• crusty white bread
• 1 lime
• some wasabi paste or powder made up with warm water
• fresh crab meat
• mayonnaise

Butter the bread with mayonnaise – if that’s not a contradiction in terms. Spead the crab meat over one slice. Squeeze lime juice aplenty over. Then spread a very thin layer of wasabi paste over the other slice. Bring together, right now, over me.

I discovered Waitrose sell fab little pots of Cornish crab from Seefood & Eat It in Newlyn (see what they did there?). They do pricey pots of 100% white meat, cheaper ones that are 50/50 white and dark (that’s what I went for) and cheaper-still pots of 100% dark meat.

Nom nom nom. I love crab and prawns and lobster so much, I always forget I’m a bit allergic – until my lips go numb and my throat gets a bit prickly. But it’s worth it!

There are about 23,000 different best ways of cooking chips on t’internet, but I especially enjoyed the article on the Observer Food Monthly blog, which is a wonderful paean to the deep-fat fryer, and the discussions at PistonHeads.

Today I cooked a 3 course Valentine’s supper for @gwithiansunset. This was the menu:

On arrival
Filthy large Plymouth Gin & Tonic
ice, lime, Angostura bitters

Starter
Spicy prawn cocktail

Taittinger Champagne

Main course
Grilled sardines and real chips

Pudding
Chocolate mousse with brandy, grated white chocolate & whipped cream

Here’s the thinking. First up, the prawn cocktail. I really had a hankering for a prawn cocktail the other day, so I decided to satisfy the yearning. I shredded iceberg lettuce in a large glass, soused in lime juice. I then tossed the prawns in the dressing Nigella uses on crab in the Valentine’s Day chapter of Feast – fresh ginger, lime juice, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, wasabi, a few drops of sesame oil. I didn’t use enough ginger or wasabi – will put that right next time. I then dusted the prawns with cayenne pepper. I used tail-on prawns – so she had to get her fingers all sticky. More sensuous, see?

The main course of sardines & chips doesn’t sound that romantic, but it’s one of her favourite meals, a throwback to summers in Portugal before the kids were born. I par-boiled the chips for about 5 minutes, and deep-fried them at 180c for about another 5. They were certainly cooked but could have been crisper. I think I should have fried them for longer at a higher temperature. The kids, however, loved them and said they tasted like “real chips” – unlike the home-made oven chips we usually do.

The chocolate mousse pudding was from the BBC web site – it was lovely. I used brandy – not enough as it turned out, and I grated Green & Blacks white organic chocolate over the mousse and under the whipped cream. Couldn’t taste the brandy. Something else to put right next time. More wasabi, crispier chips – and more brandy. They did taste like proper chips, though.

bouquet from You Don’t Bring Me Flowers

So this week I roasted some potatoes and carrots in a little vegetable oil and stuck a couple of duck legs in the oven too. I did them in a Nigel Slater duck salad style: rubbed the skin with Chinese five spice and seasoned with salt & pepper and roasted at 200C for an hour. I crisped the skin up a bit by injecting the fat back in with a metal baster. I then added the rendered fat into the potatoes for extra yumminess.

Steamed some green veg. Cooked a couple of slabs of salmon in the same oven, with olive oil, salt, pepper & dill. Quickly pan fried the steak with a bit of garlic and some bloody ‘artisanal’ bread left over from the farmers’ market. Sliced the steak and the duck and everyone helped themselves. Didn’t bother with gravy – there was a dollop of mayonnaise for anyone who fancied it.

Net result: much less bother than a normal roast chicken with gravy, and the boys are now hooked on roast duck. It was delicious, and so easy. Nice one, Nigel.

This is adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi’s vegetable paella recipe, using what we had to hand. It was a big hit. Well, I call anything the children eat 4 portions of a hit, especially as William decided picking the vegetables out was too much bother, and it was so tasty, so he just ate the lot. Well, not the prawns, but I’m not complaining.

Served 2 adults and 3 children.

• Olive oil
• Large onion, finely chopped
• 1 or 2 long red peppers cut into long, thin slices
• 1 fennel bulb, sliced
• 4 chopped garlic cloves
• 4 bay leaves
• half teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• half teaspoon cayenne pepper (I overdid this, which may have been the secret of its success).
• some saffron threads
• 400g or 450g rice – I used risotto rice
• 200ml sherry
• 500ml or more of stock – I used chicken stock
• salt and pepper
• a few handfuls of frozen peas
• 23 mini plum tomatoes, halved (should have been 24, but I went with 23… again maybe the secret of its success…)
• small tin of pitted black olives
• packet of prawns
• parsley

Heat the oil in a big, flat pan and gently fry the onion for 5 minutes.
Add the peppers and fennel, fry for 6 more minutes on a medium heat.
Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute.
Add the spices (aside from the saffron) and the rice and cook on a medium-high heat for 2 minutes. Chuck in the sherry and the saffron. Inhale deeply.
Boil for a minute and add the stock and a good pinch of Maldon sea salt.
Turn the heat right down and simmer for 20 minutes, adding extra water or stock if needed. During this time add the olives, prawns, peas and tomatoes. When cooked chuck some parsley on top.

- Smoked haddock (preferably undyed)
- milk
- Onions
- Turmeric
- Curry powder (such as Garam Masala)
- lemon juice
- Basmati rice
- eggs

Put the basmati rice on to cook, and chuck an egg in the pan, one for each person. Poach the haddock in some milk (or milky water).

Fry the onion with the turmeric and curry powder, adding the juice of at least one lemon when it’s really sizzling. This should smell great. When the rice and the haddock are cooked, add them to the frying pan, stirring as you go. Check seasoning, chop the eggs and add them, serve. Tastes great with George Watkins’ Mushroom Ketchup.

- Farfalle
- Anchovies
- Garlic
- Olive oil
- Chili flakes
- Broccoli – chopped finely, stalks and all
- Pine nuts

Fry the garlic, a few anchovies, chili flakes and broccoli in some olive oil in a pan with the lid on. Add water from the farfalle pan as needed to stop it burning. Cook until the broccoli is soft and the farfalle cooked. Drain farfalle and combine with the sauce. Throw some toasted pine nuts on top. Delicious.