Is it barbeque weather where you are? Even if it isn’t, why not try these lamb koftas? They’re really quick to assemble and taste great fried or grilled on a barbeque. Serve with couscous or with pitta bread and a yoghurt and cucumber dip.

Makes 12

250g minced lamb
1/2 onion, finely diced
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes
1/2 tsp paprika
a handful of flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Shape the mixture into balls using your hands.

Heat a frying pan, add the oil and cook for 15 minutes, turning every few minutes.

As I’ve mentioned before, we eat a lot more pork now that we’re living in East Anglia. Sometimes the best part of a roast pork dinner is the crackling. Yes, you read that correctly, sometimes the crackling is even better than the roast potatoes! We’re very lucky because the cuts we buy from our local farm shop yield the most delicious crackling. I didn’t think we could make it any better, but press some crushed fennel seeds deep into the fat and, oh my, the crackling is heavenly!

See, I’ve digressed already – back to the purpose of the post: the Venezuelan Black marinade. To inject the marinade into the flesh, you’ll need a syringe. I bought a silicone baster with a detachable stainless steel injector.

It did leave holes in the meat and some of the liquid did ooze back out but the cooked joint was moist with a delicate flavour and the juices in the roasting tin produced the best gravy we’ve had in a while.

We used boneless pork leg that had a lovely marbling of fat. Get your butcher to score the fat.

1 tsp fennel seeds
a pinch of sea salt
100ml white wine
a handful of dried apricots, roughly chopped
a piece of ginger about 1 cm thick, peeled and roughly chopped
1 dessertspoon balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp grated cacao

Grind the fennel seeds and sea salt in a pestle and mortar. Rub deep into the creases of the pork fat.

Heat the wine and the dried apricots. Add the ginger and balsamic vinegar. Process the mixture. Reheat the mixture and then strain it. Stir in the cacao. Inject the mixture into the pork flesh.

Roast the pork in the usual manner.

Filo pastry is one of those products that seem to last forever. No matter how many times I take out a batch of silky smooth rectangles, I never manage to get to the end of the box. After last week’s attempt at a variation on tarte tatin, which mrB said needed more work, I thought it wise to go for a savoury dish. There’s something moreish about moist fillings encased in crisp, buttery parcels. And this time, mrB was more than happy with the results of my baking efforts.

These triangular parcels are filled with a sweet and spicy lamb mixture. The sweet part comes from a handful of chopped dates and the spicy part from a harissa-style paste. If you have some harissa to hand, you can substitute it for the paste.

Makes 18

1/2 tsp caraway seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes
1 tsp tomato puree
a few drops of red wine vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
a pinch of salt

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely diced
1 clove of garlic, crushed
250g minced lamb
40g dates, finely chopped
10g flaked almonds, toasted
1 tbsp Greek yoghurt
a handful of flat-leaf parsley, chopped
a handful of coriander leaves, chopped

filo pastry sheets
50g butter, melted

Make a paste by grinding the seeds and chilli flakes in a pestle and mortar. Stir in the tomato puree, vinegar, olive oil, salt and paprika.

Heat a frying pan. Add the olive oil and fry the onion for a few minutes until soft. Add the garlic and the paste and cook for about a minute. Fry the lamb mince for 5 minutes until cooked through. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the dates, almonds, yoghurt and herbs. Season with salt.

Preheat the oven to 180˚C.

Lay a sheet of filo pastry on a board and brush it with the melted butter. Keep layering filo pastry and butter until you have 3 layers. Cut into 4 rectangles about 5 cm wide. Brush each rectangle with butter. At the top of each rectangle, place a dessertspoonful of the lamb filling. Pull the corner over to make a triangle. Fold down to make another triangle. Keep folding until you reach the end of the pastry. Trim any leftover bits with a sharp knife.

Place the triangles on a baking sheet and lightly brush the top of each triangle with the melted butter. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes until golden, turning halfway through the cooking time.

Besides tending the garden, I’ve been doing a fair amount of reading in recent weeks, including chef autobiographies as well as the usual cookery books. One of the autobiographies I thoroughly enjoyed and found difficult to put down was White Slave. In this book, Marco Pierre White describes a party where everyone is hungry but the host’s cupboards are bare. He volunteers to cook and in the kitchen he finds some onions, pasta, tomato puree, garlic and bacon, and serves up an amazing pasta dish inspired by the way his mother used to make it.

I remember a similar evening when I was a student – no party, but the same empty cupboard scenario. Back in the early nineties, my weekly food budget was about £10. In my shopping basket there would usually be a carton of milk, some rashers of bacon, a piece of meat, onions, carrots, potatoes and either some cheese or eggs, but never both. At the end of one particular week, I’d eaten all the interesting stuff and was left with an onion, a tiny piece of cheese and a limp carrot. One of my housemates rose to the challenge of cooking me dinner using those seemingly limited ingredients, together with whatever we could find in our store cupboards.

Using my leftovers she cooked the tastiest dinner I’d had all week. Carrot salad with a dressing to start, followed by a grilled pasta bake. I’ve tried to recreate the pasta dish here.

Serves 2

200g dried pasta
1 tbsp olive oil, plus another tablespoon
1 onion, finely diced
1 clove of garlic, crushed
6 tbsp tomato puree
4 tbsp grated cheese (whatever is to hand)

Cook the pasta as per the instructions on the packet. Heat a frying pan and add a tablespoon of olive oil. Fry the onion until soft. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Stir in the tomato puree and another tablespoon of olive oil. Continue cooking until the pasta is ready.

Preheat the grill on a high setting. Drain the pasta, reserving some of the cooking water. Add the pasta to the frying pan. Season. Add a tablespoon or two of the cooking water to loosen the sauce. Put the pasta in an ovenproof dish and sprinkle the cheese on top. Place under the grill for 5 minutes, until the cheese is golden brown.

I’ve been away for a few weeks now, tending our new vegetable plot and herb garden. The weather has been so miserable the last few days that I can no longer continue using the garden as an excuse for not blogging.

So what have mrB and I been cooking recently? A lot of rhubarb. One of my regular stalls at Bury St Edmunds market had a big display with lovely pink stems. I couldn’t resist and even got sucked into their special offer.

I made up a big batch of rhubarb and ginger and it’s been waiting in the wings for some action on our counter tops. Some of it featured in a crumble, only this time I swapped half the flour for some rolled oats to make a topping with more bite. Some of it appeared in a sauce for a pork belly and noodle dish, from Jamie at Home. And the last of it was blitzed into this delicious rhubarb fool.

Serves 2

100g rhubarb plus 2 tbsp of the sugary juices
(see my rhubarb crumble recipe for details about preparing the rhubarb)

150g Greek yoghurt
1 tbsp honey

Place all the ingredients in a food processor and process for about a minute. Spoon the mixture out into some cups or glasses.

I drink hot chocolate on a regular basis. I always have. So today, it was definitely time to see how Tania and Willie Harcourt-Cooze’s choc shoc shapes up.

The hot chocolate starts off unpromisingly pale but as it heats up the chocolatey colour becomes more intense, as does the aroma that wafts up from the saucepan. It did become thicker as more steam started to rise but then I noticed the volume of liquid start to reduce. As you can see in the picture, there was nowhere near enough chocolate to fill the espresso cup. I suspect it was down to the giraffes. You see, in my experience giraffes can be rather cheeky, and I can only assume there was some secret slurping going on while I wasn’t looking.

So what was it like? Well, it had a richer flavour that my usual hot chocolate and gave an instant heady hit. I think I’ll be trying this one again soon.

Serves 1

100ml water
50ml milk 
3 tbsp grated cacao
1/2 tsp golden granulated sugar

Heat the water and milk in a saucepan. Add the grated cacao and whisk occasionally until the mixture boils. Towards the end of the cooking time, add the sugar.

Note: In the recipe above, I’ve doubled the quantities of the ingredients so that hopefully you’ll have a full espresso-sized cup to enjoy.

In the weeks leading up to Easter, Channel 4 television aired the series Willie’s Wonky Chocolate Factory. During four hour-long episodes, we watched Willie Harcourt-Cooze set up his chocolate factory in the South West of England and cook some twenty recipes. The programme also included fascinating footage from his cacao plantation in Venzuela.

Willie’s enthusiasm for Venezuelan Black (made from 100% cacao) was infectious and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a few bars. I was particularly intrigued by the use of chocolate in savoury dishes. But what would I start with? In the programme, we’d seen Willie make:

• gaspacho with roasted red peppers
• black turtle beans with sweet peppers served with corn bread
• roast pork with fennel seeds and injected with ginger, apricots and white wine
• porcini risotto
• fish in coconut sauce
• venison in port gravy
• partridge wrapped in pancetta and sprinkled with thyme leaves
• chicken mole

In the end, I decided to go with the chicken and have adapted the recipe that Willie cooked in the last episode. I’ve used less cacao and replaced the peanuts with almonds. The resulting sauce had subtle hints of chocolate and an intense aroma from the roasted star anise.

Serves 2

For the spice mixture:
1 cinnamon stick
1 star anise
3 cloves
a handful of almonds

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 clove of garlic, sliced
2 chicken legs
2 tomatoes, cut into quarters
1/4 tsp dried chili flakes
5 tbsp grated cacao
500ml vegetable stock

Preheat the oven to 180˚C. Place the spices and nuts on a baking sheet and bake for 8 minutes. Put the almonds aside. Grind the spices in a pestle and mortar.

Heat a saucepan. Add the oil and fry the onion and garlic until soft. Add the ground spices and cook for another minute. Add the almonds and chicken, then stir. Add the tomatoes, chili flakes and cacao, then stir again. Pour in the stock. Bring to a simmer and cook for 35 minutes.

Put the chicken aside and blend the rest of the mixture in a food processor. Put the mixture and the chicken back in the saucepan and cook for another 20 minutes. Serve with rice.

mrB had a wisdom tooth out this morning, bless him. He’s not feeling so good and looks a bit like Popeye. Despite the glorious weather, we’re back on soups because mrB is not allowed to eat solid food for a few days. Luckily, we’ve got plenty of vegetables in our veggie box. So it’s leek and potato for lunch and swede soup for dinner.

Serves 2

500g leeks
250g potatoes
a knob of butter
a sprig of thyme
500ml cold water

Cut off the green leafy ends of the leeks and the root end. Starting at the green end, cut lengthways along half of each leek, to make a fan. Run water from the cold tap to rinse away all the dirt that’s trapped between each layer of the leeks. Cut into 2 cm slices. Peel the potatoes and cut into 2.5 cm pieces.

Heat a saucepan and melt the butter. Sweat the leeks and thyme for 5 minutes with the lid on. Add the potatoes and pour on enough water so that the vegetables are just covered. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes. Blend the soup and season generously with salt and pepper.
 

mrB and I have been watching Lark Rise to Candleford, a period drama set in rural England at the end of the 1800’s. One of the main characters, Miss Lane, the postmistress of Candleford, confesses in almost every episode about her one weakness, which usually involves eating something sweet that her housekeeper has baked especially for the occasion.

She’s not the only one to have developed a weakness for sweet things. I love to eat cake in the afternoons, washed down with a good cup of coffee or tea. Last week, my afternoons were fuelled by a delicious fat-free chocolate cake baked by our lovely neighbours. This week, it’s the turn of my very own white chocolate cake. I was proud to return the clean plate with a few slices hiding under some foil. Only this time, the cake was not quite so healthy on the fat front. But sshhh, don’t tell the neighbours!

125g white chocolate, broken into pieces
200g unsalted butter
150g caster sugar
225g self-raising flour, sifted
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
3 eggs, beaten

Preheat the oven to 190˚C. Line a 20cm round cake tin with greaseproof paper.

Melt the chocolate, butter and sugar in the bottom of a saucepan. Place the mixture in a large bowl. Gradually, whisk in the flour, salt and baking powder. Whisk in the eggs, a little at a time.

Pour the mixture into the cake tin. Bake for 50 minutes to one hour until the centre of the cake springs back when you press it with your finger. Cool in the tin.

There is much debate about how to make a traditional cornish pasty. Should the filling be raw or pre-cooked? Should the crimp be on the top or the side? And there is even debate about the origin of the pasty. A recipe from Devon found in a book dated 1510 pips Cornwall’s oldest pasty recipe by over 200 years, according to an article I came across in the Independent.

One thing is for sure though: if you don’t live anywhere near Devon or Cornwall, a homemade pasty beats a shop-bought pasty every time. The filling of a pasty I sampled recently consisted mainly of mashed potato, tiny traces of meat and the odd stripe of carrot. Not a bit like the real thing, which usually contains small pieces of steak, onion, potato and swede.

Serves 2

300g shortcrust pastry
1 small potato, peeled and cut into 1 cm cubes
75g swede, peeled and cut into 1 cm cubes
250g braising steak, cut into 1 cm cubes
1 small onion, finely diced
a small amount of milk for glazing

Cut the pastry into 2 pieces. Lightly flour the work surface and a rolling pin, and then roll out each piece until it’s about 20 cm in diameter and 3 or 4 mm thick. With a dish or plate as a template, use a sharp knife to cut a circle.

Divide the filling ingredients in two. Place half of the potato and swede across the middle of the circle of pastry and season with pepper. Next put a layer of steak and onion, and season with salt and pepper. Finally, put a layer of potato and swede, seasoning with pepper. Don’t be tempted to try and use up all the ingredients and overfill the pasties!

Moisten the edges of the pastry with a little water. Bring in the edges over the top of the filling and press together to form the crimp.

Place the pasties on a baking sheet and chill for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180˚C.

Brush with milk and then bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour until golden.