier, the cheesecake would have been swept away by what was pretty much a monsoon, engulfing Cambridge for an hour this morning, soaking me to the skin and forcing me to take refuge in Marks & Spencer. What a hardship.

It's Alphonso mango season at the moment, which basically means my life is perfect and joyful. I've been kidding myself over the past year that my favourite fruit is the pear. Which then changes to the apple every time I bite into a crisp-skinned Pink Lady or a citrussy Cox. Which then changes to the pineapple when I have a really good piece of juicy, sweet, perfectly ripe pineapple, oozing luscious golden juice. Which then changes to the banana, when I eat a really good, tangy underripe banana to give me an energy boost for the gym. Which then changes to the apricot, when I bake them with orange flower water and honey and spoon them in seductive rosy heaps over my morning porridge. Which then changes to the raspberry, now that British ones are in season and offering up their tart juiciness. What can I say? I'm fickle when it comes to fruit.

But suddenly, come June, I realise now that all of this is a lie. Because my absolute favourite fruit, dear readers, is the Alphonso mango. Trust me to pick something exotic, elusive and expensive that is only available for a very tiny window of the year. 

I don't want to go into too much detail about these luscious mangoes, because I did so in my last post for this cheesecake.  Suffice to say that if you could eat gold , this is probably what it would taste like. 

The flesh is buttery, honey-sweet, oozing syrupy orange juice (your fingernails will look like a smoker's for days after eating one of these bad boys). The perfume is heady, whispering of tropical climes, of heaving spice markets, of radiant silks. The feel in your hand is firm, plump, warm, almost alive. Mottled, sun-kissed flesh, hinting coyly at the promise of treasure within. 

If you don't believe me, try and track down a box of these specimens before the season ends - they're generally found in Asian markets and groceries. I actually got mine from the Chinese grocery store near where I work; the middle Eastern stores were only selling the Pakistani honey mangoes, which are also fabulous but not quite as wonderful; they're slightly more bland, with creamier, less vibrant flesh. They're still a million times better than any other mangoes from the supermarket, though.

So, get your Alphonso mango. Beg, borrow or steal if you have to. If you think £5-7 for a box is too much, you're an idiot. It's so worth it.

Sniff one, cut it open, and suck the flesh straight from the stone. 

Then send me a thank-you via email, for enriching your life.

I've spent a small fortune on these golden globes of gorgeousness so far this month, but to me they're worth every penny. To be fair, they're actually the same price as supermarket mangoes - around £1-1.50 each, but because you don't normally buy supermarket mangoes in batches of five or six it seems more expensive. THIS IS IRRELEVANT. Would you pay seven small pounds to enter HEAVEN? Of course you would. So do it. 

You don't want to do much with an Alphonso mango. It's kind of like the early stages of love, the honeymoon period of a relationship. You don't care what you do; you'd be happy just to sit on the sofa all day together, or lie in the park, or generally carry out very little, because it's all about the company of your loved one.

It's the same with an Alphonso mango. You're just so happy it's there, you don't need to do anything to enjoy it any more.

However, should you want to elevate its deliciousness to extreme and sublime heights, try making this unbaked cheesecake. Baking an Alphonso mango is not a good idea; it can only dull that vibrant flesh and flavour. Instead, fold cubes of this startlingly orange treasure into a smooth cream cheese and coconut batter. Enjoy the contrast between the marigold fruit and the snow-white cheese. Set it with gelatine, and fold it luxuriantly over a buttery biscuit base enriched with the heady, citrussy perfume of crushed cardamom pods. Leave to set in the fridge, sprinkle with coconut, and serve.

I repeat, from my last post about this, what one of my friends remarked upon eating it: "This tastes like India".

Actually, given some unsavoury stories about Indian travel that I've heard from gap-yearing friends of mine (the "I saw my first dead body" story particularly springs to mind), perhaps I wouldn't want this cheesecake to taste like the real India. But in that it tastes like all the flavours you could associate, wistfully and longingly, with India and tropical climes - fresh coconut, super-sweet mango, fragrant cardamom - it's a perfect description.

Incidentally, it's even vaguely healthy - apart from the biscuit base (though I did use reduced-fat biscuits and a fraction of the butter traditionally called for in cheesecake recipes). The filling uses Quark, a fat-free cream cheese, and light normal cream cheese. Yes, there's sugar, but in terms of fat it's much better for you than traditional offerings. Plus with all that mango goodness in there, I'm sure it must be one of your five-a-day. 

You wouldn't guess it's healthy, though, from the taste. The filling is beautifully creamy, holding its shape yet melting in the mouth. It has a slightly sweet coconut tang which complements the fruity mango - I used coconut essence, which I managed to track down online. It's hard to get hold of, though, so use vanilla if you can't get any, or don't add any essence and instead dissolve the gelatine in the microwaved hot juice of one lime, rather than water. This variation is also delicious; I'm torn between which I prefer.

Either way, this is a perfect summer dessert. It can, of course, be made with normal mangoes from the supermarket, and will still be fabulous - just slightly less heavenly.

This time I made the cake in a 20cm tin rather than an 18cm tin, mainly because that way you get a thinner layer of cheesecake, which means MORE BISCUIT BASE per mouthful. Which is basically the whole point of cheesecake. I also used two mangoes in the cake instead of one, skipping the mango decoration on the top and just finishing with a light sprinkling of coconut.

Mango, coconut and cardamom cheesecake (serves 8):

• 10 digestive biscuits (normal or reduced-fat, if you want to make it slightly healthier)
• 50g butter, melted
• 10 cardamom pods, seeds crushed to a powder
• 2 ripe Alphonso mangoes
• 250g Quark
• 150g light cream cheese
• 150g icing sugar
• 1 tsp coconut essence (you can order this on eBay; if you can't find it, leave it out or use vanilla)
• 1 sachet gelatine
• 3 tbsp boiling water
• 2 tbsp desiccated coconut

Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Blitz the biscuits in a food processor and mix with the melted butter and cardamom. Scatter over the base of a greased, lined springform cake tin (18cm or 20cm) and press down with the back of a spoon to form an even layer. Bake for 10 minutes until golden and aromatic. Leave to cool.

Meanwhile, mix the Quark, cream cheese, icing sugar and coconut essence together with an electric mixer. Peel the mangoes and dice into small cubes.

Place the boiling water in a small bowl and sprinkle over the gelatine. Leave for a couple of minutes to partially dissolve, then stir to dissolve completely - if it hasn't all dissolved, heat in the microwave for a few seconds. Have the electric mixer ready, and pour the gelatine mixture into the cheese mixture. Whisk thoroughly to incorporate, then quickly fold in the diced mango. Pour over the biscuit base and place in the fridge for a few hours to set (I left mine overnight).

When ready to serve, sprinkle with desiccated coconut and finish with mint leaves, if you like.

Granny's shortbread

"Granny made some shortbread for you."

Six simple words, yet the joy they promise is boundless. I lift the lid of the gaudy plastic ice-cream tub, so incongruously matched to its sublime contents. I pull back the corner of the kitchen paper to reveal wedges of golden, burnished biscuit, thickly dusted with a snowy layer of sugar. I inhale the sweet, musty fragrance of butter, flour and sugar, picking at a stray crumb before extracting my chosen piece, always going for the largest in the box despite knowing it's inevitable I'll come back for a second. And a third.

I'm not alone, I'm sure, in possessing childhood memories of my granny that revolve around food. They're perhaps less conventional than some. I don't, for instance, fondly recall tugging at her apron strings as she showed me how to whip up a fabulous sponge cake, or licking the cake bowl after she'd finished. I don't recall a bubbling pot of jam, stew or soup on the stove, and the condensation it produced at the windows in winter. 

I do, however, recall very vividly the mini rotisserie attachment on her cooker, that allowed a chicken to be spit-roasted to succulent perfection. I remember the little crisp crackers she would put in a bowl when the grown-ups had their evening drinks - I always called them 'stars' even though they came in all sorts of shapes - diamonds, circles, and (obviously - there was some logic to this) actual stars. I would nibble the points off the stars until only the mutilated centre remained, like a tragic soggy starfish that's been cruelly mauled by a hungry shark.

I remember breakfast every day in her lovely light conservatory, where we were spoilt for choice, totally different to our usual standard bowl of cereal at home. There were tinned grapefruit segments, swimming in their cloudy tart juice. Being a picky child and totally unconcerned about my vitamin intake, I naturally ignored these. They were for the grown-ups. There were boxes of bran flakes, my favourite cereal back then. I remember watching someone put sugar from the sugar bowl onto their bran flakes, and remember trying it and being distinctly unimpressed with the results. Even as a child, I wasn't into sugary cereals. There was a toaster waiting to hungrily accept crumbly slices of soda bread, which until very recently I always referred to as 'Granny's bread', so strong was the mental association. 

I remember a warm, gooey apple cake she once made, served with lashings of vanilla ice cream that melted and soaked creamily into the sweet, tender crumb. I think I remember she had one of those fancy dinner party serving cabinets that keeps the food warm while you bring it to the table. She made excellent roast potatoes, and I know now that she makes a wonderful coffee cake, but my childhood self was unlikely to take a bite of that weird creation, so its sumptuousness would have to wait a good decade to make its way into my life.

It's a bit of a cliché to go on about how great a cook one's granny is (come on Britain, 'fess up - surely there must be some culinarily-challenged grannies out there; I refuse to believe they're all paragons of kitchen perfection, daintily arranged in spotless aprons churning out Victoria sponges for their adoring grandchildren), but in my case it is just plain factual. Perhaps it's something to do with the fact that she spent a lot of time living in various locations in Asia when she was younger, absorbing recipes and cooking tips by some sort of osmotic process. 

I was lucky enough to read through her recipe book recently, and it's a fascinating mish-mash of English and Asian, with sweet-and-sour fish sitting happily alongside jellied ox tongue, lemon meringue pie, and blackcurrant bake. There's a recipe simply titled 'Mohammed's bread', named after the family cook when she was living abroad (I forget where, but I think perhaps Calcutta). The pages are crinkled and the handwriting has faded, slightly, but it's a fascinating treasure-trove of memories and inspiration, one that I hope to cook from one day.

But when I think of my granny and food, one thing will stand out for me every time. Her shortbread.

She knows how much I love it; so much so that every time she comes to visit, she can be found earnestly pounding butter, flour, sugar and semolina together in a bowl with a wooden spoon, to provide me with my favourite treat. Sometimes she has to produce more than one batch in a very short space of time, such is the speed with which it's devoured.

How to describe the sheer simple beauty of a piece of granny's shortbread? 

For a start, it's nothing like that stuff you get in a tartan packet masquerading as shortbread. That stuff is often too sweet, too bland, too mass-produced. This is the real deal. It has a hefty amount of butter and sugar. That's why it tastes so good. You mix them together with a wooden spoon until they are soft and creamy.

It has semolina, which gives it this amazing crunch. You fold that in after, along with the flour. That's literally it. Then you press it firmly into a greased tin, prick it all over with a fork to stop it puffing up in the oven, and bake it for around an hour at a low temperature. It's somehow satisfyingly crunchy and crumbly, yet melt-in-the-mouth buttery and sweet. 

Granny dusts it with a thick layer of caster sugar while it's still in the tin, which gives it even more crunch when you come to take a bite. 

Think of how good the buttery topping of a crumble tastes, or the crispy pastry bits around the edge of a fruit pie. This is how the shortbread tastes. Crispy, crunchy, rich, buttery. It's just unbelievably good. Better than any biscuit you will ever make or buy, I'd wager. So simple, yet so perfect. 

I am physically incapable of having just one piece. In fact, I reckon I could eat the whole tin in one go. I normally eat this stuff in three-piece portions, simply swept away by the sugary rush into eating more and more. It's addictive. 

I think granny is always amazed that I rave about her shortbread so much. Every time I do, she laughs and tells me "It's just Delia!" There's no grand family secret recipe behind this post, nothing in granny's carefully-written recipe book; simply the work of the good old Delia Smith. 

What I don't think she understands is that for me, it's not about where the recipe came from, or who wrote it. It's about the fact that granny has made the shortbread with me in mind, knowing how much I love and adore this irresistible combination of ingredients. That, for me, is special, and is the reason why this shortbread will always have a special place in my heart, as a reminder of my lovely granny.

That, and the fact that it tastes incredible, of course.

Should you also want to replicate the perfection that is granny's shortbread, the recipe is here, on Delia's website.

Banana and brazil nut blondies

Ah, the overripe banana. Has there ever been a foodstuff so divisive? On the one hand, it repulses and horrifies, with its festering, milky innards and dark, wrinkled exterior. On the other, it lends a fabulous moisture and sweet banana fragrance to all sorts of baked goods, improving with flavour the longer it is left to liquefy in its skin.

Maybe not as divisive as some other foods - foie gras, battery chicken, rabbit, and those horrible Chinese dishes that involve eating pieces off the animal while it's still alive - but still a subject of contention, I am sure. I know of many people who simply cannot abide an overripe banana, for whom the thought of peeling back that leathery brown skin to reveal the grisly mush within is tantamount to a nightmare.

My standard response to overripe bananas - and for me, any banana that isn't still tinged with green and firm to the bite is classed as 'overripe', so god help it by the time it starts to show those telltale brown spots - is to bake banana bread, or whip up a fluffy batch of banana and blueberry pancakes. I used to produce the former on an almost weekly basis while at university, inviting all my friends over to partake in the extremely pleasant ritual of a good cup of tea and a steaming slice of moist, gooey, still-warm banana bread. The latter are also delicious; the squished bananas give the pancakes all the moisture they need, with no requirement for surplus butter, meaning you can even claim your whopping mountain of brunch sustenance is healthy.

However, while perusing the baking Bible that is Dan Lepard's latest cookbook, Short and Sweet, I alighted on the recipe for the simply- and alliteratively-titled 'Banana Blondie'..

Perhaps it was the picture that drew me in, managing to perfectly capture what I imagined to be the intense fudgy deliciousness of these golden creations.

Perhaps it was the use of brazil nuts, easily my favourite nut of all time thanks to its irresistible creamy-yet-nutty texture and super-rich flavour.

Perhaps it was the idea of a blondie, a new culinary experience for me and one involving liberal amounts of sweet, vanilla-scented white chocolate, which I rarely cook with but which sounded rather good enriching the hearts of these tender morsels.

Perhaps it was the prospect of another way to use up those overripe bananas.

I think it was probably all of the above, but the latter was the main reason for me donning my apron this morning and whipping up a batch.

'Whipping up' is perhaps the wrong phrase; they are a little bit more fiddly to make than your average blondie or brownie. They require making a caramel (which always sounds very tricky and technical, but in fact involves nothing more taxing than mixing sugar and water, and letting it boil without stirring for a few minutes until it turns golden and bubbly), into which you stir your chopped brazil nuts before letting it set to a kind of hard toffee, which you then slice - with an immensely satisfying crunch - into glistening shards before enveloping in the golden batter.

The batter is a mixture of melted butter and white chocolate, ripe bananas, flour, baking powder, vanilla and sugar. Stirring the molten butter and chocolate into the sugary banana base is delightful; the hot butter melds with the banana and sends wafts of heady, perfumed fragrance into the kitchen. It's quite runny, cascading in viscous waves into the tin ready for baking, after you've punctuated it with the delicious sweet, nutty brazil toffee. It smells banana-y, vanilla-y, and buttery.

These can only be good blondies, I thought to myself as I carefully lowered the baking tray into the oven.

Ha. How little I knew. These are, in fact, possibly the best baked good I have ever put in my mouth

Honestly, I can't even begin to describe how incredible they are. They are so moist and gooey, beautifully sweet and squidgy from the white chocolate, with that subtle enticing banana flavour. They're then rippled with crispy, sugary splinters of brazil nut toffee, adding a gorgeous buttery richness to the entire thing. The combination is incredible.

It's like eating banana bread on steroids , super-charged with white chocolate and brazil nuts.

It kind of reminds me of crumble, the combination of nutty, buttery, crunchy and gooey all at once.

Essentially, they are everything you'd want in a baked good. I think they're actually better than rich, plain chocolate brownies - they have that moreish gooeyness and light, buttery flavour. Plus the nuts really elevate them to something special. It's not like those boring chunks of generic chopped nuts you get in some commercial brownies, that taste of nothing and leave an unpleasant dryness in the mouth. These are toasty, buttery, crunchy and delicious.

Dan Lepard states to leave them until 'stone cold' before slicing into squares. This is probably the first and last time I will ever say anything to the contrary of my idolised baking guru, but - don't. Let them cool until lukewarm, then slice and eat while still semi-molten and gooey. There will be more crumbs. You won't get a neat edge. It will be quite messy and pieces will break off under the pressure of the knife.

Embrace it. Eat the crumbs, because calories consumed while preparing food don't count. Love and cherish those messy edges - rusticity is the key to deliciousness.

Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream, as I did, and you've pretty much got the best thing you will ever eat. I do not lie. I am so glad these have been introduced to my life.

Luckily for all you readers, the recipe is available online here. I did, however, make a couple of changes: I used 75g caster sugar for the brazil nut toffee, and then only another 200g (instead of 250g), of which half was caster and half was light brown - I love its caramel flavour. I also used 250g flour, not 200g, as my mixture was quite runny - probably due to the intense ripeness of my bananas (I didn't chop them, as the recipe says, as they were very soft - I just mashed them in with the egg using an electric whisk). Other than that it is the same, in all its beautiful, beautiful glory.

Fudgey. Gooey. Sugary. Crunchy. Nutty. Buttery. 

These really are just amazing.

Duck with chocolate and marsala

If it's possible for food to be sexy - and of course I believe it is, otherwise my life as a food blogger and aspiring food journalist would be very barren indeed - then this dish might just be the epitome of blushing, pulse-quickening, supple-fleshed sexuality. 

Think tender, succulent, meaty duck legs, smothered in a powerfully rich and complex sauce. It's glossy and dark with molten chocolate, enriched with the creamy bite of toasted pine nuts, sweet and juicy with plump raisins and laced with alcohol. It dribbles seductively off the spoon over the crispy skin of the duck, a dark and dramatic waterfall leaving sweet-savoury nuggets of powerful flavour in its wake.

This is a recipe from the Bocca cookbook by Jacob Kennedy, acclaimed head chef of Bocca di Lupo in Soho. I've been there twice and it's one of the best restaurants I've ever visited. It serves Italian food, but not as you'd know it; the dishes are often unusual, highlighting recipes, flavours and combinations from all over the diverse gastronomic melting pot that is Italy. Flavours are hearty and robust, the cooking is exquisite, and eating there is a fascinating tour de force of Italian cuisine at its lesser-known and best.

Unsurprisingly, then, the Bocca cookbook has no time for lasagne, spag bol and carbonara. Instead it treats you to underrated classics: caponata, the amazing sweet-sour aubergine stew from Sicily; guidelines for making your own Italian sausages; octopus with olive oil and peas; baked pigeon and bread 'soup'; cassata, a sublime confection of ricotta, chocolate and candied fruit from Sicily; tuna tartare, and other wonderful and exotic dishes. 

(Incidentally, I'm not being asked to write about this lovely book...I just thought I'd share my passion for it with you.)

I've started bookmarking recipes in new cookbooks as soon as I first read through them, to make it easier to find them later on. I take this a bit too seriously, having created a geeky colour scheme of page markers (blue for fish, green for vegetarian, pink for desserts, purple for meat...) to categorise the recipes. It's lucky I'm going back to university in October, really, isn't it?

This recipe was bookmarked immediately. Just the title had my mouth watering in anticipation.

Perhaps because it just rolls off the tongue in this incredibly sexy fashion. Perhaps because the word 'chocolate' is effortlessly inviting, conjuring up images of dark, sweet, melting goodness; of the voluptuous flow of a chocolate fountain or the warm, molten centre of a chocolate truffle. There's something beautiful about the word 'marsala', too, its soft sounds reminiscent of a seductive whisper, a romantic sigh, the letters curling around each other like slumbering lovers.

I've always been fascinated by cooking with chocolate. It's not a new concept; the Aztecs used it in this way before we Europeans got hold of the stuff and pumped it full of fat and sugar. You still find chocolate used as an ingredient in some savoury Mexican cooking. I've been experimenting with its deep, tannic richness recently, finding it a perfect partner for smoked duck, caramelised pears and goats cheese in this beautiful salad, though it's also commonly paired with venison. If you use good quality dark chocolate, it can add an intriguing complexity of flavour to a dish; a hint of bitterness, a touch of fragrance, a soft and melting mouthfeel.

This recipe starts by browning duck - it states to use a whole duck, jointed, but duck legs were on offer at the supermarket so I went with those. Once the duck skin is brown and crisp and has rendered down a lot of its fat, you remove it from the pan and fry chopped onion, pine nuts and raisins along with a cinnamon stick, fennel seeds and bay leaves.



The scent emanating from the pan as I stirred this heady mixture was intoxicating. The combination of spicy fennel, warm cinnamon and perfumed bay is unusual, wonderfully fragrant in a way that manages to be both sweet and savoury simultaneously. The pine nuts toast, offering up their nutty aroma, while the onions soften into translucent slivers.

To this you add a generous amount of marsala, or medium sherry (I went for the latter as marsala is pretty expensive). The duck legs sit in this sauce, covered, for around 45 minutes, braising gently away while infusing all of their meaty liquor into the sherry.

The finishing touch, once the duck is cooked, is to stir some dark chocolate into the sauce, where it melts and colours the whole thing a deep, dark brown. Being dark chocolate, it lends more of a bitterness than a sweetness to the mixture, which is already quite sweet from the alcohol, rounding off the complex mixture of spices, nuts and raisins. It also thickens the sauce, turning it glossy and unctuous. I stirred in a little parsley at the end, to lend its welcome freshness to the whole affair.



The recipe suggests no other accompaniment than plain couscous or wilted spinach, owing to the complexity of the flavours. I'd have to agree. I served my duck with bulgar wheat (slightly nuttier and chewier than couscous, so a good match for the strong sauce) and the suggested spinach, which worked perfectly.

I'm hoping I don't even need to tell you how unusual and delicious this dish is, because the title has already caught your eye, like it caught mine, and made you think "Right. I can go no longer without this in my life". It's just a fabulous combination of ingredients that work in total harmony. It's sweet yet bitter with cocoa, it bursts with juicy raisins and the crunch of toasted nuts, it melts in your mouth like chocolate. It doesn't overpower the rich flavour of the duck meat, instead complementing it perfectly and allowing its iron-rich gameyness to shine. It is incredibly rich, though, so a little sauce goes a long way. In future I might try it with pan-fried rare duck breasts, which are less intense in flavour than the legs.

I'm not going to give you a recipe, unfortunately, as I cooked the dish word-for-word from the Bocca cookbook, and I think it would probably infringe some kind of copyright to replicate it exactly on this blog. But do go out and buy Jacob Kennedy's excellent book; you'll find far more delights than just this gorgeous dish nestling in between its hallowed pages.

Quince and marzipan cake

I have a culinary conundrum for you. It's one I've been pondering for a long time now, often while daydreaming in the swimming pool or on my bike. Yes, I know that's a bit dangerous.

Why is it that some flavours taste more of themselves than the actual ingredient they have derived from?

That probably doesn't make any sense. Let's take an example.Marzipan.

Marzipan has that distinctive almond flavour, the kind you find in macaroons and flavoured sweets or chocolate. The kind you find in those mass-produced, impossibly neat, garish bakewell tarts with a cherry on top.

OK, so you've eaten almonds, right?

They taste nothing like almonds. 

Almonds have a strange, mouth-puckering dryness. They're soft, crumbly, and have a very very subtle sweetness and a deep, earthy flavour. But they bear no resemblance in taste to anything that carries their name. Almond croissants. Almond marzipan. Almond macaroons. Almond cakes. These things taste how we expect them to taste; they taste of the flavour we have come to associate with almonds. I've used ground almonds in cakes many a time, and found they impart little or no flavour to the rest of the cake; they certainly don't pack an almond punch on their own, whether whole or crushed up.

How, then, do they derive this flavour from a nut that tastes nothing like that? And why do we accept this unnatural and bizarre notion of almond flavour?

It's the same with coconut. Actual coconut flesh tastes almost nothing like the synthetic 'coconut' flavour we put in baked goods and chocolates, in Bounty bars and coconut ice and other tropical delights. It's remarkably subtle in taste, as is the coconut milk we add to curries and are often disappointed with because it doesn't offer enough of a 'coconut' hit, enough of that artificial flavour we've come to associate with coconut.

I'm sure some molecular gastronomic genius like Harold McGee or Heston Blumenthal would be able to answer me on this, but if anyone else (Heston, I know you're busy - please don't feel like you have to comment on all my blog posts) has an answer to this serious query of mine, there's a comment box at the bottom of the page.

But obviously you don't care about my almond and coconut dilemmas, because what you really want to know is how damn good this cake is.

Doesn't it just look the picture of rustic, English perfection? I can't think of a more traditional tea-time cake than this. It uses quinces, a medieval fruit that has sadly fallen out of favour yet, for me, is one of the most exquisite ingredients in the world. It has a complexity of flavour like no other; I once made a sorbet that contained just quinces, sugar and water, yet from its taste you would have thought it was spiked with a heady cocktail of fragrant spices.

Indeed, when my father tried this cake he was adamant that I'd put cinnamon in it. I hadn't. That's just the complexity of quince for you; it has a perfume redolent of mulled wine and potpourri and the bubbling cauldrons of medieval cooks, brimming with treasures from the spice trail.

Poached quince segments make a great basis for all sorts of desserts. By simply simmering them in the gentlest possible way, in a syrup of sugar and water flavoured with whatever herbs and spices you choose, you end up with kitchen gold - literally. They mellow and soften, becoming golden, sometimes deep sunset red, full of ambrosial fragrant flavour and with a pleasant yielding yet grainy texture not unlike that of a perfectly ripe pear.

Cooked like this, you can use quinces for so many things. I like them pure and simple, spooned onto my morning porridge with a handful of tart blackberries or blueberries. They are also excellent with ice cream, or you can use them to top a dessert, as in this wonderful  quince tarte tatin recipe. Cover them in pastry for a beautiful pie, or top with a coarse crumble for a buttery treat.

Quinces marry particularly well with almonds. Given that they are not dissimilar to pears in both shape and texture when cooked, this shouldn't be surprising. The idea to include them in a cake with marzipan came to me when I was baking mini simnel cakes this Easter. I had some high-quality marzipan to use up, and some quinces sitting in the fridge, and I suddenly thought that stirring cubes of marzipan into a cake batter with cubes of poached quince would create something fabulous.

I wasn't wrong; this is a beautiful cake. The cubes of marzipan melt in the heat of the oven, giving a gorgeous gooey texture and sharp hit of almond flavour (that strong, almost fake variety, as discussed at the beginning of this post). The quince is soft, grainy and fruity, delivering a sweetness and a perfume that matches beautifully with the marzipan. The cake is nutty from the use of spelt flour and the scattering of flaked almonds over the top, resulting in a dense crumb that is beautifully moist from the molten marzipan and the juicy quince.

This isn't a very sweet cake; it's more of a pudding to be eaten after a light meal, or something to be served in slabs with a good cup of afternoon tea. The quince and marzipan combination is more than enough sweetness for the whole cake, so there isn't much extra sugar involved. I'd suggest pairing it with vanilla ice cream, as the cold cleanliness of the ice cream is a good foil for the sugary marzipan and the fragrant quince. If you don't have quinces (they're quite hard to find even when in season), use ripe but firm pears - but don't bother with the poaching step, just cut them up and put them in raw.

This is a hearty, rustic cake, the kind I can imagine a medieval chef unearthing from the bowels of the oven and cutting into thick slices to serve after a banquet of venison and wild fowl. It looks beautiful and makes a satisfying pudding or afternoon treat, the kind of thing that will keep you going in that hideous destitute period between lunch and dinner when all seems bleak.

Pair it with a strong cup of tea - perhaps something rich and smoky like lapsang souchong - or coffee, cut yourself an indecently large slice, and savour the comforting, crumbly warmth of the cake and the surprising burst of gooey marzipan pieces. This is a proper cake, as cakes should be.

Quince and marzipan cake (serves 8-10):

• 600ml water
• 250g caster sugar
• 1 lemon
• All or a mixture of: cloves, star anise, crushed cardamom pods, cinnamon stick, vanilla pod, bay leaf
• 3 medium quinces [Or, if you can't find quinces, just use 4-5 ripe but firm pears - Conference are good - and skip the rest of the above ingredients]
• 310g spelt flour (or plain/wholemeal, depending on your preference)
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 80g brown sugar
• Grated zest of 1 lemon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 60g melted butter, cooled slightly
• 2 eggs
• 340ml buttermilk (or yoghurt loosened with a little milk)
• 150g marzipan, cut into 1cm cubes
• 2 tbsp flaked almonds

First, prepare the quinces. Bring the water and caster sugar to the boil in a large saucepan, then bubble away for a couple of minutes so the sugar dissolves. Cut the lemon in half and add to the pot. Add your chosen herbs and spices. Peel the quinces then cut into quarters. Remove the tough core and cut each quarter lengthways so you have eight slices. Add the quince slices to the liquid. Top up with more water, if necessary, so they are just covered.

[If using pears, skip this step and go straight to the cake-making - cut up the pears as below and use them raw]

Cut a circle of greaseproof paper to fit over the quinces in the pot, and cut a 1-inch hole in the centre. Place over the quinces, touching the water, then turn the heat right down. Simmer very gently for an hour or so, until the quinces are tender but still holding their shape - check them occasionally as you don't want them disintegrating. Remove with a slotted spoon and place on a chopping board. Slice three or four of the segments lengthways into three pieces so you end up with long, slender slices. Cut the rest of the segments into 2cm dice, and set them all aside to dry on a piece of kitchen towel.

Pre-heat the oven to 190C (fan oven). Grease a 25cm cake tin or fluted tart tin and line it with baking parchment.

Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Add the brown sugar, lemon zest and salt.

In another bowl whisk together the melted butter, eggs and buttermilk. Pour this into the dry mixture and fold together gently with a large spoon until just combined - don't over mix.

Fold the cubes of quince and marzipan into the mixture so they are evenly dispersed. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, then arrange the long quince slices in a pattern over the top of the cake. Scatter over the flaked almonds.

Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes until the centre is firm and a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool slightly before dusting with icing sugar.

Serve with vanilla ice cream. It's best eaten warm, but keeps for days wrapped in foil and reheats well in the oven or microwave.

Caramelised pear, pecan and cranberry upside-down cake

So, dear readers, as we breeze inexorably into the month of June and the blossom is in full swing on the trees and the hayfever is at full saturation point in the air and the hosepipes are at full prohibition point on the lawns, I bring you the most Christmassy, un-summery cake ever.

Would you believe me if I told you that the fresh cranberries used to top this cake have been in my fridge since November?

Would you?

Probably not. Neither would I if I had told myself back then when I stashed them away for future baking. But then I discovered that cranberries have an amazingly long shelf life, largely because they have a low moisture content and a sort of waxy coating on their skins. I read that they'd last a couple of months; I didn't expect them to last nearly six.

The reason I kept some back after Christmas is mainly because I feel the humble cranberry is a bit overlooked. In fact, I feel really sorry for it. It gets its tiny little moment in the limelight, the month before Christmas where everyone feels the compulsion to make a huge batch of cranberry sauce even though no one really eats it and it doesn't go particularly well with turkey, and then it's relegated to the depths of beyond for the next year. 

Why do we consign cranberries to Christmas in this country?

They have so much potential. I have the wonderful food writer Diana Henry to thank for this; in her book 'Roast Figs, Sugar Snow' she extols the virtues and versatility of cranberries, pointing out that they can be used in a wide variety of dishes; to add sharpness to a plate of meatballs or venison; to serve in a compote spooned over a slab of ginger cake; to stir through a rice salad with duck. It was her gorgeous recipes and beautiful prose that awoke me to the potential of cranberries outside the Christmas table, and that is why I tucked them away in my fridge for all those months. 

She was also the reason for this cranberry and wild rice duck salad, for a lovely dinner I made involving chicken breasts stuffed with cream cheese, dried cranberries and pecans, and for my morning porridge peppered with chunks of juicy pear and gem-like dried cranberries. I'm a cranberry fiend, and I wanted to use my stash in the fridge for something really special. 

I finally got round to using them this week. I've no idea why it's taken me so long...I guess there have always been higher-priority desserts on the cards.

But now that I've made this once, it's going on the 'high priority' list. 

The idea for a pear, pecan and cranberry upside-down cake came from 'Roast Figs, Sugar Snow'. I'd been thinking of a cranberry upside-down cake anyway, but the slight problem with baking with cranberries is that they are extremely sour. Even if your cake batter is quite sweet, those little pockets of mouth-puckering tartness are not to everyone's taste. By toning them down a little using sugary pears and toasty pecans, you end up with a much more pleasant combination, both in terms of texture and flavour. The pears turn soft and grainy; the nuts are crunchy and earthy; the cranberries give a moreish little burst of flavour.

I love the magic of upside-down cakes and tarte tatins.

The way the fruity caramel seeps into the cake or pastry. The moment of anticipation as you flip it over and unveil it. The burnished, caramelly edges of the fruit where they've been in contact with the hot tin or pan. 

You know what I love even more than that? Caramelised pears. Frying pears in a bubbling mixture of dark, ambrosial brown sugar and butter is one of the most wonderful things to spend your morning, afternoon or evening doing. The smell is intoxicating. The sight of the golden liquor is ravishing. I love the way they soften from hard, glassy, white shards into tender, slippery, curling strands of burnished sumptuousness while perfuming your kitchen with their buttery fragrance.

On the top of this cake, they melt down into sweet morsels that infuse the batter with their juice. They provide a mellow sugariness to contrast with the tart cranberries. Top it all off (literally) with the irresistible sweet, nutty flavour of pecans, and you have an addictive and delicious combination. 

The cake batter for this is a healthier version of Diana's. Don't be put off. It's my standard cake batter recipe for any cake topped with fruit, and you'd never believe it only uses a fraction of the butter of normal cakes. This is down to the genius of adding yoghurt, which keeps the cake really moist and flavourful while negating the need for huge amounts of butter. 

The result is a dense, vanilla-scented, moist crumb that pairs beautifully with the rich fruity topping. Seriously, it's incredible. This would work with any fruit, really, but the pear-pecan-cranberry trio is something worth trying, particularly as it looks very pretty. The cake is excellent served warm from the oven with lots of cold vanilla ice cream, but is also good just as it is with a big cup of tea. In fact, I think it's better after a day or so, when the cake becomes even more moist and the fruit tastes sweeter.

This would be the perfect cake for winter, tasting as festive and wonderful as it looks. If you're not like me and don't obsessively hoard seasonal fruits, then you could make it year-round using raspberries, blueberries, blackberries or even raisins instead of the cranberries, or use dried cranberries, or omit them altogether or change the fruit. It's up to you. Follow this basic template and you'll end up with a hugely rewarding piece of cake. 

Caramelised pear, pecan and cranberry upside-down cake (serves 6-8):

(Inspired by 'Roast Figs, Sugar Snow' by Diana Henry)

• 40g butter
• 70g brown sugar
• 4 medium pears (Conference work best)
• 60g pecan nuts
• 150g fresh cranberries
• 150g light brown sugar
• 60g soft butter
• 2 eggs
• 200g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• Around 200ml plain yoghurt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt

Heat the 40g butter and 70g brown sugar sugar together in a non-stick frying pan. Peel and core the pears, then cut into slices around 1cm thick. Add to the butter and sugar and cook over a medium heat until the pears soften and release some of their juice. Turn the heat up and caramelise them briefly so they are golden brown and sticky. Mix in the cranberries and pecans and turn off the heat.

Grease and line a 23cm springform cake tin, then tip the fruit mixture into the bottom. Pre-heat the oven to 180C/170C fan oven.

In a large bowl, mix together the butter and sugar with an electric mixer/hand whisk. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat thoroughly until the mixture is pale and creamy. Sift in the flour and baking powder, then fold in the vanilla, salt and yoghurt - just enough to make a smooth batter (you might not need it all, or you might need a bit more, depending on how thick your yoghurt is). 

Pour this mixture onto the fruit in the tin, then level and bake for 35-40 minutes, until golden brown and the centre springs back when you press it. Allow to cool for 5 minutes in the tin, then run a knife round the edge, put a plate over the top and invert the cake onto the plate (don't let it cool too much before you do this, or the caramel will stick to the tin).

Serve warm with ice cream, or cold for afternoon tea.

Smoked duck, goat cheese, pear and walnut salad with chocolate & vanilla balsamic

I think I may have been a salamander in a previous life, because I just love smoke.

Smoked anything. Anything, for me, is better if it's smoked. Buying bacon? I always go for smoked, even if a recipe specifically calls for unsmoked. Haddock? Smoke it, it makes it better. (Obviously by that I mean hang it up in a room over burning things to give it a unique aroma, rather than stick it in a pipe and inhale it). Smoked garlic has the most incredible rich scent, though I've always found that it mellows disappointingly if you cook it. If you've never tried smoked chicken, you don't know what you're missing. It's like eating barbecue chicken without having to actually barbecue it. Try it in this amazing smoked chicken and mango rice salad. When I don't want to splash out on smoked chicken, I go for mackerel instead. I love mackerel in all its forms, but particularly when it's scattered in firm, meaty flakes over a salad. Smoked trout is a lovely alternative, much more mild but still possessing the richness to accompany ingredients such as eggs or asparagus. 

These are all fairly standard. What I particularly love is finding an unusual smoked ingredient. Smoked quail eggs are something I tried recently, and found utterly addictive and wonderful. There's something about the way the bittersweet tang of the smoke couples with the creaminess of the egg that makes for an incredible taste experience. I once found a jar of smoked roasted peppers in oil, which were sweet, slippery, smoky and delicious. In Italy I sampled smoked swordfish, sliced wafer thin and arranged in succulent, gossamer-like folds on a plate, drizzled with olive oil and tasting simultaneously of smoke and of the sea. I've been eyeing up smoked sardine fillets in the deli section of M&S for months, not quite able to bring myself to splash out on them (no pun intended) but knowing it's inevitable as I can't resist the allure of smoke.

Essentially, if I see 'smoked' before any ingredient, it's going in my mouth.

Smoked duck is a new and firm favourite. Fresh duck breasts are one of my all-time favourite ingredients, mainly because they're quick to cook, can partner with exotic fruity flavours (try this lovely smoked duck, fig and mozzarella salad, for example), and can be served pink and bloody. 

I also think I might have been a T-Rex in a previous life, given my penchant for meat that is basically still moving.

You can sometimes find smoked duck sold pre-sliced, but in my opinion it's much better to buy a whole smoked duck breast and slice it yourself. It's fresher, sweeter, and more tasty. I'm lucky enough to find them at my butchers, but you can sometimes get them in good delis or supermarkets. The organic butcher in the Covered Market in Oxford (one of my favourite haunts when I was at university) sells whole smoked chickens vacuum-wrapped for about a fiver. These are a total bargain and there's nothing more satisfying and aromatic - or more oily - than sitting down with the whole bird and rampantly stripping chunks of succulent perfumed meat from its carcass. Memories like this make me miss Oxford the most. Not those of my friends or anything, they pale in comparison to a large hunk of smoked poultry.

I came up with this salad because I wanted to find a recipe to use this gorgeous chocolate and vanilla infused balsamic vinegar from the Gourmet Spice Company, whose blackberry and rosemary balsamic I wrote about recently. They're not asking me to write this, I should add - I just bloody love their flavoured balsamic vinegars.

Chocolate and vanilla...in balsamic vinegar? You may think it sounds mad. But then you obviously haven't dipped your finger (or a piece of bread, if we're being hygienic here) in this heavenly elixir and had a taste. 

The richness of the cocoa is the perfect match for the deeply flavoured balsamic, which has a hint of dark sweetness anyway that is perfectly complemented by the flavour of cocoa. The hint of vanilla gives the whole thing a pleasantly light, fruity taste. It blurs the line between sweet and savoury in an unusual and delicious way.

I came up with this salad essentially by thinking of all the things that I know work well with chocolate, and putting them on a plate together. Pears and chocolate are one of the most heavenly combinations known to mankind. Nuts obviously work well too, particularly walnuts whose bitterness counteracts the sugar content. But would you ever have thought of duck and goat's cheese working with chocolate? 

It's not too surprising; venison and chocolate is a well-known pairing, and duck has a similarly rich gamey flavour. Smoked duck has even more depth, and is so rich that it desperately needs something to stop it cloying; enter chocolate. Goat's cheese works amazingly well; something about its light tanginess is excellent against the darker, deeper aroma of cocoa. 

I caramelised some sliced pears in a little butter and brown sugar. I mixed these with slices of smoked duck breast, a handful of rocket, crumbled walnuts, chunks of soft goat's cheese, and a generous drizzle of the chocolate and vanilla balsamic. I tried making a vinaigrette using rapeseed oil, as its flavour isn't too intrusive, but I found that the oil made the whole thing rather greasy and unpleasant, totally detracting from the flavour of the vinegar. This beautiful vinegar is sweet and mild enough that it doesn't need anything else; you can splash it, unadulterated, over your salad. 

I was sceptical that all these ingredients would work in harmony, but I needn't have been. Instead, I was rewarded with one of the most invigorating, delicious and unusual salads I've ever made. There's a perfect marriage of textures - dense meat, soft tangy cheese, crunchy walnuts and juicy, grainy pear. There's a gorgeous relationship between all the individual flavours, which stand out on their own and combine beautifully with the chocolate and vanilla. The acidic, cocoa-rich bite of the vinegar prevents the combination being too rich or confused, bringing everything together. 

Plus I think it looks beautiful, with all its different colours and textures. If you can't get hold of this vinegar (you can order it online), try using ordinary balsamic and warming it with some grated extra dark chocolate. I promise you, this is an incredible salad; you need to try it soon.

Smoked duck, goat cheese, pear and walnut salad with chocolate & vanilla balsamic (serves 2):

• 2 medium pears
• A knob of butter
• 2 tsp brown sugar
• 1 large smoked duck breast, thinly sliced
• 150g soft, mild goat's cheese
• A large handful of walnuts, toasted if you like
• 75g rocket, spinach or watercress (or a mixture)

Chocolate & vanilla infused balsamic vinegar (or normal balsamic - you could grate in a little strong dark chocolate and warm it to get the flavour)

First, make the caramelised pears. Quarter the pears, cut out the core and slice lengthways into slices about 5mm thick. Heat the butter and sugar in a non-stick frying pan until bubbling, then add the pears. Cook over a high heat until caramelised on one side, then turn over and cook for another couple of minutes, until soft and golden.

Arrange the salad leaves between two plates. Arrange the slices of duck breast and pears on the plate, then scatter over chunks of goat's cheese and the toasted walnuts. Before serving, drizzle with the balsamic.

Strawberry French toast with basil sugar

I was recently invited by Allinson (the bread and flour company) to take part in a recipe challenge. Harking back to founder Thomas Allinson, who in the nineteenth century encouraged healthy eating by prescribing the consumption of two salads a week, Allinson are encouraging consumers to grow their own herbs by offering them a Kitchen Herb Garden when they send off tokens from the Allinson bread range. The herb garden includes a box for growing the herbs, compost, and three packs of seeds - basil, parsley and chives. The challenge was to come up with a recipe featuring one or more of the herbs along with bread from the Allinson range, and to focus on healthy eating, in the spirit of the company's founder.

Like many pioneering geniuses, a lot of Allinson's ideas were regarded as a bit mad during his time. He outlandishly believed nearly all ailments could be cured by a good diet, exercise, and a healthy lifestyle. Apparently this was regarded as 'rebellious' by his peers. Oh, how times have changed.

I've never had much success with growing my own herbs. I did try, diligently, when I moved into a house in my second year of university and found myself with a window ledge. It was promptly filled with pots of mint, coriander and parsley. They all showed promising progress for a while, and then almost as promptly decided to stop growing altogether and die. From then on I kept mint in my room, and had a bit more success, but it still had a tendency to grow rapidly for a couple of weeks then stop, turning wispy and lacking in foliage to be used for Moroccan tea-making.

I've always been so envious of people who complain that fresh mint grows like a weed in their garden. Oh, to have my own giant supply of this wonderful, fresh, versatile herb. I've tried so many times and failed, and I think I deserve a successful mint plant far more than most people, seeing as it's one of my favourite herbs and I would actually use and treasure it rather than dismiss it as a weed and moan about it.

In spite of these failures, I gave the Allinson box a go. I sprinkled my seeds - which came in cute little sachets bearing quotes from Allinson himself, such as "Pure air is our best friend", "A man is what he eats" and "Brown bread is not a luxury but a necessity" - into the soil, watered, and waited.

Lo and behold, after a week or so, green shoots started to appear.

Despite this promising start, the shoots still remain in this state, several weeks later. The basil has gone a bit mouldy and the chives have wilted, but the parsley is still growing, I think. Perhaps this is due to my assiduous over-watering. I did desperately try not to over-water them, but I'm useless at knowing when to stop. Here's a tip if you're thinking of collecting the Allinson tokens (6 tokens and £2 P&P, or 3 tokens and £5 P&P) and getting your own herb garden: if you think it needs watering, it probably doesn't. Err on the side of dryness, and you'll probably have much more success than me. It's a lovely little box and I love the idea of it growing happily away on the kitchen worktop. If only I'd held back with the water.

Fortunately I wasn't required to use my own home-grown herbs for this competition, or you might be looking at a recipe for 'strawberry French toast with a tiny sprinkling of mouldy basil shoot'.

I had numerous ideas for recipes involving bread and a combination of chives, basil and parsley. Cheese was involved in nearly all of them, as were eggs. However, I wanted to do something a little bit different.

Generally, people think of herbs as an ingredient for savoury cooking. However, the dessert potential of herbs is something I find fascinating, and enjoy experimenting with. I once made a rosemary ice cream which was beautiful with slices of poached quince, and I imagine would have worked well with poached pears too. Bay leaf ice cream was another hit; served alongside a very spice-heavy, fruity crumble, it added an intriguing herbal note that cut through all the other flavours.

Perhaps the most common herb used in desserts now is basil. It has a fairly sweet, citrus flavour which makes it easily adaptable for sweet dishes; you'd probably have a harder time getting chives, sage or parsley to taste good alongside sugar (although I love a challenge in the kitchen...maybe I'll have a go one day). Basil ice cream was a hit with everyone who tried it; they were often expecting to be repulsed, and ended up going back for thirds. It worked beautifully alongside strawberries, whose light, fruity sweetness sits comfortably with the more complex, slightly metallic flavour of basil.

Basil sugar was an experiment for me last summer; I used it to sprinkle over these honey mango tartlets, giving them a fabulous crunch and another dimension of flavour to set against the super-sweet Pakistani mango topping and soft, creamy ricotta filling. When I entertained the concept of doing a sweet dish for this recipe competition, I immediately decided to incorporate the basil sugar. It's different, interesting, and surprisingly delicious, delivering a totally unexpected flavour and texture.

It's the simplest thing to make, too - you just blitz caster sugar and fresh basil together in a blender, until the sugar becomes pungent with heady basil flavour, and the leaves disintegrate to colour the sugar. It ends up looking rather like green snow.

French toast seemed the obvious sweet way of using bread in my recipe. You might argue that French toast isn't exactly healthy, and the emphasis is supposed to be on healthy eating, but I disagree. French toast is actually healthier and more nutritious than toast itself - you're soaking it in milk and egg, which are good sources of protein and nutrients. It's basically the same as having toast, a boiled egg, and a small glass of milk. I used wholemeal bread, too, which ups the health quotient a bit. You add a tiny amount of sugar and pan-fry it in a very small amount of butter, no more than you'd have on your normal toast.

The result is, of course, a delicious crispy, chewy exterior giving way to a fluffy, soft, gooey crumb, subtly flavoured with vanilla and a touch of cinnamon. It's also a great way to salvage stale bread, which makes the best French toast as it soaks up more milk.

The French call it pain perdu, 'lost bread', which I quite like - I have this image of the lost souls of countless loaves wandering bread purgatory until their redeeming kitchen angel decides to save them through a good baptism of milk and egg.

So, then you cover your little lost bread it in sliced strawberries - one of your five a day - and sprinkle over a little of this delightful basil sugar.

The sugar is the star of this recipe. OK, so the delicious squidgy French toast is pretty spectacular, and the sweet strawberries go very well with it, but it's the herbal, citrussy crunch of the basil sugar that turns the whole thing from an ordinary breakfast or brunch to something classy and a bit special. It gives another texture to the plate, adds a pretty green finishing touch, and works harmoniously with the strawberries.

This is probably a breakfast or brunch dish, but if you made the portion a bit smaller it would make a lovely dessert after a light meal, too. You could swap the strawberries for raspberries or even blueberries; basil would work well with them all, I think.

Strawberry French toast with basil sugar (serves 2):

• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• A small bunch of fresh basil
• 4 slices wholemeal bread, preferably a bit stale
• 2 eggs
• 150-200ml milk
• 5 tsp sugar (caster or light brown)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• A pinch of cinnamon
• A knob of butter
• Sliced strawberries, to serve

First, make the basil sugar. Put the 2 tbsp caster sugar in a blender along with the basil, and grind until the sugar turns green and fragrant with the basil - there should only be tiny bits of basil leaf still visible. Set aside.

Cut the crusts off the bread and cut into triangles. Mix the eggs, milk, 5 tsp sugar, vanilla and cinnamon in a shallow dish using a whisk. Put the bread into the dish to soak up the mixture for a minute or so, then flip over and soak the other side. You may need to add a bit more milk, depending on how 'thirsty' the bread seems.

Heat the butter in a non-stick frying pan until foaming. Add the bread slices and cook for a couple of minutes, until they develop a golden crust, then flip over and cook the other side in the same way.

Place the toast on a plate to serve, and scatter over the sliced strawberries and basil sugar. Serve immediately.