Steamed thai-style sea bass and rice

Preheat the oven to 200ºC/400ºF/gas 6. In a food processor or liquidizer, whiz up the coriander stalks, half of the coriander leaves, the ginger, garlic, halved chillies, sesame oil, soy sauce, lime juice and zest and the coconut milk. This will give you a lovely fragrant Thai-style paste.

Cook your rice in salted, boiling water until it’s just undercooked, then drain it in a colander. Scoop it into a high-sided roasting tray. Pour your Thai paste over the rice and mix it in well, then shake it out flat. Lay the sea bass fillets on top, scatter over the sugar snap peas or mangetouts, then cover the dish tightly with tinfoil and put it in the preheated oven for around 15 minutes. Remove the foil and sprinkle over the spring onions, the sliced chilli and the other half of the coriander leaves. Divide between your plates with a wedge of lime.

Creamy rhubarb and vodka cocktail

Place the rhubarb, sugar and orange juice in a small pan and put the lid on. Simmer for a couple of minutes, then remove the lid and simmer for a few minutes more until you get a thick, compote consistency. Pour the rhubarb into a sieve over a bowl and let the liquid drip through. It’s this liquid you want (the rhubarb left in the sieve is lovely served with some custard).

Put the vodka, Galliano, cream, milk, ice cubes and 2 shots of the rhubarb liquid into a cocktail shaker and shake it about. Strain into two cocktail glasses.

Easy peasy ginger beer

First of all you need to grate your ginger on a coarse cheese grater – you can leave the skin on if you like. Put the ginger with its pulpy juice into a bowl and sprinkle in your muscovado sugar. Remove the rind from 2 of your lemons with a vegetable peeler, add to the bowl, and slightly bash and squash with something heavy like a pestle or a rolling-pin. Just do this for 10 seconds, to mix up all the flavours. Squeeze the juice from all 3 lemons and add most of it to the bowl. Pour in your fizzy water or soda water. Allow to sit for 10 minutes and then taste. You may feel that the lemons are slightly too sour, therefore add a little more sugar; if it's slightly too sweet, add a little more lemon juice. To be honest, these amounts are always a little variable so just follow your own taste. Pass the ginger beer through a coarse sieve into a large jug and add lots of ice and some sprigs of mint.

Surprise pudding

Boil the beetroots until soft, then drain and allow to cool a little. Rub the skins off then mash in a food processor or with a masher till smooth. Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4. Put the beetroot purée, ginger, egg yolks, honey and olive oil in a bowl and add the seeds from 1 vanilla pod. Whisk together, then add the baking powder, polenta, orange zest and juice, salt, allspice, cinnamon and flour. In a separate bowl beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the beetroot mixture.

Get yourself a 25cm cake tin or cheesecake mould. Rub with butter and dust with a little flour to stop the cake sticking. You could also line it with greaseproof paper to be really sure. Pour in the mixture then bake in the preheated oven for around 35 minutes until spongy. Test whether it's ready by poking a cocktail stick into it – if it's clean when it comes out you know the cake's done. Allow to cool.

Whisk the crème fraîche with the vin santo, sugar and the seeds from the remaining vanilla pod. Taste and adjust to your liking with a bit more sugar and vin santo. Serve the cake in wedges with a big dollop of the vin santo and vanilla cream.