Guess which restaurant we’ve been to…again.

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.

This is so easy and quite delicious.
– Boil some cabbage leaves just for a few minutes (“blanching”)
– Choose the biggest leaves to be stuffed and chop the remainder.
– Mix together some sausage meat, the chopped cabbage, and two eggs.
– Add some flavoring, I use garlic and a lot of sage but you can use your imagination, ginger and chili works well, mustard too.
– stuff two cabbage leaves with the sausage meat mixture
– roll up into little packets
– place in an ovenproof dish and half fill with white wine or stock
– cook for 30 minutes in a moderate oven

You can cook almost anything with this method, it’s rather fun.
– Baste some chicken breasts in a mixture of lemon juice, honey, soy sauce, chilli pepper and olive oil. Leave to marinate for a while.
– Line the bottom of a heavy wok with a double layer of aluminum foil.
– Place a mixture of tea leaves, rice, sugar, mixed whole chinese spice, a cinnamon stick and place on the heat. Because of the smoke, it’s best to do this recipe outside if possible, otherwise make sure you put the kitchen fan on. Place a grill in the wok over the dry ingredients and cover.
– When the wok starts smoking, place the chicken breasts on the grill, cover and leave for 30 minutes. If there is too much smoke, lower the heat.
– Serve hot or cold with a salad.

Try smoking fish in this way, or sliced dick breast. Use just tea leaves and sugar to make the smoke if you want a more delicate flavor.

– fry some chopped smokey bacon or lardons
– add some chopped onions and carrots
– add a little red wine and some crushed tomatoes
– add a tin or two of cooked beans (depending on how many people you are cooking for)
– add some sage, rosemary and parsley, season and simmer for ten minutes
– place everything in an ovenproof dish and add sausages and some chunks of bread (diced)
– cook in the oven (200 degrees C) for an hour
– remove from oven and add spinach shoots, mix well before serving, the spinach gets cooked with the heat from the bean dish

Very successful New Year’s Dinner, here’s the menu:

Pims number one cocktail with cucumber and strawberries	Oysters with lemon and grilled with garlic, a drop of white wine, breadcrumbs and parsley
Home-made foie gras mi-cuit with pain d’épices and fresh pear chutney
Pork fillet stuffed with apples and black horn of plenty mushrooms served with a sweet potato and broccoli flan, roast potatoes and cranberry/madeira sauce	Trilogy of Desserts: chocolate mousse, lime sorbet and meringue nests with raspberries and cream

I’m surprised I haven’t already posted this recipe, it’s one of my favorite left over Christmas turkey dishes.

– Fry some chopped almonds in some butter and oil until they start to brown
– Add some flour and cook for a few minutes stirring all the time
– Add some milk and water and cook until the sauce starts to thicken
– Add some grated cheese and keep stirring until it has melted
– Pour the almond cheese sauce over the turkey and cook in the oven until brown

I’ve been cooking brussel sprouts like this for years and I was shocked to see Jamie Oliver cooking them in a similar way, as shown on his recent Christmas Special on British television. I wonder now where this recipe actually came from.

To be fair to Jamie, our recipes do differ slightly – he adds an enormous amount of Worcestershire sauce at the end, where I added Chili and Mango hot sauce from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (or cream for a milder dish – see 3rd November 2011 post). Otherwise the recipes are identical and it is an ideal way to cook sprouts without going to the bother of trimming them and making a cross in the stem so they cook through properly when boiled or steamed in the traditional way.

– Clean the sprouts and take off the dirty outer leaves
– Shred in a kitchen robot machine or slice very finely
– Fry some chopped smoky bacon in a little olive oil and butter until crispy
– Add chopped sprouts and a little water and cover for 5 minutes
– Add some hot sauce (or in Jamie’s version a lot of Worcestershire sauce and some chopped herbs, especially sage if available). No need for salt as the seasoning comes from the bacon.

This worked out as a very light starter for our Christmas lunch

From left to right clockwise:

– Pea soup
you can see the recipe here on 27th November post. Add a few cooked peas for decoration
– Prawns in satay sauce
make a “quick” satay sauce in the blender with crunchy peanut butter, soy sauce, a crushed chilli pepper (or two), lemon juice and honey, pour over some cooked prawns and heat in hot oven for a few minutes until bubbling
– Smoked salmon verrine
Grate some cucumber, add salt and dry with kitchen roll to extract as much of their water as possible. Grate some radishes. Mix smoked salmon, fromage blanc and a little horseradish in the blender. Put a layer of each in a small glass, decorate with a ribbon of salmon.
– Foie Gras
– Pear chutney
Cook some chopped pear with sugar, vinegar and spices (star aniseed, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg). Boil on a high heat until thick and syrupy like jam. Allow to cool. Serve with Foie Gras
– Tomato and mozzarella sticks
There are endless combinations of little cocktail stick brochettes like this. I used cherry tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and a dried apricots. Drizzle with a little balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

A marriage made in heaven, these delicious little sweet and savory pies from Pézenas and Orto di Venezia. Look here on the Orto Facebook page to see why there is a connection.

Meanwhile Bruno, the local pizza guy, has invented a special Christmas pizza. Leeks, asparagus, scallops, shrimps, foie gras with fresh mozzarella and oyster leaves (a little leaf like sage except when you eat it there is the most incredible flavor of oysters). Simply amazing.

This is a variation on my 11th November recipe

You can use almost any fish fillets for this recipe. Make sure there are no fishbones. If the fillets are too thick, you can cover them with with cling film and bash them with a rolling pin to make them thin.

– steam some carrots, cut lengthwise
– chop together some dates and a preserved lemon (citron confit)
– place two or three cooked carrots onto the fish fillets and a spoonful of date/lemon mixture
– roll up fillets and fix in place with a cocktail stick
– place the fish rolls on a bed of cooked carrots, sprinkle with olive oil and cumin seeds and bake in the oven for 25 mins.

There is a plan to build 5 chicken factory farms within 15kms around where I live.
There are 24 chickens per square metre, they only live for 37 days and are mostly fed on genetically modified soya imported from Brazil. They don’t even get a chance to walk!
A multinational chicken company, selling mainly to fast food chains and the like, forces farmers to take out loans to pay for these concentration chicken camps and in return they promise to purchase a huge amount of chickens every month.
If ever there is a problem and minimum delivery amount (720,000 chickens per year!) are not respected, the farmer gets dumped and loses everything.
As the multinational food company transforms the genetically modified fed chickens into bits, they actually sell the meat from these poor animals for more per chicken than quality tasty free-range chickens that the farmers could be rearing, thereby making huge profits for zero risk.
Furthermore, 350 trucks per year are required PER FACTORY to come and pick up these poor chickens and drive them across the country (and Europe in some cases) to the factory where they are processed.
Go here for more details: http://www.bienvivredanslegers.org/

As regular readers of this blog will know, I don’t really do desserts so in actual fact I have practically no idea how this was done, but it was bloody wonderful.
It’s something like this, I think, if you try it out and it’s no good I hold no responsibility.
– Whisk egg whites to stiff peaks
– Sprinkle icing sugar on greaseproof paper, spread egg whites in a layer about 2cms thick and cook in cool oven. Don’t overcook the meringue, it needs to be soft.
– Whisk together cream, sugar and fromage blanc until stiff. Add some raspberries and crushed white chocolate.
– Spread this mixture onto the meringue and roll it together like what we used to call a roly-poly cake.
– Leave to set in the fridge for a while.
– Pour over melted chocolate sauce to serve