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.

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There’s never a good time to be poor but it’s especially tough right now with extortionate rises in the price of basic food stuffs. In the past year, the prices of grains and vegetable oils have nearly doubled, and the price of rice has jumped by about half. No wonder people are rioting in Egypt and Haiti.

The UN Food Summit in Rome reached a limited deal last week (the sticking point was the thorny issue of biofuels). In a small concession to public opinion, the world’s leaders even toned down the menu - that is they didn’t serve foie gras and lobster like in 2002. How considerate!

The presence of Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe was politically contentious – after all, the man has presided over the collapse of the country’s agricultural industry and widespread famine. But George Monbiot, writing in today’s The Guardian, says that Mugabe was right on one thing: small farms are more productive than large farms. Monbiot, for the record, did not say that he supported Mugabe and was at pains to point out that Mugabe has actually done the opposite of “democratising” land ownership.

Monbiot’s argument was more nuanced than that and he cites some quite interesting research. He writes:

“Though the rich world’s governments won’t hear it, the issue of whether or not the world will be fed is partly a function of ownership. This reflects an unexpected discovery. It was first made in 1962 by the Nobel economist Amartya Sen, and has since been confirmed by dozens of studies. There is an inverse relationship between the size of farms and the amount of crops they produce per hectare. The smaller they are, the greater the yield.”

I would be interested to know whether the studies looked at the size of the farm overall or the amount of land under cultivation. The latter would be a better basis of comparison. I have travelled to a lot of developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and particularly to coffee growing regions. Small farms are of course socially very good but environmentally it’s less clear. A well-managed plot  using a well-designed organic farming system such as permaculture, is both productive and kind on the earth. But subsistence farms, where land pressure is intense, have a terrible impact.

In many parts of the world, deforestation is intense because land pressure is so great. Small holders cut down trees because they need the land to grow food – I saw many farms in Uganda that had been carved out of the forest in the past 20 years for example. By contrast, medium and large farms vary in their impact on the environment. Some of them use very destructive farming practices indeed, and they tend to use more chemicals on average. However, in my experience they often incorporate pockets of natural forest as well – I’ve seen this everywhere from Uganda to Nicaragua.

On a bigger farm, not every square inch of land is under cultivation, which makes the farm less productive per hectare but is good from the point of view of conservation. In order to tackle climate change and preserve biodiversity, we need to save forest, even forest fragments, so this quite important. As for whether a small or a large farm is more productive per square metre under cultivation, I don’t know the answer but I would like to see that research.

Another thought – presumably, if small farms are more productive than big farms, then gardens are more productive still. Another reason to have a garden, if you were not already persuaded by this previous post.

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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!

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Individual amaretto pavlovas
We made the pavlova cases first. It’s very similar to a meringue with a base of whisked egg whites and sugar but pavlova mix also includes cornflour, vanilla essence and vinegar (or lemon juice). This gives it a chewy consistency that is slightly different to the brittleness of old-fashioned meringues. We also put in a pinch of salt, which is good for very fresh eggs as it mimics albumen and makes the egg whites stronger. The trick with meringues or pavlova is to be patient and add the sugar in a little at a time, whisking the whites back into stiff peaks each time. We divided our mix into four blobs and created an indentation in the middle with the back of a spoon. We baked on silica paper as it will stick to greaseproof paper and left them in the oven for about 45 minutes. We waited until they were completely cool before attempting to remove them from the paper, if they are still warm the pavlova can break and half stays on the paper.

We came back to the pavlovas after the squid. Our teachers filled and decorated a couple as a demonstration to us, while we took home the filling: whipped, sweetened cream; raspberries; rasberries coulis; chocolate cake soaked in amaretto; and crumbled amaretti biscuits. (Other suggestions included mint and chocolate shapes made from melting chocolate and piping it through a paper cone - which the teachers demonstrated but we didn’t get the chance to attempt). The pavlovas should be filled just before serving otherwise the cream can make the meringue soggy - though apparently if you fill the pavlova case with a chocolate lining, this makes it impervious to cream. My fiance and I had a pavlova each for dessert the following night and I have stored the other two cases in an airtight container in the cupboard - apparently they’ll keep for weeks.

Chilli salt squid with feta, rocket and black olives

To prepare the squid, we started by cleaning the squid. I done this before and I actually really enjoy it. Although I get some strange looks when I tell people I like it, I’ve also found that I’m definitely not the only one. It’s very tactile and sensual and because it’s utterly alien and nothing like a mammal, it’s not gruesome at all. It sounds gruesome but in real life it’s fine - nothing like the chicken livers. The best bit is pulling out the quill - it looks like a plastic feather and is delightfully odd.

Here’s a quick lesson on squid if you have never prepared it before. You can usually get your fishmonger to do this if you prefer, but I recommend trying this at least once - it’s not that hard.

• * The edible bits are the wings, the head and the tentacles and you want to throw away the internal organs, the eyes and beak and the quill.
• * You can basically pull the wings off, or cut them if you prefer, and this is edible; slightly tougher than the rest of the squid because it’s what they use to swim but still very good.
• * Then you cut off the tentacles under the eyes and put the tentacles aside to use. If the beak stayed with the eyes then fine, but if it came with the tentacles then you will have to pick it out and discard it.
• * Then you pull the eyes and organs (which are yellow and gooey) out from inside the head (it will come apart easily) and discard.
• * You are now left with the tentacles, head and wings. Use a piece of kitchen towel to rub off the membranes.
• * You might want to cut the tentacles to standardise the length. The head can either be sliced into rings like calamari, or you can slice it open, score it and cut small chunks for cooking.
• * Don’t worry if there is black ink everywhere - this is edible. You can wash it if you like but make sure you dry it completely if you are deep-frying to avoid vicious oil spitting.

I have cooked squid previously and my usual method is to marinate it in lemon and black pepper and then cook it on the barbecue or lightly fry it. I cook it for just enough time for it to turn white and then it’s done; over-cooked squid is rubbery and nasty.

At Leiths we followed a cracking recipe for chilli salt squid with feta, rocket and black olives by Marianne Lumb. It’s deep fried so it’s not as healthy but it’s incredibly tasty and would make a lovely starter at a dinner party or a light supper. We coated the pieces of squid in a little flour mixed with sea salt and chilli powder (cayenne pepper is also an option). We were warned not to use too much flour as otherwise it can go gluggy. We had a pot full of cooking oil that we brought the boil and we could judge the oil was hot enough when it took 15 seconds for a piece of bread to go brown. If it takes less time, the oil is too hot; if it takes more time, it’s not hot enough and the bread/squid will simply soak up excess oil. Then we cooked the squid in batches, taking care to lower it into the oil with a slotted spoon to avoid splashing. It took about 20 seconds (slightly longer than the bread) for the squid to go golden brown, at which point we removed it from the oil and left it to drain on kitchen towel with a little salt sprinkled over the squid to help absorb oil.

The squid was amazingly good - tender and crisp around the outside with a lovely tangy flavour. Even better when served in a salad with rocket, black olives, feta and lime juice. Yum! We ate the squid salad in class since it doesn’t keep well.

Next week: Wood pigeon and black pudding salad; apple strudel. Don’t forget to subscribe.

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Having a garden is a virtuous circle because, as well as helping to feed yourself - lovely fresh food with an infinitesimally small carbon footprint - you also have a green way to dispose of food waste, whether by composting, keeping a worm farm, or feeding to chickens. Food waste sent to landfill is a major environmental problem because it rots anaerobically and produces potent greenhouse gases like methane. By contrast, food waste that is returned to the soil in the form of compost actually locks CO2 into the soil, in a natural form of carbon sequestering. Some local government areas have separate food waste collections but this is rare.

In yesterday’s The Guardian, Michael Pollan, author of In Defence of Food, has written a passsionate riposte to the ‘why bother’ brigade - the argument that our environmental problems are so insurmountable and the actions we take as individuals are so futile that we’re all doomed anyway and may as well just enjoy the time we have left. I really like Pollan’s piece firstly because it’s inspiring rather than just plunging me further into despair and secondly because I think it advances quite a strong argument for the difference that individuals can make. There is the ripple effect - the idea of inspiring other people and creating a chain reaction of individual responses - and also the salient point that, while fixing the problem takes laws and money, it also takes changes to the way we live. Governments won’t act in any meaningful way until we do. It reminds me of the old Margaret Mead quote* about changing the world that invariably gets trotted out in arguments like these but it’s no less true for that.

In particular, Pollan suggests that as individuals we should make a single, meaningful contribution to the solution, and goes on to make the case for a vegetable garden. Did you know that during World War 2, victory gardens supplied as much as 40% of the produce Americans ate?

I recommend reading the piece in full but I have extracted a few quotes. He writes:

“Measured against the Problem We Face, planting a garden sounds pretty benign, I know, but in fact it’s one of the most powerful things an individual can do - to reduce your carbon footprint, sure, but more important, to reduce your sense of dependence and dividedness: to change the cheap-energy mind.

“A great many things happen when you plant a vegetable garden, some of them directly related to climate change, others indirect but related nevertheless. Growing food, we forget, comprises the original solar technology: calories produced by means of photosynthesis. Years ago the cheap-energy mind discovered that more food could be produced with less effort by replacing sunlight with fossil-fuel fertilisers and pesticides, with a result that the typical calorie of food energy in your diet now requires about 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce. It’s estimated that the way we feed ourselves (or rather, allow ourselves to be fed) accounts for about a fifth of the greenhouse gas for which each of us is responsible.

“Yet the sun still shines down on your garden, and photosynthesis still works so abundantly that in a thoughtfully organised vegetable patch (one planted from seed, nourished by compost from the kitchen and involving not too many drives to the garden centre), you can grow the proverbial free lunch - CO2-free and money-free.”

He goes on point out there are physical and psychological benefits as well:

“You will probably notice that you’re getting a pretty good workout there in your gardenburning calories without having to get into the car to drive to the gym. (It is one of the absurdities of the modern division of labour that, having replaced physical labour with fossil fuel, we now have to burn even more fossil fuel to keep our unemployed bodies in shape.

“Still more valuable are the habits of mind that growing a little of your own food can yield. You quickly learn that you need not be dependent on specialists to provide for yourself - that your body is still good for something and may actually be enlisted in its own support. If the experts are right, if both oil and time are running out, these are skills and habits of mind we’re all very soon going to need.”

Finally:

“The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world.”

It’s been many years since I have been involved in growing my own food. The closest I have come in recent years has been keeping a few pots of herbs on my kitchen window sill that died when I went away for a month. However, it’s certainly a family tradition. My mother and several of my aunts keep extensive vegetable gardens and two of my aunts are trained designers and teachers of permaculture - a type of organic gardening that relies on design to mimic natural eco-systems and create self-sustaining systems. One runs an organic gardening supplies, Green Harvest, based in Queensland, while the other has a garden design business in Cardiff, Edible Landscaping. My aunt in Scotland also has a rather lovely garden near Inveraray on the West Coast and last year I went up north to pick blackcurrants and make jam.

Currently I live in a rented third-storey flat in London so the opportunities for me to either grow my own food, or avoid sending waste to landfill are limited. Friends of mine in north London have recently acquired an allotment, a UK scheme to give city-dwellers a patch of land for growing their own food. I don’t think I could devote the time to an allotment - it’s a major hobby - and I don’t drive so it would have to be literally around the corner from my house in order to make it feasible for me. But I am hoping that my next home might have a small courtyard garden or balcony so I can at least grow some herbs and flowers and keep a worm farm for my food scraps.

Sinc I don’t have a garden, I do possibly the next best thing, which is to buy locally grown, organic fruit and vegetables. I order a weekly box from Abel and Cole and I’ve always had a very good experience with them, both for fruit and vegetables and also for dairy, bread, coffee, meat and fish, cleaning products (I could almost do a complete weekly shop with them!). It’s very reasonable - we spend £25 a week with them and our total weekly grocery bill for two people is about £40. I particularly like that I can set likes and dislikes - useful in winter to control the amount of potatoes, parsnip and swede I let them send me! I’ve heard very good things about Riverford Organics as well

Do you have a vegetable garden? Do you grow any of your own food? What environmental factors, if any, do you consider when shopping for food?

* The Margaret Mead quote I am referring to is of course: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” I’m sure you’ve heard that one before.

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* Gray at SoloFriendly on great Thai restaurants in her hometown of Burlington in Vermont. It makes me hungry just thinking about it! We are blessed with great Thai in my home town of Sydney but sadly it is not something that London does well.

* London does, however, have reasonable Mexican food. Jessica at Ripe London was none too impressed with the offerings at Tortilla in the Angel-Islington or Mexicali in Notting Hill, but she does rate Taqueria in Notting Hill. This also happens to be a favourite of mine - terrific tacos and heavenly horchata.

* Wanderus on why Portland, Oregon is the microbrew capital of America. Cheers!

* Samir on living in Dubai and the contrasts with his hometown of Bombay - and a slice of life at an Indian-run cafeteria serving sandwiches, roast chicken and chai tea near Lamcy Plaza.

* Jon on the DC Traveler treats us to a Sunday brunch with a difference at a Washington DC cafe with drag queens.

* Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago is going organic and Stefanie at Focus Organic wants a tomato, basil and mozzarella panini.

If all that food has left you needing to burn off some calories, then it’s time to get active.

* The Q Family call into Cozumel in Mexico for some snorkelling and Starbucks on their Carnival Cruise. (They recommend the fajitas at La Laguna Beach Grill).

* CAE on VWXYNot? describes her love affair with her adopted city of Vancouver. I thought it was a lovely city when I visited, oh 10 years ago now, and all those gorgeous pics of kayaking make me want to go back. Either that or move home to Sydney - I could have a kayak there too!

* Jason Loper on Zola Jones Designs on a bike ride around the lake front in Chicago.

* Random Musings takes us boating on Lake George (is that a town?) and hiking on Prospect Mountain in the Adirondacks in upstate New York.

* Dave Cano on why his first impressions of Coney Island in Brooklyn, NYC were wrong.

* If It Feels Good Do It tells not-quite-all about a bachelor’s weekend in Las Vegas.

Time for a bit of culture, fun and relaxation?

* Leslie Carbone delves into history in Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia.

* See how the other half lives with a peak inside a $9m penthouse apartment in Miami on Michael Emilio’s small business and real estate blog.

* Me, My Kid, and Life heads to Cannes for a short film festival. (Although she was there on business, a girl’s still got to eat and she found time for a shrimp spring roll, Thai rice and chicken in curry sauce).

* Adventures in Daily Living takes the kids on a fun-filled trip to Seattle, where they ride trains, buses, monorails and merry-go-rounds

* Andrew at the Cyprus Informer takes us on a journey to Kyrenia in Cyprus. His blog is usually quite commercial, but this post is not, and it really does sound like a beautiful town.

Thanks to everyone for taking part and apologies for the late posting - my broadband was up and down like a whore’s drawers last night.

Submit your blog post to the next edition of the Carnival of Cities using our carnival submission form. Please only submit one (non-spammy) post and keep it on the topic of cities and (midsize and bigger) towns. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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Wine can be a rather daunting subject and until recently, associated with a particular type of masculine snobbishness – all that talk about vintage charts and Chateau Latour seemed designed to exclude anyone who hadn’t been to Eton. But it doesn’t have to be like that at all. Since the 1980s, wine has become much more democratic, wine making has improved in leaps and bounds, and great wines from all over the globe can now be found on the supermarket shelf at reasonable prices.

So how do you go about choosing a wine? Factors worth considering are:

• * What are you eating with it? In general red wine goes better with red meat, and white wine better with fish, while either is fine with chicken or pork. If you’re cooking a recipe from a particular country or region, it might be worth looking for a wine from the same area. Many Italian reds, for example, have high levels of acidity which complement the tomato-based food typical of the area. Generally, if you’re eating rich, strong-flavoured food, you probably want a powerful wine to stand up to it, whereas if you’re eating something delicate like scallops you would want something light and elegant.

• * Are you looking for something with bold flavours or something more restrained? Caitlin will probably kill me for saying this, but as a very broad generalisation, wines from the Old World (France, Spain, Italy, Germany) tend to be more subtle, and arguably more complex, than their New World (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, USA, Chile, Argentina) counterparts, which have more upfront, easy-drinking appeal. But Old World labels can be baffling to the novice. French wines are classified by region, and within each region there are strict rules about what is allowed – for example, white burgundy has to be 100% chardonnay, but you won’t see the word chardonnay on the label of a bottle of white burgundy. New World labels are more consumer-oriented, easier to read and helpfully tell you what the grape is.

• * Alcohol level. Many wines these days come in at 14% alcohol or even 14.5% or 15%. One small glass contains almost two units of alcohol. I’ve drunk some like this and could feel the hangover kicking in while I was still drinking it. For lighter styles, look to the Old World – champagne is usually just 12.5%. You can drink it and feel fine the next day!

• * Price. Generally you get what you pay for. A bottle of wine has quite high fixed costs, so to take a fictitious example, in a bottle of wine that costs £4 you may be paying £2 for duty, the cost of the bottle etc and £2 for the wine. In a bottle that costs £8 you’d still be paying £2 for duty, bottle etc and £6 for the actual wine – although it costs twice as much, the value of the wine is three times as much, so hopefully the quality should be considerably better.

If you want to extend your knowledge, it’s a good idea to keep a record of what you have drunk, whether you liked it, and whether you considered it good value for money. Describing wine can be difficult but try to think of just a couple of adjectives. Just taking a minute to think about the wine rather than guzzling it without noticing it will improve your knowledge and over time will help you to identify what sort of wines you tend to like and which you don’t.

If you have some like-minded friends, it’s educational and fun to compare some different wines. You could pick a pair which are similar in some respect – for example, same grape variety but from different countries, or two from the same region but at different price levels. The key thing to bear in mind is that there are no right or wrong answers. People are awfully suggestible, so if you say that the wine smells of peaches, then the chances are everyone will agree with you. At one wine-tasting a friend of mine identified the whiff of the Bakerloo Line, and we all immediately detected it too.

Above all, wine should be fun to drink and comes in so many styles that there really is something for everyone. Cheers!

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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.

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I like liver pâté but I had never previously given much thought to its preparation. Now that I can speak from experience, I can say that ignorance is bliss and in future I will buy my rather than make pâté. Some things are best left to the specialists.

It’s not that it’s difficult to make, it’s just that I had to pick through a pile of chicken livers, removing membranes and green bits. The texture and smell made me gag. The torture wasn’t over until we had chopped the liver into chunks, rinsed them and patted them dry.

Once that was done, it got better. We’d already fried some garlic onion and left the remaining butter in the pan. Now we added the livers and fried, browning gently on all sides. Then we got to do a brandy flambé, which was very cool and almost made up for the grossness of the livers. We had flames shooting up to the ceiling and it was all okay because we were in a stainless steel industrial kitchen.

After that it was all plain sailing. We seasoned with salt and pepper and allowed to cool slightly. Then we blended the liver and onion mix in a food processor.

We made cute little melba toasts to go with it and they were definitely far superior to any commercial melba toasts and dead simple to make. You take white bread, remove the crusts, grill on both sides, then slice in half horizontally and grill again.

I have to admit the pâté was absolutely delicious. It almost made it worthwhile. But really, I’m not sure it was worth the pain considering the stuff at the delicatessen is so good.

On the other hand, liver pâté is not the only type of pâté in the world. There’s a recipe for kipper pâté right above the chicken liver pâté recipe that looks lovely and simple. And I had a great aubergine pâté from an Italian deli today. So perhaps I’ll be making pâté after all, just not in this form.

Chilli broccoli salad (and salmon)

The second thing we made was a lovely salad from Skye Gyngell’s cookbook A Year in my Kitchen. The salad involves broccoli that has been cooked but is still crunchy, radicchio and frisee lettuce. It is dressed with chilli and garlic oil, roasted red onions, lemon zest and juice, anchovies, olives and salt and pepper. It was a wonderful salad and would be almost as good without the anchovies for vegetarians or anchovy-haters. (I say almost because I love anchovies!).

We cooked salmon to go with it and we were shown how to fry or to roast in the oven in a parcel of aluminium foil. I really enjoyed it roasted - it tasted very clean and healthy.

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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.

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