Gram Flour Chips

Ingredients:
15ml vegetable oil, plus extra for greasing and deep-frying
5ml cumin seeds
15 fresh curry leaves
5ml ground turmeric
15ml finely minced ginger
½ green chilli, finely chopped
½ bunch fresh coriander, finely chopped
200g gram flour or chickpea flour
600ml water
2ml salt
2ml freshly ground black pepper
5ml nigella seeds
30-50ml polenta meal

Method:

Heat the oil in a heavy-based saucepan. Add the spices, ginger, chilli and coriander and cook for a few minutes until aromatic.

Sift the gram flour into a bowl, then whisk in the water until smooth.

Pour the paste into the saucepan, add the salt and pepper and stir over a moderate heat with a wooden spoon or spatula for 10-12 minutes, or until the mixture thickens and comes away from the sides of the pan (the process is similar to making firm polenta, but the gram flour takes a little longer to thicken).

Grease a small oven tray and sprinkle with the nigella seeds and a little polenta. Pour over the gram flour mixture, cover with a piece of greaseproof and quickly flatten out the mixture. Chill in the fridge until the mixture has hardened.

Preheat a deep-fat fryer to180C. (CAUTION: hot oil can be dangerous. Do not leave unattended.)

Carefully turn the hardened gram flour mixture out onto a chopping board and cut into chips. Dust the chips with polenta meal.

Deep-fry the chips for 2-3 minutes, or until golden-brown. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside to drain on kitchen paper.

Green Beans With Parmesan, Garlic Butter and Almonds

Ingredients:
400g fresh whole green beans
30g butter
1 clove garlic
15ml grated parmesan cheese
60ml slithered almonds

Directions:
Top and tail the beans and cook them for 2-3 minutes in salted boiling water. Lift them out of the water with a slotted spoons and drain on kitchen paper.
Meanwhile, melt butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and sauté for 2-3 minutes until the garlic is tender, but not coloured, stirring frequently. Add the almonds and continue to cook for 1-2 minutes.
Add the cooked green beans to the garlic butter and stir to heat through, coating the beans with the butter and nuts. Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

Lamb Shanks in Dark Ale

My family absolutely love lamb shanks. When you cook them until they're just falling apart, they develop the most amazing flavours. This recipe is all about investing in dark sticky sauce and tender meat. In the UK we're spoiled for choice when it comes to interesting ales, and adding a good dark ale to the onions creates the most brilliant depth of flavour. Whatever you do, do NOT skip the mint oil or spring onions. It's like flipping a light switch - just that simple little touch makes the whole dish sing.

Ingredients:

3 red onions, peeled
olive oil
sea salt and ground pepper
2 handfuls of raisins
100ml thick-cut marmalade
30ml tomato ketchup
50ml Worcestershire sauce, plus extra for serving
200ml smooth dark ale
6 lamb shanks, roughly 350g each
8 sprigs of fresh rosemary
1 litre chicken stock

To serve:

a small bunch of fresh mint leaves
a few tablespoons olive oil
2 spring onions, trimmed
cider vinegar

Method:

Finely chop the onions and put them into a really large casserole-type pan (roughly 26cm in diameter and 12cm deep), with a good splash of olive oil and a reasonable pinch of salt and pepper. Cook over a medium to high heat, stirring as you go, until the onions start to caramelize. Add the raisins and marmalade, then add the ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and dark ale. Give it all a good stir, then leave to gently simmer.

Put the lamb shanks into a large frying pan (roughly 30cm wide) on a medium to high heat with a drizzle of olive oil – you can cook them in batches if needed. Turn them every few minutes; once they have some good colour, pick in the rosemary leaves and move them around in the pan to get crispy, but don’t let them burn. Use tongs to move the shanks into the pan of onions, then pour in all their juices and the crispy rosemary. Add the stock, put the lid on, turn down the heat and leave to blip away slowly for around 3 hours, or until the meat falls off the bone easily. Try to turn the shanks halfway through so they cook evenly.

When the lamb shanks are ready, carefully move them to a platter, making sure the meat stays intact. Whiz or liquidize the gravy with a stick blender until smooth, then allow to reduce and thicken. Pound most of the mint leaves in a pestle and mortar with a good pinch of salt and the olive oil, then take to the table. Finely slice up the spring onions and toss on a plate with the remaining fresh mint leaves, a drizzle of cider vinegar and a pinch of salt.

Gently, so they don’t fall apart, transfer the shanks to a serving platter. Add a little splash of cider vinegar and a few more splashes of Worcestershire sauce to the remaining gravy in the casserole, then ladle it all over the lamb shank and pour the rest into a jug for people to help themselves. Scatter the vinegary spring onions and a few fresh mint leaves all over the top, drizzle the mint oil all around the shanks. Serve with mashed potatoes or rice.

Langoustine and Salmon Tart

This is a more sophisticated version of salmon en croute

with a rich langoustine sauce to serve.

Ingredients:
For the langoustine tart:
500g all-butter puff pastry
600g salmon, skin and pin bones, about 2.5cm/1in thick
1 egg white
50ml double cream
20 langoustines, peeled, de-veined, shells reserved for the sauce
125g baby spinach leaves
2 egg yolks, beaten

For the sauce:
50g butter
1 onion, roughly chopped
1 carrot, roughly chopped
½ head fennel, roughly chopped
2 sprigs fresh thyme
2ml cayenne pepper
10ml tomato purée
75ml white wine
500ml fish stock
75ml double cream
½ lemon, juice only

Method:

For the tart, preheat the oven to 200C.

Roll the pastry out on a floured work surface to a 3mm thickness. Cut out a 30cm x 10cm rectangle and a 37.5cm x 15cm rectangle.

Trim the salmon into a 27.5cm x 7.5cm rectangle

Roughly chop the salmon trimmings (about 175g). Blend the salmon trimmings and egg whites to a purée in a food processor. Add the cream, salt and freshly ground black pepper and blend together until smooth.

Place the smaller piece of pastry onto a baking tray and spread over half of the salmon purée. Cover with the langoustines and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Arrange the spinach leaves on top, then the piece of salmon. Cover with the larger piece of the pastry and crimp the edges. Trim the edges and brush with the beaten egg yolks. Score the pastry with a table knife.

Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes, or until the pastry is cooked through and golden-brown. Set aside to rest for five minutes.

Meanwhile, for the sauce, heat a frying pan until hot and add the butter, onion, carrots, fennel and thyme and cook for 2-3 minutes, or until just softened but not coloured.

Add the langoustine shells, cayenne and tomato purée and cook for a further minute. Add the white wine and continue to cook until the volume of the liquid is reduced by half.

Add the fish stock, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

Blend the sauce in a blender until smooth, then pass through a sieve into a saucepan. Return the sauce to a simmer, add the cream and cook for a further minute. Season, to taste, with salt, lemon juice and freshly ground black pepper.

To serve, carve the tart into slices and spoon over the sauce.