Leek and potato cheese bake

This is a winter warmer with that classic combo of potato and leek. Serves two (hungry) or three (polite) people

2 medium sized leeks

400g new potatoes

150g hard goat’s cheese, grated

250ml single cream

1tbs English mustard

white pepper

sea salt to taste

10g butter

1 clove garlic peeled and bruised

Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Wash and trim the leeks, not taking off too much of the green. Carefully remove the outer leaves by slicing down just one side, so they’ll open out flat. You want them to be a bit like lasagne sheets for this. With the inner parts of the leek, just slice these finely.

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and par boil the potatoes. When they’re done, lift them out with a draining spoon and set aside. Blanche the opened-out leek leaves for a couple of minutes and set aside.

Cut the potatoes into 4mm thick slices.

Melt the butter in a clean pan with the garlic clove. Add the chopped leeks and cook, stirring until translucent but not starting to colour. Remove the garlic, and add the single cream and mustard. Cover and bring to a simmer, then take off the heat and add most of the grated goat’s cheese. Stir well.

Layer the ingredients in a greased oven dish, alternating potatoes, creamy leek mixture and leek sheets. Finish off with the remainder of the cream and the reserved grated cheese. Bake in the oven for half an hour and serve with seasonal veg or salad!

Venetian bigoli with squid

On holiday in Venice I had the chance to try out my (very bad) Italian buying at the Rialto fish market - there was so much to choose from; huge John Dory, tiny crabs, gamberi (prawns), perch, bright silver sardines - but here's how I cooked the squid I bought:

Serves two

300g medium-sized squid, cleaned and cut into big rings, tentacles left whole
150g Venetian bigoli (long tube-like pasta, a bit like hollow spaghetti)
1 medium or 2 small shallots, finely sliced
2 small plum tomatoes, finely sliced
olive oil
15g unsalted butter
sea salt and black pepper to taste

Bring a big pot of salted water to the boil, add some olive oil and cook the pasta according to pack instructions. Meanwhile, in a frying pan, heat the butter and lug of olive oil. Add the shallots and cook until just starting to colour. Add the squid and tomatoes and turn up the heat. Cook until the squid is just done (this will only take a couple of minutes - don't overcook). Drain the pasta, then add the squid, shallots and cooking liquor to the pasta. Mix well and serve with seasonal salad, such as rocket or radicchio.

Tom's pies, with mash and onion gravy

I'm featuring someone else's food for a change - down at Chagstock Festival this weekend we ate some fantastic pies from www.toms-pies.co.uk, who had a stand there. They're made from locally sourced ingredients and are truly delicious, being cased in some of the best shortcrust pastry I've eaten.
We took some home with us to enjoy when we got back, (filling: mushroom and spinach with truffle oil).

I served them with mash, onion gravy and steamed curly kale.

Here's my previous recipe for mash and gravy. You can steam the kale over the potatoes for a couple of minutes as they finish cooking.

So if you're in Devon, check them out!

Quick and easy salsa cruda

It's summer, and I love hot, slightly sweet and fruity stuff in this weather. This quick and easy salsa cruda ('raw sauce') takes only a few minutes to make - although tastes better the longer you leave it.

Three tomatoes, chopped roughly
Half a sweet pointed red pepper, chopped roughly
Half a red onion, chopped roughly
1 red chilli, de-seeded and veined, finely chopped
splash of orange juice
1 tbs tomato pureé
1 tsp raw cane sugar
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp oregano

Put all the ingredients in a blender, and pulse a few times. You don't want pureé, so not too much. If you've got some handy, add some fresh coriander ripped up both before and after pulsing in the blender. It'll taste better after a couple of hours in the fridge (get it out half an hour before serving though). Will keep ok for a few days. It's lovely spooned over some pan-fried fillets of any firm, meaty fish.

Fish en papillote with tray roasted vegetables

Another great recipe for river cobbler, although it'd work with any firm meaty fish fillets. The fish cooks in the bag, and when you open it at the table you get all the gorgeous vapours released. Divine!

2 fish fillets
lemon slices
2 sprigs of rosemary and/or thyme
Sea salt and white pepper to taste

For the vegetables:
1 small sweet red pepper, torn up into small chunks
1 courgette, medium-sliced diagonally
1 small red onion, medium-sliced
A handful of baby plum tomatoes
lemon slices
two garlic cloves, bruised
two sprigs of rosemary and/or thyme
olive oil

First, preheat your oven to 185C. Put all the vegetable ingredients into a shallow baking tray, mixing everything together and laying the lemon slices on top. Roast for about 45 minutes.
For each fish, cut out one 30cm square of foil, and one of greaseproof paper. Rub a little oil on the greaseproof paper so it doesn't burn, and to help it stay in place with the foil. The foil will form the inside layer of your parcel. Place a fillet, sprigs of herbs and a couple of lemon slices on one half of the foil square. Fold over, and start at one end, folding over to make a seal all the way round. Repeat to make a tighter seal and press down all round with a rolling pin or similar.
Put the parcels on a baking sheet and into the oven with the vegetables for fifteen minutes (turn the oven up to 200C and move the vegetables down to the bottom of the oven if necessary).
Serve on warm plates with cold white wine

Baked fish and potatoes and a leek and green peppercorn sauce

It's the return of the fish-plus-spuds-plus-leeks combo! I made this with River Cobbler fillets, but it would work with any firm white fish fillets.

Serves 2

2 large fillets of hake, cod, cobbler
Pinch of sea salt and white pepper to taste

2 baking potatoes
sea salt

For the sauce:
2 small leeks, finely sliced
1 shallot, finely sliced
150ml single cream
1 tsp English mustard
1 tsp green peppercorns
1 splash of rosé wine
Juice of half a lemon
handful of chopped curly parsley
20g unsalted butter

Put the potatoes (in their skins) in a large pan of water and bring back to the boil. Parboil them for ten minutes, then dry them off, rub the skins with sea salt and put them on the rack in an oven pre-heated to 200C. Bake them for about 25 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the sauce: put the butter and the bruised garlic in a pan and turn it to a medium heat. Discard the garlic when it has turned golden brown and flavoured the butter. Add the leeks, shallots and peppercorns and cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally so the leek doesn't colour. Add the lemon juice and the wine and cover for a minute to let the flavours infuse. Uncover and add the parsley, mustard and cream. Mix together well and cook covered again for a couple of minutes. Once the cream has come to the boil, take off the heat.
Meanwhile, wrap the fish fillets loosely in foil along with a pinch of salt and white pepper and some of the parsley, finely chopped. Bake in the oven with the potatoes for fifteen minutes.
To serve, press down on the top the potato with the edge of a spoon handle or similar so it splits open, lay the fish next to it and spoon the sauce over both.

Chunky potato wedges

These are great with the seared tuna steak (posted a while back) and some nice tangy salsa.
Serves 4 hungry people as a side

4 large baking potatoes, washed
several lugs of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
(if you're doing the seared tuna thing, use some of the tuna spice rub on these spuds!)

Bring a large pan of water to the boil. Place your potatoes in it, and parboil them, skins on for about ten to fifteen minutes. Doing them in the skins keeps all that lovely earthy potato flavour locked in. Carefully lift them out, pat dry with some kitchen towel and cut them into big chunky wedges – cut lengthways you'll probably get eight wedges out of each. Pre-heat an oven to 200C.
Lay the wedges (standing up, ideally) on a baking tray and rub them all over with the oil, salt and pepper (and a big pinch of the tuna rub mixture if you like). Roast them for about 25 minutes or until golden brown, giving a shake about from time to time.

Also good as a snack with ketchup, or good homemade mayo.

Grilled aubergine antipasto

This antipasto is great in sandwiches, on pizzas, in salads, or just for getting carried away and nomming the whole jar without realising.

1 aubergine, cut in half lengthways then diagonally into half cm thick slices
Juice of half a lemon
a lug of groundnut oil
Table salt
Olive oil (or a mixture of olive and vegetable oil - quantity needed will vary depending on size of aubergine and the storage jar, but it'll be a few good lugs)
Handful of dried herbs (thyme, oregano, whatever's handy. A sprig of rosemary would be nice)
2 cloves of garlic, bruised and cut in half

Rub the aubergine slices with lemon juice, which will stop them discolouring. Then sprinkle them all over liberally with ordinary table salt - don't use posh Maldon sea salt flakes!
Leave them for fifteen minutes while the salt leaches out any bitter flavours, then wash off the salt and dry the slices thoroughly on kitchen towels. Rub them with groundnut oil. Get a cast iron griddle pan really hot, and cook the slices in batches, turning once - do until stripes appear on each side (about 45 seconds each side).
Leave the slices to cool, then put in a jar with the garlic and herbs and cover completely with the olive oil. Will keep in the fridge for four or five days. And when you've eaten all the aubergine, the remaining oil will also taste fantastic!