The first of these is Four & Twenty Blackbirds in Gwanus, Brooklyn. Now, as I’m sure you know, ‘pie’ is an American institution. It’s an old school love affair that has outlived cupcakes, macarons, whoopie pies and whatever sweet thang is currently de rigueur. The Yanks love it, and the queue outside Four & Twenty proves the legend above the door, ‘this must be where pies go when they die’.

Run by two sisters who cut their teeth working at their family’s restaurant in South Dakota, before slinging pies from their apartment in Crown Heights, NY, they set up Four & Twenty almost two years ago, and have been rammed ever since. There’s nothing particularly unusual about the place itself. It’s got all the trademarks of your typical hipster cafe. Bare brick walls, stripped back wood, tattooed serving staff etc, but it has a really welcoming, homely vibe. I guess you could describe it as pie in atmosphere form.

The pie on the other hand is unusual. And in a good way. We tried a selection including the plum crumble, brown butter pumpkin and the salty honey. All the pies are hand made, and come with the same crust, which is totally the right combination of tenderness and crumble, with a great buttery flavour. The plum crumble was amazing. Sweet and crunchy with a tart punch of local plums, all smoothed out with some lightly sweetened whipped cream. The pumpkin was everything a pumpkin pie should be. Dense, deep, moist, pumpkin-ey custard filling spiked with cinnamon and the surprise addition of a nutty richness supplied by the brown butter. And finally, and I have to be honest my least favourite, the salty honey. Richer than Daddy Warbucks, the custard filling was packed with butter and honey, set off with a generous sprinkling of salt crystals on the surface. It wasn’t in any way bad, but just too much for me.

I’m not going to lie to you, Four & Twenty isn’t exactly in what you’d describe as a ‘handy mid-town location’ but Gwanus and neighbouring Red Hook are areas on the up and up and well worth a look around, and I’m telling you, the pie alone makes the trek a no brainer. Special Agent Dale Cooper would be a very happy man.

Like Hot Cross Buns at Easter, one of the things that make Christmas for me are mince pies. I love them. So when my mate Luke who co-runs clothing label Percival asked if I fancied making some for late night shopping evenings at their new pop up in Covent Garden, I was all over it like a cheap suit.

This recipe is a bit of a remix. Inspired by and finished like the mighty Eccles Cakes of St John, the filling is simpler than traditional mincemeat, but the spices, currants, muscavado sugar and rum pack a treacle-like punch, and instead of beef suet, or that horrible veg substitute, I use frozen, grated butter, so the veggies can chow too. I’d recommend making the filling a good couple of weeks before you make your pies. Over time the flavour gets better and better, and if you keep it cool it will last for ages.

This recipe will make 24 or more mincers. I make them in muffin trays with 6 x 3 dimples which gives them a meat pie like appearance after they’re baked.

Ingredients

For the pastry

480g Plain white (pastry) flour

25g Caster sugar

10g Salt

340g Unsalted butter, cold

110-140ml Cold water

For the filling

500g Currants

220g Muscavado sugar

10g Ground nutmeg

10 Ground allspice

100g Unsalted butter, grated from frozen

60ml Dark rum

Zest and juice of 1 medium orange

To finish

1 egg beaten with a pinch of salt

Coarse granulated brown sugar

Method

Making the filling is a cinch. Put the currants, sugar, spices and rum into a bowl. Zest and then squeeze the juice of an orange into the mix (use a sieve to keep the pips out) and then give it a good stir. Take your butter out of the freezer, and using a course grater, shred around 100g of it into the bowl. It will clump together, so now get your hands in there and squeeze and mix everything together. Cover with clingfilm and set aside somewhere cool.

A few hours, or ideally the day before you’re going to make your pies, make the pastry as it needs to rest before you roll out and assemble. Weigh out and sift all your dry ingredients into the bowl or your mixer or food processor, and then cut up the cold butter into centimeter cubes and add to the dry. Mix on medium speed or pulse until you have a ‘mealy’ breadcrumby type consistency.

Turn your mixer back on and add around 100ml of your water. You want to add enough to bring the pastry together, but no too much so it’s wet. If it doesn’t look like it’s going to come together after a 15 seconds or so, add a bit more water until it does. Remove the pastry from the bowl and ‘pat’ together, and then wrap in clingfilm, and rest in the fridge until needed.

When you’re ready to make your pies, take your pastry out of the fridge and let it warm up a little, and then roll it out to a 3mm thickness on a lightly floured surface. Again, it’s good to let the pastry relax a bit before you cut it, so cover with some greaseproof paper and leave it somewhere cool for half an hour.

Next, taking a 90mm and a 70mm pastry cutter, cut out 24 bases and lids from your pastry. Press the bases into the dimples of whatever baking tray you’re using. There will be excess pastry crinkles, but just press these into the wall of the tin. When you’ve lined all the dimples, fill around 3/4 full with the currant mixture.

Moisten the rim of each of your smaller lids with a little water, and then press them down onto the top of each of the pies. The final step is to lightly egg wash the tops with a brush, give them the Eccles Cake trademark of three scores, and then sprinkle some coarsely granulated brown sugar over the top of each one.

Bake at 170c for around 30 minutes until the tops are a lovely deep golden brown, and remove the pies from the tray as soon as you can and place on a wire wrack to cool.

They are best eaten warm, either on their own, with a glass of whiskey, or indeed a good lump of mature cheddar.

Ho Ho Ho.

Going back in time a bit, on the last day of the bread section of my course we had a flat bread day. We made pitta, pizza, lavash and naan breads. Knowing we were going to make them, I thought I’d give my course mates a little taste of ‘home’ by making some spiced fillings for a few of the naan. Well everyone knows how much us Brits love a curry.

The breads are made with a whole wheat biga, which is a (typically) Italian stiff pre-ferment, although I imagine the Indians would use hunks of ‘old dough’ to add flavour and a bit of leavening. As the biga is made of whole wheat and has a wee bit of yeast in it, you don’t need to make it the night before, just a few hours before you make your final dough, which has a 3 hour bulk ferment, so you’ll need to get a bit organised.

I made the meat (keema) filling for the carnivores and a vegetarian version for the herbivores and we baked the breads in the schools wood fired oven, which I’m guessing most of you out there don’t have. Don’t worry, you can cook them in your oven at home. Just make sure it’s as hot as Hades, and that you bake the naans on something solid and heat retaining like a pizza stone or heavy roasting tin.

Ready?

Ingredients (makes 4)

For The Bread

380g White Bread Flour

30g Whole Wheat Flour

170g Water (temp of around 26c)

16g Ghee or melted butter

12g Salt

1g Instant Yeast

160g Goat or regular low fat Yoghurt

225g Whole Wheat Biga (see below)

More Ghee / Butter for brushing the bread with

For The Keema

400g Minced Beef

1/2 Onion, finely chopped

1/2 Hot Chilli

2 Cloves Garlic, Finely Chopped

1 teaspoon Garam Massala

1/2 teaspoon Ground Coriander

1/2 teaspoon Turmeric

1/2 teaspoon Chilli Powder

1/2 teaspoon Ground Cumin

Handful Chopped Fresh Coriander

Squeeze of Lemon Juice

Salt and Pepper to taste

For The Vegetarian Filling

2 Medium Onions, sliced

2 Cloves Garlic, finely chopped

1 teaspoon Cumin Seeds

1/2 teaspoon Ground Coriander

1/2 teaspoon Turmeric

1/2 teaspoon Salt

Method

So, the first thing to do is make your biga, which you should do around 4 hours before you’re going to make your dough. Simply mix together 140g of whole wheat flour with 90g of water and half a pinch of dried yeast. Give it a good old mix, cover and place somewhere warm.

When you’re ready to make your dough, put all the ingredients, including the biga, into a bowl. If you’ve got a mixer with a dough hook, mix on the lowest speed for 4 or so minutes to combine all the ingredients, and then turn it up to speed two for around 2 to 3 minutes. You’re looking for the dough to have a good level of tenacity. If you don’t have a mixer, combine all the ingredients in a bowl and then knead on a floured surface for around 8 to 10 minutes until your dough reaches the same strength. When ready, turn the dough out into an oiled bowl, cover and set aside for 3 hours.

While you’re waiting, prep the fillings as you’re better off using them cold. It’s all pretty easy. For the mince, fry off the spices for a minute or so being careful not to burn them, then add the garlic and onions to the pan. Fry these until they’re soft, and then add the mince. Keep cooking on a medium heat until the mixture dries out, and then stir in the chopped coriander. Set aside to cool, and then make the onions. Again fry the spices, fry the onions and garlic until caramalised and dry-ish, then set aside.

After three hours, remove your dough from the bowl and divide into 4 equal portions of 250g each. Take each piece, de-gas gently with the palm of your hand (don’t smash the dough, just reduce the volume) and then pre-shape into a rough triangle by folding over two sides to form a point a bit like you’d fold a paper plane, and then fold over the base. Flip each of the triangles over (see picture above), set aside and cover for 45 minutes for the final prove and then set your oven to as hot as it will go (preferably 260c +).

After this time, take each of your pieces of dough and cut in half. Flatten each half into a long, thin triangle using the tips of your fingers. On one, place half the mince / half the onion mixture leaving a clear border of at least half an inch around the edge. Then moisten this with some water, before placing the other half on top. Seal the edge by pinching the two halves together, and then using the tips of your fingers again, push the two layers together. This is what gives the naan the classic dimpled effect. You can afford to be quite firm, just try not to puncture the dough.

You’re now ready to go. Get your bread on some kind of transfer peel (it’s probably best to bake only one or two at a time), and then slide them into your oven onto your stone / baking tray. As the oven is so hot, they should cook in around 10 minutes, but keep an eye on them. Take them out when they’re golden brown and have puffed up.

Once they’re out of the oven, brush them with ghee or melted butter and eat immediately. Either alone, with a curry, or a bit of raita.

Croissants and Danish Pastries are the new baguettes. FACT. We made a shed load of them last week as we finally got stuck into laminated doughs.

Laminating doughs with butter is one of the key skills of Viennoiserie, and it can be pretty tricky. Get it right and you end up with beautiful, flaky, buttery pastry. Win. Get it wrong and you can end up with greasy products or a clogged up sheeter. Lose.

As before, the doughs are yeasted and mixed in a very similar way, but the new techniques came into play after the initial proof. One of the most important things with lamination is to keep everything cold. You want your butter and dough to be almost frozen with a ‘plastic’ like consistency. This enables you to sheet the dough thin and ‘lock in’ the butter over a series of folds creating alternating layers of pastry and fat.

It’s been pretty hot here in San Fran recently, so this has made the whole lamination process a lot tougher. We’ve been heavily relying on the blast freezer to quickly chill our doughs in between folds so we can work on them without the butter melting, or the dough getting too soft.

I won’t bore you with all the details, but once you’ve got lamination down (not that I’m saying I’m quite there yet), you’ve got a whole host of tasty shizzle at your finger tips based around croissant and Danish pastry formulas.

We made a range of different croissants both with and without pre-ferments. Plain ones, whole wheat ones, ham and cheese ones, almond ones, and pain au chocolat, all different kinds of Danish, lunettes, bear claws, snails, a CRAZY Breton pastry called koign-amann which contains enough butter and sugar to kill an army, and thats just the tip of the iceberg.

In creating all this new sweet stuff, we’ve learned a bunch of new techniques. Using the sheeting machines, different types and styles of shaping, making fillings for the pastries. It felt a bit like we took in enough information for a month, let alone a week.

Oh and it wasn’t all lamination, lamination, lamination. A special shout has to go out to an AMAZONGGG cake that we made at the end of the week. The mighty Bienenstich or ‘bee sting’ cake. It’s a brioche based dough, filled with diplomat cream and topped with a molten mixture of honey, sugar, butter and almonds that sets hard. Properly delicious stuff. If you ever see it on sale, buy it. You’ll thank me.

Next week we’re finishing up Viennoiserie, finishing the week with a two day practical. Wish me luck.

As you’ll see form the previous post, American Independence day fell over this weekend. So for the 4th of July, we rented a cabin up in Lake Tahoe, which gave us the opportunity to do something we’d been gagging to do since we got here. Get our grill on.

We cooked a bunch of stuff on the barbecue which came with our weekend digs including ribs (recipe soon), steak, corn, s’mores and this great little clam recipe that the missus spotted on the New York Times website a few weeks ago.

It’s a really simple and easy, a bit different, and makes a perfect starter.  We approximated the quantities as we didn’t have any on-line access whilst there, but I think we winged it pretty successfully.

Ingredients (serves 2)

20 clams (about 10 per person)

100g buter

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Small handful chopped flat leaf parsley

A wedge of lemon to finish

Method

It all happens pretty quickly, so you’ll want to get all your bits and bobs prepped before the clams hit the grill. First up, soak the clams in ice cold slightly salted water and let them chill out and ‘de-silt’ for half an hour.

Whilst this is going on, get your barbecue going. Seeing as these guys are going to cook in a couple of minutes flat, it may not be worth firing up a barbie just for these, so you’ll have to think of something else to cook afterwards (more on this soon).

So, now you’ve got the barbie going, prep the sauce. Stick the butter, chopped garlic cloves, pepper and Worcestershire sauce in a pan on the heat and melt it until it all sizzles together to form a smooth, silky sauce. Take it off the heat after a minute or so, add the freshly chopped parsley, and stir it in.

Next, drain the clams, pop them on the barbecue and close the lid. You want to get the heat intense so the mussels steam themselves cooked. They’ll pop open once they’re done, so after about 90 seconds take a look under the hood. If they’re all open, you’re ready. If not, close the lid again for another 30 seconds or so.

By now, they should be done, so take the clams off the grill retaining as much of their cooking juices as possible, and place on a plate (discard any un-opened ones). Using a spoon, carefully drizzle the sauce into each of the clam’s shells.

Squeeze over the lemon, and serve immediately with some good sourdough.

A couple of weeks ago it was East 17, and now blam! I’m hitting you with an Ultravox reference. High brow shizzle I think you’ll agree. And why did up this 80s relic? Because last week we started the Viennoiserie section of our course.

Viennoiserie is the name given to all kinds of yeasted, enriched doughs. From croissants, to Danish pastries, sticky buns to brioche, we’re talking about doughs enriched with sugar, eggs, milk and butter. Lots of butter. I’ve never seen so much of the stuff than in the past week.

We’re going to be getting in to lamination next week, the technique for making croissants amongst other things, but the breads we made last week were mixed in a similar way to what we’ve become familiar with, even if the formulas were in some cases a lot more complicated.

We started off the week slowly, making a range of products based around brioche and sweet roll doughs. With most of these we had to adjust our mixing to incorporate the sugar and butter after the dough had developed in strength in the mixer. The reason for this is that both inhibit the development of gluten, and if added at the beginning you end up mixing for bloody ages and your dough comes off the mixer too warm, which in turn effects fermentation. Best avoided in other words.

Day one we made a bunch of straight brioche rolls, and learned how to make the classic ‘Brioche à tête’ shape, some glazed with pearl sugar and others just washed with egg. The following day, we really stepped it up, particularly in terms of sweetness. Diabetes alert. We made cinnamon rolls, pain au lait braids and the stars of the show, so called sticky buns, and these great little sweet rolls called Gibassier.

The sticky buns are basically cinnamon buns, but cooked like upside down cakes with a glaze made with brown sugar, butter, honey, cinnamon, vanilla and pecan nuts. Sticky, insanely sweet, but very good. The kid of bun that only the Americans could make. The Gibassier were a bit more restrained. A French sweet roll made with olive oil, anise seed and candied orange peel and then dusted with sugar after baking. Not particularly obvious flavours, but awesome.

Day three we got festive with a range of ‘holiday breads’. We made the German favourite, stollen. A sweet dough further enriched with booze soaked dried fruits, shaped like Mick Jagger’s lips, and then coated in powdered sugar to resemble snow-fall. A savoury Austrian bread called Kugelhopf, which we made with lardons, Swiss cheese, sauteed onions and rosemary. It was pretty delicious. Lovely, soft, rich dough with a great combination of flavours. We also made an American interpretation of the hot cross bun, which I’ve got to say was pretty average. I prefer the version I make.

Then we made something called Bostock, which was a bit of a revelation. I guess it’s nearest explanation of it would be if French toast mated with a bakewell tart and had a tasty baby. You take inch thick slices of brioche (a great way to use stale loaves) and toast them on either side. Then dip both sides in flavoured simple syrup (in this case rum) before spreading one side with frangipan, and sprinkling with slivered almonds. Bake for a short time, dust with powdered sugar and then eat with a dirty great grin on your fizzog.

Things started to get a bit more technical, and oddly Christmasy, towards the end of the week when we made Italian festive favourites pannetone, pan d’oro, and columba di pasqua. These doughs are so enriched with butter, eggs and sugar that they have to be ‘built up’ in stages so that they are strong enough to take all the inclusions. Surprisingly, the resulting doughs are actually really light and delicate, so much so that the pannetone has to be hung upside down after it leaves the oven so it doesn’t collapse on itself. Not surprisingly, with all the sugar, butter and candied fruits, they also taste amazing. But you can also understand why most Italians only eat them once a year.

So, another killer week, but I’ve got to say I’m seriously worried about my already troubled waistline. I might make a pre-emptive application to Biggest Loser now.

I’ve been meaning to start a new series of posts on Hand To mouth for quite some time about the simple food pleasures in life. The kind of unfussy stuff that needs little or no preparation, has few ingredients, but always delivers in terms of taste (at least in my opinion).

Prompted by being sent some lovely London Cure Scottish Smoked Salmon by the very generous people at Forman & Field, here is the first of these posts for your delictation. Smoked Salmon.

Before you start grumbling, I’m not just writing this because I’ve been sent some free stuff. Like any product I give airtime to on this blog, I genuinely love smoked salmon. And for me, the less it’s messed with, the better. I like to let the salmon do the talking.

The ritual is simple. Brown bread, plenty of butter, smoked salmon, a generous squueze of fresh lemon juice, and a few turns of freshly milled black pepper.

Absolute heaven, and would be a dead cert (if you’ll pardon the pun) as a starter for my death row meal.

And then, straight out of left-field comes The German Baker. My mate Javed has been telling me for some time about these bread vans that pitch up at locations around London (and the rest of Southern England) and ply their doughy wares. He swears by their breads, so I thought it was high time I got my act together and paid them a visit.

So, on a rather miserable, rainy Tuesday morning last week, I set off to track them down. Looking on their route planner I found out they were going to be outside the German Embassy between 9.15 and 10am, and true to stereotypical form, their truck was there bang on time tucked down a little alley beside the embassy.

Climbing on board you are greeted with not only a great array of breads, rolls and pastries, but all sorts of German deli fare and confectionery. But it was the breads that got me really excited. Shelves laden with pretzels, pumpernickel loaves, Kaiser rolls and all kinds of rye bread. Hmmmmmmmm.

On Javed’s recommendation, I went for a Bauernbrot, which is a rye and wheat mix. I wasn’t disappointed. It’s got a dense texture, with a really deep flavour, and a small hint of a kind of molasses sweetness. It’s great on its own with a generous spreading of butter, and makes a mean continental style cheese and ham sandwich with healthy dose of mustard.

Click here to find out if The German Baker passes through your ‘hood, and if not it’s well worth your while to intercept them somewhere.

Auf wiedersehen for now.

As in previous years, it was a a good crack, and the pig, sensational. A bit smaller than the previous year’s, and cooked over a fire fueled with only oak wood, it had a beautifully smoky flavour and moist tender meat. As usual, my favourite bit was the belly. Slammed in a bap with some coleslaw that I whipped up, and some home made apple sauce (the recipe for which is below), we were all in hog heaven.

I’m not a huge fan of shop bought apple sauce. I find it’s often too watery, too sweet, or both. So for this years Hogfest I decided to see if I could to better. The following recipe makes about 4 jam jars full, which you’re unlikely to need for a Sunday roast, so adjust the quantities accordingly. You’ll also need to adjust the quantity of sugar based on how tart your apples are. Go easy to start with, as you can always add more towards the end.

Ingredients

2kg cooking apples

20g butter

7 tablespoons Muscovado sugar

3 tablespoons cider vinegar

1.5 teaspoons Chinese 5 spice

200 ml water

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Large pinch of salt

Method

First up, set your oven to 200c, then get a pan on the heat and melt the butter, vinegar, five spice, and 3 tablespoons of the Muscovado sugar together. Now peel, core and cut each apple into 8 pieces. Pop the apples into a roasting tray, and toss with the spiced butter, vinegar and sugar mixture, making sure that each apple section is coated.

Roast the apples in the pre-heated oven for around 30 minutes. This should soften and slightly caramalise the apples, intensifying their flavour. Take them out of the oven, transfer to a large saucepan, and then de-glaze the roasting tray with the water, getting all the sticky bits off the bottom, and then pour this into the pan along with the lemon juice.

Put the pan on the heat, bring up to simmering point, and cook for 5-10 minutes. Next blend the mixture with a hand mixer until smooth, and have a taste. It will need more sugar, and a pinch of salt, so add these now (4 tablespoons of Muscovado and a large pinch in this case), and then stir into the mixture.

The apple sauce is now ready. If you’re having it immediately, decant into a bowl and cool. If you’re keeping it to use at a later date, spoon into sterilised jam jars whilst still hot, and then screw the lids on tightly. This will create a vacuum that will help the apple sauce keep longer (a good 2-3 weeks if refrigerated).

I’m hungry now, but if you want to see more pics from Hogfest ‘10 you can see them here.

One of the dishes that got my mouth watering the most was the tomato risotto he cooked in Venice. There was just something beautifully simple about the risotto and the tomatoes cooked in olive oil that made me want to give it a go. I’m sure there’s an accompanying book for the series, but I haven’t bought it, so this recipe is a approximation of what I saw of the idiot box. It worked for me, so should do for you too.

Ingredients (serves 2)

For the risotto

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 large celery stalk, finely chopped

100g arborio rice

100 ml white wine

1 litre vegetable stock

Handful of grated Parmesan (about 25g)

Olive oil

Unsalted butter

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

For the tomatoes

15-20 mini plum / cherry tomatoes, halved

1 large clove of garlic, finely chopped

10 basil leaves, torn

50 ml olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method

First up, get your stock ready. Pour it into a pan, and get it on the heat so it’s just below boiling point. Next finely chop your onion and celery and then gently sweat in a pan containing a good glug of olive oil and a small nob of butter for about 10 minutes. The veg should become translucent as opposed to brown.

Whilst the veg is cooking, halve the tomatoes and add to a small pan with the oilve oil, garlic, basil leaves, salt and pepper. Stir them together and then put on a low heat. You don’t want to fry the hell out of the tomatoes, more soften them and let all the flavours in the pan infuse and meld together.

Once you’ve done this, you should be ready to add the rice to the onions and celery. Mix it all together, coating the rice with the oil. Add the white wine to the rice, stir in and let the alcohol burn off for a minute or so. You’re now going to start adding the stock. Do this a ladle at a time, stirring all the while. Stirring is an important part of the process, as it helps make the risotto creamy as it soaks up the stock. You don’t want to beat the mixture, more of a purposeful stir.

After 15-20 minutes of repeating this process, you should have used up most of the stock. The risotto should be loose and creamy, and the rice ‘al dente’ (not overly soft like rice pudding, still with some bite). At this point take it off the heat. Stir in the grated Parmesan, a small nob of butter, and salt and pepper to taste. Now cover the pan with a lid and leave the risotto to ‘relax’ for a couple of minutes.

Check your tomatoes. By now they should be nicely soft, and the olive oil should have take on a bit of their colour. Now take your tomatoes, and add them to the risotto, stirring them in gently, and then plate up.

Serve in bowls with a little drizzle of olive oil and a hunk of crusty bread.

Whilst my Mac is being re-habilitated I don’t have access to my holiday pics, so I’ll have to come back to the stuff I rustled up in France at a later date. But my camera is still working, and I’ve bought my schizo old mac back from the dead, so I can do a bit of posting in the meantime.

This recipe is my take on the tapas classic Gambas al Ajillo, and It’s pretty simple and quick too. Buy the biggest, fattest prawns you can afford. Serves two as a main course.

Ingredients

8 King prawns / Tiger prawns

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 dried or fresh red chilli, chopped

20g unsalted butter

35ml extra virgin olive oil

Juice of 1/2 large lemon

Salt to taste

Handful of flat leaf parsley, chopped

Method

First up get a large frying pan on the heat and melt the butter in the olive oil. Whilst this is going on, chop the chilli and and the garlic and then add to the pan. At this point, keep the heat low. What you want to do at this point is get the oil really nicely infused with the garlic and chilli.

After a couple of minutes, crank up the heat to full. As soon as the garlic and chilli start to sizzle in the butter and oil, add a good pinch of salt, and then the prawns, fitting them sugly togehher in the pan so they all have equal contact with the bottom of it.

They cook really quickly, turning from grey to pink almost instantly, and only really need a minute on each side. Once they’ve had their minute on each side, add the lemon juice and shake the pan vigorously to mix with the butter, oil, garlic and chilli to form this awesome piquant sauce. Finally, sprinkle over the parsley.

Serve immediately with a mixed salad and a enough sourdough bread to dunk and make the most of the sauce.

I’m going to be away for Easter in Australia visiting the future in-laws, so am going to miss out on the traditional treats that I’d be indulging in with the family down in Cornwall.

Food wise, the main thing I’m going to miss is the Hot Cross Buns. I love them. Toasted, slathered in melting butter and a good dollop of course bitter sweet orange marmalade. Anyway, I told myself that I wasn’t going to miss out, so decided to make my own for the first time. This recipe is lifted pretty much lock, stock and barrel from here on the BBC Food website, and the results went down a storm.

Ingredients

625g strong white flour, plus extra for dusting

1 tsp salt

2 tsp ground mixed spice

45g unsalted butter, cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing

85g sugar

1 lemon, zest only

1½ tsp fast-action yeast

1 free-range egg

275ml tepid milk

125g mixed dried fruit

For the topping

2 tbsp plain flour

vegetable oil, for greasing

1 tbsp golden syrup, gently heated, for glazing

Method

For the buns, sieve the flour, salt and ground mixed spice into a large mixing bowl, then rub in the butter using your fingertips creating a breadcrumb like mixture. Make a well in the centre of the mixture, then add the sugar and lemon zest and yeast.

Now beat the egg, add to the flour with the tepid milk and mix together to a form a soft, pliable dough and then turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface. Carefully work the mixed dried fruit into the dough until well combined. Knead lightly for at least 5 minutes.

Grease a large mixing bowl with butter. Shape the dough into a ball and place it into the prepared bowl, then cover with a cling film and set aside in a warm place for one hour to prove. Turn out the proved dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knock back the dough. Shape it into a ball again and return it to the bowl, cover again and set aside for a further 30 minutes to rise.

After half an hour, turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and divide it into 12 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, then flatten slightly into a bun shape using the palms of your hands. Cover the buns with the tea towel and set aside to rest for 5-10 minutes.

Grease a baking tray with butter and transfer the buns to the tray. Wrap the tray with the buns on it loosely in greaseproof paper, then place inside a large polythene bag. Tie the end of the bag so that no air can get in and set aside in a warm place for a further 40 minutes to rise.

While this is going on, Preheat the oven to 240 C, then prepare the cross topping by mixing the plain flour to a smooth paste with 2 tablespoons of cold water. When the buns have risen, remove the bag and the greaseproof paper. Spoon the flour mixture into a small plastic bag, nip off the tip of one of the corners to create a piping bag, and pipe a cross across each bun.

Now, transfer the buns to the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until pale golden-brown. As soon as you remove the buns from the oven, brush them with the hot golden syrup, then set aside to cool on a wire rack.

The buns will be very sticky to start with, but the golden syrup will sink in over time. Eat as suggested, toasted with butter and orange marmalade, or however you like them.

I was in Paris with the missus for a few days over the New Year period. The weather wasn’t great, but it’s still one of the greatest cities in the World (IMHO). As you might expect the food has a great deal to do with this, and I’m a huge fan of the traditional French bistro.

I love the simple, tasty food, the still tobacco stained walls, the atmosphere and the tradition of it all. Maybe it’s because we don’t have many good examples of this type of place in London, but I’d honestly prefer to sit down at a chequered tablecloth in a back street bistro to a plate of oeufs cocotte and an entrecote, than some foam drenched nonsense from an Alain Ducasse restaurant. No offense Al.

One such place, that we’ve now been to a few times, is Bistro De La Grille in St Germain des Pres. We stumbled across it a couple of years ago whilst in Paris and had an outstanding late lunch there, and it’s had a soft spot in our hearts ever since.

Outside you’re greeted by the site of the fresh shellfish man (no idea what the oficial term for these fellas is) shucking oysters and prepping his wares, before stepping foot inside where you’re greeted by the French Bistro checklist. Zinc topped bar, tick. Wood panneling, tick. Faded photographs, tick. Smartly dressed waiters bustling around, tick.

We ordered a carafe of red wine, 12 snails and garlic butter to share, then I chose the Morteau and lentil casserole as my main. The snails were delicious. If I’m honest, for me a big part of the draw is the garlic and parsley butter mopped up with a few slices of fresh baguette. None too healthy, but worth it. The casserole came in a satisfying iron pot with generous slices of the dense, smokey Morteau sausage. The lentils cooked with stock, onions, carotts and potato. It’s a hearty lunch, and was a joy to eat.

We finished the meal by sharing a tarte tatin which was sweet, sticky and tart in equal measure. Great pastry too.

Bistrot De la Grille isn’t going to win a Michelin star any time soon, but I don’t think thats what its setting out to achieve. It’s sticking to its guns and doing what its probably done since it opened, cooking and serving up traditional, good quality food, and if you’re in Paris I can’t recommend it enough.