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.

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.

Cobnut, cherry and goats' cheese salad

There's no getting around the fact that I'm an unashamed pedant. Ever since Lynne Truss made it cool to be finicky about spelling and grammar, I wear my pedantry colours with pride. Although, having said that, it's more of a curse than something to be proud of. On the average day I will spot at least ten linguistic or grammatical mistakes in my vicinity, whether I find them on the internet, in a book I'm reading, or on signage. Each one sends a slight shudder down my spine, but I just bristle with suppressed disgust and try to carry on with my day, having realised long ago that it'll take more than Lynne Truss's book to reform the world of language. I used to correct people mid-conversation if they said "faster" instead of "more quickly" - it's possibly my biggest grammatical bugbear - but I since realised that it's not really socially acceptable to do that, and I don't really want to alienate myself and end up with only Lynne Truss's book for a friend.

There's a definite positive correlation between my annoyance and the context of these mistakes; the more high-profile (signs in major supermarket chains, the backs of cereal boxes, magazines), the more likely it is to make me feel slightly sick with the state of humanity. The humble and much-maligned "greengrocer's apostrophe" no longer upsets me, probably because if I'm looking at it, I'm usually about to purchase some tasty fruit and veg, which is a happy enough experience to quell any stirrings of grammar-based rage. But if there's no food involved, it's highly likely that I'll be sent into a very middle-aged mental tirade about the state of the world and what on earth is it all coming to. Et cetera, ad nauseum. 

One culmination of all this suppressed rage was a heavily sarcastic poem I wrote when I was doing A-level English, which I will be kind enough to share with you all here.

Those with bad grammar have all my respect

Nothing is better than spelling unchecked.

Literacy plummets and ignorance soars

When no-one knows the difference between the two types of "your".

Apostrophes run riot on adverts and signs

They bring a smile to my face, do those quaint little lines,

For what could be better for the pride of our nation

Than ignorance of correct pluralisation?

Who knows the difference between the two types of "its"?

Just throw in an apostrophe wherever it fits,

All employers adore a mis-spelled CV

With a token misplaced apostrophe.

You'll go up in the world with no grasp of words,

It's a surefire way to get yourself heard.

For what could be better than things no one can read

To attract attention and to get what you need?

The internet's a blessing if you're grammatically poor,

Just abbreviate words til their meaning's unsure,

It makes so much sense and it saves time too

To change "of" to OV and "do" to DU.

There are thousands of ways to make your life better

But here's an example: try writing a letter,

Swap T.H.E.I.R for T.H.E.R.E

And your world will improve, that I guarantee.

In the plurals of words it's the right thing to do,

To shove in an apostrophe when you think you need to,

In Asda one day they put one in the word "pears",

(An effective advertisement for their edible wares

As there's nothing like illiteracy to attract consumers

Or misplaced punctuation in a sign for "satsuma's").

Join in the club and massacre your speech,

No mistake is too great to be out of your reach,

Add commas, hyphens and apostrophes galore,

And perhaps the odd colon if you need something more.

For what gets more respect than an illiterate mind?

Grab your pen and start scribbling or you'll get left behind.

Not only can I cook, dear readers, but I'm clearly a budding poet. I bet you didn't know that.

The reason I bring up my pedantic streak is that I was just writing the title for this post, and I had to stop. Goat's cheese? Is that right? Or should it be goats' cheese? It occurred to me just now that this has puzzled me every time I write the phrase in a blog post, but I've just ignored it and used one of those two variations. You'll probably find the apostrophe in a different place every time I've mentioned this delectable dairy substance.

Goats' cheese surely makes more sense. After all, the cheese probably didn't come from a single goat, and unless you can guarantee that it did, the plural seems most correct. Sometimes I think about just writing "goat cheese" and eliminating all this apostrophe-based anxiety altogether. However, now that I've addressed the issue, I think we're safe to carry on.

Incidentally, I absolutely love goats' cheese. How could anyone not? Its tangy, sharp flavour, reminiscent of lemons; its creaminess (ITS, ITS, NOT IT'S), its slight crumbly texture. The way it goes so well with almost anything, from meat to fruit to veg. Its delicate chalky whiteness. Delicious.

This salad arose out of a long-nurtured desire to cook something involving the pairing of cherries and goats' cheese. While the cheese works well with a lot of fruit, I thought the magenta juices of the cherries would look wonderful against its pure whiteness. I found some really gorgeous fat, juicy specimens in the market which had just the right amount of sweetness to partner the tangy cheese.

I also wanted to use some Kentish cobnuts, which have been in the market for a couple of weeks now and have quite a short season. They're a type of cultivated hazelnut, grown in orchards called "plats". Apparently the Victorians considered them a delicacy, and would eat them with after-dinner port. Unlike most nuts, they're sold fresh (I actually just wrote "solled". What on earth is wrong with me? I think this post about bad spelling and grammar has infected me with the disease itself), meaning you have to faff around cracking and peeling them before you can use them. I decided to roast mine, as they were a bit bland raw, so I put them in the oven. They turned soft - apparently if you leave them in for about an hour they go hard again, like hazelnuts, but I didn't know this. They were still delicious, though.

I can't really give you a recipe for this salad, as it's really just a load of things chucked in a bowl that happened to taste delicious together.

Firstly, I sliced a bulb of fennel really thinly on a mandolin. I dressed it with lemon juice, a drizzle of olive oil, a tiny tiny drop of sesame oil, and lots of salt and pepper (raw fennel with crunchy salt is truly delicious). I mixed in some chopped cherries, then piled this onto a bed of salad leaves. I then scattered over a few more cherries, the roasted cob nuts (hazelnuts would work well too, if you can't find cob nuts), the fennel fronds, and finally placed two big slices of goats' cheese on top (the kind you can buy sliced from a big log in cheese shops). I also, because I'm an exhibitionist, melted the cheese slightly with my kitchen blowtorch, but this isn't entirely necessary.

The result? A really excellent lunch for two. It's quite filling on its own, but is also really good with some tasty sourdough bread or a crusty baguette. It might sound like an odd combination of ingredients, but they really work - the sweetness of the cherries (try to get juicy ripe ones) counterbalances the acidity of the fennel and the cheese, as does the liberal use of salt. The nuts provide some crunchy texture, along with the fennel. I might have to make this again soon.

Do you have any particular grammatical bugbears? Or do you find people like me incredibly irritating and think we should just calm down and get a life?

Lamb köfte with cherries

The first time I ate köfte was in Istanbul. I'd tracked down, using the magical wisdom of Lonely Planet, a restaurant that was meant to serve the best in town. I dragged my travelling companions through the sweltering city, to find a gaggle of locals swarming around the door. We joined the disorderly queue, but for some reason, minutes later, were pulled to the front and shown to a table in the restaurant, despite there still being many unseated Turks left outside the door. We were then slightly puzzled to see that the restaurant was almost full of people, all sitting at their tables surveying the food that had already been served. There was salad, plates of peppers, a big basket of bread, and bowls awaiting soup. None of it had been touched, by anyone. It was then that we remembered it was the start of Ramadan, and that we were witnessing the last few minutes of the locals' fasting. The tension, hunger and relief in the air were almost palpable as everyone waited silently, eyeing the morsels of bread and inhaling the tempting barbecue aromas emanating from the kitchen. 

We were finally given the signal to tuck in. We had been told by the staff that we didn't have to wait like the locals, if we were hungry, but it seemed incredibly bad manners to start wolfing down food when they only had a few more minutes to wait. I thought I was ravenous, but then remembered that I hadn't starved myself since dawn, and suddenly my 'hunger' seemed rather shameful. Bowls of steaming soup emerged from the kitchen, closely followed by lamb köfte. The origin of the word köfte is from the Persian kufteh, meaning 'mashed' - it usually applies to a mixture of minced meat (though you can get vegetarian versions), pounded into a fine paste with spices, herbs and seasoning, before being either shaped into small balls or on a skewer like a kebab. Ours in Istanbul were the latter variety, and they certainly lived up to expectations, delivering a beautifully rich, smoky, meaty flavour with a hint of spice. It's hard to describe that incredible flavour of lamb kebabs, sweet and juicy on the middle but burnished and rich on the outside; these were like those generic lamb and mint versions you can buy in supermarkets for the barbecue, only infinitely better.

I've been meaning to try out Diana Henry's lamb and cherry köfte for ages, as I cannot resist the pairing of fruit with meat, and also because it reminds me of a dish ubiquitous on menus after we left Istanbul for Syria: 'Aleppo cherry kebab'. This apparently has a very brief season in Syria, when cherries are around, and features lamb meatballs in a rich, sweet sauce of cherries and pomegranate molasses. For some reason I never tried it (I think I was more obsessed with consuming every aubergine-related dish on the menus), but I figured Diana's version would be better than nothing, and it seemed sensible to make it during English cherry season. I've cooked lamb with quite a few fruits before (quinces and apricots being the best), but never cherries. If you can't get cherries for this recipe, Diana suggests using a mixture of dried and fresh apricots instead. 

It's a pretty easy recipe - the only hard work involved is pounding the lamb mince with all the spices to incorporate them evenly and to mix it into a fine paste, but I found this rather satisfying. After that, you shape the lamb into meatballs, brown them in a pan (and watch buckets of artery-clogging fat ooze out - keep an old jar or tin handy to catch it), then fry an onion with some fresh and dried cherries (I couldn't find dried cherries so I used dried cranberries), add a little stock, and let the meatballs simmer in this sauce for a while until it thickens. Scatter over a generous amount of fresh mint, drizzle over a tahini yoghurt sauce, pile it into thick, warm flatbread, and you could be in Syria (as it was when I went, anyway, not the sad war-torn place it is now...although with all the madness going on in London at the moment, you probably can almost pretend you're in Syria). 

This is my take on the Aleppo cherry kebab, combining it with another incredible Syrian/Turkish dish - shwarma. Shwarma is a much nicer version of the rotating-meat-on-a-stick kebab you get in vans everywhere over here; shredded meat is drizzled with tahini or garlic yoghurt sauce and served in a flatbread wrap with salad. It's incredibly delicious, and making it with lamb and cherries only adds to the tastebud sensation.

Be warned, though - this is incredibly messy to eat. Embrace the lamb, cherry and yoghurt juices drizzling out of the flatbread and down your arm, and keep some napkins handy.

Lamb köfte with cherries (serves 6):

(adapted from Diana Henry's Food From Plenty)

• 1 kg minced lamb
• 4 tsp cinnamon
• 3 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• Salt and pepper
• Olive oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 350g pitted fresh cherries
• 100g dried cranberries, soaked in boiling water for 15 mins then drained
• Juice of half a lemon
• 150ml lamb/chicken stock
• A large handful of chopped mint, parsley or coriander (or all three)
• 200ml Greek yoghurt
• 4 tbsp milk or buttermilk
• 3 tbsp tahini
• Flatbread, to serve
• Salad, to serve

Put the lamb in a bowl and add all the spices except 1tsp cinnamon. Season. Pound the meat with the spices until everything is well blended. Form the mixture into walnut-sized balls and set aside.

Heat the oil in a large pan and fry the meatballs in batches, making sure they are well browned. Drain them on kitchen paper once they are browned, and pour off any excess fat, leaving about 1tbsp once you're finished.

Add the onion to the pan and fry until soft and golden. Add 250g of the fresh cherries and all the dried cranberries with the remaining cinnamon and cook for a minute or so until softening, then add the lemon juice.

Return the kofte to the pan and add the stock. Bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes or so until cooked through and the sauce is quite thick. Add the rest of the cherries towards the end of the cooking time, to heat through.

Mix the yoghurt with the milk/buttermilk and tahini. Drizzle over the lamb and cherry mixture, then scatter with the chopped mint. Stuff into warm flatbreads with salad, roll up, and devour.

Cherry amaretti cheesecake

I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed by cherries. Every summer I get so excited by the crates of glistening blood-red fruit appearing in the markets. I buy them in great quantities when they're cheap, simply because it seems rude not to. They look so gorgeous and inviting with their glossy skins and delicate green stems, particularly when piled high in scarlet abundance under the July sunshine. Yet I've realised recently that they never fill me with anticipation. Apricots, on the other hand, whether small and underripe-looking or gorgeously plump and rosy-cheeked, always glow with promise. If ripe, I might slice them and eat them with ricotta on toast for breakfast. If not (and this is the more usual scenario), I'll slice them in half and bake them with a drizzle of honey and a splash of orange flower water, turning them into a jammy, marigold-coloured compote that bursts with exotic delight in every mouthful. Squat green Williams pears, though hardly exotic, whisper enticingly of their juicy, glassy, grainy flesh, so much so that I can hardly ever resist buying a few, either to eat as they are or chopped and scattered over a bowl of nutmeg-scented porridge. But cherries?

Cherries just don't sing to me in the same way as other fruits. They look beautiful, but I find myself buying them because they're a novelty, because they only appear in such abundance and at such low prices once a year. In fact, if I try and imagine what a cherry tastes like, I have real difficulty. Maybe I've just never been lucky enough to find decent cherries, but the ones I've eaten have only ever had a hint of berry-ness about them, a slight tartness with no real fragrant juice to emphasise it. Yet I remember drinking a glass of cold cherry juice on a sweltering evening in Istanbul last year, and thinking at that moment it was the most delicious thing in the world (of course, the fact that even my hair seemed to be sweating at the time may have been the reason for this). There is potential in the poor cherry somewhere, it just seems that I have trouble finding it.

I did, however, really enjoy the bakewell pancakes I made recently. As with apricots, cooking cherries seems to bring out a juiciness and a sweetness that they lack in their unadulterated state. The idea of turning that concept into a cheesecake had been niggling at the back of my mind for a while, and I thought I'd have a go before cherries disappear and we sink into the depths of winter once more. Essentially, I wanted to recreate that classic, almost over-the-top flavour combination of a bakewell tart. You know the kind: there's no subtlety about it. Rather, it's as if a sack of almonds has hit you over the head, followed by a vat of cherry jam. There you lie, almonds tumbling on the floor around you, some of them lodged in your ears and nasal cavity, while cherry jam oozes into your clothes, your hair, your eyelashes, until your very pores are saturated with the stuff. That's the bakewell tart experience I was seeking (though I didn't go quite that far).

I was initially going to use shortbread biscuits for the base, to emulate that bland, pristine casing of commercial bakewell tarts. Then I had a better idea, one that would take the almond flavour from lying-on-the-floor-covered-in-almonds to full-blown swimming-in-an-olympic-sized-pool-full-of-ground-almonds levels. I crumbled up some amaretti biscuits in a blender, mixed them with butter, lined the base of the tin and baked it for ten minutes to crisp it up. I kept the filling fairly simple: a mixture of Quark, cream cheese, icing sugar, and almond extract (for even more almondy goodness). I set it with gelatine. I'm quite into gelatine-based cheesecakes at the moment, mainly because you can put whatever you like in the filling without risking it disintegrating in the oven. They're also a lot neater to look at.

Instead of topping the cheesecake with a cherry compote, which seemed a) a bit boring and b) rather too reminiscent of those awful frozen cheesecakes you can buy, with an unidentifiable layer of rubbery neon-red jelly on the top, I decided to stir the cherries into the cheesecake mixture. Before doing so, I cooked them for a little while in lemon juice, water, brown sugar, and a drop of kirsch (cherry brandy). They softened into a lovely jammy compote, full of squishy, alcohol-saturated fruits, which I then splattered all over the cheesecake filling and stirred in.

Cherry-related disappointment aside, I really enjoyed this. It's not for those who don't like almonds (although perhaps it is - my Dad, who claims to hate almonds because he hates marzipan, had two pieces of this, and he never has seconds of dessert), because it has a very pronounced, slightly artificial almond flavour from the extract and the amaretti. To tone it down a bit, use vanilla in the cream cheese mixture, or use digestives for the base. The cherry compote, brightened up a bit with sugar, alcohol and lemon juice, really makes the most of this fruit. I still can't quite put my finger on what a cherry 'should' taste like, but I have a feeling the right place for it is swaddled in a creamy blanket of almond-infused dairy, like this one. The crunch of the base contrasts nicely with the soft, squishy fruit and its alcoholic tang, and the cream cheese filling is incredibly light and fragrant with almonds. A true bakewell tart experience, but in cheesecake form.

Am I being unfair to the cherry? Does anyone else find them as nondescript as I do?

Cherry and amaretti cheesecake (serves 8):

• 200g amaretti biscuits, plus extra for decorating
• 50g melted butter
• 500g quark
• 200g light cream cheese
• 200g icing sugar
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 1 sachet gelatine
• 3 tbsp boiling water
• 250g cherries, pitted, plus extra for decorating
• Half a lemon
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 dsp kirsch (optional)

Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Blitz the amaretti in a blender to fine crumbs. Mix with the melted butter and use to line the base of a greased 20cm springform cake tin, pressing down with a spoon. Bake for 10 minutes until crisp, then set aside.

To make the cherry compote, place the cherries in a small saucepan with a squeeze of lemon juice, a splash of water and the sugar. Boil and then simmer gently for about 15 minutes, covered, until the cherries have softened and released juice (if it dries out just add a bit more water - you want about 1tbsp left over in the pan). Taste - it might need more lemon or sugar to balance it. Add the kirsch, if using, and set aside.

Whisk together the quark, cream cheese, icing sugar and almond extract. Sprinkle the gelatine over the boiling water and leave for a couple of minutes, then stir briskly to dissolve (heat the water gently in the microwave if it doesn't all dissolve, then try again). Pour the gelatine mixture into the cheese mixture, and whisk in thoroughly. Stir in the cherry compote, then pour onto the amaretti base in the tin.

Leave to chill for about 5 hours, or overnight if possible. To decorate, blitz some more amaretti biscuits and scatter over the centre of the cake. Arrange some whole cherries around the edge, and dust with icing sugar.

Cherry and chocolate cake with almond icing

I didn't eat chocolate until I was about fifteen years old. If I'd ever had to play that irritating "tell us your name and an interesting fact about yourself" game at that age, that would have been my interesting fact, largely because it always met with such sheer astonishment. People, especially my peers and teachers, were aghast. However, when considered on the spectrum of other things I didn't eat, it perhaps wasn't that strange, considering I also refused to consume most basic foodstuffs. I remember going on a French exchange at the age of about fourteen; the family wrote to me before I visited, asking if I had any dietary requirements. I wrote back, in French, a long list of things I wouldn't eat, including "pâtes et riz": pasta and rice. I can just picture the poor family's reaction as they opened this missive. It was fortunate that I didn't also say "fromage et boeuf", or they may have refused me entry to France altogether. That said, maybe that would have been a blessing: my exchange partner was an utterly bizarre human being, with eyebrows too enormous to be fully comprehensible, and a lingering body odour. 

I didn't eat sweets, either. I remember I was once handed a sweet at a friend's birthday party when I was quite young. The other kids shrieked in delight and rapidly consumed their sugary lozenges. I contemplated mine for several minutes, feeling its smooth oblong contours and gazing curiously at the tiny bubbles of air trapped in the amber-like exterior. I didn't know what to do with it; giving it away would clearly reveal my awful secret dislike of sweets and no doubt cause endless social stigma for years to come. I would be friendless. I would be shunned by the sweet-eating cool kids, relegated to a lonely corner of the playground and pelted with sweet wrappers every break time. Yet I couldn't bring myself to ingest this alien, lurid, fructose-laden pellet of woe. Instead, when I was sure no one was looking, I scuffed a hole in the gravel driveway outside my friend's house with my shoe, and buried the sweetie under the pebbles with the same furtive glances and guilty conscience as if I were burying a freshly murdered corpse (I imagine).

I have absolutely no idea what finally caused me to try chocolate, nor do I remember my reaction upon first tasting it. Did I find it strange? Was it something I had to be weaned onto before addiction struck, like cigarettes? (Mother, if you're reading this, I am only speculating - tobacco has never passed my lips). Or was I instantly in love? I wish I could remember. Was it a good quality bar of the finest dark stuff that first got me hooked on cocoa? Or was it something in foil from a box of Celebrations? Probably the latter. I do remember, though, that quite soon after I found chocolate, I found Twirl bars. I loved the way the outer hard casing gave way to that irresistibly flaky, melt-in-the-mouth, crumbly chocolate centre. These were a favourite of mine for a while; I think it was probably a good couple of years or so before I enjoyed real dark chocolate. Though I still have a soft spot for the commercial, sugar-heavy variety. Sometimes nothing hits the spot quite like a square of Cadburys fruit and nut.

That said, I am still not what you'd call a chocoholic. My friends know this; they are constantly bemoaning the fact that a box of Ferrero Rocher that I received for my birthday seven months ago still sits, over half full, in my bedroom (and the only reason it isn't more full is because they help themselves to it every time they visit, convinced they're doing me a favour). It's not that I don't really like chocolate; I just like it in very small doses. I love Ferrero Rocher, but I'm just pretty good with willpower. Very rarely will I get a sudden craving for a big bar of chocolate; if I do, a couple of mouthfuls will normally sate said craving, especially if it's dark chocolate, which I find so flavoursome and intense I can only stomach a couple of bites. It's a different story for those Lindor truffles or the easter bunnies in gold wrapping, though...I could easily polish off a whole one if I didn't have aforementioned willpower of steel (you need it, to write a food blog).

Chocolate just isn't something I go completely mad for. I would never order a chocolate-based dessert in a restaurant, and I rarely bake them either. I much prefer fruit-based desserts, largely because they're often more exciting and inventive, and because I love fruit more than I love chocolate. Fruity desserts possess that necessary tartness required to balance out creaminess or sugar; chocolatey desserts all too often err on the side of sickliness. Give me a ripe mango or pear over a box of Lindor any day. Weird, but true. I crave chocolate maybe once a month, and I can't eat it without a cup of tea or coffee - I hate the way it coats your mouth; you need hot liquid to dissolve it from between your teeth or your mouth just feels horrible. This is good, because it means I'm unlikely to eat chocolate on a whim; I have to really sit down and take my time over it, alternating sips of steaming tea with little nibbles of sugary goodness. It takes me, on average, over a week to eat a normal, small bar of Dairy Milk, the kind most people would wolf down without a second thought mid-afternoon. People find this absurd and infuriating, but that's just me.

Fruit is better than chocolate in my opinion. However, when you combine the two, you have something incredibly special, far more than the sum of its parts. Many fruits pair extremely well with chocolate. Oranges, pears, figs (you can buy dried figs coated in chocolate in posh delis all over Italy) bananas and strawberries all go exceedingly well, but most other fruits will work too, except maybe apple or melon. Just think of those awful ubiquitous chocolate fountains you get at parties; pretty much any fruit tastes good dipped in those (though it won't when I tell you that those things are at least 30% oil, in order to get the chocolate to flow properly, and very likely to breed horrible bacteria because of their consistently warm temperatures).

Another classic combination is chocolate and cherries. This works well not just from a flavour point of view; the glossy purple-red skin of a cherry looks beautiful paired with a muted canvas of dark, silky chocolate. The slight tang and sweetness of good cherries is just what you need to lift the deep richness of good chocolate. I've been toying with the idea of a cherry and chocolate mousse for a while, especially because the cherry season is in full swing and there are some lovely (and extraordinarily cheap) specimens around at the moment. However, mousse is another thing I'm not hugely fond of; I generally like my desserts to have a bit more texture. Basically, I love them to be stodgy and satisfying, like a good crumble (incidentally, cherry and chocolate crumble is something I am going to have to try). Mousse just doesn't sate me in a way something packed with flour, butter and sugar will.

I say that, but this cake doesn't actually contain any butter. In fact, apart from the fairly small quantity of good quality dark chocolate it contains, it is fat free. I debated whether to tell you that, because it makes it sound like it will be dry and horrible. In fact, it's entirely the opposite. Something magical happens when you put the very loose mixture, thickened using beaten egg whites, into the oven. The outside hardens to a flaky crisp while the inside stays molten and gooey, rather like a chocolate fondant. When eaten warm, it basically tastes like a chocolate fondant, but with the immensely pleasurable squash of a tart, juicy cherry every couple of mouthfuls. I've made this before with brandy-soaked prunes, but the cherry version is even better, because of the juiciness and the slight sourness. I too often find cherries rather disappointing; they don't seem to have a real flavour, just a generic burst of tart juice that I can take or leave, unlike the clear fragrance of a strawberry or blackcurrant. However, they take to heat very well, so are perfect for tucking into the chocolate-rich batter of this cake, where they give just the right subtle fruitness to balance it without overpowering and hogging the limelight.

This is an incredibly easy cake; you add beaten egg whites and flour to a liquid mixture of molten chocolate, boiling water, sugar and cocoa powder. The result is an extremely runny batter, more like a crepe mixture, that looks like it will never work as you pour it into the tin and drop pitted cherries into it, watching them sink into the chocolatey lake like quicksand swallowing a hapless wanderer. Yet under an hour later, you remove a perfectly formed cake from the oven, perfuming your kitchen with that irresistible aroma of baked cocoa. I decided to adorn it with nothing more than a drizzle of almond-flavoured icing: just icing sugar, almond essence, and a drop of water. It hardens to a satisfying crunch, the pronounced, bakewell-like almond flavour marrying incredibly well with the rich chocolate and juicy cherries. The cake in itself isn't too sweet, so the icing sets it off nicely, and the contrast in textures between the crispy exterior of the cake with its crunchy icing and its warm, oozing interior is sublime.

I love this cake. I love it even more because it's basically guilt-free, but tastes like something that is laden with butter and sugar. It really is just as good as a melting chocolate fondant, but accompanied by none of the self-loathing. The inside stays almost liquid; you need a spoon rather than a fork to eat it which, when chocolate is concerned, can only be a good thing. Served still warm from the oven, I can think of few better things to enjoy for dessert or just with a cup of tea. The scarlet cherries studded throughout the dark, melting cake batter lift it from delicious to incredible; I can't think of a better combination. Because I so rarely eat chocolatey desserts, I often forget just how wonderful they can be, and how fine a thing chocolate actually is. This reminded me.

I might have to go and eat one of those Ferrero Rocher now...

Cherry and chocolate cake with almond icing (makes one 20cm cake):

• 300g cherries, pitted, plus extra for serving
• 75g good quality dark cooking chocolate, broken into small pieces
• 25g cocoa powder
• 150g muscovado sugar
• 150ml boiling water
• 25g caster sugar
• 4 egg whites
• 75g plain flour
• 5 tbsp icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp almond essence
• Water

Pre-heat the oven to 190C. Grease and line a 20cm springform cake tin. Mix the boiling water, cocoa, chocolate and muscovado sugar in a mixing bowl, stirring until thoroughly melted.

Whisk the egg whites until stiff and you can turn the bowl upside down without them moving. Whisk in the sugar until the mixture has the consistency of shaving foam.

Sift the flour into the chocolate mixture and fold in with a spoon until incorporated. Add a spoonful of the egg white mixture to the chocolate and fold it in to loosen it, then add the rest of the chocolate to the egg whites. Fold in gently, being careful not to knock all the air out of the whites, until just incorporated.

Pour into the prepared tin and drop the cherries over the surface of the batter. Place in the oven and bake for 35 minutes until just firm.

For the icing, mix the icing sugar, almond essence, and a little water to achieve a fairly thick paste, but one that you can still drizzle over the top of the cake. Serve with extra fresh cherries.

Bakewell pancakes

"Another pancake recipe?!" I hear you cry. But I'm not going to apologise, because these are delicious and because a tiny bit of me takes great delight in making you wish you'd had these for today's brunch, instead of some hideous greasy fry-up, or a boring piece of toast. After the success of cheesecake pancakes, I bring you bakewell pancakes. As the name suggests, they are basically bakewell tart but in pancake form: almondy, rippled with sweet cherries, and perfectly acceptable to eat for breakfast. I imagine soon we'll be seeing apple pie pancakes, fondant fancy pancakes, lemon meringue pie pancakes, and possibly banoffee pie pancakes. I just can't resist taking the flavours from classic desserts and recreating them in pancake form. Largely because it means I get to eat dessert very soon after getting out of bed. Not a bad life, really.

I spied cherries on sale in the market last week; gorgeous, glistening crates of them. Happily, the hot summer weather has not yet arrived and so the cherries were wasp-free; come July they'll be smothered in the hideous crawling insects. I'm not sure what it is about them that attracts wasps, but I've seen market stalls, in an attempt to defeat them, put open cans of Coke on their cherry displays. It's a clever tactic, though it does mean that while the cherries stay uncrawled, you end up with a disgusting swarm of wasps clustered around the can. At least you can pick your own fruits without risking a hand full of stings, but to be honest I'm more likely to make a beeline (no pun intended) for the other fruits on offer, knowing that they haven't been trampled all over by six-legged monsters. 

Cherries are definitely one of the most beautiful fruits to look at, when piled high (and unadorned by wasps); they're reminiscent of rubies, with their smooth skins and scarlet hue. They also have a delightful feel to them, when ripe; soft but still with that matt tautness to their skin, full of the promise of blood-red juice bursting in your mouth as you pierce that glossy scarlet membrane with your front teeth. That said, I always find them slightly disappointing. They're a fruit that always looks better than it tastes, often rather blandly sweet instead of delivering that sharp punch of flavour that, say, a raspberry gives in abundance. Plus those stones are just irritating.

However, I'm about to purchase a cherry pitter, so won't be able to grumble about the stones anymore. Actually, I quite like the haphazard process of de-stoning cherries using just a knife and your hands; you end up with fingers covered in scarlet juice and a pile of rather irregular, mangled cherries. I think this adds to their rustic appeal; they look beautiful scattered over a board splattered with their juice. The ones I bought last week were impressive; much tastier than I normally imagine cherries to be. I think this is because they hadn't been in the fridge, and were very ripe, something you rarely find in a supermarket cherry. It's a good sign when a cherry oozes juice everywhere whilst you're attempting to remove the stone. I am suspicious of all stone fruits that refuse to yield their tough core, because it usually signals underripeness. Some of the ones I bought were an incredible dark red, almost black. These I saved for myself.

I have a few cherry recipes I'm keen to try, including a cherry lamb kebab that I discovered in Aleppo (and a repeat of this cherry and goat's cheese stuffed chicken), but I was worried these would go off before I had a chance, so pancakes seemed the obvious solution. The bakewell tart idea just popped into my head, because I remembered seeing almond essence in the baking section at Tesco. As I've mentioned regarding coconut, it's actually quite hard to get almond flavour - the kind you get from Mr Kipling bakewell tarts, or from marzipan - out of almonds. Whole almonds do not taste like that at all. I could have put ground almonds in the pancake mixture, but I wanted a proper hit of artificial almond flavour, the kind you get from one of those factory-produced, identical bakewell tarts. You know the ones I mean: a little pastry case filled with cherry jam and topped with a perfect, pristine circle of white icing and a plump glace cherry.

Now, that's not to say I don't appreciate a good, proper, homemade bakewell tart. I had one at a restaurant in Oxford a few months ago and it was incredible. Absolutely incredible. It was more like a cake, made with ground almonds and possibly soaked in some sort of syrup, layered over cherry jam and pastry. There was no tacky white icing or glace cherry on top. The combination of tangy cherry jam and gooey, moist, grainy almond cake was to die for. I wish I'd asked for the recipe. However, subtlety wasn't going to cut it with these pancakes; I wanted them to taste like most people imagine bakewell tarts to taste; i.e. like the commercial variety. Almond flavouring is the key. I'm normally averse to synthetic products and additives (I'm one of those people who won't use vanilla essence; it has to be the proper extract - and if you don't know the difference, you're clearly not gastronomically snobbish enough to be reading this blog - which you should probably be proud of) but in this case it was perfect. This last month has been rather a voyage of discovery with essences, and the little bottles of almond and coconut flavourings that I have acquired now have a proud place in my box of baking goodies (alongside proper Madagascan vanilla pods and real almonds, just to make me feel a little less guilty about using additives).

The concept behind these pancakes is the same as the cheesecake pancakes, but this time I used Quark instead of ricotta. This is a kind of cream cheese that's very low in fat, but has the same texture and mild flavour as ricotta. It doesn't taste of cheese at all, but has a lovely crumbly creaminess to it. It's slightly more dense than ricotta, meaning the pancakes held their shape better. I'm a bit of a convert to this cheese. Especially as it means I can eat more pancakes for the same number of calories. Excellent. The cheese was mixed with flour, sugar and egg yolks before I added some chopped cherries and the almond essence. I whisked the egg whites and folded them into the mixture, and finally added some toasted flaked almonds both for texture and for that bakewell dimension. 

I love the lightness of this pancake mixture; it's like stirring a cherry-speckled cloud. The cherries trickle pink juice into the mixture giving it a beautiful pastel pink ripple effect. It then gets dolloped on a hot frying pan greased with a little butter. I put these pancakes in the oven for a few minutes on a low temperature after the initial pan treatment, just so the insides aren't still liquid. They remain lighter and fluffier than a traditional pancake though, hence the comparison to cheesecake.

I served these with more cherries, in the form of a compote: just halved cherries mixed with sugar and water and boiled for a few minutes until juicy. It was perfect over the creamy, fluffy, almondy pancakes, providing moisture as well as a sharp burst of flavour to counteract all that marzipan-sweetness. My notions of cherries as bland and tough have disappeared; these were beautiful. Bring on summer.

Actually, don't. I like my cherries wasp-free.

Bakewell pancakes (serves 2):

• 250g Quark or ricotta
• 3 eggs, separated
• 50g plain flour
• 5 tbsp caster sugar
• 1/2-1 tsp almond essence
• 5 tbsp flaked almonds, toasted
• 300g cherries, pitted and halved
• A little butter, for greasing

Place two thirds of the cherries in a small pan. Add about 100-200ml water, 2 tbsp sugar, and simmer over a low heat until syrupy and half the water has evaporated. 

Mix the cheese, egg yolks, almond essence and sugar in a large bowl. Sift in the flour and fold in. Add the rest of the cherries and most of the flaked almonds - save some for sprinkling over at the end.

Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks, then carefully fold into the cheese mixture, being careful not to knock out all the air. The mixture should be light and fluffy.

Pre-heat the oven to 120C.

Heat a large, non-stick frying pan. Add a knob of butter and spread around the pan (I sometimes use kitchen towel for this). Dollop the mixture on in spoonfuls, and cook for a couple of minutes before flipping over and cooking for another couple of minutes. Place in the oven to keep warm while you make the rest.

To serve, scatter over the rest of the almonds, dust with icing sugar and spoon over the cherry compote. Mr Kipling, eat your heart out.