My Struggle (with writer's block)

New song over on the music page - my first new composition in about 5 years (although the word "seven" seems to scan better than "five". ) It's only a home demo at the moment but the simple arrangement lends itself to a basic acoustic arrangement quite nicely. Sounds a bit like the old headbanging standard "Mule Train" to me but hell, it's a new song, so surely that's better than no new song at all!

MP3 players are rubbish nowadays...

After a bad experience with a new Sony MP3 player last year (it relied on the proprietary SonicStage software to transfer music, which takes ages, but that's another story) I went to Dixons last weekend in search of a new MP3 player.

The best of what was, frankly, a bad (not to mention overpriced) bunch was the Samsung YP-U3 player, which promised an integrated FM radio, good old-fashioned drag-and-drop transfer and a built-in battery for easy charging - and what a waste of money it has turned out to be.

The touch-sensitive keys aim to emulate the iPod Nano, but turn out to be so sensitive that even the basic task of walking along and listening to MP3s is nigh-on impossible without having to engage the fiddly "lock" mode, whose button is rather too close to a trigger button which, when pressed, makes a flimsy little half-USB plug pop out. It's so brittle that the PC drops the connection at the merest hint of a vibration in the street. That'll be broken before the month's out, then.

A confusing menu aims to make life even more difficult, resetting playlists if you accidentally touch the wrong part of the keyboard, and while I was amazed to find that while the player self-installs without any problems in Windows XP, Vista refuses to recognise it at all! The manufacturers deliver a final kick up the arse by not having the basic courtesy to make drivers available from their website.

My first ever MP3 player was so simple to use - drag and drop and keep the batteries charged up. No fancy formats. No proprietary software. No fiddly buttons. When will the manufacturers of these things realise that sometimes it's best to keep things simple? I've lost any loyalty or respect I might once have had for Samsung and Sony thanks to the contemptous way they treat their customers.

Still here...

...just had nothing worth writing since my last post, that's all. Might have some new recipes soon.

Oh, and if you're in need of a laugh, scoot over here for the new (free) podcast from lion geniuses Danny Baker and Danny Kelly. OK - I don't like (or even understand) football, but this weekly radio programme tells me all I need to know...

Ginger beer

A delicious recipe for ginger beer - just the thing at the end of a hot day!

Ingredients (makes two litres):

• 2 litres of water (tap water is just fine)
• 1/4 tablespoon of yeast
• One cup sugar
• Ginger root
• One lemon

You will also need a 2-litre lemonade bottle, a funnel and a tea strainer.

This is so easy... chop up the ginger. You will need a piece as big as an Oxo cube at least, but all more if you like. Don't even bother to peel the ginger, but you must use fresh ginger.

Put the ginger in the bottle along with the juice of the lemon, and using the funnel, pour in a cup of sugar and the yeast. Take care not to add too much yeast.

Now top the bottle up with tap water until it's three-quarters full. Put the cap back on the bottle, and shake to dissolve the sugar. When it's all dissolved, add more water but leave just over an inch at the top of the bottle (this is really important as it gives the beer room to ferment. If you don't leave this gap, then your bottle will most likely explode, showering everything in sight with a yeasty gingery sticky mess!)

Screw the cap down tightly, and leave the ginger beer in a dark and warm place. Check it after 24 hours. When the ginger beer is ready, you'll find that the bottle tightens due to expanding gases caused by fermentation, so when you try to squeeze the bottle you'll feel a lot of resistance. If it's not ready, put it back and leave it to ferment another 24 hours.

So if you're sure that you don't need the ginger beer to ferment any more, leave the bottle in a fridge overnight (which stops the fermentation process.) Open carefully as gases may escape.

Serve ice cold by pouring through a tea strainer to avoid getting sediment in the glass. Mmm, it's frothy, man!

Cracked Pepper

Hot on the heels of the Grey Album (a mashup of the Beatles' White Album and Prince's Black Album) comes Cracked Pepper, which marries the great Sergeant Pepper album with such unlikely bedfellows as David Bowie, ELO, Groove Armada, Queen, The Doors and - oo, controversial - Gary Glitter.

Absolutely recommended listening, even if only for the sake of guessing where all the samples come from. Free to download, so get it while you can...

http://memethief.com/2007/07/26/mashup-cracked-pepper/

The Simpsons Movie

Saw the Simpsons Movie last night, and it's mightily good - everything I expected and much more.

At just 90 minutes or so in length, it doesn't outstay its welcome, and the storyline has a little more room to breathe. It's not a clunker either, in fact I can't think of any other TV show that translated to film so well. The animation is fantastic, in fact perhaps a little better than an average Simpsons TV show.

I really haven't enjoyed a film in ages, let alone laughed heartily throughout. Recommended.

King of fish soup

My own eccentric take on the Spanish 'sopa de pescados'. I find that the best time to buy fish is at the end of the day at a good fishmongers, when the prices go down, so you can often pick up a few scraps for pennies if you're prepared to use them immediately.

The secret is a good, strong fish stock, which, for the sake of authenticity, does not come from a cube. It takes real time to make, and a complete change of attitude to recycling your waste food. This recipe is not for the squeamish: If you're afraid of fish guts, do not read on!

• 1 litre fish stock (see recipe, below)
• 1 kg mixed prepared fish and seafood to finish the soup with. Monkfish and prawns are nice, but use whatever comes to hand.
• 4 tomatoes
• Tomato purée
• A fresh red chilli, chopped small
• One large onion
• Two cloves garlic
• Bay leaves
• A liberal helping of mixed herbs
• A dash of brandy. Pastis also works nicely.
• Some two-or-three-day-old bread

To make the fish stock:

I saved and froze all my fish waste over a two or three week period. Of course, this will be different every time, but on this occasion I took a load of prawn shells, along with the shell from a dressed crab, leftover skin from some smoked mackerel, some sardines I managed to blag from the owner of the fish stall as she was shutting the stall up (she was only going to throw them away, anyway) and some dried shrimp. For extra fishiness, add some Thai fish sauce, which basically is a distillation of fermented anchovies.

Boil all the fishy bits up in a covered saucepan for an hour or so with a few bits of carrot, tomato and celery, and open all the windows in the house because cooking your own fish stock really stinks. Honestly, it honks. No kidding.

After an hour or so, strain the stock; twice to remove any nasty bits, and put to one side.

To make the soup itself:

Chop the onions and tomatoes finely. Fry the onions in a little olive oil in a saucepan, followed by the garlic, tomatoes and tomato puree, the herbs, chilli and finally the fish stock. Simmer for half an hour or so. Strain once more, before adding the mixed prepared fish and a good slug of brandy or pastis. Taste the soup, add seasoning as necessary and taste again.

Cut the bread into large croutons. Any left-over bread can be crushed into breadcrumbs and added to the soup. For authenticity, serve the bread with aioli (garlic mayonnaise).

Finally, once the fish is cooked – but not overcooked – hook it out of the soup and into a bowl, then using a ladle, add enough soup to fill the bowl. Sprinkle with fresh parsley and crumbled boiled egg.

Pear Crumble

Or "how to make a fantastic and cheap dessert for four out of things you didn't know you had in your cupboard". Makes bleeding loads.

• Six pears
• A handful of chopped pecan nuts
• 200g self-raising flour
• 50g butter, broken into small pieces
• Sugar to taste
• Hazelnut syrup (the magic ingredient!)

Peel the pears. Take off the tops and tails, and slice lengthways, discarding any pips you find. Place in a saucepan, adding enough water to cover the pears, and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and add a dessertspoon or two of sugar, and a good glug of hazelnut syrup. The hazelnut syrup's actually quite important. I use the type you can get which is meant to be added to coffee, except I think it's disgusting that people adulterate their coffee in this way! I think it's much better used in desserts, or on your morning porridge. But I digress...

Now to the crumble. Some people swear by beating the crap out of a packet of digestives and adding a load of melted butter. Personally, I think that's enough to give anyone a heart attack, so I prefer to take some flour, and add the pieces of butter. Rub between fingertips until the flour absorbs the butter and the mixture resembles small breadcrumbs, as if you were making pastry. Add a tablespoon of sugar, as well as the pecan nuts, which are crucial to the recipe.

When the pears are soft, drain them and lay in a dish. Pour crumble mixture on top and cook until golden. Serve with cream.

Grandad's Apple Pie (V)

My grandad, God rest his soul, made the best apple pie in the world. Forget what you know about apple pie, because this is the real deal.
I learned most about cooking from Grandad. He always claimed that he learned from scratch when my nan died, but he always cooked the most delicious meals and knew how to make the most of the resources available - home-made steak and kidney pie, with really crispy roast potatoes, boiled cabbage and marrow with a gravy made from the previous day's stock; pork chops with stuffing; bread pudding and the finest apple pie, made from windfall apples from the trees that stood in his garden.
Apple filling

• A good half kilo of apples. Cook more if you like - they'll store in the freezer for ages.
• 6 to 8 cloves
• Juice of a lemon
• Few spoonsful of sugar

Pastry

• 100g of butter, cut into small cubes
• 200g of plain flour, sieved
• A pinch or two of sugar for dusting

Peel and slice the apples. Cut right down to the core - no point wasting any! - and cover with cold tap water. Add the sugar and cloves, and boil for five minutes before setting aside for a while.
Meanwhile, gently using the tips of your fingers, mix the butter and flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add water until you have a pastry dough consistency, and mix well to work some air into the pastry. Roll to 2 or 3mm thick.
Line a pie dish with the pastry and cut away the excess. Roll the excess into a ball from which you will make a lid later. Don't blind-bake the base - for authenticity you need a slightly soggy bottom to the pie. Drain the apples, retaining the juice and cloves into a glass which you can refrigerate for a tasty drink later. See - nothing wasted!
Gradually layer apple pieces into the pie dish, building up a slight peak in the centre. Roll out the remaining pastry and coat the pie, making two holes in the top from which steam can escape. Bake until golden. Best eaten cold with Rossi ice cream.

Bacon and Onion Pudding

One of my Dad's favourite recipes. I think his mum used to make it but I have also seen Keith Floyd cooking it under the soubriquet 'Norfolk dumpling'. Good old-fashioned stodge, just the thing on a cold day.
 
Suet pastry

• 225g self raising flour
• 150ml cold water, to mix
• 110g shredded beef suet
• ½ tsp salt

Sieve the flour and salt into a large bowl. Add suet and mix lightly. Mix with sufficient water to make a soft but firm dough. Turn out on to a lightly floured work surface and knead until smooth.
Place a pudding basin, upside-down, on the pastry and trim round it. Set the pastry disc aside, knead the remaining dough, roll and line the basin with it.
Bacon and onion filling

• 750g bacon offcuts, chopped. Smoked or unsmoked, it doesn't matter.
• 3 large onions, chopped into large pieces

Fry the bacon in a little oil until cooked. If the bacon's quite fatty, don't use the oil. Fry the onion in the remaining fat.
Turn the bacon and onions into the lined pudding basin. Cram in as much as you can, and keep going until it reaches the top. Wet the rim of the basin with a little water, re-roll the suet disc - it will have shrunk slightly - and lay it over the top of the basin, pressing gently on the rim to seal the pudding.
Now cover the pudding in a clean white teacloth, and tie with a tight knot using some strong string around the lip of the basin to seal.
Make a bain-marie by boiling a pan with a few inches of water - not quite enough to cover the top of the pudding - and stand the pudding in it. Place a lid on the saucepan and simmer for two hours, adding more water to the bain-marie as needed but never letting the water reach the top.
Turn out, while piping hot, onto a plate and serve with boiled potatoes, peas and English mustard to taste.
Serving suggestion: You can use a mixture of steak, kidney and oysters - yes, oysters - instead of the bacon if you like!

5-minute sponge pudding

Impress your guests! A delicious sponge cake with jam and custard, all in just over five minutes flat? But it’s a miracle! Yes, friends, with practice, it can be done! Serves 2

Sponge cake:

50g butter
50g self-raising flour
50g sugar
1 egg
A drip of almond essence (optional)

Fruit compote:

Half a cupful of fresh berries
Sugar to taste

Start the clock!

Microwave the fresh berries (I used blueberries) on full power for one minute in a large bowl. Add sugar to taste and leave to cool. The berries might unleash a seemingly endless torrent of boiling juice. I improvised by soaking it up with a handful of dried strawberry pieces, the kind you might find in those breakfast cereals with “berry pieces” and dubious health improvement claims.

While the berries cook, cream together in a bowl the butter and sugar, and gradually add the egg, the flour and, if desired, the almond essence. Pour the cake batter into a large pre-buttered microwaveable dish, cover with clingfilm and cook on high for 3 and a half minutes.

With luck, the sponge cake will have miraculously risen! Turn it out onto a plate, all in one piece if you can, and pour over the fruit compote. Serve with custard or ice cream.

Stop the clock!

Minestrone soup (V)

A great way to use up elderly vegetables in your fridge - provided there's lots of tomato and onion, you can do anything with the recipe. Why bother buying expensive soups with loads of added salt and sugar, when you can make this tasty nutritious soup at home?

Ingredients:

• 1 thinly sliced leek
• 1 diced onion
• A stick of celery
• Garlic
• At least one carrot
• Four finely chopped tomatoes
• Tomato puree
• A small amount of Savoy cabbage
• A few chilli peppers, whole
• A well-stocked spice rack
• A small quantity of dried spaghetti or other dried pasta

Heat some olive oil in a large saucepan, and gently fry the sliced leek, onion, and the celery, sliced small. Fry until the ingredients start to brown, then reduce the heat and add a pint of cold water, followed by two crushed cloves of garlic, a diced carrot, four finely chopped tomatoes, a small amount of Savoy cabbage, then a small can of tomato puree, a generous pinch of mixed Italian herbs, the chillies (don't break the skin of the chillies, and take them out when you're happy with the heat of the soup!) and, if desired, a vegetable stock cube.

Bring to the boil before reducing to a simmer, and cook for an hour or so. Taste the soup regularly, and adjust the seasoning as necessary; add diced potato for thickness, or more tomato puree or vegetable stock for a stronger flavour. A spoonful of tamarind will add some nice heat and a few fruity notes.

You could serve the soup after an hour's cooking; I find that the taste really matures if the soup is allowed to cool overnight before reheating it when you're ready to serve, taking care to make sure it's piping hit of course.

Before serving, strain out all the vegetables. Keep back a few bite-size chunks, which you can add back to the soup if desired. Chop up or blend the rest of the chunks and add those back to the soup, which will not be a bit thicker. Take care to remove any inedible pieces like bay leaves or whole chillies. Break a little spaghetti into small strands and add to the soup, cooking for another ten minutes (or long enough for the spaghetti to soften.)

Truita (V)

During a week in Catalonia 1999 during my spell as a vegetarian, I enjoyed a selection of the delicious local omelettes, or “truita”. With the exception of the eggs and milk, you can substitute any of the other ingredients with pretty much whatever you like. Truita is also delicious eaten cold the day after preparation.

Serves 2 as a main course, or cut into cubes and serve cold as a tapas

• 4 eggs
• 1/2 pint milk
• 1 Spanish onion (of course!)
• Garlic
• Red chilli
• A tin of cannelini beans, drained and rinsed
• Mushrooms
• Spinach
• Frozen peas

In a large frying pan, fry some onions in olive oil. Add garlic and chillies to taste. Add the beans (some recipes substitute this for potato) and, after cooking a little longer, add some mushrooms and fresh spinach. You could, if you like, add a handful of frozen peas.

Meanwhile, beat in a bowl four large eggs and a splash of milk. Add generous amounts of salt and pepper, and add the cooked vegetables straight to the bowl (not the other way round!) Stir well to prevent the eggs from congealing.

Now add more oil to the frying pan, and return the mixture to the heat. Start preheating a grill.

Cook the omelette slowly, until the egg starts to solidify. The omelette may still be a little runny inside, but this won’t be a problem since instead of turning it over as you would a French omelette, you now need to put your frying pan under the grill, taking care of course not to expose any plastic handles to any heat!

In the above photograph, I have added a topping of sliced goat’s cheese.

Continue until the entire omelette is solid, then turn out onto a rack. Eat hot or cold.

This omelette is traditionally served with a thick sauce – this could be a tomato and pepper sauce like that used in ‘patatas bravas’, or perhaps some aioli (garlic mayonnaise). I also recommend serving it with “pa amb tomaquet” (fresh bread, rubbed with tomatoes and olive oil and seasoned with lots of salt and pepper); Arbequina olives if you can get them, and fresh almonds prepared the Catalan way (fried in olive oil and salted.)

Petit salé

Fast food? Pah!!

Here's a delicious slow-burning winter warmer from my ancestral homeland, the Pas-de-Calais. Serves 4.

• A knuckle of gammon
• One large onion or a leek
• A chopped carrot
• A stick of celery
• A bayleaf
• A pack of puy lentils

Place the gammon in a pan of cold water with the vegetables and bayleaf. Bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer and leave for one hour.

Remove (and discard) the vegetables and add the lentils. Cook for half an hour. By now, the gammon will easily fall off the bone. Drain, reserving some of the cooking juices to pour over before serving.

Serve on a bed of with boiled Savoy cabbage and fresh French bread and butter.

Crema Catalana

A tasty dessert for four.

Ingredients:

• 450 ml milk
• 200 ml double cream
• pared zest of 1 lemon
• 1 tsp fennel seeds, crushed
• 6 egg yolks
• 175 g Caster Sugar
• 2 tbsp cornflour
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Place the milk, cream, lemon zest and crushed fennel in a heavy-based saucepan. Heat to boiling point, then set aside to infuse for 30 minutes.

Beat the egg yolks, 125 g of the sugar and the cornflour together in a small bowl until light and fluffy.

Strain the infused milk on to the egg yolk mixture, a little at a time, stirring constantly.

Pour into a saucepan. Cook over a low heat, stirring constantly, until the cream thickens and almost comes to the boil; this will take 6-8 minutes. Immediately remove from the heat. Pour into small dessert dishes or a large bowl. Allow to cool, cover loosely with tin foil and place in the refrigerator overnight to set.

When ready to serve, preheat the grill until very hot. Mix the remaining sugar with the cinnamon and sprinkle over the custard. Place under the hot grill until the sugar has caramelised.

Seychellois fish curry

A tasty and easy-to-prepare curry. Serves 4.

• About 1kg of mixed fish, scaled and gutted
• 500g mixed seafood - scallops, squid and tiger prawns are good
• A pint or so of good, strong fish stock, fresh if possible
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• A little fresh ginger
• 1-3 tbs curry powder, depending on desired strength
• 1 onion
• 1 tin coconut milk
• Half a kilo of peeled potatoes
• Fresh limes and coriander to garnish

In a large pan, brown the onions in a little oil. Reduce the heat, add the curry powder and cook for a minute or so before removing from the heat.

Now add the fish stock and the potatoes. Throw in a bay leaf for good mesure. Reduce the heat, add the garlic and ginger, and some chopped red chilli if desired, as well as the coconut milk. Simmer gently, tasting often, until the sauce thickens. You may wish to get some rice on whilst doing this.

When the rice is almost ready, add the mixed fish, which should take just over 5 minutes to cook. Add the seafood, which should take a further couple of minutes to cook.

The finished curry will be like a thick soup, so it's a good idea to serve it in bowls, adding a little of the cooked rice and garnishing with the juice of the limes and a little chopped coriander.

Pissaladiere

A traditional French tart and a close cousin of the popular Italian dish, "pizza" (which, in turn, is not to be confused with the popular American dish, "pizza".)

Serves 4.

• A little olive oil
• 750g onions, chopped. Substitute one onion for some chopped leek, if desired
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• Pack of ready-to-roll puff pastry
• 100g anchovy fillets
• Black pitted olives to garnish
• Mixed dried herbs to taste

Preheat an oven to 220 degrees/gas 7. Heat the oil in a large pan and add the onions and garlic. Reduce the heat and simmer gently for half an hour until the onions are soft and golden. Season with freshly-ground pepper.

While the onions are cooking, roll the pastry into a square and cut into four smaller squares, each about the size of a CD case. Place on a baking sheet.

Spread the onion mixture over the pastry, leaving a border around the edges where the pastry will rise. Garnish with anchovies, olives and mixed herbs and bake until golden. Eat hot or cold.

Melanzane alle parmagiano (V)

A distant relative of ratatouille.

Ideal vegetarian meal for two. Preparation 25 minutes.

Ingredients:

• 1 aubergine, cut into thin round slices
• 1 can tomato purée
• A lot of fresh basil
• Celery seed
• Bay leaves
• Parsley
• Freshly milled pepper
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Freshly grated Reggiano cheese

Preheat an oven to 200C. Sprinkle the aubergine slices with salt and set aside for 15 minutes before rinsing under the tap and patting dry. This firms up the texture, ensures it won't soak up too much oil and removes the bitter juices from the aubergine.

Meanwhile, heat the tomato puree and fill the can with water to dilute it. Add the celery seed, half the basil (roughly torn), bay leaves, parsley and pepper. Add a little red chilli if you like. Set aside once it comes to the boil, and once it's cooled down a little, taste it. You may need to add a little sugar to offset the sourness of the tomatoes.

Now fry the aubergines in a little olive oil until golden. Pat dry.

Take a little of the tomato sauce and line a shallow casserole dish with it. Add about half the aubergine, cover with a layer of basil leaves and a few slices of cheese, then cover with more tomato sauce and another layer of aubergine, basil and cheese. Top with the remaining tomato sauce and bake for 15 minutes.

Sea Spicy Aubergine

A traditional Oriental starter with a unique twist. Takes no time at all to prepare. Serves 2.

• One ripe aubergine
• 1 spring onion
• Half a red chilli, sliced but not de-seeded
• A piece of fresh ginger, about as big as your knuckle
• A quantity of salt
• Thai fish sauce (optional)
• Soy sauce
• A few leaves of fresh basil
• One free-range egg
• A few teaspoons of flour
• Splash of milk

Slice the aubergine, vertically or horizontally. Sprinkle liberally with salt, cover and leave for 10 minutes or so (the salt will draw out the bitter juices from the aubergine.)
Break the egg into a bowl, and add the flour. Whisk all the lumps out of the flour and add the milk to produce a thin batter. Meanwhile, chop together the onion, chilli, ginger and basil to make a dry sauce. Wash your hands thoroughly to remove any chilli residue. You will be sorry if you touch your eyes, nose or open wounds with chilli on your hands! Don't say I didn't warn you!
Now rinse the salted aubergines in cold water. Place them in kitchen towel and squeeze to remove excess moisture. Coat with batter and fry in hot oil until golden. Sprinkle with the dry sauce, and add fish sauce and/or soy sauce to taste. Lovely grub!!

Yam Neua (Thai beef salad) with sticky toasted rice

It might look complicated, but this tasty beef salad makes a delicious meal and is deceptively easy to make. One of my favourite recipes of all time, but beware - it's spicy!! I can safely say that this will not appeal to you if you like your salads dressed with salad cream.
Ingredients

• Thin frying steak (sliced into thin slices). This can be substituted for prawns if desired.
• One or two red chilli peppers, minced
• Fresh ginger to taste, minced
• Two large cloves garlic, sliced crosswise very thin
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• Fish sauce
• Juice of a lime
• 1/2 a small cucumber (seeds removed), peeled and sliced
• One large tomato, cut into wedges
• A handful of button mushrooms
• 3 shallots, or 1 small onion, sliced very thin
• A nice bunch of coriander
• 1 pack Thai fragrant rice

Preheat a grill.

For each person to be served, take one cup of rice. Rinse well - this is really important! Now, add to a saucepan one and a half cups of water per person. Bring to the boil, add the rinsed rice, bring back to the boil, then down to a simmer and cover. Check the rice periodically while preparing the rest of the recipe to make sure it's not sticking to the base of the pan. When all the water has gone, remove from the heat but leave covered.

While the rice cooks, mix together the garlic, ginger, fish sauce, chilli, lime juice and sugar in a bowl. That's your salad dressing. Told you it was simple!

Add the shallots, tomato and cucumber, stir well and cover.

Fry the beef/prawns in a pan. Allow to cool and add to the salad. Stir well again.

By now, you should have a pan of cooked rice with a really sticky consistency and all the water should have been soaked up by the rice. Take a rolling pin and pound the rice for a 30 seconds - this will break up the starches in the rice in readiness for the next step, which is to spread the rice over a baking sheet. Place it under the preheated grill until it starts to crisp. Break into lumps and serve with the salad.

Hoi-Kiew-Wan (Mussels in green curry)

Not as hot and spicy as it sounds, but delicious all the same! The mussels can be substituted for pretty much anything - prawns, chicken, beancurd, vegetables. Serves 4 as a starter without the rice or 2 as a main course.

Preparation: 20 minutes.
You will need:

• 1kg rope-grown mussels
• Kaffir lime leaves
• 1 lime
• Lemon grass
• 1 bunch spring onion
• 1 red chilli, de-seeded
• 1 cup button mushrooms, sliced
• 3 tsp Thai green curry paste
• 1/2 block creamed coconut
• Long grain rice

Rinse 3 cups of rice in cold water, and set it to boil with the juice of half the lime, along with the lemon grass and kaffir leaves. These flavours will infuse and make the rice fragrant. Stir occasionally for the next fifteen minutes, to stop the rice from sticking to the pan.

Meanwhile, clean the mussels, pulling off any beards and discarding any shells which may already be open. Set aside and reconstitute the coconut milk in a little hot water. (Tip: three minutes in the microwave should soften up the block of coconut milk.)

Finely chop the spring onion and chilli, and fry it in a little vegetable oil until the onion softens. Add the curry paste and cook a little longer, before removing from the heat. Add the sliced mushrooms, the remainder of the lime juice and the coconut milk, and stir gently. Taste it - it should smell and taste delicious! Remove from heat until rice has been cooking for ten minutes.

Now add the mussels to the sauce. Stir frequently for the next five minutes. The mussels will open and steam gently in the sauce. Place in a large bowl, discarding any shells which haven't opened. Pour some boiling water over the rice before serving, remove the lemon grass and kaffir leaves, and serve with the mussels.

Citrus tuna steaks with pepper rice

Abandon all thoughts of tinned tuna - give it to your cat and grab some of this! 

Preparation: 10 minutes
Cooking: 15 minutes

• Fresh - not frozen - tuna steaks
• Garlic, parsley, lemon, lime
• Long-grain rice
• Red peppers
• Spring onions
• 1 fresh red chilli, bunch of coriander (optional)

For each person to be served, take one fresh tuna steak and marinade it in a little sea salt, freshly-milled pepper, a little lemon zest, some garlic and parsley.

Meanwhile, boil up enough long-grain rice to serve everyone. About 10 minutes into cooking the rice, start frying the tuna over a low heat in a mixture of butter and olive oil. Don't worry about the health risks of using butter! You're never going to live forever anyway, and - fact! - butter tastes much better than margarine!

While the rice is cooking, dice some spring onion and red pepper. Prepare roughly 1 part fresh veg to every 5 parts of rice. Don't worry about being too specific with measurements, but don't overdo the veg. You can optionally add a little chopped fresh ginger at this point, for added excitement. Those who like to live dangerously can add chopped deseeded red chillies at their peril!

Arrange the rice on a plate and serve with the tuna steak on top. Garnish with a twist of lime and coriander.

Spaghetti con frutti di mare

This spaghetti recipe demonstrates the old maxim that simple is best. No complicated spices or hard-to-obtain ingredients - it's all available quite cheaply from any supermarket.
Cooking time: 10 mins - serves 2

You will need:

• Dried spaghetti
• 2 large tomatoes, diced
• Tomato puree
• 3 cloves garlic
• Fresh parsley
• One red chilli
• Whatever seafood you can find - mussels, prawns and squid are good, as is fresh crab meat
• Olive oil
  

Take a large saucepan of lightly-salted boiling water and add some dried spaghetti. This will take around 10 minutes to cook on a medium-to-high heat. If the pan is too hot, the spaghetti will stick to it.

Heat some oil in a frying pan, and add the diced tomatoes. When they stop sizzling, add the tomato puree, a splash of water and reduce the heat to a simmer. Chop and add the garlic and chilli, and chop the parsley (but don't add it just yet!)

Now you just need to concentrate on getting the spaghetti right. When it's al dente, take it off the heat and add the seafood, which should be cooked inside a couple of minutes. Drain the spaghetti, add it to the pan and stir in the parsley. Serve immediately with extremely fresh bread.

Conchigle con salsa della noche (V)

A delicious and cheap meal, with a delightful range of textures and tastes.
Preparation: 20 minutes - it's not as complicated as it sounds!

• Olive oil
• Conchigle (pasta shells)

For the sauce:

• Butter
• Plain flour
• Skimmed milk
• 150g Gruyere or Gorgonzola cheese (depending on your tastes)
• Walnuts - the fresher the better - halved
• A handful of button mushrooms
• Fresh garlic
  

In a saucepan, bring some lightly salted water to the boil. While the water is boiling, grate 150g of the cheese and set it aside. You might want to substitute the Gruyere for Gorgonzola, but don't use Cheddar - save that for a tasty Ploughman's lunch with pickled onions, fresh bread and a pint of foaming nut-brown ale!

By the time the cheese has all been grated, the water will have boiled, so add to the pan a drizzle of olive oil (this will stop the pasta sticking together) and drop in four handfuls of conchigle. Any pasta will do, but conchigle (pasta shells) seem to hold the sauce quite well. The pasta will probably take about ten minutes to cook, during which time you will need to make the walnut sauce.

Now in another saucepan, you will need to melt three tablespoons of butter. Melt it slowly - you don't want it burning - and then add three tablespoons of flour. Stir quickly, until there are no lumps, then add half a glass of skimmed milk. Keep stirring, because the mixture will go lumpy again quite quickly.

After a few moments the mixture will thicken again, so add another half glass of milk and repeat the procedure until you have a smooth white sauce - not too thick and not too runny. You'll probably end up using about two or three glasses of milk.

Now add a little freshly milled pepper, then add the cheese and return the mixture to the heat, stirring all the while to maintain a smooth consistency. Stir in a handful of halved walnuts and set aside.

Now take a piece of pasta from the pan, and taste it to make sure it's not undercooked. If it's "al dente" ("to the bite") then remove it from the heat and allow it to finish cooking in the hot water.

Nearly there... in a frying pan take some more olive oil and some sliced button mushrooms. Cook gently for a minute or two, adding a little chopped fresh garlic near the end.

Add the mushrooms to the cheese and walnut sauce, and stir before draining the pasta and pouring the sauce over it. For a contrasting texture, serve with wild rocket and proper Italian breadsticks (the ones that don't have the name of the supermarket on the box.) French lager seems to go well with this meal, bizarrely.

Site relaunch

I'm testing a tasty bit of code at the moment, a really simple ASP content management system which I would like to use to relaunch Hamletweb to make it a bit more user-friendly, not least for me! This is a test blog, really - more news as it comes in...

Talking of tasty things, I'm going to start using this blog to reprint a few of my favourite recipes starting in a few minutes! Feel free to comment, etc.