Looking out of my office window today it’s obvious that spring is very much with us, there’s new growth all around and an air of optimism as the natural world throws off the cloak of winter and stretches. I love this time of year as we see all sorts of things making their annual appearance in our kitchens, for those of you that haven’t had any new season asparagus yet I urge you to grab some and marvel at the delicate flavour.

Seasons form the natural backdrop for eating. All of the World’s Healthiest Foods are seasonal. Imagine a vegetable garden in the dead of winter. Now imagine this same garden on a sunny, summer day. How different things are during these two seasons of the year! For ecologists, seasons are considered a source of natural diversity. Changes in growing conditions from spring to summer or autumn to winter are considered essential for balancing the earth’s resources and its life forms. But today it’s so easy for us to forget about seasons when we eat! Modern food processing and worldwide distribution of food make foods available year-round, and grocery stores shelves look much the same in December as they do in July.

Which brings me to this weeks recipe, the fields abound with young lamb and the shops will soon be pushing new season lamb for all they’re worth. This is a situation that I’ve always found a bit odd, after all new season lamb or milk lamb has almost no flavour. The poor little devils haven’t had the time to eat the multitude of grass varieties that will in the coming months give the distinctive flavour that makes lamb so wonderful. So does this mean that lamb is off the menu, well actually no but you need to think about where the flavour comes from, last years lambs have just become year olds or Hogget (why they couldn’t come up with a more appetitising name I don’t know) that wonderful transition between the soft and succulent lamb and the full flavoured but tough mutton.

So ask your butcher for some hogget and give this Moroccan classic a bash and remember sometimes it’s worth waiting for.

Tagine of Lamb with Apricots

Serves 6-8

The name “tagine” derives from the clay pot with conical lid in which stews are cooked slowly over a fire.  In Morocco, a very sweet fruit tagine (Tagine barragog) is made, with lamb, prunes and honey.  With this recipe, we prefer to use sharp, naturally dried or semi-dried apricots – if you can find them!

2 large onions, chopped

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1½ tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp saffron

1 tsp ground cumin

A good pinch of chilli powder, to taste

1kg leg or shoulder of lamb, trimmed of some of the fat

2½cm fresh root ginger, cut into slices

3 garlic cloves, crushed

Salt & plenty of black pepper

500g dried apricots

Method

Using a tagine (or casserole dish if you don’t have a tagine), fry the onion gently in the oil until soft.

Stir in the spices – the cinnamon, saffron, cumin and chilli powder – and put in the meat Turn the pieces so that they are covered in the spice mixture.  Add the ginger, garlic, salt and pepper and cover with about ½ litre water.  Simmer, covered with lid, for 1½ hours, turning the meat over occasionally and adding water if necessary.  (You can also put the tagine in your barbeque to simmer.)

Add the apricots and cook for 30 minutes more, adding water if necessary.

Couscous

Generally, the couscous you find in supermarkets is a quick-cook variety and you need to be careful not to over cook it and create a glutinous mess that will put the kids off it for life.

Here’s an easy, failsafe way to cook couscous.

  • Place 2 cups of couscous in a heavy bowl.
  • Boil 2 ½ cups of water and add to the couscous.
  • Add ½ a teaspoon of salt.
  • Stir with a fork.
  • Cover and allow to sit for 5 minutes
  • Uncover and fluff up with a fork – the grains of couscous will have absorbed the liquid without becoming mushy.
  • Dot with butter and fluff again. Season and serve

Cooking Couscous – an Olive Oil Variation

To impart a richer, nuttier flavour to your couscous try the recipe below.

  • In a saucepan, heat 4 tablespoons of olive oil.
  • When the oil is hot add 2 cups of couscous and a good shake of salt.
  • Cook for 2-3 mins until the couscous is golden, stirring constantly to prevent burning.
  • Add 2 ½ cups of boiling water.
  • Remove from the heat and cover.
  • Let the couscous sit until all the water is absorbed and the grains are soft – about 5 mins.
  • Loosen the couscous with a fork and serve.
  • Dot with butter and fluff again. Season and serve

More Flavour

Alone, couscous can taste somewhat bland. While the main taste centre of your meal will be the meat or fish you serve with it, you can add more flavour to the couscous itself by substituting beef, chicken or vegetable stock for the boiling water in the recipes above.

The flavour of couscous can also be punched up by adding pine nuts, currents, oregano, thyme, basil or cinnamon before you add your boiling liquid.

Wine match

We are blessed in this glorious country to have some of the most wonderful Boutique wineries. For the wine connoisseur they are worth tracking down. This week I’ve just found Bijou Estate and their Pinot Noir is a cracker. So go on be adventurous and track them down.

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Some nights it’s just got to be left overs, in this case left over from a catering job. I served these as a starter to clients but made a few extra just for us, that said they are really easy to make and go down really well when all of us get home late and just want food on the table as quickly as possible.

Rösti Fish Cakes with Champagne & Chive Sauce

Serves 8

450g prepared crabmeat or mixed white fish

300g firm waxy potatoes

1 tablespoon capers, chopped (optional)

2 tablespoons lime juice

2 teaspoon grated lime zest

4 spring onions, finely chopped

3 pinches cayenne pepper or ‘La Chinata’ Smoked Paprika

2 heaped tablespoons chopped parsley or coriander

Salt & pepper to season

1 egg, beaten

Salad greens to serve


Champagne & Chive Sauce:

3 shallots (or 1 medium onion), finely chopped

¼ leek, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 tablespoon olive oil

300ml champagne or white wine

300ml fish stock (or chicken stock)

3 tbsps fresh chives, chopped

300ml double cream

Lemon juice to taste

Seasoning

The day before:

Put the unpeeled potatoes in salted boiling water for exactly 10 minutes.  Mix remaining ingredients in a bowl.  When potatoes are cooked, drain.  When cool enough to handle, peel off the skins and grate.   Carefully combine both mixtures and portion.  Place portions on a tray and chill for at least 2 hours to become firm.

Meanwhile prepare sauce: sweat shallots, leek and garlic in the olive oil.  Add stock and champagne to the pan and reduce to quarter of original volume.  In a second pan, reduce cream to half the original volume.  Add stock mix to cream and hand whisk.  Add lemon juice, chopped chives and seasoning to taste.  When cool, put into a box and refrigerate.

Heat a frying pan until almost smoking and place fish cakes carefully into hot pan, working in four portion batches.  Cook for 3 minutes each side; they should be golden brown but barely cooked in the middle.  Lift out onto paper towels and squeeze a few drops of lemon juice on top.  When cool, place in an airtight box and refrigerate.

On the night:

Reheat fish cakes in oven at 200°C for 5 – 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, reheat sauce on a low heat in a saucepan.  Place a small handful of salad greens in the centre of each plate, place hot fishcakes on top, spoon over sauce and serve immediately.

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This idea of writing about our food at home is proving to be a real hit with all the family. Our 11 year old food photographer, Fraser, is getting more and more demanding, i think it must be the artist in him trying to get out. What is really neat is how we are all learning something new.

So, on to tonights meal. I was preparing a private cheffing job that included puff pastry so figured I’d use up the off cuts for our meal. The trick with beef Wellington is to precook the beef to the point that it needs 12 minutes in the oven inside the pastry (thats how long the pastry needs to puff up and colour), also season the steak really well before you wrap it in the pastry.

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Every week the boys cook one night, my dearest wish is that once they fly the nest they will be able to look after themselves without resorting to fast food and who knows the life skill of being able to cook just might help them socially if you know what I mean.

The rules are simple, they must plan the meal and do it all themselves with me in an advisory role only. Tonight Alex has found a Bill Granger recipe for panfried marinated beef rice paper rolls with Vietnamese dipping sauce. I guess the get my recipes quite a lot so a change is as good as a rest.

I’m so proud of how much effort they go to, and how special the meal becomes. And of course with two boys the competition is on, with each trying to outdo the other.

Now to do the washing up, the one job that I can usually sidestep as the cook, but not tonight.

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Lasagne is one of those dishes that all the family loves, even when I’m being a bit sneaky and adding lots of veg to the beef mince. So many parents seem to have problems getting veg into their kids, and at times our two have been interesting. Although to be fair Alex and Fraser are really cool about their food and seem to enjoy Daddies nightly experiments.

The trick is to clear the veg drawer and panfry some onions, garlic, carrots, mushrooms, peppers and whatever else that you want, then add it to the mince that your cooking off with tomatoes. To give it a real depth of flavour spend some time on the white sauce or bechamel and then don’t spare the parmesan.

Béchamel Sauce:

100g butter

100g plain flour

1 small onion studded with whole cloves

1 bayleaf

1 litre milk

A little freshly grated nutmeg

Salt and pepper

Firstly simmer the milk for a couple of minutes with the onion, cloves, bayleaf, nutmeg and seasoning, and leave to one side to infuse. Now melt butter for béchamel in a saucepan.  Whisk in flour and cook for a few minutes, stirring constantly, then gradually whisk in the warm milk, having discarded the clove studded onion and bayleaf,  and continue to cook for 10 minutes, stirring constantly until thick and smooth.

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