Seared beef with cucumber and seaweed

500g striploin of beef, fat and sinew trimmed off
Sunflower oil for rubbing
Salt and pepper
2 cucumbers, skin removed
10g dried wakama seaweed
3 mild red chillies, deseeded and cut into thin strips

For the sauce:
5 tbsp sweet chilli sauce
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp sunflower oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
2-3cm length of fresh ginger, grated

To serve:
45g coriander, roughly chopped
30g watercress
2 tbsp sesame seeds, lightly toasted

 

This salad makes a satisfying cold main course, served with some warm or cold vermicelli rice noodles. Bits of meat left over from a Sunday roast would work perfectly well. The cucumbers are easiest to peel with a mandolin. I highly recommend investing in one – they’re very versatile and will come in handy for many of the recipes in this supplement. Just watch your fingers – I suggest gripping the vegetable you are slicing with a cloth. You can substitute the sunflower oil for rapeseed oil. Serves 4-6

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. Rub the meat with the oil and a generous amount of salt and pepper. Sear on a piping-hot griddle so that it’s dark brown all over, and criss-crossed on every surface with black sear-strips from the pan – 3 minutes each side should do it. Now roast in the oven (15 minutes for medium-rare, or longer if you prefer it well cooked). Let it rest until close to room temperature.
While the meat is cooking, peel the cucumbers and cut into thin strips using a mandolin or peeler. Put them in a colander and sprinkle with salt. Leave to sweat for 30 minutes, pat dry, then place in a large bowl.
Soak the seaweed for 10 minutes in plenty of cold water, drain and rinse. Pat it dry, then tear into small pieces and add to the cucumber. Slice the beef into 1cm slices, cut into thin strips and add them, too, along with the chopped chillies. In a little bowl, mix the chilli sauce, sesame and sunflower oils, soy and ginger.
To serve, pour the sauce over the beef, cucumber and seaweed. Add the coriander and watercress and toss together gently. Pile up in a serving dish and sprinkle with the sesame seeds.

Braised artichokes with freekeh grains and herbs

4 large globe artichokes (2.5kg gross)
Juice of 3 medium lemons (120ml)
2 large sprigs of thyme
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
10 black peppercorns
60ml olive oil
½ a lemon, thinly sliced (40g)
200g green peas, fresh or frozen
100g freekeh, rinsed
15g mint leaves, roughly chopped
10g dill, roughly chopped
15g parsley, roughly chopped
1 tbsp pink peppercorns
10g purple basil, leaves picked
Salt and black pepper

 

If you can’t get freekeh use bulgar wheat but cook it for only 5 minutes, before draining and refreshing. Serves four

To clean the artichokes, cut off most of the stalk and start removing the tough outer leaves by hand. Once you reach the softer leaves, take a sharp serrated knife and trim off 2–3 centimetres from the top. Cut the artichoke in half lengthways so you can reach the heart and scrape it clean with a small knife. Rub the clean heart with a teaspoon of lemon juice to stop it discolouring. Cut each artichoke half into slices, 5mm thick. Place in cold water and stir in half the remaining lemon juice, about 50ml. 
Drain the artichokes and place in a sauté pan. Add the remaining lemon juice, thyme, garlic, black peppercorns, olive oil, lemon slices, 4 tablespoons of water and a pinch of salt. Cook on the stove on a medium heat for 20 to 25 minutes. By this time the artichokes should be soft and the sauce a thick consistency.
Fill a medium saucepan with plenty of cold water and bring to the boil. Add the peas and blanch for 30 seconds. Use a slotted spoon to immediately plunge them into cold water, then drain and leave to dry. Add the freekeh into the same pan and simmer gently until al dente, about 20 minutes. Drain, refresh under cold water and leave to dry.
Place the artichoke and their juices in a large mixing bowl. Add the peas, freekeh, herbs, ½ a teaspoon of salt and some black pepper and toss gently. Taste to see if more salt is needed and sprinkle with the pink peppercorns. Plate and finish with the purple basil. 

Char-grilled sprouting broccoli with sweet tahini

This salad is loved even by those who claim not to like tahini. Serves four.

550g purple-sprouting broccoli
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt and black pepper
40g tahini paste
1½ tsp honey
2 tsp lemon juice
1 small garlic clove, peeled and crushed
1 tsp each black and white sesame seeds, toasted (or just 2 tsp white)

Trim any big leaves off the broccoli and cut off the woody base of the stems. Blanch for three minutes in boiling, salted water until al dente, refresh, drain and leave to dry.

Toss the broccoli in the oil, a teaspoon of salt and a large pinch of pepper, then cook on a very hot ridged griddle pan for two minutes on each side, until slightly charred and smoky. Set aside to cool.

Whisk the tahini, honey, lemon juice, garlic and a pinch of salt, and slowly start to add water half a tablespoon at a time. At first, the sauce will look as if it has split, but it will soon come back together. Add just enough water to make the sauce the consistency of honey – around three tablespoons in total. Arrange the broccoli on a platter, drizzle with sauce and scatter with sesame seeds. Serve at room temperature.

Asparagus with celery and quails’ eggs

I’ve developed a sudden fondness for celery, especially the leaves. Supermarket celery rarely has many left on, so I buy mine at markets or greengrocers. I like the stalks braised in stock and white wine, sprinkled with fennel seeds and grated cheese, and grilled. Serves four.

400g medium asparagus, woody ends removed (net weight)
Olive oil
¾ tsp celery salt (or fine sea salt)
12 quail eggs
10g celery leaves, roughly chopped (ie from about one head of celery)
2 tsp lemon juice
Black pepper

Bring a pot of water up to a boil and blanch the asparagus for 30 seconds. With a slotted spoon, transfer the veg to a bowl of iced water. Once cool, drain and pat dry. Toss with a tablespoon of olive oil and half a teaspoon of celery salt, and set aside.

Carefully spoon the quail eggs into the same boiling water, cook for 90 seconds, lift out and plunge into iced water. Once cool, gently peel off the shells, taking care not to damage the eggs inside. Coat them in half a teaspoon of oil and a quarter-teaspoon of celery salt, and set aside.

Put a ridged griddle pan on high heat and leave until smoking hot. Chargrill the asparagus in batches, turning it over once, for about a minute on each side, or until you get clear char marks. Arrange on a serving dish and sprinkle with chopped celery leaves. Next, chargrill the eggs for a minute, turning them carefully halfway through, then remove from the pan.

At the very last minute (to prevent discolouration), drizzle lemon juice over the asparagus and celery leaves, then scatter the eggs on top, gently breaking some open with a spoon so the soft yolks burst out. Grind black pepper on top, finish with more oil and serve.

Sea trout and jersey royals with samphire and radish sal

This week I have taken some of the star ingredients of late spring and early summer, and put them together to make a dish that I imagine eating outdoors in a group, in the early evening with the sun’s rays warming up faces and bodies. That said, the various components in the dish could also easily be served separately. Trout – wild or farmed – is easy to cook and has a mild, sweet flavour that goes well with most of the season’s greens. If you want to serve it on its own, or just with the potatoes, sauté some thinly sliced fennel with a little bit of sugar, just to soften, and remove. Cook the fish as described here and serve over the fennel, sprinkled with crushed, toasted fennel seeds, a few tarragon leaves and grated lemon zest.

The salad is a bit like a pickle – sweet, sharp and crunchy. Alongside these potatoes, it makes a light vegetarian meal; it also works well spooned over sliced roast lamb or chicken. Serves four. 

4 large trout fillets (about 150g each), skin on, cleaned and pinboned
2 tbsp olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon

For the salad
1 tsp white-wine vinegar
1½ tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp olive oil
½ tsp sugar
Salt and black pepper
1 small chicory (about 100g), cut widthways into 0.5cm slices
7 radishes (about 100g), thinly sliced
100g samphire (make sure you taste it before adding to the salad – if it’s very salty, blanch for 30 seconds in boiling water, drain, refresh and dry)

For the potatoes
400g jersey royals
4 tbsp olive oil
10 spring onions, trimmed and cut into 1.5cm diagonal slices
1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed

Start with the salad. In a small bowl, whisk together the vinegar, half the lemon juice, the oil, sugar and, depending on how salty your samphire is, possibly also a quarter-teaspoon of salt (sometimes samphire remains salty even after blanching). Set aside. Put the chicory in a bowl, pour in cold water to cover and add the remaining lemon juice to prevent the chicory discolouring. In a medium bowl, stir together the radishes and samphire. Keep the three components of the salad separate until you are ready to serve.

Wash the potatoes, rubbing them gently with a scourer to remove any soil but keeping the skin on. Put the spuds in a medium pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil, simmer for 15 minutes, until tender, and drain.

While the potatoes are simmering, heat the oil in a large frying pan, add the spring onions and fry on medium heat for a few minutes, until golden brown. Remove from the heat and spoon out a tablespoon of onion and oil to use as a garnish later. Add the drained potatoes to the pan, stir in the garlic, a third of a teaspoon of salt and some pepper. Use a fork gently to stir and crush the potatoes as they heat through, then remove the pan from the heat and cover with a lid to keep warm.

When you are almost ready to serve, put together the salad. Strain the chicory and dry well. Add to the radish and samphire bowl, then stir in the dressing.

Cook the fish in two batches. Heat half the oil in a large, nonstick frying pan, season the fish all over and place skin side down in the hot pan. Cook on medium to high heat for three minutes, until the skin turns golden and crispy, then flip over and cook for 30 seconds. Squeeze over some lemon juice and remove from the pan. Repeat with the remaining oil and fish.

To serve, spoon some warm potatoes on to four dinner plates and place a fish fillet on top or alongside. Spoon the reserved oil and onion over the fish, and serve the salad on the side or separately.

Duck and mango curry

Mango, lime and duck is a fantastic combination, but it’s the heady sauce that gives this Malay curry an edge – I could eat it every day. Serve with plain rice, or with the rice dish that follows, though if you do that, omit the lemon juice. Serves six.

4 medium duck breasts, scored lightly on both sides
120ml sunflower oil
Salt
50g palm sugar (or caster sugar)
180ml coconut milk
280g french beans, blanched
2 ripe medium mangos, peeled and cut into 2cm dice
1 tbsp lime juice

For the spice paste
⅓ tsp dried chilli flakes
2½ tbsp sambal oelek 
3 medium-heat red chillies
30g fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
2-3 lemongrass stalks, sliced
1 tsp ground turmeric
12 small shallots, sliced thin
10 garlic cloves, sliced thin
1 tsp Thai or Malay shrimp paste

Put all the ingredients for the spice paste in a food processor and work to a smooth paste; you will probably need to add some sunflower oil to help, about one to two tablespoons. Put 150g of the paste in a medium bowl, add a quarter-teaspoon of salt and the duck breasts, and rub in. Cover and refrigerate for two or more hours. Set the remaining paste aside.

Put a large, heavy sauté pan on medium heat. Scrape any excess paste from the skin of the duck and add it to the reserved paste. Lay the duck skin side down in the hot pan, and sear for two to three minutes on each side, until well browned (don’t worry about the odd black bit); you may need to strain off any fat that gathers in the pan. Once seared, remove the breasts from the pan and put in a bowl. Wipe clean the pan with kitchen towel, add the remaining oil and heat up. Cook the remaining paste on medium heat for 10-15 minutes, stirring continuously, until it turns a deep red; if it starts to catch, add a splash or two of water.

Return the duck to the pan skin side down, add 250ml water and half a teaspoon of salt, and simmer for six minutes, turning once. Remove the duck, add the sugar, coconut, beans and mango, and simmer for three minutes. Meanwhile, cut the duck into 0.5cm slices and return to the curry, along with the lime juice. Cook for two to three minutes more, taste, add salt if needed, and serve.

pak choi with ginger and garlic

Seperate pak choi stalks and leaves and slice the stalks on the diagonal. chop 1 garlic clove and 2cm ginger. Heat a wok until hot then add 1 1/2tbsp groundnut oil, followed by the garlic and ginger. Add pak choi with a splash of water one minute later. Add the leaves, 2tbsp oyster sauce and black pepper. 

Hot smoked trout with fennel, peas and ricotta

A delicate but zesty light lunch. Serves four as a first course.

75ml olive oil, plus extra to finish
2 tbsp lemon juice
5g picked dill leaves
Salt and black pepper
1 large fennel bulb, trimmed and very thinly shaved
100g soft rindless goat’s cheese, broken into chunks
¾ tsp fennel seeds, toasted and lightly crushed
½ tsp grated lemon zest
40g pea shoots
4 hot-smoked trout fillets
150g peas (frozen are fine), blanched for a minute, refreshed and drained
1 tsp pink peppercorns, crushed

Put the oil, lemon juice and dill in a large bowl, add half a teaspoon of salt and some black pepper, and whisk. Add the fennel, stir and leave to marinate for about 30 minutes. Put the cheese in another bowl and mix in the fennel seeds, lemon zest and an eighth of a teaspoon of salt.

To serve, add the pea shoots to the large bowl, flake the trout into 5cm pieces and add these, too, with the peas and peppercorns. Mix gently, transfer to a serving dish, dot cheese on top, drizzle with oil and serve.

How to cook fish

Fish is one of the simplest, quickest, tastiest and most versatile ways of making supper in an instant. Raw or baked, fried or stewed, poached or parcelled up, it often takes only a matter of minutes to get fish to a state where it’s ready to eat.

Raw fish suppers admittedly require a little planning, not least in the acquisition of the main ingredient. But once you’ve got hold of some spankingly fresh fish, all you need do is cube or thinly slice it, then mix with chopped capers, gherkins, red onion and parsley, a squeeze of lemon and a few drops of Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce, and you’ve got a fish tartare to serve on toast while it’s still light outside.

Baked fish – be that whole in an oiled roasting tray or wrapped in a foil parcel – takes minutes to prepare and cook, and couldn’t be any easier or healthier. Cut slits in the skin, both to make sure it cooks through and to provide handy pockets for some thin slivers of garlic or lemon, a little olive oil and/or white wine, hard herbs such as rosemary or thyme, or a splash of soy and a slice of ginger.

Shallow-frying a fish fillet, meanwhile, takes less time than poaching an egg and steaming some spinach; do all three at once and you have just about the most comforting instant meal known to the midweek table.

As for stewed, poached and braised fish, to get “instant” results takes some advance cooking (you can do this in bulk, and freeze the results in batches), but after that you need spend only a very short time at the stove. Unlike meat, fish stews, poaches or braises within minutes, so concentrate your efforts on getting flavour and depth into the cooking liquids: sweat onions until soft and sweet; use ripe, soft tomatoes; and dry-roast and grind spices from scratch.

Then there’s that staple of many an instant meal, canned fish. Salty tinned anchovies and good-quality tuna are stalwarts here, not least on pizza. Tinned sardines are another, and not just for students: one of my favourite quick meals is to blitz some with a dash of Tabasco, a little Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice and tomato ketchup, and spread it on toast. Likewise, mashed tinned sardines or mackerel, mixed with lemon juice and sour cream or olive oil, make a great sauce for pasta or addition to potato salad.

Or how about smoked fish? Smoked haddock omelette takes minutes to prepare, while smoked mackerel pâté is even quicker: you can whizz one up in seconds with some English mustard, crème fraîche, lemon juice and a pinch of cayenne. There are so many options, it’s no wonder the fish supper – and not just the battered variety – holds such a special place in our hearts.

Sprouting broccoli and edamame salad with curry leaves and lime

This stunning salad works just as well without the coconut – it’s your call – though I must point out that the chewy texture of the freshly grated flakes contrasts brilliantly with the more yielding beans. Please try to get hold of fresh curry leaves for this, and use freeze-dried only if you have no other choice. Serves four.

400g purple sprouting broccoli, washed and trimmed
220g french beans, trimmed
Salt
200g frozen podded edamame beans
2 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, peeled and finely diced 
2½ tsp black mustard seeds
30 fresh curry leaves (or 40, if using freeze-dried)
3 whole dried chillies (or fewer, depending on how hot they are)
Shaved skin of 1 lime, plus 1 tbsp lime juice
5g picked coriander leaves
35g coarsely grated fresh coconut (optional)

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the broccoli, french beans and some salt, and blanch for three to five minutes, until cooked but still with some bite. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the vegetables to a colander and run under cold water. Drain, pat dry, transfer to a large bowl and set aside. Return the pan of water to the boil, add the edamame beans and blanch for two minutes. Transfer to the colander, run under cold water, pat dry and add to the broccoli and french beans. Sprinkle half a teaspoon of salt over the vegetables, stir and set aside.

Heat the oil in a frying pan on a medium-high heat. Add the onion, along with a quarter-teaspoon of salt, and cook for about four minutes, until soft. Add the black mustard seeds and, when they begin to pop, the curry leaves, chillies and lime skin. Fry for two minutes more, then tip over the vegetables, stir again and set aside for 10 minutes.

Just before serving, add the lime juice, coriander and coconut, if using. Give everything a very gentle stir and serve.