This pizza is inspired by Tony, the chef at Teatro in Dubai, who makes the most delicious lemon grass, chilli and gorgonzola pizzas. This takes just a few minutes to make.
– Heat the top grill in the oven.
– Blend chopped lemon grass, fresh chillies, mozzarella cheese, blue cheese and a cherry tomato in an electric mixer. It should be a paste consistency.
– Spread the paste onto tortilla wraps or any kind of flat bread.
– Cook under a hot grill until browned and bubbling.

Fennel is a very under-estimated vegetable. It is very tasty, both cooked and raw. Here is a salad recipe which, I confess, is an adaptation of a Jamie Oliver recipe.
– Trim the dirty leaves off the outside of the fennel.
– Cut the fennel bulb into four pieces and put through the slicer of a food processor. It needs to be shredded finely but not “pulp”. You can keep the fine spidery leaves on the fennel they add flavor.
– Wash a bunch of radishes, break off the dirty outer leaves but leave the others leaves. You need fresh, crisp radishes, if they are a little soft, plunge them into iced water and soak for 30 minutes.
– Put the bunch of radishes, leaves side down, through the slicer.
– Mix together with the sliced fennel.
– Add salt, pepper, crushed garlic, olive oil and a lot of lemon juice.
I add some baby spinach shoots or a lot of parsley to add some colour.

This is a dead easy Thai fried noodles dish and quite delicious. Contributed by the lovely Laure Martin.
You do need some special ingredients but these can all be found in most oriental food shops.
– First make some Pad Thai sauce, you can actually buy this ready-made but if you want to make it yourself just mix some tamarind paste (or lime juice if you can’t find it), crushed chilli pepper, some fresh ginger, brown sugar, Thai fish sauce, sweet soy sauce and a little lemon grass in an electric mixer (use the soft centre of the lemon grass, not the hard outer skin).
– Put some rice noodles to soak in some hot water, for 10 minutes or more, do not cook them.
– Fry some shredded chicken and chopped spring onions in a wok.
– Add some cooked baby peeled shrimp, some beansprouts, the Pad Thai sauce and the drained noodles.
– Cook through tossing the wok constantly.
– Serve decorated with crushed peanuts and fresh coriander.

There are many variations of this dish, adding whole large shrimps and tofu to the stir fry is the most frequently seen version. You can also add some eggs to the wok to make some scrambled eggs before adding the noodles and the beansroouts.

I cooked this variation of a classic English dish in my woodstove.
– Fry some chopped onions
– Add some bite-sized chunks of stewing beef and some chopped kidneys (clean them first).
– When brown add some cinnamon, mild paprika (or black pepper) and a little flour.
– Add tomato paste and red wine and keep stirring until the sauce starts to thicken.
– Put into a casserole dish and add more red wine or stock to nearly cover the meat. Cover and cook in a medium oven for an hour and a half or more.
– Mix some flour, butter and a little grated blue cheese until you get a crumbly mixture.
– Remove the casserole dish from the oven. Mix in some chopped mushrooms and cover with the crumble mixture.
– Put back into the oven (this time without the lid) for about 30 minutes until the crumble is brown.

I went up to the top of the Pyrenees to a most beautiful region called Cerdagne. This trip back down in deep snow (we had snow chains on the car fortunately) was scary but beautiful.
I discovered this Catalan meatball recipe which I adapted with my Stuffed Cabbage recipe below. If you want to do the original Catalan recipe, just leave out the cabbage.
– Boil some cabbage leaves just for a few minutes (“blanching”)
– Choose the biggest leaves to be stuffed.
– Mix together some sausage meat and minced beef (50/50), parsley, garlic, breadcrumbs, chili pepper, and two eggs.
– Put some flour on your hands and make some golfball sized meatballs.
– Fry the meatballs until brown on all sides.
– Stuff two cabbage leaves with the sausage meat mixture and roll up into little packets, if you’re doing my version, if not just place the fried meatballs in an ovenproof dish.
– place in an ovenproof dish and set aside.
– Fry an onion and a few chopped carrots. Season well and add some chopped tomatoes or some tomato paste, and plenty of stock.
– Pour the sauce over the meatballs (or cabbage packets) until nearly covered.
– Add some olives
– cook for 45 minutes or more (check carrots are cooked through) in a moderate oven
– Serve with a baked potato.