You will need:

• 200g risotto rice
• a large mug full of frozen peas
• half a large onion or 1 small onion
• 1 large clove of garlic
• 1 stick of celery
• 1 glass of dry white Vermouth
• optional: a thimbleful of pastis / Pernod
• optional: a homeopathic quantity of shrimp paste
• a large mug full of prawns – I used frozen cooked ones, just use whatever your budget allows
• a handful of fresh mint leaves, washed
• a few dried porcini mushrooms
• 1 Sainsbury’s Basics chicken stock cube (or veg stock if you must)
• parmesan cheese
• salt, pepper, olive oil, water
• half a lemon

This is what you do:

In a small saucepan, simmer the stock cube, frozen peas, porcini, shrimp paste (and prawns if they are frozen) with half a litre or so of water. Chop half the mint and add to the stock.

Finely chop the onion, garlic and celery. In a large frying pan with a lid, fry in olive oil on a low heat until soft & translucent.

Chuck in the risotto rice and turn the heat up. When the rice is starting to go translucent, but before it burns, throw in the vermouth. Inhale deeply. Life doesn’t get better than this.

Add the pastis at this point if you have some. Turn the heat down and stir. You’ve gotta keep stirring. As the liquid gets incorporated, add stock a ladleful at a time. If a few peas, mushrooms or prawns get in, no matter. Keep stirring. I know the phone’s ringing. Ignore it. Keep stirring.

When you run out of stock and added all the prawns & peas, taste the risotto. Adjust seasoning with some sea salt and plenty of pepper. If the rice isn’t cooked, add a bit of boiling water from the kettle. Keep stirring. You want the rice and celery to have a little bit of crunch left.

When it’s cooked, add big shavings of parmesan cheese using a vegetable peeler. Stir. Put the lid on and leave for 5 minutes.

Serve with a squeeze of lemon juice and the rest of the mint leaves, whilst listening to fip and drinking cold white wine. Then watch Jules et Jim.

Serves 2.

Ingredients

• 2 Sainsbury’s Basics frozen white fish fillets, defrosted and chopped into large chunks
• Optional: handful of defrosted frozen prawns
• 1 onion
• 1 red pepper
• 2 fresh chillies
• small (160ml Waitrose Essentials) tin of coconut cream
• 3 cloves of garlic
• tin or carton of Basics chopped tomatoes
• 3 tsp ground coriander
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger
• small handful of fresh coriander
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil

Method

To make the paste, whizz up in a blender the chillies, ground coriander, cumin, ginger, turmeric & garlic.

Fry the onions and red peppers in some oil, add the paste – fry for a bit more so the spices seep into the oil, then add the tomatoes and coconut cream. Bring to the boil, add the fish and simmer for 20 minutes with a lid on. Add some chopped fresh coriander at the end, and serve with boiled basmati rice. Delicious and warming on a dark and stormy winter’s night waiting for Sherlock to come on TV.

I’d have taken a photo, but it didn’t hang around long enough.

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

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.