Chicken and Bacon Croquettes Tapas

So, having got back off our summer hols in sunny Biarritz (many incredible recipes and restaurant reviews from our two week road trip to follow really soon), I thought I'd post one of the recipes I cooked while using the kitchen of our sunny and very delightful holiday flat rental.

The thing is, Biarritz is really close to the Spanish border - just a hop, skip and a jump to fabulous San Sebastian (or 'Donastia', if you're a sycophantic Basqueophile) - so the tapas influence is strong in that southern part of France.

We ate at many tapas places, and I couldn't help but marvel at the many pinxos on offer. These tasty morsels, usually fried or atop a crispy slice of baguette, accompany the local plonk and are usually reasonably priced and intensely tasty.

So, one day, I decided to attempt a pinxo or two of my own and made these delightful little croquettes. Mrs Ribeye loved them. The chicken I used was left over from a very fancy and expensive locally reared artisan black leg, and so the recipe came in at a very reasonable £3 per dozen croquettes. If you use a cheap UK chicken, the results won't be vastly different to these fritters in taste, but you won't get to gnaw on some freaky looking roasted black chicken feet as a cook's treat.

Saying that, the last time I saw feet on a supermarket chicken in Britain was in about 1975.

Makes 12 croquettes

INGREDIENTS:

200g leftover cooked chicken, shredded
150g bacon lardons
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
50ml olive oil
2 tbsps plain flour
300ml milk
Salt and black pepper
Small handful of fresh parsley, finely chopped

To fry:
50g flour
2 eggs, beaten
100g breadcrumbs or matzo meal
Sunflower or vegetable oil for deep frying

In a medium hot pan, fry the chicken, bacon, onion and garlic in the oil until soft and translucent. Add the flour and stir to remove lumps. Add the milk but-by-bit until you have a smooth thick mixture and then add the seasoning and parsley. Allow the mixture to cool and firm-up in the refrigerator. Once the mixture is cool, form into croquettes. Dip them into the flour egg and breadcrumbs until well coated. Deep fry at 180c for 5-6 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve with garlic mayo (aioli) or a spicy tomato sauce.

Piperade

Piperade is an absolutely genius dish. More substantial than a mere sauce and not quite robust enough to stand on its own feet as a stew, piperade is actually an ingredient used to 'posh-up' fairly humdrum meals. I used it to jazz up a sea bream lunch dish (recipe to follow soon), but it could be equally used to add pizzazz to breakfast eggs or supper of grilled lamb or chicken. I once saw Keith Floyd making piperade really badly on one of his vintage cookery shows, and getting a thorough bollocking from a disapproving French grand dame standing at his shoulder. Hilarious. He took it fairly well though.

Anyway, the reason I made piperade today is because I got over excited at my local market in Church Street when I saw a few stallholders selling beautiful fresh sweet peppers at a pound ('paaaaaahnd') a bowl (boooowwwwwwllll'). Without thinking, I paid over three quid and heaved home a dozen huge red, green, yellow and red peppers. After making a salad, and after leaving them in the fridge for a couple of days I panicked. What was I going to make with the eleven peppers taking up nearly two shelves of fridge space?? Ratatouille? No, I didn't want to buy courgettes and aubergines to add insult to injury. So piperade it had to be. And what a choice! I kid you not, having served up a big bowl to a few chosen participants, the verdict was in: Piperade ROCKS!

I would have spread some around some later meals if my mates hadn't scoffed a kilo of the stuff in record time. Next time I'm keeping all it to myself.

Cost-wise, because of my Church Street bargain, this dish comes in at about 50p a dollop. Even when peppers are out of season I don't expect that piperade will be a particularly sprend-thrifty meal. 'Thrift, not spendthrift' - I like it. It has a nice ring to it.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

75ml olive oil
3 peppers, de-seeded and finely chopped
1 large white onion, finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 large dried chilli, crumbled
Salt and black pepper
400g can of plum tomatoes, plus a quarter can of water

Stew everything together until thick and unctuous. Serve warm, cold, on its own or with other food.

Japanese Coleslaw

I adore Japanese food. It's light and flavourful and mostly colourful and beautiful too.

If I'm out in town and I want to eat healthily, I always try to eat sushi or some kind of Far Eastern broth. If I fancy a bit of both, then a bento box from a Japanese cafe would be perfect. In reality, it looks like a TV dinner with compartments in an oblong box for different bites. There's always some rice, topped with a protein of some kind. Maybe a salad, maybe soup, maybe some pickles, and maybe something sweet. I adore the variety.

When I'm home, I sometimes try to re-create the bento by serving some Miso Soup along with a main course and a side dish. Today's coleslaw accompanies some Teryaki Haddock (recipe to follow soon) I made with brown rice. The coleslaw is so easy to make and uses very similar ingredients to the western-style one, but with a sweet and sour dressing instead of the usual heavy mayonnaise. I think it may be time to ditch the mayo out of my life. The regular stuff is too fattening (it's basically a pure oil/egg emulsion - why do it to yourself?) and the light stuff is not mayo - it's house paint.

The dressing ingredients were all bought from my local Asian grocery, but you can easily find the same stuff in you regular supermarket.  Cost-wise, the dressing ingredients set you back a bit when you buy them, but they last forever. Cabbage and carrot are cheap as anything. All-in, this lovely side dish comes in at 50p per serving.

Ideally, I would buy some bento boxes with compartments to use at home. But I think that it may be taking my Japanese obsession a bit too far. What would be next? A kimono and a ceremonial sword?

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

Quarter of a white or green cabbage, shredded
1 large carrot, grated
1 teaspoon of black onion (nigella) seeds
2 pieces of stem ginger in syrup, grated
Half a clove of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon each of sesame oil, rice wine vinegar and brown sugar
Salt and black pepper

Mix all of the ingredients together and refrigerate for an hour or two to let the flavours develop. Serve as part of a bento box-style meal

My Sister's Baby Tomato, Chilli and Black Olive Salad

My sister Roxanne never cooked much until she had kids, and now she's forever placing fish 'en papillotte', or gratinating various vegetables, or layering things. Nothing tastes as good as when it's layered. Apparently.

Today's simple recipe was an accompaniment to a main course (err, fish en papillotte, of course) for a dinner party she had on the weekend. I don't normally rip my family's recipes off - unless the food is sensational despite the shoddy photograph (my mum's baked cheesecake recipe springs to mind) - or the food is good but the photo is knockout.

Hence today's inclusion. Have you ever seen tomatoes look quite so delectable? Olives have never looked blacker or shinier. My sister can not only cook, she is also a great photographer. Maybe one day she'll think of doing one of these things as a job. But I doubt it.

Anyway, this simple summer salad goes well with fish or perhaps as an accompaniment to a ploughman's lunch. Either way, I would be delighted to have something so colourful put in front of me at any mealtime.

The only thing is, Roxanne tells me that the dressing is olive oil, with no acidic counterbalance.  Maybe the tomatoes will add an astringent note, but I would add a teaspoon of lemon juice or red wine vinegar to the mix just to enhance the sharpness of the dish.

My sister is as thrifty as I am. I would guess that she paid no more than £1 per serving for this salad. A bargain I reckon.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

300g mixed baby tomatoes (I prefer cherry plum tomatoes myself)
2 large red chillies, de-seeded and finely chopped
100g pitted black olives, halved
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped (make sure you remove the bitter centre stem)
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 teaspoon lemon juice or red wine vinegar (optional, see note above)
Salt and black pepper
Handful of fresh parsley leaves, finely chopped

On a large serving platter, arrange the tomatoes and chillies, with the olives arranged in neat rows on top. Scatter the salad with the garlic and then dress with the olive oil and lemon juice or vinegar, if using. Season the salad and garnish with the parsley immediately before serving, and not before.

Jerusalem Artichoke (Sunchoke) Gratin

Jerusalem artichokes are good for your heart, Jerusalem artichokes make you fart, the more you fart the more you eat, the more you sit on the toilet seat.

The Jerusalem artichoke truly is the most intriguing of vegetables. The looks of a ginger root, the density of a potato, the flavour of an artichoke, the flatulence-giving properties of the baked bean. Oh, and they are utterly delicious too.

Five minutes walk from our flat is Marylebone farmers market, held every Sunday in the car park behind Waitrose. There are not that many stalls, but the ones that it does have stock a fabulous array of organic muddy veg, free-range meat, artisan treats and potted herbs. Everything is pretty expensive, but then it should be.

Take the bread for instance. We bought a spelt bread for £3.20 from a stoned-looking lady standing at one of the two bakery stalls in the market. On our way home, we popped into Waitrose for some cream to make today's gratin recipe, and I happened upon their range of breads, which included an insipid looking spelt loaf half the size and half the price of the one I bought. While I accept that three-and-a-bit-quid is a lot for a loaf of bread from the farmers market, I can say without reservation that, after scoffing the whole thing in a day, it was easily the best thing I have ever put in my mouth. Ever. I'm sure that the £1.79 one from Waitrose was nowhere near as good - it certainly didn't look it.

Not everything was dear though. A kilo of Jerusalem artichokes from a ruddy-faced farmer came in at a very reasonable £1.50. Having never cooked them before, I was a little unsure of how to treat them. But recognising their starchy attributes and interesting skins, I realised that a creamy cheesy gratin would probably be OK (but then, what wouldn't be delicious baked in cheese and cream?).

I wasn't wrong. The dish was incredible. Smooth, silky artichokes perfectly complemented by the rich, creamy sauce. The onions and garlic add a perfect savoury note against the sweet 'chokes (which I suspect may be a bit sickly without them).

Cost-wise, the whole dish came in at a bargain £1.25 per serving. Mrs Ribeye and I ate it as a lunch dish main course, but it would be equally good as a side dish with dinner.

Just a quick word to the wise: Don't eat this dish on a first date, or in a closed environment. Trust me.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

750g Jerusalem artichokes, skins on and scrubbed
1 large onion
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
300ml single cream
100g parmesan cheese, grated
Salt and black pepper

Cook the artichokes in vigorously boiling water until slightly tender (20-30 mins approx). In the meantime, preheat the oven to 200c. In an ovenproof skillet or pan, fry the onion in the olive oil and then add the garlic, and cook until soft. Slice the artichokes into 1cm thick rounds and distribute in the pan in an even layer. Pour over the cream and top with the parmesan cheese. Bake for 20-30 mins, until the cream has reduced and the cheese is golden. Serve immediately and open a window.

The Perfect Guacamole

Why the 'perfect' guacamole, you may ask?

Well, you really only need mashed avocados and salt to make a guacamole, because there really is no 'traditional' Mexican recipe. Therefore, after years of trying and testing, I can safely proclaim that I have found the true alchemic formula - and it's green. And delicious.

The key to making the perfect guac, is to use the perfect avocado - and this is no mean feat. I now use the Haas variety instead of those shiny green-skinned ones. I have found that the while the Haas is an altogether less aesthetically pleasing avocado, the flesh is richer and less prone to hairy fibrousness like the others.

I buy my Haas rock-hard on day one and do not attempt to eat it until day six. Any earlier and its slightly rubbery, much later and it's gunky, over-ripe and covered in black mushy spots.

As to the other ingredients: Lime juice? Check. De-seeded tomato? Check. Spring onion? Check. Fresh coriander? Check. Fresh Chilli? Check. Black pepper? Check.

Here are some 'no way' ingredients: Cumin (too pungent); sour cream or mayo or cream or yoghurt (yuck); garlic (too strong and all wrong); Anything else in the world? (er, no).

So here it is, the perfect guacamole. How do I know it's perfect? Well, last night our good friends Ophelia and Kumar came over for a food-and-movie-party (the director's cut of the 1973 version of The Wicker Man - incredible) and I made Fish Tacos (recipe to follow soon), and between the three of them - my wife included- I barely got a look-in at the guacamole. Ophelia even licked the GD bowl!

Four avocados for a pound at my local Morrison's supermarket, means that this dish comes in at a very delightful 50p per serving. 'Perfect' indeed.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

3 ripe avocados
3 large spring (salad) onions, finely chopped
3 tomatoes, de-seeded and finely chopped
Handful of fresh coriander leaves, finely chopped
1 large fresh red chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped
Juice of a large lime
Salt and black pepper

Mash all ingredients together until blended, but still quite chunky. Serve chilled, with tortilla chips (or in Ophelia's case, with nothing at all...)

Yorkshire Puddings

For someone who spends so much time enjoying writing and testing recipes, I sometimes - like today - advocate the art of cooking by sight and feel, instead of by rigidly sticking to weights, measures and timings.

Yorkshire pudding is the perfect example of a dish which benefits from an experienced, rather than a scientific, approach. Mrs Ribeye Sr (mum) used to have terrible trouble coming up with a consistently excellent batch of puds, until she stopped reading conflicting advice and used good old fashioned common sense instead to bang out tray after tray of perfect, golden, crispy, evenly-risen Yorkies.

The correct basic chemistry is to use the same volume of eggs to flour to make a smooth paste, and then let it down with enough milk to create a batter the thickness of double cream or emulsion paint. Then season (fairly heavily) to taste and voila! The perfect Yorkshire pudding recipe. When I mean 'volume', I'm not referring to weight. I mean that I try to make a heaped dessert spoonful of flour look like the same size as the eggs I've bought. No way should there be a set of scales near me today.

The key to guaranteeing even more structure in your puds, is to use strong bread flour. I have no idea what the difference between strong and plain flour is, but I bet it has something to do with increased amounts of gluten. I probably only make this connection because 'gluten' sounds a bit like 'glue'. I happened to have some over from my recent bread-making fad (pretty much over that now) and I'll be buying more of it when I run out - just to make my puds.

Milk-wise, I use semi-skimmed for everything in my house, and so I use it in my Yorkshire puddings; but if I was buying some especially for this recipe, I may opt for red top (full fat) to give them a bit more richness. This is not scientifically proven, but full fat milk has GOT to taste better in recipes than semi-skimmed, right?

My poor old mum. Conflicting recipes would have her adding water to the mix, or baking powder, or bicarb, or cream, or telling her to 'allow the batter to rest to allow the gluten to develop'. What crap. My recipe is the simplest, the easiest, the deliciousest and more importantly the right-est.

Yorkshire puddings were invented to fill you up when the Sunday roast joint was a bit on the small side, and so it's a thrifty but delicious necessity (which means that this dish is an oft-eaten trusty Potless stalwart). £1 per dozen is all it will set you back. Get some instant gravy to serve with them as a starter, and you'll  be transported back to the late 1940's before you know it. Now all you'll need is Vera Lynn, Brylcream, and some ration books...

Serves 4-6 (makes 12 puddings)

INGREDIENTS:

4 eggs
4 heaped tablespoons of plain or strong bread flour (same volume as the eggs - probably 120g-150g)
Enough milk to let the batter down to the thickness of double cream (about 120-150 ml)
Large pinches of salt and black pepper
Sunflower or vegetable oil

Preheat oven to maximum setting (230-240c) and fill the 12 holes in a muffin tin a fifth/quarter full of oil each. Place the tin in the oven to heat to a blistering temperature. In the meantime, in a jug, beat the eggs with the flour until you have a thick paste. Pour in the milk bit by bit until you have a nice batter. Season and then quickly open the oven door to pour the batter into the holes in the muffin tin. The batter should fizz and pop in the oil. Close the door of the oven and cook (without opening it until the puds are cooked) until the puds are risen and golden - about 25-30 minutes. Serve immediately.

Caprese Salad

I am convinced that the live basil plant found in the 'living herbs' section, found in every supermarket in the land, is a complete racket.

The concept is simple: Buy a vaccuum pack of basil leaves for 80p, OR BUY A WHOLE PLANT FOR £1!!! No contest really. (a) The pack, once opened, is ruined - which means that you must eat the basil within an hour before the leaves get all soggy and shocked that they're now inhaling central London fumes and cooking smells after they were all used to being cosy in their hermetically-sealed plastic environment; (b) Who wants to eat a whole pack of basil in one sitting? The live plant will allow me to keep going back to the well for days (certainly)/weeks (hopefully)/months (can it be possible?)/years (dare I dream?) on end; (c) Live plants look good in my tiny kitchen - slightly like I'm living in Tuscany. All I need now is a lemon bush and an olive tree.

However, after TWO days, and a few snippets of leaves later, this is what my plumptuous basil plant looks like:

A ragbag of wilting blackening pulpy leaves and bent stalks.

Having tried every single tip on the internet to breathe life back into my herbal disaster zone (you can forget the care tips on the pack: 'Water when needed'. Bahh!), and failing miserably, I realised that I have been completely conned. The supermarket are injectingt the plants with fungus to get you to keep buying them! It doesn't matter where I live, how hot/cold my flat is, how sunny/dark my kitchen is, how much/little water I give the plant, how many times I crop/leave the plant alone, if I give/don't give the plant Baby Bio; the fact remains, I buy a new plant every week with the same steadfast optimism that 'this time, I KNOW where I am going to put it/when to water it/when to crop it' etc, but the plant curls up and dies within a day or two.

And I do buy a new plant every week. Why? Because basil rocks. I put it into as many dishes as I can justify: Italian, Thai, salads, stews and soups. Today's dish is a stalwart weekday light supper which I serve with some fresh bread and butter, and is so pretty and wholesome that Mrs Ribeye hardly notices that I've made very little effort.

Caprese salad is the simpler brother of the insalata tricolore. I barely buy avocados these days because I reckon only one in three is ever any good - and that is a risk-to-benefit ratio that I'm not happy with. Better to keep spending my money on those bloody basil plants...

Mozzarella cheeses seems to be getting cheaper and cheaper these days. A 125g ball of the cheap stuff is now 43p! Which means that this dish comes in at a crazily cheap £1.25 per serving.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

2 x 125g balls of mozzarella cheese
4 plum tomatoes
Quarter of an iceberg lettuce
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
Handful of fresh basil leaves
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper

Slice the cheese and tomatoes into 1cm thick rounds and arrange in rows on a plate. Finely chop the iceberg lettuce and place in a neat row down the centre of the plate. Sprinkle oregano over the cheese and tomato and dot the basil leaves around the edge. Dress the salad with the oil and vinegar (not on the basil) and season to taste. Serve immediately.

Crudites with Anchoiade

I'm sitting in my central London flat huddled over my laptop, wistfully looking out at the sunny morning (although in full knowledge that while the day looks deceptively warm and summery, the fact that I am necessarily sitting in copious layers of poly-viscose tells me that it is bloody freezing out there) and wishing I was back on my summer holiday in Nice on the French Riviera.

So, there's only one thing for it: No. Not giving up my life in England to become a street artist in Provence. I'll make some summery grub.

For some reason, anchoiade and crudites seems like something that you should only eat when you're on a patio overlooking the Med, while drinking a long-stemmed glass of local rose and surreptitiously ogling French strumpet. But no! I made I made some this weekend while sitting in my draughty London apartment, drinking a long-stemmed glass of non-local rose and overtly ogling my own strumpet. And it was (almost) as good.

Anchoiade is a fairly punchy dip, made with tinned anchovies, a fair amount of garlic (not too much - I'm not actually French), a dash of vinaigrette ingredients and a handful of fresh parsley from the old window box. Terrific. Just pair it with some vibrantly colourful raw vegetables or even crusty bread, and in no time, you'll be back on your summer hols with nothing to worry about, except for a bit of garlic breath and a slight mid-afternoon hangover. Truly lovely.

No kidding, though; try this dip, it is absolutely my newest favourite thing in the whole wide world. I made it for the first time this week, and I have resolved to make it again at the earliest opportunity.

A 70g tin of excellent quality anchovy fillets are 79p at Waitrose, which means that including the lovely vegetables, this dish comes in at a very reasonable £1.50 per serving, for a super duper starter, snack with drinks, or weekend treat. Ooh-la-la, as some would say (not me).

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

Anchoiade

6 tinned anchovy fillets, oil drained
1 fat clove of garlic, centre stem removed
1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar
3-4 tablespoons of olive oil
Fresh black pepper

Fresh, raw salad vegetables, cut into two-bite-sized chunks, for dipping

In a pestle and mortar, crush together the anchovy fillets and garlic until you have a smooth paste. Add the red vinegar and olive oil until you have a smooth emulsion. Set aside until needed, to allow the flavours to intermingle and develop. Serve with the crudites.

Cheese Fondue

Mrs Ribeye and I have gone so 70's! It's amazing how fashions change and evolve, but mainly repeat, albeit with a slightly modern twist. A couple of years ago, there was no way that I could visualise buying a fondue set without thinking that I had gone a bit 'Austin Powers', but for some reason, these days, I reckon there is nothing groovier. Baby.

The thing is, I'd never made a fondue before and was a bit concerned about eating quite so much cheese in a meal. I shouldn't have worried. The fondue was quite simply the best thing I have ever eaten IN MY WHOLE LIFE. Where have you been all this time, my cheesy friend?

I word of advice on buying a fondue set: The Le Creuset one (ahhh, Le Creuset...) is about a hundred quid and, of course, is totally fab. But the Ikea one is thirty five quid and ... exactly the same as the Le Creuset one. I mean, exactly. So, the Ikea one it had to be (which gave me a chance to buy a sack of frozen meatballs too. Everyone's a winner).

Since I had never made a fondue before, I had to do a bit of research. The general consensus is that the 'correct' fondue, is a Swiss fondue. So I chose Gruyere and Emmenthal. Apparently I could have chose Vacherin too, if I knew what Vacherin was or where to buy it.

Also, I used brandy and lemon juice instead of the traditional kirsch, because I didn't fancy buying a bottle of kirsch just to make a fondue. My addition of a foil-wrapped triangle of Dairylea was a recommendation from a Swiss food blog, which assured me that this extra touch would help amalgamate all of the other ingredients. I'm not 100% sure how a tiny piece of processed goo is going to make any difference, but who am I to argue?

Fondue is a rich dish and an interesting and totally delicious main course. I served mine with a plate of salami and crudites, alongside the traditional crusty dipping bread. It would also make a cool drinks party snack with cold wine or beer. A quick note on the bread: Make sure that each piece has a piece of crust attached to it for secure spearing - otherwise, after a few goes, the fondue will end up more like a bread sauce.

Cost-wise, this one is great value. £2 per generous serving for a luxurious and trendy dish is a 1970's priced bargain.

My friend Ophelia, who is Swiss, has promised me a 'fondue cook-off'. But to be honest, she's gonna lose.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

350ml white wine
50ml brandy
25ml lemon juice
1 clove of garlic, whole
500g mixed cheeses, grated (I used Gruyere and Emmenthal)
2 tablepoons of flour
1 piece of spreadable cheese, like Dairylea or Laughing Cow
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon nutmeg
Salt and black pepper
Crusty bread for dipping

In a fondue pot or casserole on the hob turned up to a high heat, cook the wine, brandy lemon juice and the garlic until the liquid has reduced by half. Turn the hob to medium and discard the garlic, then add the cheese and flour gradually, until everything is smoothly incorporated. Mix in the cheese spread, paprika, nutmeg and seasoning. Remove the fondue from the hob and transfer to a low burner. Eat the fondue by dipping the bread into the sauce and periodically stirring it to keep it lump-free and avoid burning.

Padron Peppers Tapas

One of the best things about having a cooking obsession, is trawling around food shops and markets on a search for the weird and wonderful.

My fascination for tapas started in a Spanish restaurant in the village of Caleta in a small forgotten windswept cove in Tenerife. The cafe sits atop a rocky precipice overlooking a particularly rugged part of the Atlantic coast, and is fairly well known for its fabulously fresh wide selection of authentic tapas and its main course cousin the ration. I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the place.

It was there that I first had a plate of Padron peppers - the cousin of the chilli (but not too distant, since about 1 in 20 of them is a spicy timebomb) - to enjoy with a glass of the local wine. What a find! How on earth could a fried pepper sprinkled with sea salt be such a gastronomic treat? I thought that maybe my love of such a simple dish had more to do with the stunning surroundings, the strong wine or the holiday vibe. Until now.

Mrs Ribeye and I found a rare pack of 'Padrons' (as I affectionately call them) at: La Plaza Delicatessen, Portobello Road, London, W10, while we wandered through Portobello Market last Saturday. Of course, we had to pop in to Makan for lunch, but on the way home we happened past La Plaza and I wasted no time in picking up a pack from the vegetable counter. Having offered a timid 'gracias' to the shopkeeper and then moronically repeating 'de nada' when he replied to my thanks, I decided never to attempt to speak in a foreign tongue on home soil again.

So, were the peppers as good as I remember? Er, maybe even better actually. Our good friends Ophelia and Kumar came over for dinner last night and I made Cassoulet (I'll post the recipe soon Click the link!) as a main course and these Padrons as a snack with pre-dinner drinks. Maybe because I used less oil than our Spanish friends, or maybe because I used a ridged grill pan to give them a slightly charred taste or something, but they were a delight. Kumar and I are chilli-heads so anything that looks like a chilli is going to please us no-end. Mrs Ribeye is a chilli-hater, and so these were not her favourite (although I'm not sure why), and Ophelia seemed non-committal. So maybe they're a boy's thing.

Dessert was my Apple Strudel Samosas. The whole dinner was well-balanced and I was happy with the result. Oh, one thing about the peppers: They're a bit pricey. £3.75 for a 400g punnet, means that the cost per serving is £1. I suppose even a return Easyjet flight for the pepper-carrier from Tenerife doesn't come so cheap these days. Gracias indeed.

Serves 4 (tapas-sized servings)

INGREDIENTS:

400g Padron peppers
Sunflower/vegetable oil for frying
Coarse sea salt

In a blisteringly hot grill pan, fry the peppers in the oil until slightly charred. Sprinkle with seas salt and serve immediately with cold beer or wine.

Tzatziki

It's funny how our tastes change. When I was a kid, you couldn't get me to eat a yoghurt for love nor money, but these days I'm eating the stuff with gusto.

Acquiring a taste for things takes many methods. A childhood hatred for orange juice was reversed when I was given freshly squeezed juice for breakfast on holiday somewhere and after gingerly trying it, found that it was far more heavenly than the concentrated carton crap I had thought was the only way the stuff was available.

Like all children growing up in the 1970's can testify, a daily delivery of school milk was the only way that the  State could guarantee that the population grew up with healthy teeth and bones - until 'Margaret Thatcher Milk Snatcher' decided that the money was better spent elsewhere. I couldn't have been happier. Thanks to the school milk being served at a highly un-refreshing room temperature and seeming to contain revolting 'bits' in it, I haven't been able to drink milk at any time during the rest of my forty year life. It's something which upsets me to my very core. Watching Mrs Ribeye enjoy breakfast cereal always left me jealous, until I discovered muesli with yoghurt.

Loving yoghurt, but hating milk has got to be the most blatant way to illustrate how irrational food phobias are. I don't like milk, but I love sour milk? Madness. Secretly, I'm hoping that I'm locked in a room for a week with nothing but a create of milk slowly going off for company. I'd emerge a delighted breakfast cereal consumer and go about my life a more fulfilled person. But, as it's never going to happen, yoghurt will be my saviour instead.

Today's recipe is not only the last in my Greek meze series of dishes, it is also a celebration of the mighty yoghurt. I buy supermarket tubs of tzatziki on a daily basis to eat with pitta bread for snacks or as part of my vegetarian midweek lunch, but making it yourself is far better than buying it. I can't say the same for Houmous, which is far better shop bought, but tzatziki is way nicer when you assemble it yourself. I noticed that shop bought tzatziki frequently contains cornflour. How very inappropriate and disgusting (not that I can taste it, but still).

Just make sure you buy the very best Greek yoghurt to ensure that you have a lovely thick tzatziki. The other major tip is to use dried AND fresh mint. The dried herb adds a warm background note, while the chopped fresh leaves add a refreshingly zingy top note. I grow fresh mint on my roof terrace, and I have found that it is as easy to grow as weeds - the problem is more about keeping it from growing too big rather than worrying about it dying. Just buy a mint plant from the living herbs rack in you supermarket, and water it only when the very top surface of the soil is looking a bit dessicated.

Cost-wise, this easy delicious dish is super reasonable. 50p per serving is all.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

1 x 500ml tub of Greek yoghurt
Half a cucumber, de-seeded and finely chopped
Handful of fresh mint leaves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon of dried mint, plus some for sprinkling
1 clove of garlic, mashed
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Salt and pepper

Mix the ingredients together in a bowl and refrigerate until to need to allow the flavours to intermingle and develop. Remove from the fridge and sprinkle with the dried mint. Serve with hot pitta bread.

Home-made Houmous

I'm sorry but shop-bought houmous is better than home-made. I don't care who makes it or which shop you buy it in, the houmous sold in a tub always trumps your own. Why? I suggest that there is a special ingredient only known to manufacturers of middle eastern dips which they sprinkle into the machine with the rest of the ingredients. I'll bet it's fairy dust.

So why bother making your own, and why have I posted a recipe here at all? I'll tell you. It's because I have an obsession with telling the truth, and last night I made a middle eastern meze for friends and didn't want to tell them that I made my own houmous when I didn't. Tzatziki, on the other hand, IS better home-made than shop-bought (recipe to follow soon) and so I was delighted to offer them a delightful yoghurty alternative to embellish the start of the feast.

So why is shop-bought houmous actually better? The answer is that it's mellower and has a better texture. The ingredients have had a long time in their hermetically sealed polythene container to really get to know each other and balance each other out - a bit like leaving two heavyweight boxers in the ring for an hour and seeing them emerge all battered and calm. The other thing is, the manufacturers have managed to find a way to easily peel the skins off the chickpeas, ensuring that their finished dish is smoother than a baby's bum - not full of papery shards of floppy old skin. Yuck.

I am, of course, exaggerating. Home-made houmous is fine, and tastes approximately the same as the one from Waitrose etc. It's even quite pleasant when you garnish it with reserved chickpeas, olive oil and paprika. But let's face it, once you garnish some of the shop-bought stuff with reserved chickpeas, olive oil and paprika, who the hell would know if you made it yourself or not? Maybe half a lie is better than a lie or no lie?

Oh, a quick note on tahini: Buy a big tub of it from your local middle eastern grocer. I use Green Valley just off the Edgware Road near Marble Arch (who also sell baklava to die for). Once you've got over your obsession with making your own houmous, you'll find yourself unable to pop to the fridge hourly to steal a spoonful of the deliciously rich clay-like sesame paste. It's like a slightly bitter peanut buter, but for some reason, so much better - it's gotta be that bloody  fairy dust again.

Oh, the other thing about shop-bought houmous, is that it's really cheap. 80p-£1 for a 200g tub is about the going rate. Make it yourself and it's going to cost you 75p per serving. Why bother?

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

1 x 400g can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed with 1 tablespoon reserved for garnish

2 tablespoons of tahini (sesame seed) paste, or 2 tablespoons of sesame seeds, ground to a powder

1 clove of garlic, peeled

3 tablespoons of lemon juice

3 tablespoons of olive oil

Pinches of salt and pepper
Ground paprika, for sprinkling

Toasted pitta bread to serve

In a blender, whizz up the chickpeas, tahini, garlic, lemon juice, 3 tablespoons of the olive oil and seasoning. Transfer the houmous to a bowl and make a shallow well in the centre. Garnish with the reserved chickpeas, sprinkle with paprika and drizzle with the reserved tablespoon of olive oil. Serve with the pitta bread.

Italian Mixed Salad

What a lovely weekend Mrs Ribeye and I just had.

We had plans to go to a big party at our friends in Brixton on Saturday night, and then skipped it to spend a much-needed afternoon at home with just our thoughts - and a big bag of peanut M&M's while watching DVD's, followed by an evening of Fish and Chips from the Seashell in Lisson Grove and more DVD's.

The next morning - Sunday - we took a slow walk through the rose gardens in beautiful Regent's Park, on our way from our home in Marylebone to Camden Town. After a massive fry-up at the Goodfare Cafe on Parkway, we got the papers and spent the afternoon lazing around at home. Heaven. Slight problem: Too many calories and not enough exercise.

So, to avoid the 'Creeping Gut' syndrome, I resolved to make a healthy Sunday night dinner - and this is it. Italian mixed salad. Basically, it's just a whole load of things that you might put on a pizza, but in raw form and without the pizza base, but with lettuce as the base instead. Of course, being English, the bread could not be omitted entirely - slices of olive oil-soaked toast with dried oregano sprinkled on top were the perfect accompaniment. I said 'eat healthily', not become an 'Atkins-obsessed, carb-hating fanatic', did I?

The result was absolutely incredible, and I didn't feel even a tiny bit bad about eating a whole mozzarella cheese. When you eat it raw, it feels healthier. Deluded? Probably.

This week is a big socialising week, with plans for about four nights in a row. No rest for the wicked - unless we cancel, that is.

Cost-wise, this dish comes in at just on your Potless budget. £3 per serving is all.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

1 soft round or frisee lettuce
1 large red pepper, cut into large chunks
2 large tomatoes, cut into large chunks
2 spring onions, finely chopped
2 balls of mozzarella, cut into large chunks
Handful of olives
1 x 75g tin of anchovies in olive oil
Handful of fresh basil
Half a ciabatta loaf, cut into 1cm thick slices
Pinch of dried oregano
Pinches of salt and pepper
Dash of olive oil
Dash of red wine vinegar

Arrange the salad vegetables, with the mozzarella, anchovies, olives and fresh basil on top. In the meantime, toast the bread and sprinkle with some of the reserved olive oil from the anchovies, then sprinkle with the oregano and salt and pepper. Dress the salad with the fresh olive oil and red wine vinegar and serve with the ciabatta slices.

Globe Artichoke Vinaigrette

Look, this is hardly a recipe - boiled globe artichokes served with French vinaigrette - instead it is a celebration of French produce, over that of our meagre English offerings.

Having spent a week in Nice in a rented flat, with small kitchen, I was given the opportunity to do some food shopping and cooking in France. What a revelation. The supermarkets are incredible - racks and racks of fresh produce all beautifully fanned-out in concentric circles of colourful and interesting ingredients, all waiting to inspire any eager cook to turn them into culinary alchemy.

The fruit and vegetable range changes daily - selling whatever is in season and happens to have provided the most bountiful, high quality, locally-grown crop on any given day. Of course, most of the obvious salad veg is on sale every day, but as the week went on, I grew to be less surprised by the daily almighty fluctuations of price and strain of each item as I browsed the racks, looking for the day's bargains.

Some days, watermelons were 2 Euros each, then the price would rise to 5 Euros each as the supply and demand curve dictated. Large Coeur de Beauf tomatoes would regularly flip-flop between 1-3 Euros a piece.

Fish prices were a little more stable and meat prices even more so. Wine and beer stocks changed almost daily, and the French seemed to get through lakes of the stuff. One day, Mrs Ribeye took a liking to a nectarine-infused wine, and asked me to get her another bottle while I did the day's shopping. No chance - the entire shelf had been picked clean.

One day, the rack of artichokes which had normally featured some tennis ball-sized examples at 1.50 Euros each, gave way to some melon-sized ones for 75 cents. A bargain! So I picked up a couple, and decided to simply boil them for an hour and serve them warm with a vinaigrette made with a lovely local olive oil/red wine vinegar and Dijon mustard dressing. Heaven.

Another thing about these artichokes - unlike the imported ones we buy over here in England - is that they are cheaper and better in every way. Firstly, they are huge, with enormous, smooth meaty hearts, with easy-to-remove hairy chokes, and chunky leaves with a good mouthful of edible stuff at the base of each one. Not scrawny with stringy hearts, impossible-to-remove chokes, and mostly inedible leaves, like ours. Secondly, they are prettier - when cut, the interiors have the most vibrant purple-coloured inner leaves I have ever seen. Positively psychedelic. Thirdly, when cut and boiled, they don't discolour and go that horrible black colour like the ones here at home - which even a sprinkle of lemon juice during the cooking period cannot cure (regardless of what published recipes might say). And fourthly, they're home-grown in France, which means that they were picked and sold within a day - not passengers on a long haul flight, where almost all of that fresh goodness had been lost in transit.

Also, even if I buy French olive oil, French red wine vinegar and Dijon mustard at home, the dressing wouldn't be as good as the one I made in Nice. Why? Because anything you make and eat abroad, somehow loses its appeal a bit when you bring it back. I don't know why - The French will probably say something about terroir or something. But surely if the stuff was grown there and merely imported here, the terroir is the same? Infuriating.

This recipe, a fabulous starter on a warm summer's day, came in at under £1 per serving. Even if you pay more for your ingredients, it's still a very reasonably-priced dish.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

2 large globe artichokes
A large pinch of salt

Vinaigrette:

4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard
Pinches of salt and black pepper

Snip off the top third of the artichoke to remove the woodier parts of the upper leaves, and expose the inner leaves. Twist-off the stalk at the base of the artichoke. Boil in plenty of salted water until soft (an hour approx) - the outer leaves should easily part from the rest of the body when cooked. In the meantime, mix the vinaigrette ingredients together, until you have a smooth emulsion, and set aside until needed.


To serve: Place an artichoke in a serving bowl and pour some of the vinaigrette around the base. Eat the leaves by picking them one-by-one from the artichoke and dipping them in the sauce - eat only the soft lower portion and discard the rest. Once all leaves have been eaten, remove the hairy choke from the heart, by pulling it away gently - it should come away quite easily. Cut the heart into chunks with a knife and fork and eat it with the rest of the vinaigrette.

Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto and Vegetable Couscous with Fresh Oregano

So, here are a few facts to ponder:

1. I make Mrs Ribeye's packed lunch every day for work (henpecked, me? nah...).
2. Mrs Ribeye and I are on a 'meat in moderation' pact, meaning we mainly reserve eating flesh for weekends and special occasions.
3. I have a new herb garden (more like a couple of terracotta troughs, actually) on the roof terrace.

Put these seemingly independent facts together and what do you get? Couscous! With vegetables! And fresh herbs! Not so hard to guess really.

Mrs Ribeye loves pasta salad, but wasn't so keen on couscous until I told her that couscous is in fact pasta, but smaller. Now she loves it. I can't wait to tell her that liver is made of strawberries and black pudding has chocolate in it. No, really. Couscous IS made of semolina flour like pasta, so it is (in theory anyway) small pasta. In theory.

Anyway, since I started making this dish, the old finicky eater can't get enough of it. When she saw the fresh oregano, she asked me why I had put bits of the hedge on her packed lunch. Give me strength...

In the new herb 'garden', I have put oregano, French tarragon, apple mint and rosemary. Mrs Ribeye likes nicking off bits of the mint to put in her tea (bless her and her Russian ways) and I like nicking bits off the rest to jazz up our meals. Apart from using the oregano in this vegetarian recipe, I'm looking forward to the weekend to use it to 'herbify' a Greek lamb dish, or something.

This weekend is the Eurovision Song Contest and I have Ophelia, Kumar, Tanya and Ricardo over here for a barbecue/Eurovision extravaganza - let's hope this heatwave holds out (it probably won't). Watch this space for a barbecue recipe after I've figured out what I'm going to make. I'm feeling a bit hamburger-y, but peri-peri chicken is also on the cards. Go Engelbert!

Back to today though. Just gather up some spring vegetables and add them to a sun-dried tomato or basil pesto-flavoured couscous and then get busy with the fresh herbs. It's a wonderful late spring/early summer lunch or supper, or if you're Mrs Ribeye, a fabulous packed lunch to eat with your workmates in sunny Hyde Park. Luckyyyyyy.

Cost-wise, this set me back £1.50 per serving, but feel free to add whatever you like and you'll still stay way under your Potless budget.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

100g dried couscous
150ml boiling water
50g sun-dried tomato pesto sauce
Pinches of salt and pepper
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
200g chopped vegetables (I have used artichoke hearts, fresh tomatoes and black olives)
Fresh oregano leaves to sprinkle

Add the couscous to the boiling water with the pesto, salt and pepper and dried oregano. Leave to stand, covered in clingfilm, until the water has been absorbed (10 minutes approx). Once the couscous has cooled to room temperature, add the vegetables and fold through. Sprinkle with the fresh oregano leaves just before serving.

Greek Halloumi Salad with Hummus Dressing

I love that squeaky, rubbery cheese halloumi. After a few minutes of frying in hot oil, it transforms from an unpalatable bar of white waxy soapy stuff to a delicious savoury crispy gooey treat, perfect for a meat-free dinner. It's still a bit squeaky though.

So, with a bar of halloumi and the omnipresent tub of hummus in the fridge, I thought, let's make a bit of a healthy meal, after all of the birthday weekend tomfoolery. And this is it. I simply loosened the hummus into a vinaigrette base and coated a few salad vegetables with it before topping the whole thing off with fried halloumi slices. Delish.

In what other way could I fry a lump a cheese and call it a 'healthy alternative'? You gotta love the Greeks.

However, hummus is actually not Greek, despite it being served it in Greek-Cypriot restaurants up and down the UK. A decade or two ago, I went to beautiful Crete (I accept, not in Cyprus) and spent the entire trip searching for what I thought was the traditional Greek dish of hummus. No such thing. Yes, taramasalata and tzatziki adorned every dish in every taverna on the island (whether I asked for it or not), but hummus? No.

So, in the end, we ended up in a Cypriot restaurant, in Greece, before I got served the chickpea dip. And very delicious it was too.

I served this salad with Flatbreads, as you can see from the picture, and a very substantial and lovely meal it was too. Not exactly health food, but not too far off - especially if you fry the halloumi in olive oil, like I did.

All in all, this recipe comes in at a very reasonable £2 per serving.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

1 block of halloumi, cut into 6 slices
1 tablespoon of olive oil
Mixed salad vegetables (I used lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, olives, sweet peppers, chillies and radishes, all cut into 1cm dice)
Flatbreads, to serve

For the hummus dressing:

2 tablespoons of hummus
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar or lemon juice
1 teaspoon of mustard
Pinches if salt and pepper

Fry the halloumi in the olive oil until brown on each side. Arrange the salad vegetables in large bowls and top with the halloumi slices. Mix the dressing ingredients together and pour over the salad. Serve with the flatbreads.

Masala Chips

Mrs Ribeye and I had a fabulous lunch at the Indian vegetarian diner, Sakonis in Wembley, on bank holiday Monday earlier this week.

Gotta love bank holidays, but gotta love Sakonis even more. I won't rave about it here, because I'll write a full review later this week as part of my Potless Budget Restaurant Review series. However, I will write about a stealthily brilliant dish I ate there. I say 'stealthily', because ostensibly this dish is a mere plate of chips with a spicy sauce on it, and while it may be more obvious to bang on about the diner's legendary potato bhajis or masala dosai instead, I won't, because masala chips, for all of its unpretentious concept and simple flavours and ingredients is utterly and completely incredible.

I am using oven chips here to keep the oil consumption to a minimum, and it won't matter whether the chips are fried or baked first anyway, because they're going to get deliciously soggy, once folded into the sauce. Weirdly enough, although anathema to usual chip recipes, sogginess is the preferred texture for a plate of masala chips. In fact, it may even be better to buy a plate of chip shop chips to make this recipe - I reckon they have the right 'sog' factor necessary for an authentic take on this Indian classic. Don't tell Sakonis, but Mrs Ribeye reckons my recipe is even better than theirs.

Anyway, back to bank holiday Mondays: We should have them twice a week.

Keep an eye out later this week for my Sakonis review. It's a corker. But in the meantime, if you fancy a quick hit of their delicious Indian veggie fare, whip up a quick batch of these masala chips for only £1 per serving.

Fabulous as a starter, side dish, or as a snack with drinks. 

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

1 large onion, coarsely chopped

1 red pepper, cut into 1cm strips

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

3 chillies, cut into 1cm rings

1 tablespoon of sunflower or olive oil

200g tinned chopped tomatoes

1 teaspoon of madras or medium curry powder
1 teaspoon of black onion (nigella) seeds

500g cooked chips (French fries)

Pinches of salt and pepper
Fresh coriander leaves, for sprinkling

In a large wok, fry the onion, pepper, garlic and most of the chillies (reserving some for later) together until soft and translucent. Add the tomatoes, curry powder and black onion seeds and simmer for 10 minutes, until the sauce has thickened. Add the chips to the sauce and fold through until the chips are evenly coated. Season to taste. Sprinkle with fresh coriander and the reserved chillies before serving.

Chinese Smoked Mackerel Pancake Canapes

I love drinks parties and I especially love food served at drinks parties.

Last weekend, my friend Andrea had a wonderful 30th birthday party in a wine bar in the newly refurbished St Pancras station, and laid on some delicious canapes brought over by white-aproned bar staff. There were cubes of succulent pork belly, salt cod fritters, goats cheese tartlets and roasted tomato bruschetta. Mrs Ribeye and I made utter pigs of ourselves.

This weekend, alas, no party. However, did that stop the missus and I eating canapes in the comfort of our own home? Oh no! Still in pyjamas at 5.30pm on a Sunday afternoon, I prepared our very own cocktail party for two at home, featuring my Chicken Liver Pate on crackers and these little pancake delights. The decadence!

The thing is, I had bought a large free range duck and fancied making crispy duck with all the Chinese accoutrements, but after making my Confit Duck the day before and my Seared Duck Breast with Roast Duck Wings (recipe to follow later this week) the day before that, I didn't fancy eating another meal featuring our webbed-footed friend - especially as we are still on our 'meat-in-moderation' schtick.

So, with the Chinese pancakes, sweet hoi sin sauce and spring onions burning a hole in my pocket, I had to come up with a solution: Smoked mackerel! Crispy duck is a bit smoky and oily like mackerel, isn't it? So I tried it, and I PROMISE you, it is better than crispy duck! Mrs Ribeye couldn't believe how delicious these pancakes were, washed down by some of her sickly sweet rose. I can't wait to try these out on some actual friends - even though these cocktail parties a deux are quite fun.

Try making these Chinese pancakes with smoked mackerel - they are lighter, tastier, less rich and healthier than duck, and a lot less bother. I just took the mackerel out of its vaccuum pack and wapped it straight in the pancake with the sauce and veg. Canapes in 2 minutes. Eaten in 2 seconds.

I buy the cheapest 'value' smoked mackerel in the supermarket, at £1.50 for four large fillets. The sauce and the pancakes come from my local Asian cash and carry. All-in, these canapes cost about 30p each.

Serves 2 (makes 10 pancakes)

INGREDIENTS:

10 Chinese pancakes
3-4 tablespoons of sweet hoi sin sauce
1 smoked mackerel fillet, flaked
Half a cucumber or yellow sweet pepper, sliced into 5mm strips
1 spring (salad) onion, sliced into 2mm strips

Spread a little hoi sin sauce onto a pancake, and top with the mackerel, cucumber or pepper and spring onion. Roll the pancake into a cone and serve immediately.

My Mother-in-Law's Russian Salad 'Olivier'

Please welcome my mother-in-law to Potless!

Each year, Mrs Ribeye and I take a trip together to Syktyvkar in northern Russia to visit with the eastern wing of the family. We absolutely love it and I especially do, because it gives me a week-off from cooking and a chance to sample and learn to make for myself some authentic Russki cuisine from someone who has been cooking it for the best part of 50 years. I can't learn it from my wife - she hasn't cooked a dish in her entire 26 years. Bless.

Today's dish was invented 150 years ago by Lucien Olivier in the Hermitage restaurant in Moscow, and traditionally contained all sorts of decadent ingredients: Veal, caviar, duck, crayfish etc. These days, the salad is a mayonnaise-y delight featuring everyday stuff (the more humdrum the ingredients, the better and more authentic the dish - tinned peas are preferable to fresh etc), but is still utterly delicious and reminds me of family. I love it.

Anyway, Mrs Ribeye also takes an annual Easter trip home, without me, to get some quality time with her parents without having to be chief translator, and on this year's trip, her mum made her her favourite Olivier salad - and the missus had to take a picture of it to make me all jealous.

We're both going to visit at the end of the year for Russian New Year (on 7th January - don't ask) and we'll sit down for something to eat at whatever time of day or night we arrive. It's always dinner time at the in-laws place - I am hoping for some Olivier salad, my favourite Seledka pod Shuboy, and some various Pirogi (recipe to follow soon).

Excuse the quality of the photo - it has been taken with an iPhone in Russia, emailed to my Blackberry in London and passed through a filter to make it the right size and give it the right border. That's a lot of technology! Oh, but check out the crockery and tablecloth patterns - how pretty and adorable are they?

Due to the recent Russian clamour for western capitalistic values, food in England is now a lot cheaper to buy than in Russia. £1.50 per serving is all it'll cost you in London. Twice that in Syktyvkar.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

2 large potatoes, peeled and cut into 1cm dice
1 large carrot, peeled and cut into 1cm dice
200g cooked ham, cut into 1cm dice
1 small tin of peas, drained
2 hardboiled eggs, cut into 1cm dice
2 spring (salad) onions, chopped
100g mayonnaise
Pinches of salt and pepper

Crusty bread, to serve.

Combine the salad ingredients and chill for an hour or two to allow the flavours to intermingle and develop. Serve with the crusty bread.