Beautiful smoky barbecued shellfish

You can use all sorts of shellfish for this: razors, clams, mussels and queen scallops. Buy only tightly closed shellfish so you know they’re still alive and fresh. If you’ve got bay, rosemary, thyme or, best of all, myrtle in your garden, whack branches on the embers to smoke underneath your shellfish. If your bars are wide apart, sit your shellfish on a baking rack so they don’t fall through.

To make your dressing, add the garlic and lemon zest and juice to a large bowl. Pour in 3 times the amount of extra virgin olive oil and add the finely chopped parsley stalks. Mix together.

Barbecued langoustines with aioli

Start by making the aïoli. Smash the garlic and salt together in a pestle and mortar. Whisk together the egg yolk and mustard in a bowl, then start adding the olive oils, bit by bit. Once you’ve blended in 150ml, add the rest in larger amounts. Finally add the smashed garlic, then lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste.

Spaghetti vongole

• 250g dried spaghetti or linguini
• 1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• small bunch of parsley, chopped
• 200g fresh clams, washed
• Olive oil
• 150ml white wine
• 2 large plum tomatoes, diced
• 1 lemon


1 Cook your pasta in boiling salted water according to packet instructions, until al dente, then drain.

Stuffed fruit crumble

• 3 cardamom pods, seeds removed
• 75g caster sugar
• 70g desiccated coconut
• 1/2 vanilla pod, split, seeds scraped
• 1 egg white
• Zest of 1 orange, juice of half
• 4 large plums (or any soft stone fruit), halved and stoned
• Vanilla ice-cream, to serve


1 Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4. Place the cardamom seeds in a mortar and grind to a powder. Pour into a bowl and mix well with the sugar, coconut, vanilla seeds, egg white, orange zest and juice.

Festive strudel

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4. Lay out 6 sheets of pastry on a clean tea towel, overlapping each by an inch or so, so they cover the tea towel. They should cover it completely, with just a little overhang at one of the shorter ends. Work quickly so your pastry doesn’t dry out and brush some melted butter all over it. Sprinkle over the cinnamon and 50g of the sugar then crumble over your ginger nuts to add a nice bit of crunch. Carefully layer the rest of the pastry sheets on top and brush again with butter.

Langoustines with tattie scones & dressed salad leaves

1. For the salsa, add the mango, melon and chilli to a bowl. Peel and finely grate the root ginger, place in a sieve and squeeze the juice through onto the fruit, pressing through with the back of a wooden spoon. Add the lime zest and juice and season with a little salt and pepper. Leave the mixture to sit for up to 20 minutes in order to allow all the flavours to meld together.

Amazing lamb rack

Preparing your lamb rack
Remove most of the fat from the back of the rack leaving a little bit to flavour the meat as it cooks. French-trim the bones by cutting the fat out around each bone down to the meat. Scrape the bones of all sinew and fat.

Pork belly roast

Turn oven to the highest temperature you can get it to. Using a Stanley knife score the skin down to the meat (try not to cut the meat), make the cuts very close together (go across the skin)
Put the fennel seeds and the malden sea salt

Fish cakes

Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. Peel your potatoes, chop them into even sized chunks (or use the left over potatoes from your baked potatoes – scoop out the potato and discard the skin), add the potatoes to the boiling water and bring back to the boil. Rub the salmon fillet all over with a little olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper.

Christmas pud sundae

Put the cranberries, half the orange juice and all of the sugar in a small pan and bring to the boil. Let it simmer for 5 to 6 minutes, stirring occasionally, until

Special spaghetti cake

Preheat the oven to 180°C. In a large bowl beat the double cream and

Raspberry jam

 Put the raspberries in a large pan along with the lemon juice