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.