Fish and Watercress Hotpot

• 8 dried shiitake mushrooms
• Some peeled daikon (recipe says ‘1 small daikon’ but I’ve never seen such a thing)
• 1 small carrot, peeled
• 3cm ginger, thinly sliced
• 1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
• 80ml soy sauce
• 1 tbps sugar
• 300g firm tofu, cubed
• 1 red pepper, thick strips
• 500g white fish, cut into bite-sized chunks
• 100g watercress sprigs

(rice to serve)

  

Soak mushrooms, drain and slice, discarding stem. Cut daikon and carrot in half lengthways, and thinly slice.

  

Combine ginger, garlic, soy sauce and sugar in a large saucepan with 1.25l water. Add mushroom, daikon and carrot and bring to boil. Reduce heat, simmer for 10 minutes. Add tofu, pepper, and fish and simmer for another 10 minutes. Allow to sit for 10 minutes.

  

Spoon into four warm bowls and add the watercress. Serve at once with steamed rice.

Pumpkin and Spinach Curry

• 1 tsp black mustard seeds
•  
• red chilli
• crushed garlic
• 2 red onions, finely chopped
• 2 tomatoes, finely chopped
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground tumeric
• 1kg pumpkin, peeled and cubed
• 25g dessicated coconut
• 1 bunch spinach, trimmed and rinsed

 

(rice and plain yoghurt to serve)

 

 

Fry mustard seeds in hot vegetable oil, add chiliad n garlic. Add onion, sauté. Add tomato, salt, ground coriander and turmeric. Stir. Add pumpkin, coconut and 250ml water. Mix, cover, simmer slowly for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

 

 

Just before serving, stir the spinach leave in and allow them to sit in the hot curry for a few minutes.

 

 

 

Serve with rice and plain yoghurt.

 

Red Lentil Soup

Simply boil a cupful of red lentils with some cumin and salt until they nearly fall apart.

This is great on its own but you can garnish it with some caramelised onion slices with grated ginger, crushed garlic and coriander (ground) and some fresh coriander leaves at the end, if you want to e shmancy. Wonderful soup starter or a great lunch.

Lamb and Quince Tagine with Preserved Lemon

• Large leek
• Crushed garlic
• Chopped ginger
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 0.5 tsp ground turmeric
• 700g diced lamb shoulder
• 10 green olives
• 1 quince, peeled, cored and sliced into wedges
• handful of coriander, roughly chopped
• 30g flaked almonds, toasted
• 1 tbsp finely chopped preserved lemon rind

Sautee leek in some butter, add spices, garlic and ginger, Add lamb, olives, quince, and enough water not to cover everything. Simmer for about 1.5 hours.

Combine coriander, almonds and lemon in a bowl, serve the tagine with couscous or rice and the almond garnish.

Baked Eggs for Two

Just one of those things that one forgets to make, it's so simple.

chopped ham
4 eggs
40g grated cheese
80ml cream

Grease a couple of ramekins and put the ham at the bottom. Combine the rest of the stuff, season, and pour on top of the ham. Bake at 150 for 25 minutes or until just cooked. Serve with toast fingers.

Braised silverbeet with chickpeas and fresh tomato

• Swiss chard (1 bunch)
• 60 ml olive oil
• 2 crushed garlic cloves
• 1tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp grated ginger
• 4 diced tomatoes
• 400g tin of chickpeas

Fry and bubble. Can add onion to this. The original says to discard the stems of the beet – that would be madness! Just leave enough cooking time. Yum. (You don't need the order things go in, do you.)

 Serve with rice.

Chunky Bean and Sausage Salad

• White beans
• A couple of sausages
• Salad stuff
• Noodles


This was meant to be ‘sausage and white bean salad’ but I chucked in a whole load of julienned veg like carrot and daikon, as well as beans, lettuce and a bunch of noodles. Squeeze the sausage out of its casing and fry like savoury mince, mix with the beans, flavour as you wish (we went Oriental on this one with chilli and coriander but depends what you feel like). Together with the noodles makes a great lunch.

Green Papaya Salad

• 6 mint leaves, finely chopped
• 1.5 tbs lime juice
• 1.5 tbs fish sauce
• 1 tsp caster sugar
• 1 tsp finely grated ginger
• 1 small red chilli, seeded and finely chopped
• 1 green papaya
• 2 tsp sesame seeds
• handful of coriander leaves


Mix mint with lime, fish sauce, sugar, ginger and chilli. Pell papaya and remove seeds. Finely julienne or grate the flesh. Mix with dressing and put in serving bowl. Lightly dry-fry the sesame seeds and toss over the salad together with the coriander. Serve.

Fennel, chickpea, parsley and green olive salad

• 2 fennel bulbs, trimmed and finely shaved
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 80ml olive oil
• 400g tin of chick peas
• 10 green olives , chopped a bit
• 2 tbs coarsely chopped parsley

Marinate the fennel in the liquids of ten minutes before adding the rest. Serve.