Lamb shanks with broad beans

Serves 4

If it's not a pie, it's got to be a braised dish, and lamb shanks don't often fail to hit the mark. This was last night's number, cooked the day before and reheated gently to devour - better depth of flavour and maturity on the 2nd day for sure. The juice, as much as the meat, is where this dish really is, rich and heady, mopped up with anything and everything that comes to hand, one of those nights where someone to offer a belly rub at the end of it all perfects the ultimate dining experience, for me anyway...

1 tblsp olive oil
4 lamb shanks
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 red onions, sliced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 fresh bouquet garni (sprig each of parsley and thyme, and a bay leaf)
400ml white wine
400g new potatoes
400g shelled broad beans, individually skinned (see below)
2 tblsp chopped fresh mint
3 tblsp crème fraîche

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4. Lightly oil a roasting tin, add the lamb shanks and season, then place in the oven to roast for 20 minutes.

Add the onions, garlic and bouquet garni to the roasting tin and roast for a further 20 minutes.

Add the wine and new potatoes to the lamb, mix well with the juices and return to the oven for a further 20 minutes. Add the prepared beans and return to the oven for 10 minutes.

When the lamb is cooked through, remove from the roasting tin and keep warm. Place the tin directly on the stove top and bring the juices to a simmer. Stir in the chopped mint and crème fraîche.

Serve the lamb shanks in wide bowls and ladle in the vegetables and juice.

Note: to skin fresh broad beans, plunge them into a pan of boiling water for 4 minutes, then drain and peel off the skins. If using frozen beans they can be peeled once defrosted.

Prawn laksa with noodles

Serves 4

Last night was a laksa, beer, sofa and a couple of badly pirated dvd's at home, and should anyone have experienced a better combo than that, I need to know about it as soon as possible please. Laksa is as comforting as it is fragrant, as rich as it is satisfying and way easier than you realise once you get the balance of spice and acid in the soup just right. If you increase the quantity of noodles to 200g in this recipe, it can be served as a main course. Don’t be put off by the length of this, all but the final cooking of the prawns can be done well in advance

20 whole raw prawns (about 675g)

6 tblsp sunflower oil

1 litre good chicken stock

2 onions, halved and finely sliced

3 tblsp toasted sesame oil

4 large shallots, finely diced

2 Thai chillies (or to taste), finely sliced

2 cloves garlic, finely diced

1 tblsp peeled ginger, cut into fine shreds

100g creamed coconut

1 tbsp Thai fish sauce

2 tsp Kikkoman soy sauce

170g dried vermicelli rice noodles

2 large handfuls of coriander leaves

2 limes, halved

Twist off the prawn heads and peel away their shells. Heat 2 tblsp sunflower oil in a noncorrosive saucepan over a high heat. Add the prawn heads and shells, then stir-fry briskly for 2-3 minutes until they turn pink. Add the chicken stock, bring to the boil, then simmer gently for 30 minutes. Strain and set aside.

Heat the remaining sunflower oil in a nonstick frying pan over a medium heat. Add the sliced onions and stir-fry for a minute before reducing the heat to medium-low. Sauté for 15 minutes, stirring regularly, until they turn slightly crisp and golden brown. Remove the onions with a slotted spoon and spread them out on kitchen paper to drain.

Clean the peeled prawns by running a knife down the length of their backs and removing the black digestive thread. Cover and chill.

Pour the sesame oil into a large saucepan and set over a medium heat. Add the shallots, chillies, garlic and ginger, then fry for 6 minutes until golden. Melt the creamed coconut in hot water in the sachets, then mix into the shallots with the prawn stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for a minute before adding the fish sauce, soy sauce and raw prawns. Simmer gently for 3 minutes until the prawns are pink and cooked through.

Prepare the noodles in hot water according to packet instructions, then divide between four soup bowls. Add the coriander leaves to the piping-hot soup, pour over the noodles and sprinkle with the fried onions. Serve immediately with the lime halves, or season the soup with lime juice to taste, then serve

Hainan chicken rice

Serves 4

A local specialty from the island of Hainan off the coast of China but revered through all of South East Asia, and my kitchen last night... The chicken should be just cooked, something we in the West can be totally paranoid about, but should the meat be at all dry, it is a complete failure. I could eat this for hours, and often go back, as I did quite late last night, for another couple of chunks of chicken and some cold rice - my garlic breath this morning told me a good evening was had...

Chicken

1 whole chicken, about 2kg

1 tsp salt

2 cloves garlic, peeled

4 slices fresh ginger, peeled

4 spring onions, trimmed

3 litres water

2 tblsp sesame oil

Sliced tomatoes for garnish

Sliced cucumbers for garnish

Coriander sprigs for garnish

Chicken rice

400g long grain rice

2 tblsp peanut oil

5 shallots, peeled and minced

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 litre reserved stock from cooking Hainan chicken

1/2 tsp salt

Wash chicken and remove excess fat. Rub the inside of the cavity with salt. Smash garlic and ginger slightly with the flat of a knife. Tie spring onions into a knot. Place garlic, ginger, and spring onions inside the chicken cavity.
Bring the water to a boil in a pot large enough to hold the chicken.

Add the chicken, breast-side down. Simmer, covered, 30-40 minutes, turning chicken halfway through the cooking process, until chicken tests done (juices from thigh should just run clear when pricked with a fork).

Carefully remove chicken, draining liquid from body cavity back into the pot. Reserve the stock to make chicken rice. Plunge the chicken into ice water for 5 minutes to stop the cooking process and tighten the skin. Drain, rub with sesame oil, and let cool to room temperature.

To serve, chop chicken into bite-size pieces (the Chinese do this bone and all) and arrange on a platter. Garnish with sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, and coriander sprigs.

To make the chicken rice, wash the rice and drain in a colander. Let stand 1/2 hour to dry.

Heat oil in a wok. Add the shallots and garlic. Stir-fry until fragrant. Add rice grains and stir-fry 3-4 minutes, until glossy and fragrant.

Transfer to a saucepan. Add the chicken broth and salt. Bring to a boil over high heat and boil until the liquid level evaporates to the level of the rice and steam holes appear. Turn heat to low. Cover and simmer for barely 10 minutes.

Serve the chicken with the rice, with chilli and garlic oil, dark soy sauce and chilli sauce, and a bowl of the remaining broth finished with a little chopped coriander.

Hot and sour scallop soup

Serves 4

Don’t let the long list of ingredients discourage you from trying out this delicious hot, sweet and sour soup, to which I’ve added fresh scallops as an elegant treat. As with most Chinese cooking, you will need to spend a little more time preparing the ingredients, but the actual cooking time is quite short.

1 litre fish or chicken stock

3 tblsp rice vinegar

3 tblsp light soy sauce

1 tblsp sweet chilli sauce

2 tsp caster sugar

5 shiitake mushrooms, stems removed and thinly sliced

1 small carrot, peeled and cut into thin strips

2.5cm fresh ginger, peeled and cut into thin strips

1 garlic clove, peeled and chopped

300g pack firm tofu, cut into small cubes

4 scallops, halved diagonally

225g tin bamboo shoots, rinsed and drained

2 tblsp cornflour, dissolved in 3 tbsp water

1 large free range egg, beaten

2 spring onions, trimmed and thinly sliced on the diagonal

Place the stock, vinegar, soy sauce, sweet chilli sauce and sugar in a pan and bring to a boil over high heat. Add the mushrooms, carrot, ginger and garlic, and adjust the heat to a gentle simmer. Cook for 5 minutes, or until the mushrooms and carrots are just tender.

Add the tofu, scallops and bamboo shoots. Stir in the cornflour mixture. Simmer until the soup is lightly thickened and the scallops are just cooked through, about 2-3 minutes. Slowly pour the beaten egg into the soup, gently stirring in a circular motion to create small ribbons of egg.

Ladle the soup into bowls, sprinkle with the spring onions and serve at once.

Tomato curry

Serves 4

If I found myself in a life where meat wasn't readily available, I guess vegetarianism wouldn't be the end of my world just as long as I had easy enough access to some great Indian ingredients and techniques from which some of the finest vegetarian food comes.

40g butter
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
50g fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 large hot green chilli, chopped (remove the seeds if you like)
6-7 curry leaves
1 tsp ground cumin
Seeds from 5 cardamom pods
10 tomatoes, cored and split in two widthways
Salt
75g creamed coconut dissolved in 5-6 tblsp boiling water
Squeeze of lime juice, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper
Fresh coriander, chopped, to garnish

Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed shallow pot or frying pan. Add the garlic, ginger, chilli, curry leaves (if you have them), cumin and cardamom. Allow the spices to stew gently before laying the tomatoes on top, skin side down. Lightly salt their surfaces and spoon over the coconut cream.

Loosely cover and set over an extremely low heat. Much of the juice from the tomatoes will form a sauce, helped along by the creamed coconut. When this is coming along nicely, baste the tomatoes with the sauce to amalgamate the coconut cream.

When the dish is ready – after about 30 minutes – the tomatoes should still have their shape and the sauce will be slightly separated but creamy in parts (if it seems too dry, add a little water).

Squeeze over the lime juice, grind on the pepper and sprinkle with coriander. It’s best served at room temperature as a first course, or with devilled chicken, perhaps should this vegetarian nonsense prove all to much...

Bolani flatbread

Makes 6-8

Bread seems to be the bomb right now, after a myriad of Lebanese treats last week, here's something so easy, but just that little bit different. Bolani is a delicious flaky flatbread, originally from Afghanistan, but is something popping up all over the shop now. Can be cooked and served just as it is, but is also pretty fine stuffed with anything from cooked and choppe spinach to some gorgeous simmered lentils.

500g plain flour
1 tsp salt
3 eggs, lightly beaten
150ml olive oil, plus extra for cooking

Sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Make a well in the centre, and add the eggs, olive oil and 250ml water. Bring together to make a ball of dough. Knead on a floured work surface for 10-15 minutes until very soft and elastic. Roll the dough into balls, each roughly the size of a tennis ball.

Cover with a damp cloth, and leave to rest for 30 minutes. Oil the work surface and spread out one of the balls of dough, gently pulling the edges to stretch it as thin and wide as possible.

Dust the surface with a little flour, and pleat the pastry over and over like a fan. Roll up this pleated piece of dough to make a curled ball. Repeat with the remaining balls of dough. Leave to rest for another 15 minutes.

Heat a heavy frying pan over a medium-high heat. Use your hands to pat a curled ball of dough into a circle 20cm in diameter. Add a little oil to the pan, and cook the flat disc of layered dough so that it is golden brown on each side. Repeat with the remaining balls of dough.

Serve the flatbread warm, either as they are with dips such as hoummus or tzatziki, or with pickles and yoghurt. Alternatively, folded and filled with anything that comes to mind.

Manakeesh

Having just come back from the most amazing weekend in Beirut, I can now safely say that a properly made manakeesh for breakfast is one of the true culinary finds I've made this year. If you don’t have time to make your own bread, I guess you can use a pita instead, but trust me on this one, if close to perfection is sought, you might as well gloss over this recipe and plan your next holiday in Lebanon, the only way to do this kind of food justice is to go to the source.

250g all purpose flour
20g fresh yeast or 2 tsp dry yeast
2 tsp sugar
½ tsp salt
about 125ml warm water
2 tblsp olive oil

In a large non-metal bowl, mix together the flour and salt. Form the mixture into a mound and create a well in the centre. Pour the warm water and sugar into a bowl and when the sugar has dissolved, crumble in the yeast.

When the yeast is frothy, pour it into the well in the flour. Mix it together with your hands or a wooden spoon. You’ll end up with a dry, crumbling mixture that isn’t much like dough. Cover and set aside in a warm place for 10 minutes.

Now add 2 tblsp olive oil and knead it into the dough. Add a little more warm water and knead it in to create a more dough like consistency. You’re done when the dough no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl.

Form the dough into a ball, place in a lightly greased bowl and turn it over again to make sure the top is greased. Cover and leave in a warm place to rise for 1 hour.

When the dough has risen, turn in out onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently until the dough becomes firm again. Now you’ll need to decide whether you want one big manakeesh or several small ones. Take the amount of dough you want (a small section or the whole thing), and roll it out with a rolling pin until it’s a little less than half an inch (about half a centimeter) thick. Move the dough rounds to a lightly greased baking sheet and pinch all the way around the edges to form a raised edge.

Now add your toppings, place in an oven pre-heated to 200c and bake for barely a few minutes.

Manakeesh toppings should be applied fairly thinly, for an authentic taste, don’t pile them on thick.

Olive oil and za’atar. Spread a thin coating of olive oil over the top of the bread and then spread on a layer of za’atar.

Cheese - jibne and akkawi or ricotta will work fine. Avoid Greek feta, though, as it tends to be too salty. Another option is to spread on some labneh after baking, while the bread is still warm.

Vegetables - a mixture of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions, and olives.

Minced lamb - sauté the lamb in vegetable oil until lightly browned, then add finely chopped tomato, along with pepper and parsley if you like, spread it on the bread, and pop it in the oven.