A long time ago, my mum told me that the edges were crimped so miners could hold the pasties with their dirty hands to eat, and then the crusts would be thrown away. I love Cornish pasties, but the problem is, the mass-produced, cheap ones taste nothing like the real thing. I hated the plastic-tasting pastry and the bland, poor quality meat of the ones that you buy packaged in supermarkets.

Thus, I would always buy Genuine Cornish Pasty from the cart whenever I am in Waterloo station or arriving at Gatwick to fly off somewhere. Imagine my delight when I found the recipe online, from the Cornish Pasty Association!

As pastry is not my thing, I was slightly apprehensive. But the recipe was easy to follow and tada…..made my own! It was so delicious, the pastry was flavoursome and the filing (despite being just beef, swede, bit of carrots and onions) was so moist, juicy and tasty.

PS: Important thing is to really go over-the-top with (good quality) pepper, as it is the only seasoning, and so yummy when you take a bite and taste the beef and pepper.

Full recipe here:

http://www.cornishpastyassociation.co.uk/about-the-pasty/make-your-own-genuine-cornish-pasty/

I don’t like cakes and I don’t like sweets. But I love dark chocolate. And it’s hard to find chocolate cakes that are moist (instead of dry and crumbly) with that heavy, chocolatey taste. After some experimenting, here’s my recipe.

Note (important):

1. DO NOT substitute Guinness for anything else (it’s OK for kids – cooking evaporates off the alcoholic content and Guinness is full of goodness anyway);
2. DO NOT use cheap cocoa, which will give you an insipid, synthetic taste. This is what I used. I think it’s only £3 anyway:

• 130g unsalted butter
• 110ml Guinness
• 50g cocoa powder
• 200g light brown sugar
• 100ml whole milk
• 2 large eggs
• 175g plain flour
• ¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• tiny pinch of salt

Sieve the flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda together. Melt the butter over low heat. Stir in the Guinness and cocoa powder. When the mixture cools slightly, so as not to cook the eggs, stir in the other ingredients.

Mix throughly. Poured into a greased cake pan and bake in a preheated oven at 160-180 degrees, or until the fork comes out clean when poked into the cake.

You can see the texture….so good!

Breakfast in bed – cooked breakfast in bed – is such a treat.But what happens if you are the cook in your household, and no one else you live with can cook even the basics?

Here’s my tip: even children can manage to make this (under supervision of an adult, of course, who doesn’t have to know how to cook).

1. Save an old milk carton. Wash and dry it properly.
2. Put all the dry ingredients for the pancake batter into the milk carton the night before.
3. All your non-cook then has to do the next morning is add in a cup of milk and an egg and half a tablespoon of butter, shake hard, and cook. There are surprisingly little lumps in the pancake.

DRY INGREDIENTS FOR THE PANCAKE BATTER (enough for four fluffy pancakes):

1. 120g flour
2. 2 teaspoons baking powder
3. 1 tablespoon sugar
4. 1 pinch salt.

The next morning, add:

1. 1 egg
2. 1 cup milk (240ml)
3. 2 tablespoon melted butter (or oil)

Screw the lid on the milk carton and shake HARD and vigorously to ensure that there are no lumps. Cook with a little butter in a pancake pan or ordinary pan over the stove (note: we bought a cheap pancake pan from Lakelands and it has been a good investment).

I was very impressed when my non-cook brought me this in bed this morning x

This recipe is from my friend Nico’s French cook, Madame LeFavre. Quite painstaking, I would say, but et voila, you get this achingly sophisticated and authentic French soup.

Step 1:

Boil together salmon bones or prawn skins (the more the better) in a pot of water, together with the peel of one large orange, peppercorns and a bay leaf.

In addition, I added 1 carrot and half an onion (for sweetness and heartiness), though Madame sniffed haughtily when I told her what I did.

Boil for a few hours, until you have a rich broth. Aim to end up with about 10 cupfuls of broth.

Step 2:

To make the base, sweat 1 finely chopped onion, one leek and 1 fennel bulb in olive oil. Add 8 cloves of garlic. Cook until softened, then add 6 chopped tomatoes.

The herbs Madame uses are fresh thyme, fresh marjoram and saffron. I added some basil leaves.  Add a large pinch of cayenne pepper. Season generously with freshly ground pepper and coarse salt.  Add 1/2tsp brown sugar.

When everything is mushy, add 2 generous glasses of full-bodied white wine. This is important, because it is the wine that gives the base its flavour. Don’t worry about the alcoholic content (which gets burned off) – French kids eat wine in food and they seem to do fine.

Simmer on very low heat for about 1-2 hours.

Step 3:

Strain both the salmon broth and the base into a saucepan (combine both). You should have a thickish soup (as per main photo). If you like a thicker soup, add some of the mushy veggies that you used to make the base.

Into that soup, add mussels, clams, fish, anything you wish. Boil the seafood until cooked. Season to taste.

(I added deep fried salmon bits because I like crunchy fried salmon).

Serve piping hot with French baguette (of course). It may sound like a lot of hassle compared to my Englishwoman’s version, but I promise you, it’s worth it.

I had the leftovers the following day, and it tasted even better.

The store cupboard/freezer version:

I made this during the COVID-19 lockdown, and I didn’t have white fish, prawns or clams: I just had frozen salmon in the freezer. I didn’t even have fresh tomatoes and used canned tomatoes. I added some frozen peas (!!!) and spring onions.  But it still tasted good, with a poached egg on top for variation!

It’s a good time to go back to eating frugally these days, I think, and a fun challenge too. Because of the lockdown, we try to make do with what we have in the house, and this calls for ‘creative cooking’, namely making resources stretch and experimenting with substitution.

I am making parmesan and garlic chicken with lemon and butter sauce for dinner. And then it occurred to me that I could debone the chicken to make a wholesome soup out of chicken bones, to which I could add spinach leaves and pasta to make another meal out of.

Recipe for the chicken:

1. Debone two chicken quarters.
2. Mix 2 cloves of minced garlic in one lightly beaten egg. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Marinade the chicken in the mixture for a few hours, better overnight.
4. Mix half a cupful of flour with quarter a cupful of grated parmesan cheese.
5. Coat the chicken in the mix.
6. Fry in hot oil until the surface is slightly browned.
7. Bake in oven for 30 minutes to cook the meat, and until the skin is crunchy.
8. To make the sauce: saute 3 cloves of garlic in 6 tablespoons of butter. Add some chicken stock (about ¼ a cupful). Simmer for 10 minutes until the sauce achieves the right consistency and smells fragrant. Season to taste.
9. Pour sauce over the chicken. Serve piping hot.

Recipe for the potato gratin:

1. Peel, rinse and pat-dry potatoes. Slice the potatoes thinly. (I used about 1 kg)
2. In a large pan, place the sliced potatoes, 1 clove of garlic, 4 fl oz of milk, 4 floz of double cream, salt, pepper and nutmeg in a pan.
3. Simmer gently until the cream has thickened.
4. Remove from heat. Stir in about 100g of grated cheddar or gruyere until the cheese melts.
5. Butter an oven-safe dish. Transfer the potato mixture into the dish. Top with more cheese if you like.
6. Bake until the top is golden brown and the potatoes soft.

Recipe for the soup:

1. Boil chicken bones with ginger, spring onions, carrots and whatever vegetables you have.
2. Add a tablespoon of vinegar to extract the marrow.
3. Boil for about a couple of hours.
4. Season with salt and pepper at the end of cooking time. Add spinach.
5. Cook the pasta separately and add to the soup (this goes better with smaller pasta but I didn’t have any at home).

So good that I made it again a couple of days later.