Ingredients:

Tinned Tuna in olive oil
Tinned chick peas
Parsley
Red onion
Nonpareille capers in brine
Lime
Olive oil
Cumin seeds
Ground coriander
Cayenne pepper
Salt

Method

1. rinse and drain the chick peas well
2. pour the olive oil from the tuna in a heavy fry pan
3. heat the oil
4. add 1tsp of cumin seeds, 2tsp ground coriander and a teaspoon of cayenne pepper fry for a minute
5. add chick peas to pan and toss in the flavoured oil

Fried Chickpeas

6.fry for a few minutes then add a couple of table spoons of pine nuts
7. cook for a couple more minutes till pine nuts have some colour
8. turn out into a bowl to allow to cool
9. wash and chop parsley, about a third of a bunch
10. dice the red onion

Chopped onion

11. when the chickpeas are cool add parsley and onion
12. add zest and juice of limes, add salt to taste and a tablespoon of capers

Tuna salad

Recently I was cooking biscuits for work and as we have a nut allergy, egg allergy and yeast allergy to consider I was somewhat stuck. It was then I thought of the humble Anzac again. Now I’m sure there is a traditional recipe floating around my family somewhere but I couldn’t find it. So I went searching the ever-helpful BBC and found this recipe. Now I am an inveterate tinkerer so as good a recipe as it is I did play about with it. I added dark Muscavado sugar and treacle making the biscuits that much darker and richer. i particularly liked the affect of chunks of unmixed sugar melting to caramel in the oven.

Conjoined by a delightful use of brown sugar my friend H called recently to ask for a recipe for roast figs. I do get random phone a chef calls from friends which is always satisfying and amusing. Now roast figs are an other of those mushy foods which I wouldn’t have enjoyed as a child but have grown to love now. And so simple they are to cook as well, sliced in half sprinkled with some good brown sugar and butter and roasted till the desired texture is reached served with Mascarpone and vanilla is a particular favourite of mine but ice-cream would take it that little bit further to luxe ness and a couple of overcooked Anzacs would finish it of with some good textural contrast.

My approach to risotto is too first to colour the rice in a mix of hot oil and butter. Once the grains are nice and golden I add in some chopped onion to sweat. next in would be white wine and stock but I had to make do with a Knorr cube and hot water. Then in went the fish. After cooking out for a while I add the pea’s cooked out a little further then finished with chopped mint, Parmesan cheese and butter.

Time as always is the key with risotto, you just need to slowly add hot liquid little and often. So I’ve some great risotto for dinner and enough for lunch for a couple of days.

So let’s get down and dirty and cooking. I started with some Chilli oil in my heavy faux Le Creuset pan from Ikea and browned off four chunky pork sausages. While they were colouring I chopped some picante chorizo, onion, garlic, potatoes and Romano peppers. They were all thrown onto the pan to sweat out. I assembled the rest of the stew and added it to the pot, dried oregano, beef stock cube, smoked paprika, a tin of butter beans and a couple of handfuls of Puy Lentils. Some hot water and its done, well after two hours slow cooking on the back burner.

In my rush I forgot the carrots oh well…I’m back to watch the Tour in the Pyrenees.

Allez Allez!

What is not touched on, but something I find useful in the kitchen is the relationship between salt and bitterness. A pinch of salt in my chocolate cake/mousse will just reduce the bitterness of the dark chocolate and make for a more balanced dish. Salted Cucumber will be a little drier and less bitter and this is true of a number of foods.

My favorite sweet salty combo is crisp Granny Smith’s with some strong salty cheddar, what’s yours?

I roasted the peppers first with olive oil, garlic and some salt and pepper. I peeled the peppers and sliced them, they went in a saucepan with the oil from the tray and a sliced red onion and some chopped chilli. Now I’d bought some bell chilli’s so only put in half a chilli as they are red hot. This all sweated of to soften then added brown sugar and red-wine vinegar. Then on a low heat it just cooks down for an hour or two.

We had this warm with the Falafel and the left overs went well with some cold cuts the next day.

6qyx8uzdfi

Ingredients

200g digestive biscuits

1.5tbs melted butter

320g caster sugar

1kg cream cheese (Phily or good alternative)

2tbs plain flour

4 large eggs

250ml sour cream

pinch salt

4cm Vanilla pod very finely chopped.

Pre-heat your oven at 165degC.

Line a 25cm spring form tin.

Crush the biscuits and add 40grams of the sugar before mixing in the melted butter, cover the base of the tin running a little up the sides.

Cream the sugar and cream cheese well.

Add flour and a pinch of salt, mix in.

Split the eggs a beat the yolks before adding to the cream cheese mix, mix.

Add sour cream then beat mix till smoothly combined.

Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites careful to retain air.

Gently pour into tin.

Bake in preheated oven for an hour, turn if it browns to much on one side.

After an hour turn oven off and leave in for an other hour. It will still be wobbly at this point, the hour in the oven switched off will set it, don’t keep opening oven to check though as you will loose the heat. The extra hour should prevent it from cracking too much as well.

Allow to chill fully once out the oven as it will be soft. Use a nice hot knife (dipped in hot water) to slice. Nice on it’s own or with some fresh Raspberries.

I came home toasted to a nice unctuous pot of lovely stew and the final hour of today’s Giro stage on the telly, each exciting in there own way.

So what went in the pot? First some paprika packed pork sausages were browned off in there own fat. Then in some olive oil a whole roughly chopped onion sweated with some diced chorizo and bacon. When this was soft in went eight cloves of chopped garlic, diced red peppers, a couple of chili’s and a table spoon of hot smokey Spanish paprika. Cooked down for five minutes I then added a tin of crushed tomatoes, a good glass of red wine, a tin of butter beans, sliced carrots, diced potatoes and some stock to finish.

It’s actually far to hot to the dish for tonight’s warm evening, but it will make a perfect lunch this week when normalcy kicks in too the English summer and it goes back to grey drizzle. Now I’m of to sit in the garden, drink Sicilian lemonade and pretend I’m by the Mediterranean.

The chili on the stove is made up of:

• half a kio of lean beef mince browned and set aside
• Onion, garlic, chili’s, and Romano peppers swea ed together
• Smoky paprika, dried oregano, chopped parsley and a beef stock cube added for flavour
• tinned crushed tomato, red wine and water
• salt and peper natch

A couple of hours slow cooking and it will all be ready.

What are you cooking this afternoon?