Barbequed leg of lamb with thai green spices





Preheat your oven to 170°C/325°F/gas 3. Place the kaffir lime leaves, ginger, lemon grass, garlic, most of the coriander and chillies into a large pestle and mortar or a food processor and bash or pulse until you have a thick, fragrant, green paste. Stir in the olive oil and the lime juice.

Rub the marinade all over the lamb, making sure you get into all the nooks and crannies. Most of it will fall off during cooking, but it will still give the meat the most fantastic flavour. Season the lamb well and place it in a roasting tray. Cover with tinfoil and pop it in the preheated oven for about an hour.

After half an hour or so, light your BBQ so the flames have a chance to die down nicely. Make sure you have coals piled up high on one side so it's super hot and low on the other side for a more gentle heat to give you some control. Take the lamb out of the oven and cut or break it into a few big chunks, this way it'll be much easier to handle.

Place the lamb on the hot side of the barbie with the tray with all its juices on the cooler side. Squeeze a bit more lime juice into the tray if you like – you want the acidity to be like a mint sauce. Turn the meat regularly, basting it in the juices from the tray as you go. This will give you a nice, dark crust. Give the meat about 10 minutes like this, to build up the colour.

Once your meat is done, remove it to a board, cover loosely with foil and leave to rest. Pour the coconut milk into the tray and allow it to bubble for a couple of minutes until thickened.

Carve your lamb into chunky slices. Serve the sliced lamb with the Thai sauce, sprinkled with chopped chilli and the remaining coriander. An absolute showstopper

Asian-inspired turkey salad and pancakes





Shred the brown turkey meat into thin strips using your fingers and put it into a dry pan on a medium heat. Add the cashew nuts, dried cranberries and five-spice. Give it all a good stir then let it toast away while you get on with your salad. Give the pan a shake every now and then to make sure nothing catches.

Add the mint and most of your coriander leaves to a bowl with your mixed salad leaves. Make your dressing in a separate bowl by mixing the juice from your clementine and lime. Squeeze the juice from one of your pomegranate halves through your hands to catch any seeds then discard them. Stir in your grated onion. I tend to use 3 parts oil to 1 part acid when I’m making dressings, so look at what you’ve got in the bowl so far then pour in 3 times as much extra virgin olive oil. Add the soy sauce and sesame oil. Squeeze in all the juice from your grated ginger then throw away the pulp.

Give this lovely dressing a really good stir, and have a taste. If you want more salt, add a splash more soy. If you want more acid, add another squeeze of lime juice. Drizzle over enough dressing to coat the salad leaves then use your hands to toss and dress them.

Add the honey to the pan with the turkey meat and stir through until coated. Turn the heat up to full whack for the last few seconds to really crisp up the meat mixture. At this point, make sure your guests are all at the table and ready to eat so you can serve the salad as soon as the hot meat hits the salad leaves. Toss half of your pan-fried ingredients through the salad leaves and transfer to a serving platter.

Spoon the remaining nuts, cranberries and crispy meat over the top of the salad and add another drizzle of dressing. Hold the remaining pomegranate half over the salad and knock it on the back with a spoon so the seeds pop onto the salad. Garnish with a nice sprinkling of fresh red chilli, any remaining coriander leaves and serve right away.

Spicy parsnip soup





Heat a splash of olive oil and the butter in a large saucepan. Add the onion, garlic, ginger and garam masala. Gently fry for around 10 minutes, until the onions are soft and sweet.

Drop in the chopped parsnip and stir together so that everything gets coated in the oil and flavours. Pour in the milk and stock, season well and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and simmer for 30 minutes with a lid on.

After half an hour, check that the parsnips are cooked by sticking a knife in. If you’re happy, remove them from the heat and carefully whiz up using a hand blender or liquidizer. Taste the soup to see if it needs a little more salt or pepper.

Serve with a sprinkling of sliced red chilli, a few coriander leaves if you like, and a good chunk of crusty bread.

Grape, ricotta and tarragon salad





Season the sliced shallots with salt and pepper, add the sugar and the vinegar and leave to marinate for a few minutes.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the tarragon and grapes and grate in most of the cheese. Drain the pickled onions and throw them in with a little of the vinegary juices, salt and pepper and a glug of olive oil. Toss everything together and divide between four plates. Grate the rest of the cheese on top of each salad and serve.

Carrots boiled with orange, garlic and herbs







Boil the carrots in salted boiling water with a tablespoon of sugar, a knob of butter and a little handful of fragrant herbs, tied up. Parsley, rosemary, thyme, bay – use just one or a mixture. Cut an orange into eighths and add them to the water, along with a few whole garlic cloves in their skins. If you really want to be a little tiger, add a pinch of cumin as well (seeds or ground) – it subtly cuts through with the most wonderful flavour. As soon as the carrots are cooked, drain them, discard the herbs and all but one of the orange pieces, squeeze the garlic out of its skin, chop the remaining orange piece finely and toss with the carrots, some seasoning and a little more butter. The flavour will be incredible.

Another idea is to fry the chopped-up orange in a good tablespoon of sugar, so it almost jammifies, and serve this on top of the carrots. These two flavours together are one of the coolest things.

roasted carrots with orange, garlic and thyme

Or – just as easy – as soon as you drain the carrots you can throw them into a baking tray with the chopped-up orange and the garlic cloves and roast them at 200°C/400°F/gas 6 for 10 minutes – this will give you a slightly meatier flavour.

mashed carrots

Or simply mash the carrots up with the orange and garlic, so you have some coarse and some smooth. Lovely.

6 hour slow roasted pork shoulder





• 2kg bone-in shoulder of pork, skin on
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 red onions, halved
• 2 carrots, peeled and halved lengthways
• 2 sticks of celery, halved
• 1 bulb of garlic, skin on, broken into cloves
• 6-8 fresh bay leaves
• 600ml water or vegetable stock


Preheat your oven to 220°C/425°F/gas 7.

Place your pork on a clean work surface, skin-side up. Get yourself a small sharp knife and make scores about a centimetre apart through the skin into the fat, but not so deep that you cut into the meat. If the joint is tied, try not to cut through the string. Rub salt right into all the scores you’ve just made, pulling the skin apart a little if you need to.

Brush any excess salt off the surface then turn it over. Season the underside of the meat with a few pinches of salt and pepper. Place your pork, skin side-up, in a roasting tray and pop in the preheated oven. Roast for 30 minutes, until the skin of the pork has started to puff up and you can see it turning into crackling. At this point, turn the heat down to 170°C/325 F/gas3, cover the pork snugly with a double layer of tin foil, pop back in the oven and roast for a further 4 and a half hours.

Take out of the oven take the foil off, and baste the meat with the fat in the bottom of the tray. Carefully lift the pork up and transfer to a chopping board. Spoon all but a couple of tablespoons of fat out (save it for roast potatoes!)

Add all the veg, garlic and bay leaves to the tray and stir them into the fat. Place the pork back on top of everything and return to the ove sithout the foil to roast for another hour. By this time the meat should be meltingly soft and tender.

Carefully move the meat to a serving dish, cover again with tin foil and leave to rest while you make your gravy. Spoon away any fat in the tray, then add the water or stock and place the tray on the hob. Bring to the boil and simmer for a few minutes, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon to scrape up all those lovely sticky tasty bits on the bottom of the tray. When you’ve got a nice, dark gravy,pour it through a sieve into a bowl or gravy boat, using your spoon to really push all the goodness of the veg through the sieve. Add a little more salt and pepper if it needs it.

Serve the pork and crackling with your jug of gravy and some lovely roast potatoes (As a treat you can try roasting them in the fat you spooned out of your roasting tray. Some stewed red cabbage and a dollop of apple sauce will finish this off perfectly).