Poor camera phone filming. Poor sound. Nice biscuits.

I’ve written about Christmas drinks for BBC Good Food. You can have a read here.

I met up with Dave, one of the organisers yesterday and as we gazed down from the Dalston Roof Park at the remote triangular space hidden away at the end of Abbot Street  he explained how with log fires, a huge marquee, acoustic bands and a long communal table at which diners can enjoy their amazing treats, the idea will be to encourage people to enjoy the sense of inherent warmth you only really get from a proper communal gathering. From 6pm -12am every Friday in the run up to Christmas it promises to be absolutely epic and Friday nights in Dalston really won’t ever be the same again.

I’ve written a little piece about Autumnal food for BBC Good Food. You can read it here

Our “ruby murray” stall – photo by Kerstin Rogers

Flaky, delicate pastry with a spicy thwack of chillified filling, my spicy sausage rolls were a bit of a hit on Saturday and turned out to be just the thing for bonfire night.

I literally had no idea what to expect from Ms Marmite Lover’s underground market. I’d never been to one, let alone run a stall there, but her latest was a fantastic, gloriously surreal festival-like shebang. Although I didn’t actually get a chance to see everything, as we were too busy serving food, I met an almost endless stream of genuinely lovely people. I particularly enjoyed the spirit of camaraderie amongst the stallholders, and was really touched by some of the comments about our food.

Quantities had been a bit of a question mark. I had absolutely no idea how much to make, despite having spent the previous few days frantically exchanging emails with Helen from Food Stories and Kerstin trying to work this out. So I was super chuffed and much-surprised at our popularity – we managed to sell out of pretty much everything in the few hours we were open. I’ve always relished the idea of feeding people the food I love to eat at home, you know, the stuff you never really come across in restaurants. Seeing the delighted look on people’s faces after taking an initial bite was an incredible buzz, and some of the nicest feedback came from people who seemed gobsmacked that I didn’t sell my food regularly and demanded that I immediately rectify this.

Huge thanks to Kerstin for inviting us and organising such a terrific event.

INGREDIENTS

8 sausages, slit down the middle and liberated from their casings (I made half a batch with Quorn sausages and half with beef)

1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped

2-3 fresh green chillies

3 cloves garlic, peeled

1 inch ginger, peeled

1 tsp curry powder

1 tsp brown mustard seeds

2-3 tsp mustard oil

All butter puff pastry

1 egg, beaten

METHOD

• Blitz the onion, ginger, garlic and chillies in a spice grinder/coffee mill
• Heat the mustard oil and when it’s hot add the mustard seeds, which should sizzle immediately.
• Introduce the onion mixture and fry until golden.
• Once this has cooled, mix into the sausage meat, along with the curry powder and a pinch of salt.
• Roll out the pastry and fill with the sausage meat. Seal and brush liberally with the beaten egg and bake for 25 minutes at 200C/gas mark 6 or until golden brown and cooked through.

When Miss Marmite Lover invited me to host a curry stall at her forthcoming underground food rave, I decided I’d offer dishes that were a little bit different alongside the same old traditional curries. Chaal kumro bhaja is a classic Bengali fried pumpkin dish, which involves panch phoran (Bengali five spice), fresh coconut and chilli. This roasted panch phoran pumpkin salad is my modern version. Fat chunks of the orange flesh are lightly coated in mustard oil, salt and garlic before roasting to fudgy tenderness. Cubes of paneer, raw cashews, fresh coconut, pumpkin and sunflower seeds are browned in panch phoran and chilli tempered oil before everything is tossed with a pinch of sugar, salt, fresh coriander, lemon juice and pomegranate seeds. A drizzle of chillified yoghurt and the contrast of crisp, spicy cheese, nuts and seeds with soft garlicky gourd is pretty unbeatable.

I’ll be serving this on Saturday 5^th November, along with a more old school mutton kosha mangsho (slow cooked Bengali mutton and potato curry), saag and pea paneer (with home made paneer), spicy sausage rolls (both veggie and meat), potato and pea shingaras (Bengali samosas with nigella seed pastry) lentil doughnuts in raita (dahi vadai), organic, free-range chicken curry, vegetable biryani, masoor dal and smoked aubergine and tomato borthas (fresh Bengali salsas).

For more details click here and for tickets click here

Serves 2- 3 as a main course and 6 as a starter/side dish

Ingredients

1/2 medium pumpkin or 1 small one, halved, deseeded and lopped into chunks

1 tbsp mustard oil plus extra for drizzling

1-2 cloves garlic

1 tsp salt

½ block paneer, cubed

1 handful raw cashews

½ fresh coconut, sliced thinly

1 tbsp each of sunflower and pumpkin seeds

1 tsp each of fenugreek, asafoetida, cumin, mustard and nigella seeds

1 fresh chilli sliced or ½ teaspoon hot chilli sauce

Fresh coriander roughly chopped

Fresh lemon juice

½ fresh pomegranate, deseeded

2 tbsp natural yoghurt mixed with 3-4 tsp chilli sauce

Method

• Place the pumpkin chunks in a baking tray and anoint liberally with the garlic, salt and a little of the mustard oil. Roast at 150C for around 30-40 minutes, or until slightly charred and very soft.
• In a frying pan, heat the remaining mustard oil and when hot, add the mustard and nigella seeds. Lightly crush the fennel, asafoetida and cumin and add to the oil, which should be spit and crackle.
• Add the paneer and coat well in the spices. Add the fresh chilli or chilli sauce and stir in the pumpkin and sunflower seeds, the cashews and the coconut. Mix thoroughly and continue to cook until everything is toasted and golden brown.
• Tip the contents of the frying pan over the roasted pumpkin, add a teaspoon each of salt and sugar and mix well. Strew with the coriander, pomegranate and a generous squeeze of lemon juice and drizzle with the chilli yoghurt dressing. Serve warm.

Sprats. One of those pleasingly blunt, borderline expletive words. It’s up there with “sloes”, “Yarg”, “clod”, “Gurnard” and “sticking”, when it comes to foods that are as much of a delight to say as they are to eat. I clocked these unfashionable and underrated fun-sized fishes on the wet counter of my local supermarket the other day. There have been some pretty impressive offerings of late, including samphire, squid and cockles amongst the usual dyed haddock and mackerel, the sort of stuff you would have had to make a special trip to a proper fishmongers for a couple of years ago.

I bagged enough for two for the princely sum of £1.10 and decided upon a Japanese slant. Tempura can seem a bit intimidating, but like all Japanese cookery, it’s all about getting the little details right. The water should be ice cold, the batter shouldn’t be over-mixed (a few lumps are a good thing) and the oil should be hot enough so that the battered fish sinks down for a second or two before floating to the top where it blooms majestically into puffy crags. We wolfed these down hot from the kitchen paper with a simple brown sushi rice, avocado, spring onion, carrot and lettuce salad and some steamed green beans sprinkled with a toasted sesame and miso dressing.

Serves 2

For the sprats

About 15 sprats, washed thoroughly

110g (4oz) plain flour

75ml (3fl oz) sparkling mineral water, kept in the fridge, and then when you’re ready to cook in the freezer to ensure it’s as icy as possible.

Oil for deep frying

1 egg

For the sushi rice salad

300g sushi rice

1 piece seaweed

330ml water

4 tbsp rice vinegar

2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 large carrot, diced

1 spring onion, finely chopped

Some shredded lettuce

1 avocado cubed

Toasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds

For the sesame miso beans

Green beans, topped and tailed

1 tbsp miso paste

1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds

1 tsp sugar

Method

To make the rice salad

• Weigh out the rice and rinse well in a sieve. Leave for about 30 minutes for the rice to absorb some of the water droplets that cling.
• Tip into a saucepan and add the water. Add the seaweed, cover and bring to the boil over a medium heat.
• Let it boil for about 5 minutes, before turning the heat off and leaving it to steam with the lid on for 10-15 minutes. The rice should be perfectly cooked through.
• Mix the rice vinegar, salt and sugar, and once the rice has cooled down a little, add this and combine well.
• Pour into a bowl and mix with the lettuce, carrot, avocado and toasted seeds.

To make the beans

• Top and tail the beans and blanch in boiling water for a couple of minutes, so they’re cooked through but remain crisp and vibrant.
• Meanwhile, toast the sesame seeds in a dry frying pan until golden and crush in a pestle and mortar
• Mix with the miso paste and sugar before folding into the warm beans.

To make the tempura sprats

• Put the water in the freezer. Heat the oil in a pan/fryer to about 190 degrees.
• Once the oil is almost hot enough, beat the egg in a bowl, before adding the iced water. Lazily stir in the flour, being careful not to over-mix. Lumps are your friend.
• Rake the fish through the batter and test a piece. If it sinks for a couple of seconds before bobbing up to the surface, it’s hot enough.
• Fry in small batches for about 4-5 minutes and drain well on kitchen paper.
• Serve with a dipping sauce of dashi, mirin, sugar and soy, the rice salad and the beans.

I’ve got really into pot roasting lately and had been thinking about making this dish for ages. I wanted to experiment with the combination of robust curry spicing and the technique of browning off a choice hunk of flesh before leaving to languidly blip away in the oven for hours with a bit of stock and some vegetables, then maybe stirring in a touch of dairy to enrich matters. Ultimately you’re left with a supper that satisfyingly disintegrates at the merest suggestion of a spoon.

The results are mind blowingly good. Mouthful after mouthful of unrelenting deliciousness sort of good. The shanks provide the vertebrae of flavour while the roots become melting and sweet, with kicks of heat from the spice, then finally the whole lot is mellowed with thick cream…scooped up with some blistered chappatis I can think of no finer way to herald the colder months.

INGREDIENTS

1 large onion, diced

2 lamb shanks

1 dsp mustard oil

1 dsp vegetable oil

2 bay leaves

7 green cardamoms

2 tsp cumin powder

1 tbsp each of crushed garlic and finely chopped ginger

6 cloves

2 tsp coriander seeds

½ tsp asafoetida

I tsp each of salt and black peppercorns

1 tsp dried fenugreek

½ tsp fennel seeds

1 heaped tsp Kashmiri chilli powder

2-3 green chillies, sliced

1 cinnamon stick

2 large carrots, peeled and diced

1 small turnip peeled and diced

A dozen new potatoes

¾ pint stock (I used chicken)

3 large tomatoes, roughly chopped

2 heaped tbsps of double cream

METHOD

• Heat the oils in an ovenproof casserole dish and add the onion. Gently brown over a low heat.
• Grind the cloves, coriander seeds, asafoetida, salt, black peppercorns, methi leaves and fennel seeds to a powder.
• Add this powder, the ginger and garlic to the caramelised onions and mix in the chilli powder, along with the fresh green chillies.
• Turn the heat up, add the lamb shanks and brown all over. Add the carrots, turnip and potatoes and stir well.
• Pour in the stock and add the tomatoes. Stir again and cover the pan with a  close fitting lid.
• Place in the oven at 160C/320F/Gas mark 3 for about two and a half hours or until the lamb is meltingly tender.
• Uncover and place over a high heat on the hob to reduce the liquid slightly. Stir in the cream and adjust the seasoning if necessary.
• Sprinkle with fresh coriander before serving with hot chappatis to scoop up all that delectable sauce

Creamy, oozing with comfort and addictive little stabs of chilli this savoury French toast with an Indian twist is just the dish to take refuge in whenever you’re feeling hungry, tired, skint or all three. It’s a proper serotonin-raiser, whether we’re talking a decadent breakfast in bed gesture or a midweek, post-work-pre-flicks/plonked on the sofa type affair. The peach and tomato salsa is bright, punchy and the perfect accompaniment (it’s basically my Bengali tomato salsa recipe plus a couple of very ripe peaches), although a hefty blob of ketchup is just fine if you really can’t be bothered. My aunt in Rochdale makes hers using cheap white sliced bread but for me it’s all about the nuttiness of wholemeal.

INGREDIENTS

Serves 2

1-2 tbsp single cream

A large pinch of curry powder

4 of the finest eggs money can buy

slices of bread

½ Fresh green finger chilli sliced (or more if you like your heat)

1-2 tbsp finely chopped coriander

1 shallot, finely chopped/spring onion

Salt and pepper

Tomato bortha/Bengali tomato salsa with a couple of ripe peaches roughly chopped and crushed in.

METHOD

• Beat together the eggs and add the curry powder, cream, chilli, coriander, shallot and salt and pepper.
• Place a slice of bread in the mixture and leave for about 5 minutes then turn over, until well saturated with the egg mixture.
• Melt a knob of butter in a frying pan over a medium heat and when sizzling carefully add the bread. Brown on both sides.
• Repeat until all the egg has been used up and serve hot with plenty of salsa/ketchup.

I’ve written a piece for BBC Good Food about the return of the retro cake. You can read it here

I’ve churned out so many quiches this year I actually started dreaming about the things at one point. The other day (IRL, not my dream) a woman stopped me outside one of the payday loans shops on Stoke Newington High Street and asked if I was “that quiche lady”. She then demanded to know “when would I be making more?” which was nice and also a little bit weird.

I’ve had to slice production down to just one a week, but it’s really not that hard to whip up your own. It’s all about that all-butter and nigella seed crust. Sounds a bit out there I know, but those oniony black seeds compliment the fromage and sage so well, we’re talking borderline sycophancy. There are some gorgeously bulbous, pungent spring onions around at the moment which sop up the herbal vinegar like nobody’s business. I also like to add a shake or two of frozen peas for random bursts of sweetness. Add fragile pastry, juddering, smoky custard and the sharply savoury bite of the herb-roasted onions into the mix and you’ve got the makings of the most relentless quichey-bliss.

Once you’ve sorted your pastry (I’ve got this down to a 15 minute job) and roasted your onions (both of which you can do in advance) it’s just a simple case of whipping up your dairy products, filling up the pastry and sticking it in the oven for 30 minutes while you crack on with more important things.

(Serves  8 with salad or 4 very greedy people)

INGREDIENTS

For the pastry

125g (room temperature) butter diced

250g plain flour

¾ tbsp nigella seeds

1 heaped tsp salt

Cold water to bind

For the onions

1 bunch spring onions, trimmed and roughly chopped

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

½ tbsp finely chopped sage

1-2 cloves garlic

Baking paper

For the custard

3 eggs

150-200ml double cream

100g smoked cheese (I used Applewood)

Black pepper

peas

METHOD

• Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas mark 6 – for a good, crispy pastry base you can also stick a baking sheet in there to heat. Measure your flour into a large bowl. Add the nigella seeds and salt.
• Rub in the butter until crumb-like and slowly add the cold water until it all comes together in a nice pliant dough (if you accidentally add too much water, just sprinkle in a bit more flour to absorb).
• Drape a damp tea towel over the bowl and pop in the fridge to chill
• Line a shallow baking tray with some baking paper. Mix the balsamic, garlic and sage in a medium bowl, and stir in the onions until well coated with the mixture. Sprinkle in the sugar and salt and stir well.
• Pour the onion mixture into the tray and wrap the paper into a loose parcel.
• Roll the pastry onto some lightly greased baking paper and place in a quiche dish, pressing the pastry into the corners and up around the edges. Prick lightly all over with a fork. Pour in some lentils or dried chickpeas to stop it from rising.
• Place the quiche dish on the heated baking sheet for 15-20 minutes.
  Place the onions on a separate shelf in the oven.
• Beat the eggs, cream and grated cheese together. Grind in some pepper.
• Line the pastry case with the onions and shake in some frozen peas.
• Pour over the egg mixture and return to the oven for 30 minutes.

I’ve started writing about food trends for BBC Good Food. Each month I’ll bring you the low down on what’s currently busting through the Scoville meter and what’s not in the world of food. You can read my first piece here.

When a request for a cake came in, I wanted to make something decadent and “money’s worth” so decided to fox up a classic Green & Blacks’s chocolate marquise recipe. I massively heart the ruthlessly aromatic camphor of cardamom, which like its protean brethren nutmeg; means it’s just as comfortable in a rice pudding as in a biryani and makes it the perfect partner to pretty much anything cocoa based. Crushing those resinous pods to add a subtle twist to sweet dishes is something the Bangladeshi cook has been onto for centuries. As kids we grew up squabbling over clotted bowls of my mother’s legendary Bengali cardamom-infused rice pudding or “payesh”, shandesh (a ricotta, cardamom and pistachio dessert) and rasgullas (which literally means “globes of juice” and takes the form of pistachio curd dumplings soaked in a rose and cardamom syrup).

In this obscenely rich cake (you only need the teeniest slice), the cardamom is a veritable plectrum to the fruity, almost bitter notes of the dark chocolate and lingers gorgeously on the tongue. The separate cakey base and mousse may seem like a total faff, and I won’t lie – they are.  If you really can’t be bothered and you’re in the area, I would recommend getting down to 20 Dalston Lane and treating yourself to what’s left of mine.

Serves 15-20 decadent little slices

INGREDIENTS

For the base

Melted butter for greasing

300g (10 ½ oz) dark chocolate minimum 60% cocoa solids (I used 200g/7oz dark chocolate, minimum 60% cocoa solids plus 100g Maya Gold) broken into chunks

165g (5 ½ oz) butter

1 tbsp ground almonds, plus extra for dusting the tin

275g (10oz) caster sugar

A pinch of sea salt

5 large eggs

3 cardamom pods, seeds removed and crushed to powder

For the mousse

250g (9oz) dark chocolate, minimum 60% cocoa solids, broken into pieces

100g (3 ½ oz) icing sugar

175g (6oz) unsalted butter

5 large eggs, separated

6 cardamom pods, seeds removed and crushed to powder

150 ml (1/4 pint) double cream

Cocoa powder to dust

METHOD

• Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.
• Brush a 23cm (9in) springform tin with high sides and removable base
• Make the cakey bit by placing the chocolate, cardamom, sugar, butter, and salt in a large heatproof bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water until melted and amalgamated.
• Whisk the eggs and add the ground almonds and fold into the chocolate mixture off the heat. Continue to fold until the mixture thickens. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for about 30-40 minutes. Leave to cool in the tin for about 2 hours before starting the mousse.
• To make the mousse, melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over some barely simmering water. Remove from the heat and add half the icing sugar, stir and then whisk in the butter and cardamom. Whisk in the egg yolks on at a time. Set aside.
• Whisk the egg whites to the stiff peak stage and add the remaining icing sugar. Keep whisking until glossy. In a separate bowl, whisk the cream until stiff peaks form.
• Add 1/3 of the egg whites to the melted chocolate mix and carefully mix to blend. Gently fold in the remaining whites, alternating with the whipped cream. You don’t want to over mix or crush out the air bubbles, but you do want it to be well blended. Pour this mousse over the cooled cake base in the cake tine and refrigerate overnight.
• The next day, remove the tin from the fridge about 15 minutes before serving. Dip a palette knife in boiling water, dry it and slide around the edges of the cake to loosen it from the tin and then remove the ring. Re-heat the knife in boiling water, dry it and gently smooth the sides of the mousse.
• Dust generously with cocoa powder and serve with a dollop of crème fraiche.

It’s the scent that yanks me back, pinching at my nostrils and dragging me helplessly by the nose. A fat, fragrant double-taker of headiness. The brain doesn’t quite compute at first, because all I’m met with is the gaping maw of a white van spewing crimson viscera onto the road, while a flock of Christian youth rap energetically about salvation. But then I gaze a bit further and there they are in all their scarlet splendour. Punnets upon punnets of them. “3 for a pahnd” bellows the red faced man, and the people jostle and throng with their pounds. Further in there are stalls flogging free range organic duck and quail eggs, the biggest papayas I’ve ever seen, chicken’s feet, goat’s livers, ginseng, mustard oil, fresh shea butter, live crabs, green coconuts and tangerine chillies. However, none of this interests me, for it’s that most English of juicy fruit that I’m after. It feels like the whole of Hackney is here, shopping, shouting and bumping into each other in the sunshine. People hug and argue, they flirt with and avoid each other, they coo over and swear at sullen-faced little ones. There are mountain ranges of rubbish everywhere and an intermingling of other, less savoury smells. Drugs are dealt and hearts are broken. You would never get this in Borough Market.

Back home I think about the flavours that might fit. Because they’re not exactly Gariguettes, I decide that they’d be most at home in a savoury salad, one with plenty of balsamic and black pepper to really flatter the fruit. I decide to team them with some tender grilled feta, watercress, cucumber, parsley and smoked almonds in what turns out to be one of the freshest of summer salads and the beginnings of an infatuation with the chaotic brilliance that is Ridley Road market.

Ingredients

Serves 2-3 generously

1 punnet of strawberries, picked over and halved

1 bunch watercress, torn up

gem lettuce roughly chopped

½ cucumber, diced

1 block of feta

a handful of smoked almonds or walnuts

1 tablespoon parsley, finely

1 orange pepper, diced

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil, plus a little extra for drizzling on the feta

plenty of black pepper

1 tbsp toasted pine nuts

3 tsp honey

Small pinch of dried oregano

Method

Sprinkle a little olive oil and the oregano over the feta and brown under a hot grill until tender

While that’s cooling, combine the watercress, cucumber, toasted pine nuts, smoked almonds, orange pepper, strawberries and lettuce in a salad bowl.

Cube and gently mix in the feta

Combine the parsley, balsamic, remaining olive oil, salt, pepper and honey and carefully dress the salad

Cumin isn’t really a spice you’d associate with Chinese cooking is it? However, head for the more Islamic districts of North West China and these cumintastic lamb skewers are all the rage. Sadly, I’ve never had the chance to check out the street food of Xinjiang, but I have spent many a belt-loosening evening in Chilli Cool, the Sichuanese hotspot in King’s Cross. There the skewers come fried and spice encrusted on a plate that’s practically scarlet with chillies.

I decided to make my own for a spot of Victoria Park BBQ action and I must say these really couldn’t be easier. Super nice with a hot and sour cucumber salad (diced and dressed in salt, garlic sizzled in sesame oil, sugar and rice vinegar) and crammed into toasted pitta, these were wolfed down the very minute they came off the heat and I only wish I’d made more.

The Sichuan peppercorns add that “ma la” hot, numbing and almost lemony back note which works gorgeously with the toasted cumin. You can get them in most Chinese shops or online. If you really can’t be bothered, just stick in a bit more chilli powder/paste and a load of black pepper- it won’t be the same of course but you’ll still be dead chuffed with the results. It’s important to toast and grind the cumin – you want that lamb properly infused. Like all the best hot-coal related treats, the longer you marinade the tastier the rewards (I held out for two days). If you don’t have access to a barbecue, you can always slide them under a hot grill. Either way, you’re guaranteed all manner of smoky, juicy, spicy fun times.

ingredients

(makes four generous skewers)

500g lamb steaks hacked into skewerable hunks

skewers ( if wooden, soak in water for at least an hour)

For the dry spice mix

1 ½ tbsp dry roasted and ground cumin seeds

1 ½ tbsp dry roasted and ground Sichuan peppercorns

2-3 tsp sea salt

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp ground fennel

½ -1 tsp chilli powder

For the wet mix

2 tsp sesame oil

1 ½ large red chillies, sliced roughly

2-3 large spring onions, cut roughly into chunks

2 tbsp Shaoxing wine

2 tbsp dark soy sauce

1 tbsp chilli bean paste

1 tbsp groundnut oil

4 cloves garlic, finely minced

method

• Combine the ingredients for the dry marinade and coat the lamb chunks thoroughly.
• Combine the ingredients for the wet marinade. Tip the contents of the dry into the wet and mix well.
• Cover and leave overnight in the fridge or for a couple of days if you can.
• Thread onto skewers. Fish out the chilli and spring onion chunks and alternate the bits of lamb with these.
• Cook for about 3-4 minutes on each side over or under a medium to fierce heat. You basically want these to be charred on the outside but still a little pink in the middle. Devour while hot. Regret not making more.

If like me, you managed to OD on  mini-eggs and treacle tart over the weekend, you might be thinking about injecting something a little bit healthier into your poor, saccharine-addled body. This chilled green soup of mind-boggling goodness is just what the overworked NHS GP ordered. Verdant with veg and gorgeous supped with tomato juice ice cubes, a touch of greek yoghurt and a piquant crab salsa (don’t worry if you can’t get fresh crab, the supermarket tinned lump-meat stuff is just as good for these purposes) it’s something you can put together super-quickly after the shock of being back at the electronic coalface. Perfect for when you’re feeling a bit kitchen shy and just want to bask it up in those final rays of the day…

ingredients

for the soup

1 x 230g bag spinach leaves, washed and blitzed right down in a blender with ½ pint cold vegetable stock (I used 1 tsp Marigold powder)

2-3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

2-3 spring onions, roughly chopped

1 avocado, roughly chopped

1 small clove garlic, crushed

The juice of a lime

A couple of pickled chillies

A dash of sherry/balasamic/rice/not Sarsons vinegar

1 hefty pinch of salt and a few twists of pepper

1 handful of fresh mint leaves, roughly chopped

2-3 tbsp peas (I used defrosted frozen petit pois)

For the salsa:

One tin of whole lump crab meat (or fresh if you can get it)

A red pepper, diced

½ red onion finely chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 red chilli, finely chopped

Juice and zest of half a lime

A glug of good olive/avocado oil

Chopped parsley/coriander

Salt and pepper

to serve

a spoonful of greek yoghurt

frozen cubes of tomato juice, or if you’re feeling a bit flash, whole mint leaves frozen in tomato juice cubes.

Method

• Place all the soup ingredients in a blender, whizz and adjust the seasoning to taste (it develops over time, so if enjoying this straight away, I’d add a smidge more garlic, salt and/or chilli).
• Chill in the fridge with ice cubes while you get on with the salsa.
• Combine the salsa ingredients.
• Serve with the chilled soup.
• If you’re mega-organised you can make tomato ice cubes ahead of putting this together, otherwise a cold swirl of yoghurt it is. Some toasted almonds would be nice too.

ingredients

a good, sturdy loaf of bread (I experimented with sourdough and ciabatta but found one of those Grand Mange Blanc loaves in Waitrose worked brilliantly)

cheese  (I used Emmental, Jarlsberg and Gouda)

for the vegetarian half

1 aubergine sliced and griddled until tender

2 or 3 spring onions, halved and blistered on a griddle

1 jar grilled courgettes

for the carnivorous half

pastrami

salami

ham

for the olive salad

6 marinated artichoke hearts, plus a tablespoon of the oil they’re marinated in

approximately 10 sunblush tomatoes, plus a tablespoon of the oil they’re marinated in.

100g marinated olives

1 stick celery

1 carrot, grated

1/2 red onion

1 tbsp fresh parsley

10 caperberries

1 clove garlic

5-6 jalapenos

3 tbsp red wine vinegar

olive oil

1/2 tsp oregano

method

• very finely chop the first ten ingredients for the olive salad and combine in a bowl. Stir in the oregano.
• Whisk the artichoke and tomato oils with the red wine vinegar and anoint the salad, topping up with olive oil until  everything is slightly submerged.
• Leave this to marry for a few hours, overnight or even longer if possible (mine was incredible after a few days).
• Spread a hefty base of the olive salad over one half and layer up the cheese, griddled vegetables or ham.
• Crown with the other half of bread and wrap in greaseproof paper. Tie with string and squish it down a little.
• Cut through the paper, string and bread into wedges. Serve with plenty of sunshine, friends and your favourite patch of grass.

A New Orleans favourite with roots in Sicilian immigrant fare, this is so much more than just a sandwich. For starters, the right bread is crucial – the original version is made with a round, crusty Italian loaf, one that’s sturdy enough to withstand a soaking from the precious juices and oils from the olive salad. The filling is ultra-generous with a fat stratum of cheese, cold cuts and for my veggie version, griddled vegetables. However, the star of the show has to be the “make-too-much-so-you-definitely-have-leftovers” olive salad.

I’m not sure how authentic my version is and I would have liked to throw in some pickled cauliflower or giardiniera. I’ve since spotted some excellent looking jars of soused veggies in my local Polish deli and i’m sure these would make a great addition. In New Orleans they also pile on the mortadella and salami, but I built the OH’s half with pastrami and honey roast British ham instead.

Great wallops of flavour and enough to feed a few, this is the perfect thing for a picnic, super-special packed lunch or when it’s just too blimmin’ hot to turn the cooker on. Particularly satisfying when nonchalantly scoffed in front of your local branch of Subway.