PEPPERONI PORKY PIZZAA

serves: 4 preparation time: 20–25 minutes, plus at least 1 hour 20 minutes proving cooking time: 12–15 minutes

Given that we all know how to make a tomato sauce, the stumbling block to having homemade pizza more often must be the dough, or, more specifically, the idea of preparing ahead. Knocking up the dough actually takes fewer than 10 minutes (less when you’ve done it once or twice) and proving it takes about an hour. You can even do it in the morning before you go to work, chuck it in the airing cupboard or near a radiator (any warm place will do) and no harm will come to it. This sauce recipe makes enough for two lots of pizza. You might as well do double and keep it in the fridge/freezer for next time – it makes a nice pasta sauce, too. I do my pizza on one big square tray, making the most of the shape of my oven.

To make the dough, put all the dry ingredients into a big bowl and make a well in the centre. Gradually add the water, and as the dough starts to bind together splosh in just under 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Keep mixing and gradually adding water until the dough comes away from the sides. Do the last bit by hand. If it gets sticky, add a touch more flour. Once you have a smooth ball of dough, knead it on a flat, lightly floured surface for 5 minutes. Use the ball of your hand to push the dough away from you, then fold it back over towards you using your fingertips. Keep repeating this action. To test if your dough is ready to prove, poke it and, if it bounces back and pretty much fills up the hole, it has been worked sufficiently. Use both hands to briefly shape the dough into a ball. Wash and dry your bowl, put a healthy splash of oil into the bottom and use your fingers to spread the oil up the sides. Put the dough ball in the bowl and roll it around to lightly cover with oil. Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and put it in a warm place to prove for an hour or more.

Now for the sauce. Over a medium heat in a thick-bottomed pan, gently fry the onion and garlic in the oil for a few minutes. Add your oregano, chilli flakes and lardons, give it a stir, then pop a lid on and leave on the heat for 15 minutes, stirring regularly to make sure it’s not catching. Once everything in the pan is looking and smelling good, tip in the mince and turn the heat to high. Break it up and stir well. When the mince starts to brown, add the tomatoes, turn down to a medium heat and leave it to simmer with the lid off for 20 to 25 minutes. Again, stir regularly to stop it sticking. Preheat your oven to the highest it will go.

Roll out the pizza dough on a floured surface until it is around 2mm thick, using the edge of your rolling pin to keep the sides straight and the whole thing square-ish. Flour your chosen tray (mine’s about 30cm square). Roll the dough a bit bigger than your tray, then flip it up around your rolling pin and flop it over the tray. Ideally it will fall over the sides a bit. Leave it to firm up and have a mini prove for 15–20 minutes.

Your sauce should now have reached a thick consistency. Taste, season and leave to cool whilst you prepare the toppings. Ladle half the sauce over the pizza base and spread it out evenly, leaving a couple of centimetres around the edge (the rest goes in the fridge/freezer for later). Scatter on the toppings, finishing with the pepperoni. When the oven is hot, put the pizza on the bottom of the oven rather than on a shelf and cook for 12–15 minutes until it looks even better than any takeaway pizza, because you made it all yourself.

PEPPERONI PORKY PIZZAA

CHINESE-STYLE CRISPY DUCKP

serves: 4 as a starter preparation time: 15 minutes, plus marinating time cooking time: 2 hours 40 minutes

In our house on your birthday you are allowed to choose what everyone eats that evening. This quaint tradition is one put in place by my mum when I was young. Every year I chose macaroni cheese. Mum must have chuckled all the way to the supermarket, knowing that once again her son had picked practically the cheapest meal ever invented. She would skip down the aisles past the foie gras, truffles and lobster, stopping briefly in the dairy section for a pound of Cheddar, then it was over to dry goods for a packet of macaroni.

When I had children this rule was introduced into our house, but unfortunately my children are not quite as economy-conscious as the young Paul Merrett was. Every year they both demand that we phone the local Chinese restaurant and order crispy duck with all the trimmings. Upon arrival, they then insist that it must be eaten on our knees in front of the telly (a big no-no under normal circumstances).

Realizing that I could not withdraw the ‘choice of birthday food’ rule but fearing eventual bankruptcy, I decided to look into producing my own crispy duck. I was horrified to find that it’s a lengthy process and one quite unsuitable for the home cook. I needed an easy (yet cheap) alternative and the following recipe is, I believe, just that. Some planning ahead is needed as the duck legs need marinating a couple of days before.

To marinate the duck, put the legs in a shallow dish or sealable bag and pour over the soy sauce. Add the ginger and garlic and rub the marinade all over the legs, then cover and keep in the fridge.

You can cook the duck legs well before you want to eat them – in fact, I recommend you do this the day before. First, preheat the oven to 150ºC/130ºC fan/gas mark 2. Take the duck legs from the fridge and place them in an ovenproof dish with the bits of ginger and garlic and the soy sauce. Then melt the duck fat slowly in a saucepan on the stove. When it’s simmering, pour it over the legs, making sure they are submerged in the fat. Cover the dish with tin foil and pop it in the oven.

The duck legs will take at least 1½ hours to cook, but check them every 45 minutes or so to make sure the duck is still submerged. The fat should be simmering gently and the duck skin should be fairly white or translucent-looking. After 1½–2 hours the meat should be soft. Check this by poking in the tip of a knife. Cook for a little longer if there’s any resistance, then remove the legs from the fat (this can be strained and kept in the fridge – great for roasting potatoes) and let them cool on a plate. They can then be transferred to the fridge until the meal is required.

About 45 minutes before you wish to eat, heat the oven to 180ºC/160ºC fan/gas mark 4. Place the duck legs on a wire rack over a roasting tray to catch any drips. Then pop the tray in the oven and cook until the legs are hot right through and the skin is really (I mean really) crisp. This takes about 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, shred the spring onions, cut the cucumber into thin strips and pour the hoisin sauce into a dish. Put these on the table. Next, wrap the pancakes in a clean, damp tea towel and give them 5 minutes in the oven to warm through before putting them on the table too. Finally, take the duck from the oven and, using a fork, shred all the meat from the bone on to a large plate. And that’s it!

CHINESE-STYLE CRISPY DUCKP

THAI PRAWN CURRYA

serves: 4 preparation time: 25–30 minutes cooking time: 40–45 minutes

Having stormed our pubs and high streets in the eighties, Thai food was the first real challenger for the Favourite Asian Takeaway Cup that had been held by China for so long – and the green curry was their team captain.

This recipe uses a base paste that you can get from most supermarkets. It is not the same as a jar of green curry sauce, because this way you still do the cooking and control the flavours whilst having a hefty chunk of the basic work done for you. Lime leaves live in the freezer and, although not readily available, it’s well worth nipping into an Asian shop once in a blue moon to stock up – there’s nothing that adds the right smell to a green curry more than lime leaves. I’m assuming you’ll want jasmine rice, but I’ve also assumed you can follow the directions on the packet. I like mine pretty wet, but isn’t that the best bit of a green curry?

Peel the prawns, keeping the end of the tail on (just looks nicer, I think) and put the heads and shells in a smallish saucepan. Measure half the oil into the saucepan with the shells and chuck in the whole smashed cloves of garlic, the whole chilli and 1 stick of lemongrass. Fry on a high heat for a few minutes until the shells change colour. If you have a spare couple of lime leaves chuck them in too. Pour in 500ml of water and bring it up to a fierce simmer for 15–20 minutes: instant prawn stock.

In a bowl, mix the bean sprouts with the sprigs of coriander and the sliced spring onions. Dress with the juice of half a lime and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat the rest of the oil in a wide, heavy-bottomed pan and gently fry the ginger, shortly followed by the chopped garlic and chopped chilli, if you fancy. Take off a couple of the outer leaves of the lemongrass, then very thinly slice the fat bottom quarter and add this in, saving the tops for later. Once this is all smelling good and strong – just a minute or two – stir the paste in well.

Strain the stock through a sieve into a measuring jug, making sure you turn over and push down the shells to get out every last drop. About ten pushes should give you around 300ml. Add the stock to the pan and simmer hard for 5 minutes, then pour in the coconut milk. Any lime leaves and lemongrass tops, tied together with string, can also go in now. Turn the heat right up. After a few minutes, stir in the peppers and mushrooms. Simmer hard with the lid off for just a couple of minutes, then add the sugar snaps and prawns, stir and sit the bok choy on top.

Four minutes later, turn the heat off. Stir in the chopped coriander and season with a hefty dash of fish sauce, lime juice and a pinch of salt, if necessary. The other lime can be cut into wedges for serving alongside the curry with your rice and a handful of the crunchy bean sprouts and coriander to top it off.

THAI PRAWN CURRYA

COLONEL MERRETT’S BUCKET OF CHICKENP

serves: 4 preparation time: 20 minutes, plus marinating time cooking time: 50 minutes

If anyone chances upon my MP3 player they will find, among the obscure early Clash recordings, the vast selection of rare Northern Soul and the entire Paul Weller back catalogue, a number of not quite so cool ditties that I listen to when no one is around. This is known as a guilty pleasure, apparently.

My guilty food pleasure is crispy chicken purchased from a well-known high-street chain (where the mixture of herbs and spices allegedly remains a closely guarded secret). For many years I would occasionally sneak off into town with my children and pick up a few portions of this delicacy said to originate from the southern states of the USA.

Then, a few years ago, I made a television programme, after which covert crispy chicken purchasing became off limits. Each time I entered the shop someone would rumble me and shout something offensive about TV chefs buying takeaways. There was only one thing for it – I would have to send my wife in instead. Unfortunately, she refused, telling me that it was far too expensive for a bit of old chicken and that she hated the soggy chips. ‘Cook it yourself,’ she helpfully suggested, adding, ‘You are a chef, after all. Their spicy secret can’t be that hard to work out.’ Well, here it is – my guilt-free version of the high-street classic.

To cook the chicken, place the thighs and drumsticks in a pot and cover with water. (If you add a head of garlic and some thyme, you will have a chicken stock left by the time the chicken is cooked – perfect for keeping in the fridge for another day.) Simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through. Allow the chicken pieces to cool in the stock, then remove them and store in the fridge until required.

Mix the flour with the cumin, cayenne, celery salt, mustard powder and salt in a large bowl. Toss the chicken in the seasoned flour. I leave the skin on, but it can be removed. Once thoroughly floured, dip the chicken pieces in the milk and then back in the flour. This double-coating means they will be extra crispy.

Pour the oil into a large pan. It needs to be at least 10cm deep and, very importantly, not be too near the top. Heat it to 170ºC before any frying takes place (use a digital cooking probe; see p.10). To test it, drop in a cube of white bread. When it quickly goes gold brown, then you’re about there. Finally, once you start to heat the oil, don’t wander off and get distracted as it can easily overheat and explode. Fry the chicken pieces in batches. Carefully lower them into the oil with a slotted spoon and remove when crispy, golden and cooked right through. This takes about 4–5 minutes.

Keep the chicken in a warm oven whilst you knock out the potato wedges. Cut the cold baked potatoes into wedges and cook exactly as you did the chicken, in batches in the hot oil, for approximately 2 minutes. Meanwhile, put all the vegetables and mayonnaise in a bowl and mix everything together to make creamy coleslaw. Enjoy your guilty pleasure, perhaps with ‘Silver Lady’ by David Soul playing in the background!

COLONEL MERRETT’S BUCKET OF CHICKENP

SPICY LAMB SHISH KEBABA

makes: 4 preparation time: 20 minutes, plus marinating cooking time: 20–30 minutes

If there’s one smell that defines the Middle East, an area of the world I adore and felt instantly at home in, it’s that of grilling meat over hot coals.

Translating hot coals over here is obviously a BBQ at first glance, but as we mostly eat indoors, the authentic taste can be pretty readily achieved with a griddle pan. Though not an essential bit of kit (and not very cheap either, being made of cast iron), there is no doubt in my mind that they are absolutely worth it. They make your meat, veggies and fish taste like your holidays and it’s a healthy way of cooking too. If you do choose to buy one, go for one with ribs that are about a centimetre thick. Thick lines have meaningful contact with the meat/fish/veg, thus giving them a touch of the right flavour and letting any fat (like with lamb and pork) run away into the gullies. This recipe would work well with chicken too – use breast cut to the same size and cook it for a minute less each side.

If you thought the best kebab you ever had was the one you stumbled into at the end of a drunken evening, I beg to differ.

Mix together the chopped garlic with the cumin, then roll and coat the lamb cubes in it well. You can cook this straight away, but more of the flavours will be absorbed by the meat if you leave it out at room temperature for a few hours, or overnight in the fridge. When you’re ready to eat, put your griddle/pan on a high heat and get it smoking hot.

If you have a griddle, you won’t need any oil. If you’re doing it in a pan, you may need a tiny splash. Quickly place each lamb cube on the griddle (i.e. don’t just tip in the bowl of meat) and leave to sizzle. This makes a bit of yummy-smelling smoke, so get the extraction on/windows open. Season with salt whilst on the griddle.

After 3–4 minutes, turn the meat, and use this time to mix the yoghurt sauce ingredients together in a little bowl.

After a further 3–4 minutes, take the lamb from the griddle/pan, put in a bowl, turn the heat down and let it sit for a few minutes. Lay each flatbread in turn on the griddle/in the pan to soften them up a bit, or you can warm all of them at once in a preheated oven (150°C/130°C fan/gas mark 2) for a couple of minutes.

Now build your kebabs. Put a healthy splodge of yoghurt sauce on each flatbread, then pile on the cabbage, chilli sauce, tomato, onion, dill pickle and top it off with the lamb, a bit more yoghurt sauce, some pickled chillies and a squeeze of lemon juice. Roll it up, pick it up and munch on down. Winner.

SPICY LAMB SHISH KEBABA

CURRIED MUTTONP

WITH GREEN CHILLI AND ALMONDS

serves: 4 preparation time: 30 minutes cooking time: 2 hours 15 minutes

I love a good curry. No, actually it goes beyond love! Every so often I yearn for spicy food. Luckily this country boasts many fine Indian restaurants, but eating out is a relatively expensive business, so most of my curries are home-made. The temptation is to pick up the phone and order a takeaway, but that still costs money. The answer, of course, is to cook your own.

This is a simple, tasty beginner’s curry, with relatively few ingredients – all of them easily obtainable. I have chosen to use mutton because it’s a meat often used in Asian restaurants. Mutton is lamb that is older than a year. Because it’s slightly older, it is a little tougher and, therefore, requires slightly longer cooking. The payoff is in the flavour.

You will need a pot with a lid for this recipe, as the idea is to trap the steam and moisture created by the ingredients instead of adding lots of liquid. So, heat the pot up on the stove and add vegetable oil. Fry the onion, garlic and grated ginger for about 5 minutes, until they soften and colour very slightly.

Put the ingredients for the spice and almond mix in a bowl. Add the cloves, cardamoms, green chillies and cinnamon to the onions and allow to fry for a few seconds. Next add the spice and almond mix and stir in. Add the meat and mix it in well.

Pour in the yoghurt and, over a low heat, gently bring the curry to a simmer. At this point the pot’s contents will look quite dry, but steam will soon be created as it simmers with a lid on. If at all worried, now would be a good moment to add a little water – say, 3 tablespoons. Cook the curry slowly for about 1–2 hours, or until the mutton is really tender. Once it’s cooked, check for seasoning and finish the dish by adding a squeeze of lime juice and the coconut milk. Serve with my Never-failed-yet Basmati Rice (see p.231).

CURRIED MUTTONP

NEVER-FAILED-YET BASMATI RICEP

serves: 4 preparation time: 5 minutes cooking time: 20 minutes

I am including this recipe because nothing ruins curry quicker than a dodgy bowl of rice. This method of cooking basmati rice was taught to me by an Indian kitchen porter at the Ritz, where I did my training. He didn’t speak a word of English and I speak even less Urdu, but by watching him I picked up a few simple tips which have never failed to produce great steamed rice.

Heat a little oil in a pot with a tight-fitting lid (this is crucial). Meanwhile, wash your rice gently. The more you mix it around, the more you will scratch the grains, which means more starch will be released and your rice will become gluey … which is not good. Now drain the rice.

At this point you could add any or all of your optional ingredients to the pot. Alternatively, you can just go for the plain variety. Either way, add your rice to the hot oil and shake the pan a little to get everything sizzling. At the final shake ensure your rice is lying flat and level across the pan. Now pour in cold water. Place the tip of your finger on the top of the rice. The water should come up to the first joint of your finger.

Bring the water to the boil, then cover the pan with the tight-fitting lid and boil it hard for 5 minutes. Switch it off and leave it to stand, covered, for 20 minutes. DON’T BE TEMPTED TO LIFT THE LID! The steam trapped inside is busy cooking the rice. After 20 minutes, lift the lid, fork the rice through and serve immediately.

NEVER-FAILED-YET BASMATI RICEP

WASTE AND THE ISSUE OF OFFNESS

IT’S HARD NOT TO GET REALLY UPSET ABOUT WASTE, KNOWING THAT WE LIVE IN A COUNTRY WHERE WE THROW AWAY A THIRD OF THE FOOD WE BUY. AND YET WE ALL DO IT. BEFORE WE GO ANY FURTHER, READ THIS:

Every DAY we throw away:

Source: WRAP Food Waste Report – ‘The Food We Waste’ (April 2008)

Last year in the UK, nearly 1 million tonnes of food that hadn’t even been touched was thrown away. Interesting behaviour. Of course, the big questions are ‘why is this happening?’ and ‘what can we do to make it less shameful?’

Much of it is a sad by-product of progress: many people are now spending less time in the kitchen, and paying for other people to do it for us (ready meals, prepped veg, etc.). This has created a bit of distance between us and the things in our fridge or cupboard, as we don’t have the same understanding of them. We’ve lost confidence in knowing when food’s still OK, meaning how long it’s really going to last, and when, exactly, it’s beyond recovery.

Hating to sound like an old bat, common sense isn’t what it used to be. Nowadays we watch anything from a bag of spinach to a loaf of bread – even chicken, food that had a life – slowly dying over days, and instead of taking a small amount of action to save it, we just ignore it and walk on by.

We can now get beautiful-looking ingredients from anywhere in the world, any time. Whatever you want, whenever you want, stacked in abundance on the shelves. That’s just asking for a throw-away culture.

And just to round off the rant, we’ve become a little bit disrespectful of the time it takes to grow beans, rear a pig, make cheese. A lot of labour went into that thing you’ve just chucked, and that, to be honest, is just plain thoughtless.

But somewhere inside, we know that our disposable culture is not a sustainable one. What kind of people throw away 20,000 tonnes of breakfast cereal every year because they are too busy to finish it? (I know I’ve been part of that statistic.) We have become complacent about the world’s resources, and I’m not even going to mention the millions of people all over the world who would be very grateful for that half-bowl of muesli every morning.

In this bountiful modern world we live in, waste represents the ugly underside. It’s going on in every home in the nation, yet we’ve been sluggish in taking personal responsibility … and action.

First and foremost, become a Fridge Prefect. Know what’s there, roughly how long you’ve got, and, most importantly, if it’s right on the edge, do something about it there and then. Wilted, browning basil makes pesto in 5 minutes; squishy fruit becomes a smoothie in seconds. If they’re on the use-by date* and you haven’t time to cook them, chicken and fish can both go a couple more days with a wash under cold water, a pat dry, a squeeze of lemon and a bit of a marinade in extra-virgin olive oil and some herbs.

Just like us, fruit and veg does not always grow picture-perfectly. Walking down those aisles can be reminiscent of The Stepford Wives (see Sad Fruit Made Happy p.311). The truth is, it’s the not-advert-perfect fruit and veg that generally have the best flavour; it’s the real-looking ones, the honest ones.

And then there’s the planning thing: for most of us, life isn’t like how it was for our parents, and certainly not how it was for their parents. But equally, is that a reason to toss out half of the salad we buy?

As a starter pack of thoughts, there are a few suggestions of how to use up the top ten ingredients that Britain throws out, as compiled by WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) on p.254 and have a look at www.lovefoodhatewaste.com as well. But back to the common-sense thing. You really do know it already: buy only what you’re going to eat, and don’t let food fester in the fridge.

That bit is just logic, but what I really want to know is, what loonies are throwing out all that beer and chocolate?

*Just to clear it up, there are two dates you will see on products: the Sell By and the Use By. Sell By is when it must leave the shop. Use By is when it should leave your life. For legal reasons I can’t say much here, but in my experience the Use By date has a bit of built-in flexibility.