Rhubarb and blackberry tart

Rhubarb! I saw it on sale in the supermarket and just had to buy it. I searched for a recipe online and there are hundreds - this one is simple (in fact I was a bit anxious that it was too simple) and delicious. You get a sort of meringue-y crust along with the rhubarb. I added the blackberries because I happened to have some left over, but they're not essential.

Ingredients
  • 1 pack of ready-rolled shortcrust pastry
  • 5 tablespoonfuls of plain flour, plus extra for rolling out
  • Butter for greasing
  • 300g of fresh rhubarb
  • 200g of caster sugar
  • 1 pinch of ground cinnamon
  • 2 eggs
  • 6 or 7 blackberries
  • Creme fraiche, to serve
     
Method
  1. Preheat the oven to 190°C.
  2. Use a little butter to grease a pie dish that's about 23cm across.
  3. Use the extra plain flour to dust the inside of the greased dish.
  4. Unroll the ready-rolled pastry and roll it to twice its size. The crust of the tart should be really thin. Wrap the leftover pastry in cling film and put it in the fridge to use in another recipe.
  5. Line the pie dish with the pastry, and prick the base with a fork. Cover with baking parchment and fill with baking beans.
  6. Blind bake the pastry shell for 15 minutes, then remove the beans and paper and return to the oven for a further five minutes. This will give you a really crispy, browned pastry.
  7. Chop the rhubarb into chunks.
  8. Put the flour, sugar and cinnamon into a bowl, and mix them together.
  9. Crack the eggs into another bowl and beat together with a fork. Then stir into the flour/sugar mixture.
  10. Put the rhubarb into the pastry case and pour the sweet mixture over the top.
  11. Place the blackberries decoratively on top.
  12. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes. Mine came out looking very pale, so I gave it an extra 10 minutes at a very high heat just to brown it off a bit.
  13. Serve with the creme fraiche.

Pear, almond and cardamom tart

Dessert should always be served with fairy lights
I ripped this recipe out of a magazine, intrigued by the combination of cardamom and pears. It didn't say whether to use black or green cardamom, but I assume the citrussy green ones are more suitable. I cheated by using ready-made pastry, but I was pleased with the result.

Ingredients
  • 1 pack of ready-rolled shortcrust pastry
  • Plain flour, for rolling out
  • 15 green cardamom pods
  • 100g of slightly salted butter, plus a little extra for greasing
  • 100g of caster sugar
  • 1 lemon
  • 100g of ground almonds
  • 3 eggs
  • 5 small pears
  • Creme fraiche, to serve
     
Method
  1. Preheat the oven to 200°C.
  2. Use the extra butter to grease a pie dish (mine's about 23cm across).
  3. Use the plain flour to dust the inside of the greased dish.
  4. Unroll the ready-rolled pastry and roll it to twice its size. The crust of the tart should be really thin. Wrap the leftover pastry in cling film and put it in the fridge to use on another recipe.
  5. Line the pie dish with the pastry, and prick the base with a fork. Cover with baking parchment and fill with baking beans.
  6. Blind bake the pastry shell for 15 minutes, then remove the beans and paper and return to the oven for a further five minutes. This will give you a really crispy, browned pastry.
  7. Crush the cardamom pods with a pestle and mortar until the shells split, then discard the shells and grind the seeds a bit more.
  8. Grate the zest of the lemon.
  9. Put the butter, sugar, cardamom and lemon zest into a bowl, and beat together until light and fluffy.
  10. Crack the eggs into another bowl and beat together with a fork. Then gradually beat the eggs into the butter/sugar mixture.
  11. Stir the almonds into the mixture to create a thick paste. Pour it into the pastry case.
  12. Squeeze the lemon juice into a bowl.
  13. Peel three pears, keeping the stalks intact. Take out the cores with a corer but leave the tops with the stalks intact. Then cut the pears in half around the middle (not lengthways). Make cuts around each piece of pear and then roll in the lemon juice.
  14. Peel and slice the remaining pears and roll them in the lemon juice. Really you could just slice all of the pears to give yourself an easy life.
  15. Arrange the pears on the almond mixture.
  16. Bake for 30 minutes. Mine came out looking very pale, so I gave it an extra 10 minutes at a very high heat just to brown it off a bit.
  17. Serve with the creme fraiche.

Pot-roasted beef brisket with root vegetables

Well, I made this, but I'm not sure if I'd make it again. Not because it went wrong, but because I just didn't like the texture of the brisket. It's quite stringy, and fairly fatty too. It's just not that nice (to my taste). But I like the pot roast idea, and the vegetables were very tasty. Thanks Hugh F-S-W, but maybe no thanks too. I might just try a different cut of beef next time.

Ingredients
  • 2 teaspoonfuls of fresh thyme leaves
  • 2 teaspoonfuls of paprika powder
  • 2 teaspoonfuls of sea salt flakes
  • 2 teaspoonfuls of ground black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon of English mustard powder
  • 1 teaspoon of muscovado sugar
  • 2kg of beef brisket
  • 2 tablespoonfuls of ground nut or sunflower oil
  • 200g bacon
  • 500ml of dry red wine or dark beer (I used wine)
  • 200ml of beef stock
  • 2 large onions
  • 12 small shallots
  • 10 garlic cloves
  • 3 bay leaves
  • 4 large carrots
  • 4 medium parsnips
  • 1 small celeriac
  • 4 or 5 small turnips
     
Method
  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
  2. Mix the first six ingredients in a bowl to make a spice blend.
  3. Rub the spice blend all over the beef.
  4. Chop the bacon into little bits.
  5. Heat the oil in a large casserole dish. Well, I didn't exactly do this, because my casserole dish can't go on the hob, so I did all the hob stuff in a large frying pan, and then transferred to the casserole dish later.
  6. Fry the bacon in the oil over a high heat until it's crisp, then remove it with a slotted spoon and drain on some kitchen paper.
  7. Pour off all but three tablespoonfuls of fat from the pan/casserole (good luck).
  8. Put the beef in the pan over a medium heat and brown on all sides. Then take out the meat and put it on a plate. (Keep that plate handy.)
  9. Peel and thinly slice the onion.
  10. Peel the shallots and garlic cloves.
  11. Put the wine (or beer) into the pan and bring it to the boil, scraping up any meaty bits that are clagged to the pan.
  12. Boil for about five minutes, until the liquid has reduced to about 150ml (though I'm not sure how you're supposed to tell - just until it's reduced a bit).
  13. If you're using a separate pan for the hob, transfer the contents of the hob pan into your casserole dish now.
  14. Add the stock and the bacon to the casserole dish, with half the onions, shallots and garlic, and a bay leaf.
  15. Put the beef into the casserole dish, then scatter the remaining onion, shallots, garlic and bay leaves all around it.
  16. Put a lid on the casserole and put it in the oven for an hour.
  17. Take it out, turn the beef over, put the lid back on and bake for another hour. If it looks a bit dry at this stage, add 100ml of water.
  18. Peel the carrots, parsnips and celeriac, and chop into chunks.
  19. Lift out the beef and put it on a plate.
  20. Put the root vegetables (including the whole turnips) into the casserole dish. Stir around, then put the beef back on top.
  21. Cover and put it back in the oven for 45 minutes. It's done when the vegetables are tender (the beef should be tender too, of course).
  22. Take out the beef and vegetables to serve. Taste the gravy and adjust the seasoning if you like, then pour that over the top on each plate.

Salt and pepper pork

I've made this a couple of times, it's really easy and tasty - zingy, really. You can get the Szechuan peppercorns in Chinese food shops, they're reddish and give an amazing flavour. Serve the dish with some salad leaves like iceberg or romaine lettuce.

Ingredients
  • 1 tablespoonful of Szechuan peppercorns
  • 1 tablespoonful of black peppercorns
  • 500g of lean pork (shoulder or leg or, well, whatever a chop is made of)
  • 2 tablespoonfuls of rapeseed or ground nut oil
  • 2 tablespoonfuls of sea salt flakes
     
Method
  1. Put the peppercorns into a pestle and grind them finely with a mortar. Mine weren't all that fine, to be honest.
  2. Chop the pork into little cubes, and cut off any fat.
  3. Mix the ground pepper with the pork and set aside for 20 minutes or so.
  4. Heat the oil in a large frying pan or wok, until it starts to shimmer and smoke slightly.
  5. Add the pork to the oil along with the salt.
  6. Fry at a high heat, stirring, for about five minutes until the meat has started to brown in places.
  7. It's done! Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon so that you don't get an oily dinner, and serve on top of a fresh crisp salad.

Portuguese paprika potatoes

This is another Hugh Stanley-Fearnley-Whatever recipe, which is very easy and very tasty, but it lacks a little something as a main with salad (as he suggests). Next time I think I'd at least put some mushrooms in it. Also, the result has a lot of very liquid paprika gravy with it. It either needs to be thickened somehow (maybe yoghurt?) or take out the potatoes and such with a slotted spoon and serve without all the liquid. It serves four as a main or six as a side.

Ingredients
  • 3 tablespoonfuls of red wine vinegar
  • 1 medium onion
  • 2 tablespoonfuls of paprika powder (he says to use sweet, I used smoked)
  • 1 can of chopped tomatoes
  • 4 large potatoes
  • 400g of cooking chorizo
  • 1 big handful of flat leaf parsley
  • 1 teaspoon of salt
  • 1 tablespoon of ground black pepper
     
Method
  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
  2. Pour 700ml of cold water into a roasting tray (which has quite deep sides).
  3. Put the paprika into the water and mix with a whisk until dissolved.
  4. Peel and roughly chop the onion.
  5. Chop up the parsley.
  6. Peel the potatoes and chop into chunks.
  7. Chop the chorizo into chunks.
  8. Put all the remaining ingredients into the water and mix together.
  9. Bake, uncovered, for two hours, stirring halfway through. It's done when the potatoes are tender and cooked. Hugh suggests sprinkling with chopped parsley to serve, which would be nice, but I'm forbidden to do that in my house, due to parsley bigotry.

Beef meatballs with lemon and celeriac

This is Yotam Ottolenghi's recipe for a surprisingly light dish that has a delicate and (to me) unusual flavour. I think it's a recipe from Jerusalem. It makes about 20 meatballs, enough for four people, which you can serve with rice.

Ingredients
  • 400g of lean minced beef
  • 1 medium onion
  • 120g of breadcrumbs (I bought ready-made crumbs - I've been stung by trying to make my own in the past)
  • 20g of flat-leaf parsley, plus extra to garnish
  • 1 egg
  • ½ a teaspoon of ground allspice
  • 2 tablespoonfuls of olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon of salt
  • A generous grind or three of black pepper
  • 1 small celeriac
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • ½ a teaspoon of ground turmeric
  • ½ a teaspoon of ground cumin
  • ½ a teaspoon of ground cinnamon
  • 1½ teaspoonfuls of fennel seeds
  • ¾ a teaspoon of ground smoked paprika
  • 500ml chicken stock
  • 3½ tablespoonsful of lemon juice
  • 60g of Greek yoghurt
     
Method
  1. Peel and finely chop the onion.
  2. Finely chop the parsley.
  3. Crack the egg into a little bowl and beat it with a fork for a bit.
  4. Put the beef, onion, breadcrumbs, parsley, egg, allspice, half a teaspoon of salt and some pepper into a large bowl.
  5. Mix together with your hands and form the mixture into little meatballs.
  6. OK, so far so good. Now chop the celeriac into little thin batons (5cm by 1.5cm says the recipe).
  7. Crush the fennel seeds slightly.
  8. Peel and crush the garlic.
  9. Heat the oil in a large frying pan (that has a lid).
  10. Sear the meatballs all over for about five minutes.
  11. Remove the meatballs from the pan.
  12. Put the celeriac, garlic and all the remaining spices into the pan. Cook on a high heat, stirring, for two minutes.
  13. Put the meatballs back in the pan, along with the stock, lemon juice, the other half-teaspoon of salt and some pepper to taste.
  14. Bring to the boil, then turn down the heat and put the lid on.
  15. Simmer for 30 minutes.
  16. Take off the lid and let it bubble away for another 10 minutes, until the sauce is quite thick.
  17. Remove the pan from the heat, and let it settle for a few minutes. Taste it to see if you want to adjust the seasoning, then serve with a dollop for yoghurt and a sprinkling of chopped parsley.

Scotch beef casserole

OK so this is the easiest and most delicious beef casserole I've ever made. The recipe came from the Scotch Beef marketing board, so I suppose they know what they're talking about.

Ingredients
  • 25g of pearl barley
  • 675g of lean Scotch beef braising steak.
  • ½ a swede (the orangey-coloured root vegetable, which seems to go under many pseudonyms)
  • 1 leek
  • 5 baby carrots
  • 250g of haggis (I used vegetarian haggis - you can also try black pudding)
  • 12 button mushrooms
  • 2 sprigs of fresh thyme
  • 1 tablespoon of tomato puree
  • 275ml of dark stout or other flavoursome beer (I used Guinness)
  • 300ml of beef stock
  • 2 tablespoonfuls of horseradish sauce
  • A generous grind or five of black pepper
     
Method
  1. Put the pearl barley into a bowl and cover with water. Leave it to soak while you're preparing everything else (I think it might need to be longer - but to be honest I forgot to do this, and just put the barley in dry, and it turned out to be fine. But that was probably just lucky).
  2. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
  3. Cut the steak into little chunks.
  4. Peel the swede and cut it into little chunks.
  5. Cut the leek into chunks.
  6. Peel the carrots.
  7. Take the skin off the haggis and cut it into chunks.
  8. Drain the water from the pearl barley.
  9. Put all the ingredients into a large casserole dish and mix together.
  10. Bake in the oven for 1 and a ½ to 2 hours (or longer) until the meat is tender. Put a lid on the dish if it looks like it's drying out.
  11. At this point it's done, but all a little al dente for me. If you want really falling-apart meat, turn the oven down to 150°C and bake for another hour or two.
  12. Serve with mashed swede, parsnips and potatoes.

Paprika-fried halloumi

It isn't easy to improve on halloumi (surely the cheese they eat in Heaven) but Hugh Stanley-Fearnley-Wittingstall has a salad recipe that includes a halloumi and paprika combination, and it's really tasty. I jettisoned his salad and dressing and did some feeble cobble-together of my own, but here's the halloumi bit, which is well worth a try.

Ingredients
  • 1 block (about 250g) of halloumi
  • 50g of plain flour
  • ½ a teaspoon of smoked paprika powder
  • A grind of black pepper
  • 3 tablespoonfuls of olive oil (or other flavourless cooking oil)
  • A splash of lemon juice
     
Method
  1. Drain the juice off the halloumi and cut it into thick slices (about eight slices).
  2. Put the flour, paprika and pepper into a bowl and mix together.
  3. Press each damp slice of cheese into the flour mixture and shake off any excess.
  4. Heat the oil in a large frying pan (non-stick if you want an easy life).
  5. Fry the slices of halloumi over a medium heat for about two minutes on each side, until golden and slightly softened on the inside. Don't cook it for too long, like I did for some slices - they'll still be edible, but a bit hard and, well, black.
  6. Serve immediately with a squeeze of lemon juice over the top, with a light salad of your choice.