Pan Fried Vietnamese River Cobbler with a Poached Egg

Here is a simple supper for when you fancy something fresh and delicious but you don't have much time on your hands.  Vietnamese River cobbler is an inexpensive yet tasty fish with firm white flesh.  The poached egg lends richness, resulting in a healthy dish with a touch of luxury.

Pan Fried Vietnamese River Cobbler with a Poached Egg 

Serves 2

Ingredients

2 skinless river cobbler fillets
2 large eggs
2 tbsp flour
salt and pepper
olive oil
a salad of your choice - we used lamb's lettuce, spinach, peppers, spring onions, cucumber and tomatoes - a simple green salad would work well too

Method

1. First boil a kettle. Next, on a plate, mix together the flour with some salt and pepper.  Lay the fish fillets on the plate and thoroughly coat them in this mixture, shake off the excess and set aside.
 
2. Put a large non-stick frying pan on to heat with a little olive oil.  Pour water from the kettle into a medium-sized saucepan and put it on to heat, ready to poach the eggs. 

3. Poach the eggs for 3 minutes for a soft and melting yolk. Meanwhile pan fry the fish for a few minutes each side depending on thickness of the fillet, finishing with a small knob of butter. 

4. Serve the fish on the salad with a poached egg on top. The richness of the egg yolk works really well with the fish. 

Enjoy!  
  

Spanish inspired stuffed mushrooms

We're back! Wow it's been a little while since we last posted! We've been all over the place to be honest and now we're finally feeling settled and less stressed in our new place in Nottingham we wanted to pick up what we love doing; cooking and celebrating the tasty food that we cook for ourselves. This recipe came to us as we both love risotto but the key behind it is the enjoying the flavours of Spain and integrating them into a lovely dish that we devoured with pleasure. Imagine the most perfect oozing bed of saffron risotto you have ever tasted with a couple of succulent stuffed mushrooms perched on top. With this recipe you can really taste every individual ingredient and in our opinion it is a perfect representation of Spanish flavours. We think it's best to read through the recipe fully before starting to make sure you have everything ready then it flows so easily. Enjoy!

Spanish Inspired Stuffed Mushrooms

Serves 2

Ingredients

For the Mushrooms
4 Portabello mushrooms - stalks removed (below)
50 g chorizo
4 mushroom stalks, chopped finely
30 g red chilli infused fresh breadcrumbs (1/2 a fresh birdseye chilli chopped finely and blitzed with your bread in a processor - infuse for at least 20 minutes up to 1 hour - best to prepare this early)
1/3 onion, chopped finely
30 g red bell pepper, chopped finely
1 clove garlic
Manchego cheese or other cheese of your choice, grated

For the Risotto
2 tbsp olive oil
100g arborio rice
a good pinch of saffron
2/3 onion, chopped finely
1 chicken stock cube or homemade chicken stock
3/4 - 1 pint boiling water (or homemade stock)
1/2 celery stick, chopped finely
splash of Spanish sherry
squeeze lemon juice
knob of butter

Method

For the Mushrooms/Stuffing:

1. Place mushrooms in a preheated oven (180 C, Gas Mark 4) for 5-8 minutes whilst preparing stuffing. 

2. Heat the oil in a frying pan, add the chopped mushroom stalks with a small knob of butter, cook for 1-2 minutes on a high heat until they begin to colour. Once golden, add your onions with a pinch of salt, lower the heat and cook for 1-2 minutes until softened. 

3. Add the peppers and garlic and fry for a few minutes until soft. Add the chorizo and fry for 1 minute. Pour all the ingredients into a bowl with your pre-made bread crumbs (above). Combine with 1 tbsp of olive oil. 

4. Remove mushrooms from oven, dab excess water away with kitchen paper - spoon stuffing into centres and place back into oven. These will cook until your risotto is ready. The last few minutes place a cheese of your choice on top and grill until melted. To continue with the Spanish theme, use Manchego, or if not cheddar is fine.

For the Risotto: 

5. Make your saffron stock by placing the boiling water in a small pan with your saffron and your crushed stock cube or homemade stock. Heat gently for a up to 5 minutes until you have a beautiful orange stock. 

6. Heat some oil in a pan and fry your onion and celery for 2-3 minutes until softened. Add the rice and cook for 1-2 minutes.

7. Add a splash of sherry, leave to absorb, shuffling the pan occasionally. Then gradually add a ladleful of the stock, allowing the rice to absorb it between each addition (stirring all the time really helps make a perfect risotto). Repeat this until all stock is used and rice is just cooked and not chalky. Season to taste, squeeze in some lemon juice and add a knob of butter to finish. Rest for a few minutes before serving. 

Serve with a lovely green salad and don't forget a wedge of lemon!

Pan fried sea bass perched on a bed of leek risotto

After a long day viewing properties ready for the next chapter of our lives commencing in Nottingham, we wanted something simple but tasty and filling to devour. This is what we chose, and by all means is not unique to us, it has been done many times before in a huge variety of ways but this is how we whipped our version together. Anyone can do it! It's so fresh and easy to make!

Pan Fried Sea Bass Perched On A Bed Of Leek Risotto

Serves 2

Ingredients

2 sea bass fillets, scaled and boned

1 small leek, finely chopped

150 g arborio rice

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 pint chicken stock

75 ml white wine

a knob of butter

2 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper

Method

1. Heat the olive oil in a suitable pan, add the leeks and cook for 2 minutes, then add the garlic and cook together until softened. Pour in the rice and cook until transparent, usually a minute or two. 

2. Add your wine to the pan and cook until all absorbed by the rice, then start adding your hot stock, one ladle-full at a time, each time ensuring that the stock is absorbed before adding the next ladle-full. Do this until the stock is finished and/or the rice is just cooked, roughly about 15-20 minutes. Add a knob of butter and season to taste, stir thoroughly and leave to rest whilst you cook the fish. 

3. Heat a frying pan until searingly hot with a little butter and some olive oil. Score the skin of the fillets in a criss cross pattern and season with salt and pepper, place skin side down in the pan and season the top. Now this is the important bit, DO NOT shuffle the pan, just press down the fillets and leave. Cook until almost cooked through, doing 95% of the cooking on the skin to get it lovely and crispy, then turn over and finish off the flesh side for a few seconds. Serve immediately on top of a bed of creamy leek risotto. 

Note - Do NOT add cheese to this risotto as this will mask the delicate flavour of the fish. Serve with some lovely fresh green leaves or just as it is.

Chocolate orange melting puddings

When you have a niggling feeling for something sweet after an evening meal, instead of chomping away on a bar of chocolate or such, try this. A luxuriously naughty little treat which can be whipped up in no time at all and caters for those sweet cravings after a lovely savoury meal. This little pud was put together from a variety of sources and we believe this recipe is perfect for ease and full of flavour. We love chocolate orange which is a marriage made in flavour combination heaven, but you can also use coffee for a mocha flavour or try other combinations that you may fancy - have a play and see what you can create!

Chocolate Orange Melting Pudding

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

150 g good quality dark chocolate (minimum 70% - we used 85%)

125 g unsalted butter, plus some for greasing

150 g golden caster sugar

40 g plain flour

2.5 tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice

zest of one orange

3 eggs

cocoa powder for dusting

Method

1. Preheat your oven to Gas Mark 6. Grease 4 large or 6 medium ramekins and dust lightly with cocoa, set aside. 

2. Melt the chocolate and butter in a make shift bain marie with a little simmering water in a saucepan and a glass bowl over the top, stirring occasionally. Cool slightly.

3. Beat together the sugar, eggs, juice, zest and flour then set aside. Combine the melted chocolate and butter with the above mixture, stirring until smooth. 

4. Pour the mixture into the greased and dusted ramekins and bake for 10-12 minutes for the medium ramekins or up to 20 minutes for the large. Bake until slightly cracked on the surface. This will ensure the puddings have a lovely melted centre.

Serve with cream or ice cream. 

Note - You can keep the mixture in the fridge overnight in ramekins to cook the next day should you have too many.

English summer frittata

Today we harvested some beautiful green and yellow courgettes from the veg patch in Sasha's parents' garden. The weather this year has meant that the patch hasn't been as successful as in past years, but these little courgettes have flourished! A neighbour kindly gave us some lovely Vivaldi potatoes, freshly plucked from the ground, and we had a box of fresh free range eggs in the pantry, so what better than to make a tasty frittata for supper. A few delicious ingredients, simply put together, so that you can taste each and every one. A simple recipe, which proves that you need not eat meat at every meal to be fully satisfied. 

English Summer Frittata

Serves 4 

Ingredients

2 medium green courgettes, diced

3 small yellow courgettes, diced

150 g fresh broad beans, podded

2 medium onions, sliced into half moons

3 large Vivaldi potatoes, peeled and cut into dice

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

5 large free range eggs

a dash of milk

50 g mature cheddar cheese, grated

a few chives, snipped

5 tbsp sunflower oil

1 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper

Notes - The term dice is approximate, say about 1-2 cm in size.

Method

1. Start by cooking your potatoes and onions. Heat the sunflower oil in a large frying pan and add the prepared potatoes and onions. Season lightly with salt. Gently shallow fry, without colouring, for about 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are cooked through.

2. In the meantime, fry off your courgettes in the olive oil with a little salt and pepper, until lightly browned, approx 10 minutes.

3. Boil the broad beans for a couple of minutes. Run them under cold water to cool them down and then pop them out of their papery outer skins. This is well worth the effort!

4. Crack your eggs into a jug and add a dash of milk. Season well with salt and pepper and whisk together.

5. Once the potatoes have cooked, drain away the majority of the oil. Once all of the component parts of your frittata have been cooked/prepared, place them all into the large frying pan along with the potatoes and onions and the finely chopped garlic. Fry for a minute before pouring over your egg mixture. Turn the vegetables over in the egg to ensure everything is well combined, level the top and leave to cook gently over a low heat. Preheat your grill.

6. When the bottom of the frittata has cooked, pop under the grill to cook the top. This should only take a few minutes if your grill is hot. Once cooked through, scatter the grated cheese over the top and place under the grill again to melt and colour the cheese. When you are happy that it is cooked, remove the frittata from the grill, sprinkle some chives over the top and serve.

Serve with a mixed salad.

Pork steak with artichoke and cannellini bean salad

Tonight's meal was a conglomeration of ideas from multiple sources, from which we have created this unique flavoursome dish which is just perfect for the summer. A succulent marinated pork steak is perched atop a fresh and vibrant summery salad which will get anybody's taste buds going. It is best to marinate the pork in the morning ready for the evening, or even the night before.

Pork steak with artichoke and cannellini bean salad

Serves 5

Ingredients

For the pork marinade

5 thick cut pork steaks

3-4 sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves chopped finely

3 garlic cloves, crushed

3 tbsp olive/rapeseed oil

a few healthy gratings of lemon zest

juice of half a lemon

salt and pepper

For the salad

100 g rocket leaves

100 g romaine lettuce leaves, torn

400 g tin of cannellini beans

1 jar of grilled artichoke hearts in oil

juice of half a lemon

2 garlic cloves, finely sliced

1 large spring onion, sliced

salt and pepper

Method

1. Prepare the pork by trimming any excess fat but ensure you leave a bit on the pork. Place in a dish with the rest of the ingredients, massage the marinade into the steaks and leave to marinate for at least 2 hours, but preferably 8-24 hours. 

2. Once marinated and when you wish to prepare the meal, drain the beans and rinse them under water. Drain 1-2 tbsp of the oil from the artichoke hearts into a frying pan, discarding the rest of it whilst removing the hearts.

3. Heat a griddle pan over a medium-high heat and fry the steaks for 3-4 minutes each side depending on the thickness, leaving them to rest for 1-2 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the frying pan and add the garlic, spring onion and artichoke hearts and fry for 1-2 minutes, then add the beans and fry for a further 2-3 minutes. At the end of the cooking time, season with salt, pepper and lemon juice.

4. To serve, mix together your leaves in a large bowl and add your artichoke and bean mix, toss throughout and serve immediately, then place your steak on top and dress with a little lemon juice.

Chicken, bacon and leek quiche

With the weather being so good lately, no-one has fancied eating anything too heavy and this creation is somewhere in between - it fills just enough. It is also very moreish! This evening, instead of cooking the standard quiche Lorraine we altered the ingredients to create this delightfully cheesy, meaty and sumptuous savoury meal. 

For ease we have used ready made shortcrust pastry (which is a perfectly acceptable cheat, compared to other things) as playing with homemade pastry in this heat isn't so simple to deal with, but if you do fancy making your own from scratch, we have posted recipes previously that involve this type of pastry.

Chicken, bacon and leek quiche

Serves 8

Ingredients

1 pack of ready made shortcrust pastry

1 leek

150 g smoked bacon lardons

1 large chicken breast

5 large free range eggs

100 ml double cream

1 tsp Dijon mustard

150 g cheddar cheese or a good quality hard cheese

salt and pepper

a knob of butter

olive oil

Method

1. Firstly, season both sides of the chicken and place in a suitable oven proof dish, dab with butter and roast in the oven at Gas Mark 4 for 15 minutes, or until cooked. Remove from oven and slice into small cubes then set aside.

2. Meanwhile, place the lardons in a frying pan over a low heat and slowly render the fat from them, gradually increasing the heat until they turn a lovely and crispy brown.

3. Whilst cooking the bacon, rinse the leek and slice in half length ways and then into 1/2 cm slices. Once the bacon is cooked, set aside. Add a dash of oil to the pan with a knob of butter and sauté the leeks, with a pinch of salt and pepper, until lovely and caramelised. Set aside.

4. Roll out your pastry to fit the dish, ensuring the pastry sits into all edges of the dish and leaving an overhang. We used a 10 inch flan dish. Blind bake for 15 minutes with baking beans and 10 minutes without the beans at Gas Mark 4 until lightly golden and fully cooked through. 

5. To prepare the egg mixture, crack all the eggs into a bowl with the cream, Dijon mustard, 100 g of the cheese and whisk together, seasoning with a pinch of salt and pepper (remember not too much as the bacon is quite salty). 

6. To make the quiche, layer the leeks, bacon and chicken in the pastry base and pour the egg mixture over the top. To finish, sprinkle the last of the cheese on top along with a sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper. Bake in the oven at Gas Mark 4 for 30-40 minutes or until cooked through to the centre. 

You can serve the quiche immediately if you're starving or if you can wait, it is best served cold with a lovely side salad.

Focaccia steak sandwich

The weather has taken a turn for the better and after a lovely day getting some bargains for the kitchen herb garden we decided to have a succulent savoury summery treat for our evening meal. I've fancied a steak sandwich for a while and I must admit this is probably the epitome of all steak sandwiches for savoury goodness. There are plenty of varieties but this contains some of our favourite ingredients and this certainly went down well with Sasha's parents. 

Focaccia Steak Sandwich

Serves 4 

Ingredients

For the focaccia

250 g strong white bread flour 

1 sachet of fast action yeast

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

200 ml cold water

a few sprigs of rosemary, leaves chopped

coarse sea salt, for topping

For the filling

400 g thin cut sirloin steak

2 onions

1 star anise

100 g cheddar cheese, grated

2 bell peppers (whichever colours you prefer)

salt and pepper

extra virgin olive oil

Method

1. To make the focaccia, combine in a bowl the flour, yeast, salt and oil (place salt on opposite side of bowl to prevent it from killing the yeast), mix together thoroughly and add 150 ml of the water, combining fully and adding the last 50 ml gradually. DO NOT WORRY, it is meant to be very sticky and wet! Do NOT add extra flour and make sure you add all the water! 

2. Knead the dough with oiled hands for 5-10 minutes then transfer to a clean oiled bowl for the first proving for 1 hour or until it has doubled in size.

3. Prepare a tin by lining with greaseproof paper and transfer the dough into it. Using oiled fingers prod the dough to leave the distinctive focaccia dips, cover with a towel and leave to prove for a further hour. Towards the end of the second proving, preheat the oven to Gas Mark 7, top the dough with a sprinkling of coarse salt and the rosemary. Bake for 20 minutes. 

4. Meanwhile, prepare your bell peppers by blackening them - either under a salamander grill or on top of a gas hob, place them in a bowl and cover with clingfilm to steam for 10 minutes. Peel the skins off, deseed and chop into chunks. Dress with olive oil and salt.

5. While the peppers are steaming, chop your onions into half moon rings. Place your frying pan on a medium to high heat with some olive oil, add your onions, star anise, salt and pepper and caramelise until they turn a lovely brown colour - add a knob of butter to help this process along. 

6. Heat a griddle pan until it is searingly hot, lightly brush your steaks with oil and season with salt and pepper on both sides. Griddle until cooked to your liking, set aside to rest for a few minutes, then slice diagonally into strips.

7. Cut your focaccia into quarters and in half to open like a sandwich. Layer with the steak strips, grated cheese, onions and peppers, drizzle with olive oil and then finish with the top half of the rosemary focaccia. 

8. Serve with some salad. If you fancy really making a meal of this instead of a lighter supper double the ingredients above to make larger portions and an extra suggestion may be to add sautéed mushrooms, to add to this blast of intense savouriness!

Apple Streusel Cake

We are both at Sasha's parents' lovely cottage for the next month or so and today we decided to make a treat for everyone. The weather was glorious yesterday and we're both nursing a little lobster-esque sunburn inadvertently acquired whilst enjoying being outside in the countryside. Today, in true British style, the weather has changed to torrential rain and clouds, so we fancied doing a little baking for some inside comfort. 

Apple Streusel Cake

Cuts into approx 12 slices

Ingredients

For the cake

200 g margarine

150 g light muscovado sugar

50 g dark brown soft sugar

4 medium eggs

200 g self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 braeburn apple, peeled, cored and cubed

For the streusel

1 tbsp light muscovado sugar

1 tbsp vanilla sugar

2 tbsp plain flour

1 tbsp margarine

Method

1. Grease a 23 cm springform tin and line the base. Preheat the oven (Gas Mark 4, or 3 for fan ovens). 

2. Cream the margarine and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time followed by a tablespoon of the flour between each egg. Sift in the remaining flour, baking powder and cinnamon. Gently fold in until fully combined. 

3. Spoon the mixture into the cake tin and level the top with a spatula. Gently tap the tin on the work surface to ensure there are no large air pockets in the cake. Push the apple cubes into the top of the cake and bake for 30 minutes. 

4. Whilst the cake is in the oven, prepare the streusel by rubbing together the ingredients to make a crumble mixture. Add some chopped nuts or oats here if you wish.

5. After 30 minutes cooking time has elapsed, sprinkle the crumbs over the top of the cake and bake for a further 20 minutes. 

6. Remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack. Serve by itself or with ice-cream or custard.   

Breaded gammon with a creamy wild garlic sauce

Tonight I fancied something quick, simple and tasty for dinner. There was a juicy gammon steak in the fridge so I came up with a schnitzel-esque meal which involved putting a lovely crust on the gammon and serving it with a skin-on potato mash and a zingy smooth garlic cream. 

Breaded Gammon With A Creamy Wild Garlic Sauce

Serves 3

Ingredients

3 gammon steaks 

Dijon mustard

100 g breadcrumbs 

30 g cheddar cheese, grated

500 ml vegetable stock
a dash of dry sherry

1 garlic clove, chopped

1 shallot, chopped

100 ml double cream

1emon juice

a bunch of wild garlic leaves, chopped

300 g potatoes

50 g butter

salt and pepper

Method

1.  Make the breadcrumbs in a processor and mix on a plate with the grated cheese. Trim the fat from the steaks and spread lightly with the mustard on both sides. Fully coat each of the steaks in the crumb mixture and press firmly to bind. Set aside.

2. Chop the potatoes into cubes leaving the skin on and boil for 10-15 minutes in salted water, drain and steam dry. 

3. To make the sauce, finely chop the garlic and shallot and combine with the stock and sherry and bring to the boil. Reduce by a third. Add the cream and wild garlic, bring back to the boil and heat through. Add lemon juice and seasoning to taste. 

4. Pan fry the steaks in olive oil for approximately 3 minutes on each side until golden and cooked through. Meanwhile mash the potatoes with the butter and season. Serve drizzled with the sauce.

You can also serve with green beans - dig in and enjoy!

Chicken with leaf celery and green vegetables

The following is an adaptation of a Nigella Lawson recipe, although after much tweaking and exchanging of ingredients, it doesn't really bear much resemblance to the original. In my parents' garden there is a celery plant, though not a conventional plant as you might expect; it is a leaf celery plant, sometimes referred to as French celery, Chinese celery or smallage. You use only the leaves of this plant, as the long, hollow stems are extremely stringy. The leaves are bitter and heavily scented - a small quantity imparts a pungent, aromatic celery flavour to your dish, far less subtle than stem celery and is balanced out by the sweetness of the vegetables. Also picked from the garden was some lovely fresh thyme, to add further seasoning to the dish. What resulted was a heady broth with tender pieces of chicken and sweet green veg. 

Chicken with leaf celery and green vegetables

Serves 3-4

Ingredients

150 g smoked bacon lardons (or chopped bacon)

9-12 chicken thighs, bone in, skin on

1 leek, finely sliced

1/4 cup leaf celery, chopped

4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

a few sprigs of fresh thyme, plus a pinch of dried thyme

pinch of salt and pepper

200 ml dry white wine

300 ml boiling water

2 chicken stock cubes

250 g frozen peas

250 g frozen broad beans, boiled briefly and popped out of their papery skins

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

5 leaves iceberg lettuce, roughly chopped

100 ml double cream

Notes - We have never seen leaf celery on general sale in the UK and thus you probably won't be able to acquire any, although if you can - use it! Ordinary celery is a perfectly good substitute, just use one stick, chopped finely like the leek. If you can't get hold of fresh thyme, just use 1 tsp of the dried stuff. You may even want to supplement the flavour of your fresh thyme, as I did, with a pinch of dried thyme. Of course use fresh peas and broad beans if you are lucky enough to have them and feel free to omit the cream.

Method

1. Heat a large pan and fry the lardons until brown. Meanwhile, trim any excess skin, fat or bone fragments from the chicken thighs. Once the lardons are brown, place the thighs skin side down into the pan. Cook over a high heat for a few minutes until their skins are lovely and golden brown. 

2. Chuck in the leeks, celery and garlic, followed by the thyme and some salt and pepper. Crumble in the stock cubes and pour in the wine and boiling water. Stir to give everything a good mix. 

3. Add the peas and broad beans, bring to the boil, then cover with a lid. Turn the heat down and simmer gently for 30-40 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through.

4. Stir in the mustard and sprinkle the chopped iceberg over the top. Check your seasonings and cook for a few more minutes until the lettuce has wilted. Drizzle with the cream, if using, and stir gently.

5. Serve with potatoes, mashed or steamed, or a pile of brown rice. A chunk of crusty bread wouldn't go amiss either, to mop up the sauce.

Elderflower and lemon jelly

 

After the move down from Leeds, I thought that we wouldn't be posting much for a while, which is probably true, but here is a simple sweet that epitomises summer. I've been fancying jelly or Jello for a little while now and decided to do a bit more of an unconventional jelly which encompasses some very traditional English summer flavours. Elderflower is a highly scented plant which can be used to make cordial, champagne, jams and so on.  In my box of goodies I brought back from Leeds, we had some gelatin leaves to use. The weather has been very variable lately, ranging from lovely and sunny to torrential rain, thunder storms and 2 inch hail stones...  I managed to collect some elderflower from a local park between these periods of extreme weather to use in this recipe. This is a very simple recipe, and is full aromatic sweetness.

Elderflower and Lemon Jelly

Makes 4 wine glasses

Ingredients

15-20 heads of elderflower

1.5 pints of water

250 g sugar

7 leaves of gelatin

3 tbsp of lemon juice

zest of 1 lemon 

zest of 1/2 a lemon for finishing

Method

1. Pour the sugar, lemon juice and zest of 1 lemon in a sauce pan and cover with the water. Remove most of the stalks from the heads and place the flowers into the pan also (only use heads which have pollen on them and are fully in flower - don't worry about any tiny bugs as that will be dealt with later)

2. Bring the mix to the boil and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Take the pan off the heat and cover, leave to infuse and cool to just above lukewarm (about an hour or two). Prepare your gelatin by pre-soaking in water for at least 5 minutes. (A useful website with extra information about gelatin - we use the small leaves)

3. Strain the mixture through a sieve lined with muslin, this will remove the tiny little bugs the flower heads and lemon zest - discard these. Remove the gelatin from soaking and squeeze the excess water out, place in the warm mixture and stir until dissolved. Stir through the lemon zest for finishing and pour into 4 wine glasses. Place in the fridge and leave to set for about 4-5 hours.

Sausage, bean and fennel pot

We are in the last few days of packing and leaving Leeds for the foreseeable future and so as you can imagine there isn't a huge amount of food in the fridge. This is one dish that I came up with from the last morsels we had. As we have now packed most of our kitchen away this is a rather simple dish to prepare and can easily be prepared earlier in the day to alleviate the stresses in the evening. I wouldn't call this a bake as such but a conglomeration of a few simple, delicious ingredients into a one pot wonder.

Sausage, bean and fennel pot

Ingredients

Serves 3

6 Toulouse sausages

2 fennel bulbs

2 x 300 g tins cannellini beans

250 g vine-ripened cherry tomatoes

5-10 garlic cloves, depending on taste

1/2 lemon zest and juice

1/4 tsp thyme

olive oil

salt and pepper

Method

1. Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4. Place a griddle pan on a high heat and trim the tops off the fennel bulbs and set aside. Slice the fennel (approx 1 cm thick) from top to bottom. Make a mixture of olive oil, salt and pepper, brush the slices lightly with this mixture and char-grill fiercely until softened with lovely grilled marks on both sides. Do the rest in batches and place aside on a plate.

2. Place all the tomatoes, skins on, in a roasting dish leaving a few for later (preferably on the vine). Drizzle with plenty of oil and toss with the thyme, salt and pepper. Dot the garlic cloves, in their skins, in and around the tomatoes. Roast in the preheated oven for 30-40 minutes until soft and wrinkled. 

3. You have two choices at this point; either part cook the sausages under a grill and set aside or leave them raw for baking later. If you precook, you will ensure that you get a nice colour on your sausages, although this is not essential - it is purely for aesthetic reasons.

4. Drain the beans, place into a bowl and toss with the lemon zest, juice, salt and pepper then set aside for the minute.

5. To assemble, arrange a base layer of the char-grilled fennel on the bottom of your oven dish and gently place the succulent roasted tomatoes in the middle as if you are leaving a moat around the outside. Squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of their skins and sprinkle around the dish. The last of the fennel slices are to be placed on top of the tomatoes in the centre. Pour the seasoned beans around in the "moat" to surround the tomatoes in the centre. Finally arrange the sausages on top of the beans around the edge and top the fennel with the raw tomatoes on the vine. Drizzle generously with olive oil, season the tomatoes with salt and pepper and bake in the oven for 30 minutes. 

6. Dish up and drizzle with a little more oil, lemon juice, fennel fronds. Serve with a big handful of fresh salad leaves and perhaps some fresh crusty bread to mop up the juices.