In week 8 of the Leiths Confident Cooking course we deboned wood pigeon and made strudel from scratch.

Apple strudel

I really enjoyed this class. It never occurred to me that we would be making the filo pastry for the apple strudel from scratch. Nor that making filo would be so much fun. Who knew?

The ingredients for filo were simple: plain flour, salt, egg, water and oil. We mixed the ingredients to make a soft dough and then had to whack it repeatedly to strengthen the proteins and make it elastic. This was awesome stress release as we could be quite vigorous and there’s really no chance of overdoing it, although occasionally the pastry flew off and hit the floor. The instructors implemented a ‘five-second rule’ to ensure the dough was not wasted.

It reached the right consistency when we could pull the dough like a long elastic band without it snapping. We then put it aside while we prepared the filling - apple, currants, sultanas, raisins, brown sugar, cinnamon, ground cloves, browned breadcrumbs, lemon zest and juice.

After 15 minutes we each rolled our pastry out flat with a rolling pin, before easing our fingers underneath and dancing them around to stretch the dough until it until it was paper thin. I’ve seen pizza makers do something similar with pizza dough but this is much thinner. We worked in pairs for this last bit as we ended up with more than a square foot of pastry. The result was thin, large sheet of filo. We trimmed the edges, brushed it with melted butter and then put the filling. Then we rolled it up using the same method as for the roulade or sushi.

It’s possible to do individual servings but as I was making one big strudel, I followed the suggestion to arrange the strudel in a traditional horseshoe shape. Then the strudel baked it in the oven for 40 minutes until golden brown. The result was mind-bogglingly good - it would have been even better with some ice cream or crème anglaise but it was great on its own.

NB This post is labelled vegetarian for the strudel - the next dish is meat based.

Wood pigeon and black pudding salad

I wouldn’t dream of eating one of those dirty pigeons from Trafalgar Square but these little birds are quite a different beast altogether. This was partly a lesson in knife skills - the birds came whole and we learnt how to slice off the breast. Our instructor commented that this would be useful if any of us have friends with husbands who shoot - although a much bigger bird, you can apparently deal with a pheasant the same way and it saves you the trouble of plucking it. This was well meant but I did find it amusing - dealing with gifts of pheasants from husbands of friends who attend country shooting weekends is not generally a part of my life. Still you never know.

I discovered I really liked the taste of pigeon - it’s very dark and gamey, a lot like venison. We fried the pigeon and also smoked bacon cut into lardons and chunks of black pudding - separately so we didn’t contaminate anything with burnt bits. The meats went into the salad with lamb lettuce, croutons and balsamic dressing.

I must admit it did taste good though I remain dubious about the black pudding. Objectively speaking the black pudding tasted great. Subjectively speaking I was never not conscious of the fact that I was eating congealed blood. I’m not particularly sure I would make this - it’s not worth the effort for one, and I wouldn’t serve it at a dinner party unless I knew my guests were fans of black pudding. However, I might explore other possibilities for pigeon and would certainly order it at a restaurant.

My recipe for ‘caponata’ - the classic Sicilian vegetable dish starring aubergine and tomato and flavoured with olives and capers

Here in London, summer has arrived with a sudden burst. The days are long and sunshiney, the lawns and trees dazzle with emerald green, and there are roses blooming everywhere. As I sit here at 9.30pm, I can hear the birds singing outside, a cool breeze is blowing in through the window and the twilight sky is turning a soft peach and mauve colour. England can be glorious in June, though it pays to make the most of it because the summers are often so brief and the next rainy spell can be just around the corner.

It’s time too for summer food. The queen of the spring foods, asparagus, is still in season but not for much longer, now that English strawberries and raspberries are making an appearance. There are also plenty of aubergines (eggplants) around. This is one of my favourite vegetables and should be bought firm and a glossy dark purple.

To me, caponata is a dish that screams summer. It’s great on pasta or toasted Italian bread, or as a side dish. It’s good when it’s first made but it’s even better after a day or two in the fridge and can be eaten cold or room temperature. It’s great for using up a glut of tomatoes from the garden or bought in bulk at a street market, but it works perfectly well with tinned tomatoes. There are endless variations on caponata - you can use peppers (capsicum) for example - and it’s really a matter of using what’s available and in season.

This is my version of a very simple caponata. I really love the flavours of the meaty aubergine and tomato, the earthy celery and the zing of olives and capers. Some caponatas are very oily - in this version the aubergine cooks mostly in the liquids of the tomato so it’s very low fat and really ridiculously healthy. But good.

Ingredients

2 aubergines
2 celery sticks
600g crushed tomatoes (1.5 tins)
1 onion
2-3 garlic cloves
1-2 tbs olive oil
Dried Italian herbs including 1 bayleaf
24 kalamata olives
1 tbs capers
Salt and pepper

To serve: 5 leaves fresh basil

Method

1. Chop the onions finely and crush or finely slice the garlic. Dice the aubergine into 1cm chunks and slice the celery. Pit and slice the olives (a cherry deseeder is useful or you can simply cut around the seed with a knife).

2. Fry the onion and garlic gently in a heavy pot with a little oil until it is translucent and soft. Add the celery and then the aubergine. Add a little more oil if needed. Cook until the ingredients start to brown slightly.

3. Add tomatoes, dried herbs, olives and capers. Leave to simmer with the lid on. The dish is not ready until the aubergine is extremely tender. It is essential that you don’t get impatient - rubbery aubergine is horrible!

4. Season with salt and pepper. If you have fresh basil, then chiffanade it by rolling the leaves up and slicing it finely. Scatter the basil over the dish to serve. If you have some wonderful ripe tomatoes, you could chop or slice them and add them to the dish as well (but don’t bother unless the tomatoes are especially good). Serve hot or cold.

Another aubergine idea: Simon Hopkinson’s Asian-style fried aubergine with chilli and salad onions. Not quite as healthy but very tasty!

It’s a double-whammy of Leiths posts as I try to get up to date before the class tomorrow night. It’s hard to believe it’s week six already - more than halfway through the course!

Last week the menu was pork tenderloin with sage and madeira sauce, accompanied by crushed new potatoes and peas. We had a dessert for the first time since the second week - citrus fruit compote with spiced caramel sauce. The good news - for my tastebuds, that is, not my waistline - is that we have desserts every week now until the end of the course.

Pork tenderloin with sage and madeira

The pork tenderloin was a triumph. Apparently it’s called ‘tenderloin’ in the United States, while in the UK it’s either called ‘tenderloin’ or ‘fillet’. But those are the only two names it’s known by. It’s very lean, which is great because it’s healthy, but it also means that you have to cook it with great care to ensure it doesn’t get over-cooked and tough.

We trimmed the pork fillets of membrane and outer fat and browned them in a pan with half a tablespoon of sunflower oil. Then we transferred it to a roasting tin and put it in the oven at 190C (350F/Gas Mark 5) for 15-20 minutes.

In the mean time, we poured off any excess fat (there wasn’t any in my case because the meat was so lean and I’d trimmed off any visible fat). Then we added the Madeira and reduced by half, before adding the chicken stock. It didn’t thicken so we had to add a little beurre manie - basically flour and butter - to develop the syrupy consistency. Apparently sherry would also work in place of Madeira.

The pork is done when you put a knife through the meat and it comes out hot where it would have touched the centre of the meat. A lot of people think that it’s dangerous to have underdone pork, just as it’s dangerous to eat chicken that is not properly cooked. The Leiths teachers said this was no longer the case - apparently this perception dates from the days when pigs were fed swill and were prone to gut parasites, but this is not allowed any more and it’s perfectly safe to eat it slightly pink. (However, the Food Standards Agency disagrees).

We set the pork to rest slightly and served it with the sauce, scattered with chiffanaded sage, and accompanied by new potatoes crushed with peas. I opted for olive oil with the potatoes rather than butter. It was amazingly good - lean yet tender and full of flavour. I would definitely make that again.

Citrus fruit compote with spiced caramel

The dessert was quite tricky because we had to make caramel sauce, which involves slowly dissolving sugar in water. Once it’s dissolved, we turned the heat up and boiled without stirring until it turned a dark caramel colour. It is incredibly tempting to stir it but this is risky as it can make the sugar re-crystalise. Once it hitsthe right colour - and not a moment later - we had to remove it from the heat and pour in cold water, taking care not to get burnt by spitting sugar. Then we added spices, including bay leaves, star anise, a cinnamon stick, coriander seeds, lemon zest and root ginger, and left it to cool (to be strained the next day). We were told this would keep in the fridge for weeks.

The fruit compote was slightly easier. We sliced the kumquats finely to avoid big chunks of bitter fruit and peeled and cored the pineapple. The oranges and pink grapefruit were a test of our knife skills, as we had to remove the peel and white pith but keep them separated into attractive segments.

I think of a compote as cooked fruit. This was not cooked, though it was warmed slightly when we poured over the hot caramel sauce. Either way, it was definitely tasty! I really liked the spiced caramel - it would be great over ice cream. It was nice with the fruit as well and it’s good to have a vegan dessert recipe up my sleeve for when the occasion demands it.

Make the most of the all-too-brief English asparagus season by devouring the succulent green stems by the plateful - plus some cool trivia about ’sparrow grass’

It’s a foodie cliché to declare your love for asparagus, particularly here in Britain where asparagus lovers are so passionate they even have a two-month festival devoted to it. English asparagus is widely considered to be the best in the world - though I rather suspect the secret is freshness and it’s good anywhere as long as it doesn’t have long to travel from plate to fork.

But cliché or not, love it I do. And whether it’s the Englishness of the asparagus or its freshness, I won’t have any truck with imported asparagus in the depths of winter, because apart from the nasty business of food miles, it’s just not the same. At this time of year, the markets and shops are positively bursting with bunches of fat spears of asparagus. I buy as much of it as I can afford and eat as much of it as I can. I never seem to get sick of it but the asparagus hit is enough to keep me going until next May.

There are many recipes involving asparagus and of course it’s good with butter or hollandaise sauce (what isn’t?) but I usually eat it very plain - lightly cooked and sprinkled with salt and pepper, often with scrambled or poached eggs at breakfast time. I don’t really see the point of an asparagus steamer since it can’t be used for anything else (if you saw the size of my kitchen you would understand why). I either simmer it in a few inches of water, or if it is particularly thick and woody I cut it in half and cook the tips in a steamer and boil the bottoms in the same pot (which is basically what an asparagus steamer does anyway but without having to cut the stems). Asparagus is also good barbecued, which I only recently discovered at Sunday lunch at my friend Emme and Jon’s house. If you want inspiration for some fancier recipes, then look no further than May’s In the Bag seasonal cooking blogging event. There’s a further 26 asparagus recipes on the official British Asparagus website.

Now asparagus is never trivial but it is associated with some cool trivia:

• * Asparagus is also a member of the lily family, along with onions, and has been cultivated since ancient times. The name “asparagus” comes from a Greek word meaning “sprout”.

• * It’s also called ‘Hadley grass’ or just ‘grass’, particularly in Massachusetts. ‘Grass’ is sort for ’sparrow grass’, a 17th century corruption of ‘asparagus’. The best stuff was grown in the Mass town of Hadley (and still is, if you live in New England).

• * It can make your pee smelly funny. About half the population experience strange smelling (and sometimes green!) urine after eating asparagus due to sulphur-containing amino acids in the veg that break down during digestion.

• * Asparagus can be purple or white as well as green, but the white effect is achieved by growing it in the dark. The white type is popular in mainland Europe but can occasionally be found in the UK - be warned it takes twice as long to cook. I think the white stuff is nice but the flavour is more intense with the green variety, so it depends whether you prefer a more subtle or vibrant flavour. I prefer the green stuff, personally.

• * Asparagus grows from a crown planted a foot deep in sandy soils and in ideal conditions it can grow 10 inches in a day. Oh and it has virtually not calories or fat and is full of vitamins and minerals.

This is my version of pasta primavera - food to celebrate spring. You could make this at another time of year using good quality frozen peas and broad beans, or you could vary the recipe by using other spring vegetables such as leeks, spring onions, asparagus, snap peas.

This is vegetarian but if you prefer, you could make it with bacon and omit the feta. I prefer it this way as it tastes fresh and wholesome.

Ingredients

Penne, 2 cups
Olive oil, 1 tbs
Onion, 1/2
Garlic, 2 cloves
Peas, 1/2 cup
Broad beans (fava beans), 1/2 cup
Zucchini (courgette), 2 medium
Feta cheese, 70g
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Fresh mint, 2-3 tbs
Salt and pepper

Method

Cook the penne in boiling salted water until al dente, then drain. Transfer the penne to a bowl, stir in the lemon juice and set aside.

Meanwhile, chop the onion finely and crush the garlic. Top and tail the zucchini, then slice lengthways into thin, flat strips.

Heat the oil in a frypan, add the onion and garlic and cook on a low heat until translucent. Add the zucchini and keep frying on a low heat, stirring occasionally until it softens and browns. Add the peas and broad beans and cook for a few further minutes, until everything is warm and cooked. Mix the vegetables with the penne.

Chop the feta into cubes and chiffanade the mint (by rolling the leaves and then slicing to make long thin strips). Mix the cheese and mint into the pasta mix, season with salt and pepper and serve.

Serves 2-3 people.

I am keen to try out more healthy and diet-friendly recipes and also expand my knowledge of vegetarian cookery. I also love lasagne and believe that a good vegetarian lasagne is an essential dish in any cook’s repertoire. This recipe for lentil, mushroom and ricotta lasagne comes from The Low GI Vegetarian Cookbook by Dr Jennie Brand-Miller, Kaye Foster-Powell, Kate Marsh and Philippa Sandall. As the title of the book suggests, it’s both low GI and vegetarian. It serves six and the nutrition details per serve are: 1797 kilojoules (429 calories); 14g fat (saturated fat 6g); 7g fibre; 24g protein; 50g carbohydrate.

Lentil, mushroom and ricotta lasagne
Serves 6 * Preparation time: 20 minutes * Cooking time: 1 hour * Cooling time: 5 minutes

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 brown onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, peeled, finely chopped
1 stick celery, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon freshly chopped thyme leaves
1 tablespoon tomato paste
400g (14 oz) can chopped tomatoes
400g (14 oz) can brown lentils, rinsed
400g (14 oz) button mushrooms, sliced
salt and freshly ground black pepper
500g (1 lb 2 oz) low fat ricotta
1 egg
125ml (4 fl oz / 1/2 cup) skim milk
pinch nutmeg
4 (30 x 16cm / 12 x 6 1/2 inch) fresh lasagne sheets
25g (1 oz / 1/4 cup) finely grated parmesan

1. Heat half the oil in a large, heavy-based saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the onion, carrot and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, for 6-8 minutes, or until the vegetables soften. Add the garlic and thyme and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes and lentils and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes or until sauce thickens. Remove from heat and set aside.

2. Heat the remaining oil in a large pan, add the mushrooms and cook, stirring, for 3-4 minutes, or until slightly soft. Season and remove from heat.

3. Preheat oven to 180C (350F / Gas 4). Lightly oil a 2 litre (2 quart / 8 cup) ovenproof dish. Combine the ricotta, egg, milk and nutmeg in a bowl.

4. To assemble the lasagne, place a sheet of lasagne in the base of the prepared dish. Top with a third of the lentil mixture, scatter over a third of the mushrooms and smooth over a third of the ricotta mixture. Repeat these steps. Then top with a third lasagne sheet, the remaining lentils and mushrooms, then a fourth lasagne sheet, and finally the remaining ricotta. Sprinkle over the parmesan.

5. Bake for 30 minutes, or until top is golden and bubbling. Set aside to rest for 5 minutes before cutting.

Road test
A note on ingredients: I used vegetable oil instead of olive oil and substituted dried Italian herbs in place of fresh thyme. I also used full-fat ricotta and semi-skimmed milk rather than the low-fat ricotta and skimmed milk specified, so my calorie and fat count would be slightly higher than indicated on the recipe. I cooked French brown lentils from scratch instead of using canned lentils, omitted the tomato paste and added a teaspoon of miso paste to enhance the tomato vegetable sauce. My fresh lasagne sheets were small, so I had to use two sheets per layer instead of one.

Method: The recipe was very easy to follow and it didn’t take too long, even allowing for an extra 20 minutes to cook my dried lentils. Most of the cooking time is in the oven and doesn’t require close attention. I followed the metric measurements.

Result: This is a satisfying and tasty dish - it’s hard to believe it’s diet food. The portions were more than adequate, especially when served with a garden salad, and the leftovers were great for lunch or a quick supper throughout the week.

Verdict
It’s great to find vegetarian recipes that don’t rely on fake meat for protein but still taste really good. I have tried vegetarian lasagne recipes before and this is definitely my favourite so far. What a bonus that it’s also so healthy! I would definitely make this again. Next time I would probably still add the miso to give it a very full flavour but maybe only half a teaspoon as I found it quite strong (though my partner couldn’t taste it).

Forced rhubarb is available in England at this time of year. It’s notable mainly for the stunning colour, which ranges from pale pink to fuschia. The main crop rhubarb, which comes later in spring, is a darker, cherry red.

This month’s In the Bag event, which focuses on seasonal eating, has forced rhubarb as the star ingredient, along with orange and sugar. (Last month, the theme was pears, almonds and lemon and you can see my effort here and all the other recipes over on the A Slice of Cherry Pie blog, which hosts the event).

There is a debate among cooks about the best way to cook rhubarb and what the desired consistency is. Some cooks go to great lengths to ensure that rhubarb holds its shape. Recently I had a rhubarb trifle at Alastair Little’s in London, which featured small, defined chunks of rhubarb. Angela on A Spoonful of Sugar recommends oven poaching rhubarb to ensure this effect.

“This is the only way to cook rhubarb in my opinion. It preserves the gorgeous colour of the rhubarb and also keeps the shape of each piece intact - I suspect that many a child has been put off rhubarb by being served stewed rhubarb which is generally a rather dubiously coloured puree with stringy bits in it.”

I don’t subscribe to this school of thought. There’s certainly an aesthetic difference and some people think it is prettier with the rhubarb intact. However, I think that it compromises the flavour. Rhubarb is very tart and requires sweetening. I believe the rhubarb needs to fall apart in order to blend properly with the sugar - otherwise you end up with chunks of tart rhubarb sitting in syrup.

To my mind, the best and simplest way to cook rhubarb is to slice it into small chunks about 2cm long. This counteracts the stringiness, which usually comes from the cook trying to stew huge long chunks of rhubarb. Then put it in a pot with the juice of half an orange, stirring occasionally to prevent it sticking to the bottom. Do not add any water as the rhubarb will release water when cooking. If you are not using the orange juice, you could add a couple of tablespoons of water but that’s all. When the rhubarb is soft and starting to lose its shape, add sugar. How much sugar depends on your personal taste and the flavour of the rhubarb, but I used about 50g (half a metric cup) for 400g rhubarb and that seemed about right. Adding the sugar at the end, rather than during cooking, helps preserve the colour (as you can see in the picture).

The cooked rhubarb is lovely served hot with vanilla ice cream or cooled and mixed with custard or whipped cream (or yogurt if you’re trying to be healthy!) to make a rhubarb fool. The blend of tartness and sweetness is sublime, and fruit and cream is a classic that is hard to beat.

Rhubarb & Orange Cream Pudding

The whole point of these events is challenge and innovation, so I decided to try something new. (It also requires the rhubarb to be puréed, thus side-stepping the whole texture debate). I based this dessert on my aunt’s orange flummerie but I had to alter the recipe to accommodate the stewed rhubarb, which is not pure liquid. I also decided to made this with agar agar rather than gelatine. Agar agar is a flavourless Japanese gelling agent made from seaweed and it’s a vegetarian substitute for gelatine.

This recipe is also surprisingly low in calories and fat. There is sugar and cream but the recipe serves 4, so each person is getting 12.5g sugar (50 calories) and 12.5g double cream (55.6 calories; 5.9g fat).

Ingredients

Forced rhubarb, 400g

One orange, juiced and half zested

Caster sugar, 50g (adjust quantity to taste)

Agar agar, 2 tablespoons

Water

Greek yogurt, 50g

Double cream, 50g

Blanched almonds or hazelnuts to serve (optional)

Method

1. Wash and chop rhubarb into 2cm chunks. Cook with half the orange juice, according to the instructions above, then stir in the sugar. Leave to cool. (This step can be done in advance).
2. Blend the rhubarb in a food processor.
3. Pour 1 cup (250ml) water into a small saucepan and sprinkle with agar agar flakes without stirring. Heat and then simmer for 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Add the rest of the orange juice and one teaspoon of orange zest to the rhubarb and top up with a little water to make 1 cup (250ml)
5. Pour the hot water and agar agar into the rhubarb and orange mix and stir thoroughly. Leave to cool.
6. Once it is tepid to cool, spoon in the yogurt and cream, and fold it into the jelly mix, which will be starting to set.
7. Transfer to 4 serving bowls or glasses, and cover with plastic food wrap before transferring to the fridge.
8. Serve with a garnish of blanched almonds or hazelnuts.

Notes

This was my first time using agar agar and it worked very well but it sets a lot more quickly than gelatine. You can’t fold in the dairy until it’s cool (or the dairy will curdle), but leave it too long and the jelly will already be solid. Check after about 20 minutes.

If you prefer to use gelatine, then you will need to read the instructions as the ratio of liquid to gelatine may be different. You will need to add enough gelatine based on the rhubarb being liquid, but dissolve the crystals in boiling water. You could also use packet jelly if you prefer but would suggest lemon flavour is best as it is not too sweet.

Results

The pudding was a pretty pale pink and tasted sweet and tangy. The texture was creamy and mostly smooth, with the occasional fleck of orange zest or titbit of rhubarb. It reminded me a little of the mango puddings you get in Chinese restaurant, though not quite as sweet (I believe they use sweetened condensed milk).

Everyone is familiar with Mexican food in some guise but usually what we get in the English speaking world and Europe is actually Tex-Mex - an Americanised version of Mexican food. I’m told that nachos, for example, is not traditional in Mexico, that the burritos are usually smaller and skimpier on the fillings, and that tacos have soft shells.

In Sydney, nachos were ubiquitous on café menus throughout most of the 1990s, though the trend seems to have died off now. They might not be traditional but they were very good - a rich spicy red kidney bean stew, crunchy corn chips, melted cheese and spicy homemade guacamole. Imagine my disappointment when I went to the United States for the first time and encountered the liquid cheese horror of Taco Bell!

That is not fair, of course. The US has some fabulous Mexican - or Tex-Mex - food. I encountered it in Brooklyn, in Mexican Town in Detroit, and of course, in California where the cuisine really comes into its own.

In London, one of my favourite places for a burrito is the Daddy Donkey cart on the Leather Lane street market in Clerkenwell. It’s not cheap - it costs around £5 - but they keep the quality of their ingredients very high. You can get either a wrap or a salad bowl and they have chicken, beef, pork or vegetarian options. The meat is always tender, the salad crisp, the guacamole fresh and tangy, and the black beans and rice marvellously satisfying. Buy it to take back to your desk or grab a seat on one of the picnic tables beside the van.

Restaurant Review: Taqueria

Sometimes you want to sit down for a meal and the sad truth is that London is starved of good Mexican restaurants. Enter Taqueria in Notting Hill.

I have never been to Mexico but I’m pretty sure that the food here is as authentic as you’ll get outside Mexico. It’s quite unlike any Mexican food I’ve had anywhere else, with homemade tacos and light, fresh toppings.

The website says the restaurant makes everything from scratch, from Mexican chorizo to the hot chocolate, which is ground in house. They go to great length to source Mexican ingredients - the parent company, Cool Chile Co imports dried chiles and herbs, masa harina (tortilla corn flour), corn husks and pozole (a stew made from hominy - a type of dried maize) directly from Mexico, while the Mexican chiles are from Dorset-based Peppers by Post. They use organic chickens, British meats and cheeses to supplement the Mexican ingredients.

The food is very good indeed. The best thing to get are the tacos, which come in pairs. If you have a group of people you can order an assortment of tacos and try a few different flavours. The portions are not huge so you will need 2-4 tacos per person, depending on whether you have appetisers or dessert as well. Flavours include “carnitas” (shredded slow-cooked pork, green salsa, diced onion, coriander), “spinacas y queso” (browned cheese with spinach and red salsa on large tortillas) and “camaron” beer-battered prawns, avocado mash, chipotle mayonnaise, Mexican salsa, limey shredded cabbage, doubled tortillas. Vegetarians are catered for but the selection is not overly large.

For the drinks, I recommend the Horchata, a rice milk drink flavoured with almond and cinnamon. It’s sweet and smooth and quite delicious. The Flor de Jamaica, or hibiscus juice, is quite nice as well, tasting, not surprisingly, quite like hibiscus tea.

It will be difficult to leave without doing dessert as well. My favourite is the “plátanos con cajeta”. A banana split by another name, it features fried plantain (cooking banana), coconut ice cream, cajeta (goats milk toffee) and toasted almonds. It is simply perfect. There is also a hibiscus pudding, ice cream or sorbet, and the classic option of churros (doughnut sticks) with Mexican hot chocolate.

The service is occasionally patchy but generally good and it’s always friendly. Aside from a slightly overdone taco on my last visit, the quality of the food is exceptional.

Taqueria
Address: 139-143 Westbourne Grove, London W11 2RS
Tel: +44 (0)20 7229 4734
Web: www.coolchiletaqueria.co.uk

Mexico is my third country to feature on my UN food challenge, after Ghana and New Zealand. There are 189 countries to go…

Who can resist these beautiful macaroons from Yauatcha? See how pretty they are in their box with all the different colours lined up. Even the packaging - a hard box with a ribbon and a frosted stiff plastic bag - is gorgeous.

After reading about the macaroons in Time Out and blogging about them yesterday, our fate was sealed. We had to try them out. It’s an enormously decadent treat - one box of 18 macaroons cost about £25 - but oh boy, are they good. So far we’ve tried a blue one with a blackcurrant filling, a white speckled one with a sesame paste, and a green tea-flavoured one.

At those prices, I can’t see us bringing them home terribly often, but they would make a lovely gift for someone. Meanwhile, I’m definitely going to try making them.

Yauatcha
Address: 15-17 Broadwick St, W1F 0DL
Tel: +44 (0)20 7494 8888
Tube: Oxford Circus or Piccadilly Circus

My mother sent me off to university with a folder full of her recipes, including this one for spinach pie. It’s one of my very favourite meals and always a hit in my household. I love the combination of sweet spinach with rich, salty feta, wrapped in delicious flaky pastry.

You can use the same filling for cheese and spinach triangles, which make great party food. I usually make a pie, which is less fiddly and makes a good vegetarian main course. It’s actually incredibly easy - about 20 minutes prep and then it bakes in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour.

Spinach and friends

The pie is named after Popeye’s favourite food but you can actually use a variety of leaves, not just spinach. The term “spinach” has different meanings in different countries anyway.

In Australia, there is a vegetable with white stems and shiny, rippled, dark green leaves that tastes very similar to spinach. Australians often call this “spinach” or, when they are being precise, they call it “silverbeet”. True spinach is usually called “English spinach”.

In the UK, “English spinach” is just called “spinach”. It’s fine to use this, though I would recommend you get the adult leaves if you can. The baby spinach leaves used for salad are expensive and the flavour is not as strong, which is great for eating them raw but not so suitable for cooking. I have also tried frozen spinach and this works fine but the flavour is not as good.

You can also get “silverbeet” in the UK except here it’s called “Swiss chard”. There is also a variant called “rainbow chard”, which has a bright red stem and some red colouring on the mostly green leaves. You can use either type and the taste will be similar, but obviously the rainbow version will add pretty red streaks to the white and green of the pie filling.

Last year I did a food writing course at the Arvon Foundation with Sophie Grigson and Alastair Hendy. With eight budding food writers on the course, plus our tutors and the Arvon staff, we ate fabulous meals almost every night. Since we had vegetarians on the course, I contributed this pie to one of the meals. We had a bit of a shortage of either chard or spinach but Sophie taught me that you can use the stems and leaves of beetroot. Meanwhile, John who works at Arvon, taught me that you can use the tender new leaves of stinging nettle, and we actually went out the back of the farmhouse in Devon where the Arvon courses are taught and collected nettle to add to the pie.

Sophie suggested it should really be called “green pie”, but I persist in calling it “spinach pie” since that’s what I grew up calling it, and I think it’s more meaningful to most people.

My personal preference is to use silverbeet/chard, which has a sweeter flavour than English spinach, and I use the stems as well, finely sliced to give it extra texture and flavour. Some spinach pie recipes use ricotta but I prefer my version, with feta and cottage cheese.

Pastry and friends

A friend in Austria told me that he makes his filo from scratch. This impresses me enormously but it’s a highly specialist skill so I do recommend you buy filo - this is what most professionals do anyway. Filo is generally for sale in both the refrigerated section and frozen aisle of the supermarket. I prefer the refrigerated kind as it’s ready to work with immediately. If you can only find the frozen kind, you will need to let it thaw as it is very brittle when frozen. Don’t try microwaving it as the pastry will stick together and turn into glue! It sometimes comes in two sizes - buy the bigger one if possible, but you can get pretty good results by layering smaller sheets if necessary.

It is essential to brush oil or melted butter between each sheet of pastry as this is what gives it the lovely flaky layered effect. Otherwise the pastry sticks together in clumps and is quite dull. My mother always used melted butter but I generally use oil as it’s healthier and also easier since you don’t have to melt it first. I’ve been told that egg whites are a substitute but this didn’t work for me - I just wound up with all the pastry sticking together in one ultra crunchy sheet. I’ve also been told that a mix of whole eggs and milk beaten together can also work - this worked better but was not wholly satisfactory either. I would say stick to oil and if you are trying to reduce fat, you could probably get away with only brushing every second sheet.

Recipe

Ingredients

Filo pastry, 12 sheets

Oil (olive oil is nice but any plain cooking oil is fine) or melted butter, 100g

Spinach or silverbeet/chard or other green leaves, 2 bunches or 1 generous bunch

Plain cottage cheese, 200g

Feta cheese, 200g (chopped into small cubes)

Eggs, 3 (it doesn’t really matter if they are medium or large but do buy free range or organic if you can!)

Garlic, 1 clove (crushed or finely chopped)

Salt and pepper

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
2. Rinse the spinach well. Plunge it into boiling water for a minute or two and then drain. Leave to cool and then ring the leaves out by hand to remove as much liquid as possible.
3. Mix the eggs, feta, cottage cheese, garlic, and salt and pepper in a bowl. Mix in the leaves.
4. Take a rectangular baking dish and layer six sheets of pastry, brushing oil or melted butter between each sheet.
5. Spoon the spinach and cheese on top of the pastry and spread evenly.
6. Add another six layers of pastry, brushing oil between each layer and on the top sheet (this will make it brown).
7. Bake in the oven until golden brown. This will take at least 45 minutes and may take up to an hour and 15 minutes depending on your oven. You can turn up the oven a little but not too much as you want the filling to cook through without burning the pastry.
8. Serves four to six people. It’s nice with a green salad or some roast pumpkin/squash.

I hope you enjoy it! This is definitely something that I would recommend trying and you can make adjustments to suit your own taste and lifestyle.