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.

Oven-Baked Vegetable Noodles with Ginger and Sesame Oil

I hate stir-frying. I hate woks. I hate stir-fried food made at home. I hate all 'home-cooked Chinese food'. I love Chinese takeaways.

Chinese takeaways are not going to win Michelin stars, but the Chinese know how to cook food that caucasians like to eat. I'm talking about bright red crispy stuff in gloopy sauces. I'm talking about fried stuff with noodles. I'm talking about rice with bright stuff in it. I don't know how it's done and I don't care. I just love it (especially when it comes with a bag of free prawn crackers sitting on the top of the brown paper sack already leaking grease down the delivery driver's arm).

I'm a really good cook, and I love buying exotic produce from my Asian grocer, but I CANNOT MAKE CHINESE FOOD. I have a Chinese friend who has taught me how to make Chinese food , but I CANNOT MAKE CHINESE FOOD. So now I (almost) stop trying.

The problem is not the ingredients, but the technique. How many times have I wielded my wok and followed my good friend Yang's instructions to 'hey, only cook the vegetables for a few minutes!'? Yes Yang, after I remove the beautiful vibrant veg/meat/rice/noodles from the wok and put it onto the plate it starts leaching water until I have a 3cm pool at the bottom of the plate. The meat is hard and tasteless. The noodles have formed a crust on the bottom of the wok and are now scraped-off to form a stupid non-traditional gnarly crispy noodley garnish for the top of my crappy dish (I won't waste a scrap of food for any reason ever). What the eff?

The answer: Ditch the wok. Now by roasting everything in the oven, I just sit back and drink wine while waiting for my delicious dinner. No waiting for the wok to 'heat until blistering'. No getting covered in splats of oil. And definitely no watery slop.

The key is to oven cook the veg until all the water has been driven off and then keep adding things until everything is amalgamated. It is total stupidity that you must cook the veg for two minutes 'to keep all the vitamins in'. You want vitamins? Take a pill. For me, I want it to taste good.

Oh and while on the subject of taste? Fresh ginger and garlic with soy and sesame oil is a far better alternative to the stir-fry sauce nonsense served up in sachets in supermarket aisles (what is that brown goo? Wood stain?). Simple is always best - unless you're ordering food from your local takeaway, or you happen to have an Asian friend prepared to make you dinner.

This is no joke - the whole dinner comes in at £1.50 per very generous serving and is fairly close to rivaling my local Chinese takeaway for flavour. The recipe here is basic, but you can add some oven roasted meat or fish to the top. I made some salmon with mine and plonked it on top before serving. Delish.

Now, if only I could find a way to oven roast myself a few free prawn crackers...

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

Thumb of ginger, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
500g mixed stir-fry vegetables
1 tablespoon olive oil
400g ready-cooked egg noodles
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil

Preheat oven to 220c. Mix together the ginger, garlic and vegetables and arrange in an even layer on a non-stick baking tray, then sprinkle with the olive oil. Bake for 20 minutes until well cooked (turning a few times), and then add the noodles, soy sauce and sesame oil, and mix everything together until well amalgamated. Bake for a further 5 minutes. Serve immediately.

Asparagus with Instant Hollandaise Boiled Eggs

I do love a bit of drama. And I am a bit lazy. Put these virtues(?) together, and voila! Do-it-yourself beautiful seasonal food.

Today's dish is a bit of an old springtime favourite - asparagus with hollandaise sauce. However, instead of slaving over a hot stove trying not to let your sauce curdle, just soft-boil a few eggs, and add the sauce ingredients at the table. Or even better, let your guests do it themselves.

All you need to remember is to not let the eggs overcook, otherwise the sauce will not smoothly come together and you will end up with vinegary eggs topped with hard butter- yuck.

I made this dish for my mum, Mrs Ribeye Sr, and she 'quite liked' it. I would love to tell you that she 'loved' it, but she is a die-hard traditionalist and would have preferred not to have 'done-it-herself'. Mrs Ribeye Jr (the wife), however, loved it - as did I. We too are looking forward to getting old and stuck in our ways in a few years time. Our (as yet unborn) children are soooo lucky...!

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

10 fat asparagus spears
4 eggs
A few drops of white wine vinegar
4 small knobs of butter
Celery or rock salt
Black pepper

Boil the asparagus and eggs, in the same pan, for 4 minutes. Remove everything from the pan and arrange five asparagus spears and two eggs per person on a serving plate. Serve by removing the tops from the eggs and adding a few drops of vinegar and the butter; then sprinkle with the celery salt and pepper. Dip and swirl the asparagus into the eggs to create instant hollandaise sauce.

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.

Miso Soup

WARNING! THIS RECIPE IS NONSENSE.

I love eating at sushi restaurants but I'm getting sick and tired of the big con. Years ago sushi in the UK would be expensive because non-one really ate it; therefore only a few restaurants did it, and because they couldn't guarantee selling everything they bought they would factor in a huge wastage amount into the dish prices.

These days, however, sushi is pretty much a British signature cuisine. There's a sushi place every 50 yards in London and every 100 yards everywhere else. I'm not counting supermarket sushi or Pret a Manger ('no raw fish!' they proclaim, proudly for some reason), but I am including Yo Sushi, Wasabi and You&Me. The thing they all have in common is that the salmon and tuna is pretty much as exotic as it gets in these High Street places. And THAT is the big con. Order in any normal restaurant a tuna nicoise salad or a salmon fishcake and it'll cost you £8 maximum. Go to a sushi restaurant, however, and half that sized portion of fish is £20. AND THEY DON'T EVEN COOK IT!

Me, on the other hand, a veteran of a few Far Eastern trips, prefer eating the more obscure gungy stuff. I love sea urchin, any number of fish roes, raw molluscs and raw octopus. The weirder and more repugnant, the better (I'm not truly happy until I shudder at the very thought of putting the food in my mouth). But whatever I eat and wherever I eat it, I always need a miso soup to accompany it. It's very comforting.

For years, I was afraid of miso. When stirred in a soup, it clouds up. After settling for a minute, it looks like a living breathing amoebic organism. It is, regardless of its questionable looks, delicious and packed full of that mythical sixth taste, umami.

What I didn't know, was that it doesn't need cooking. You just stir and dissolve some of the fermented soya paste into some boiling water and add some cheap garnishes. In a way, a miso soup is closer to a Nescafe beverage than real food. It lasts forever (it's already fermented, FFS) and so there is no wastage. So why the f**k are the restaurants charging more than a pound a bowl? Some of the more 'upmarket' places charge a fiver! Since I discovered the secret, I refuse to eat it anywhere that charges more than a pound. Lie: I mean 75p.

One other thing to add, is that miso paste is not only completely delicious, but probably quite versatile too. It's hard to keep my fingers out of the jar. Over the course of the next few days, I'm going to experiment with it and see whether I can make some soup dumplings with it, maybe a salad dressing, maybe a dip. Whatever it is, will taste bloody brilliant.

At £4 for a big jar, a single serving comes in at 40 pence, including the garnishes.

It may be cheap, and not much of a recipe, but this soup is absolutely delightful. Buy some white miso paste flavoured with dashi (a type of dried fish flake, called bonito) and you won't look back.

Serves 1

INGREDIENTS:

1 tablespoon of white miso paste, flavoured with dashi (or without dashi, if you're a veggie)
400ml boiling water
50g block tofu, diced
1 spring (salad) onion, chopped
1 small piece wakame (seaweed), optional

Dissolve the miso in the boiling water and add the garnishes. Not very difficult, eh?

Spaghetti Mr Ribeye

I was so jealous that my wife has her own favourite dish named after her ('Linguine Mrs Ribeye', no less), that I made up a dish and named it after myself.

Ta-da! SPAGHETTI MR RIBEYE!!!

If I'm honest, I'm slightly perturbed that my wife didn't make the dish for me and name it in my honour, but, well... she can't cook. At all. So I'll take one on the chin - and my tastebuds will thank me later.

Today's dish involves feta cheese and chillies - one of my favourite cheeses and my all-time favourite vegetable (or 'fruit' if you're pedantic). Actually, chillies may just be my favourite food of all time. I sometimes eat them whole on their own for an after-work snack with a glass of wine, cut-up raw on houmous, salads and burgers, or pickled on almost every other dish. But put chillies with feta cheese, and you have an atomic-super-duper-frenzy of a taste explosion. I'm getting a bit warm just thinking about it...

Smooth rich young cheese with fiery chilli. Mmm. Actually hold on... What if I were to roast some of the chillies to bring out their sweetness, and then have some raw ones on top to freshen the dish up? What an idea!

Regular Potless readers will notice that I have married together feta with roasted chillies in a dish before - in my Feta and Roasted Jalapeno Burger - but these days I am more of a veggie pasta than a burger guy (actually that's a lie; if I wasn't such a 'potential fatso', I would eat a burger a day).

And so it was born. The best pasta dish this side of Napoli, and the hottest dish this side of the sun. In a word...

'Fantabuloustasticerrificilliantissimo'. As they definitely say in Italy. Well, most days probably.

As ever, with my careful eye on the purse strings, this dish comes in at a very reasonable £2 per serving. Another reason why this is probably my signature recipe.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

3 whole large red chillies
3-4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves of garlic
1 x 400g tin of whole Italian tomatoes in their own juice
1 teaspoon of dried oregano, plus extra for dusting
Pinches of salt and pepper
Cooked spaghetti (250g uncooked weight), to serve
100g feta cheese, crumbled
2 red chillies, sliced, to garnish

To a blisteringly hot pan, add the chillies and oil and fry until the skins are slightly charred and roasted, then set aside until needed. To the oily pan, add the garlic and gently fry until it has the merest tinge of golden colour. Add the tomatoes, oregano, seasoning and about a quarter of the tomato tin filled up with water, and cook rapidly until the sauce is thick and unctuous (20 minutes approx). Add the spaghetti to the sauce (not the other way around) and mix to coat thoroughly. Top with the feta cheese, then the roasted and then the raw chillies. Lightly dust the dish with the extra oregano. Serve immediately.

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.

Pasta with Gruyere, Pine Nuts, Basil and Garlic-infused Olive Oil

My wife is quite a complicated creature. At times she is a complete pushover (a description she hates - but who cares? She's a bit of a pushover), and at other times a complete P in the A. It can be a bit of a minefield working out which Mrs Ribeye will be coming through the door, and so the best policy is to tread fairly carefully, then try a bit of a joke at her expense before either apologising profusely or hammering my (frankly hilarious) point home. Gotta love marriage.

One way to convert an on-edge tiger to an affectionate pushover kitten, is to keep them happy with their favourite grub. Mrs Ribeye's catnip of choice is anything pasta-centric, hence Linguine 'Mrs Ribeye'. Today's dish is my newest invention, and quite frankly, it's a bit of a hit - which means I'm off the hook after winding her up just a little too much when she got home, after she spent the day telling her slightly (as in, majorly) diva-ish colleague, Dali, off all day.

Think of this pasta dressing as a kind of un-blitzed pesto, but made with gruyere instead of parmesan. If my friend Kumar had not resisted me making fondue last weekend, I wouldn't have had so much bloody gruyere in the fridge, so probably would have made this dish with whatever other cheese I had lying around - but gruyere is such a deliciously fab melting cheese, that in a way I'm delighted I have a large block (or two) in the fridge ready to use in other things.

I have chosen mushroom tortellini (not home made, of course, who could be bothered?) as my pasta, because Mrs Ribeye is quite the fan of stuffed pasta shapes (I think it's a Russian thing - she loves pelmeni), but this dish would be great with linguine or spaghetti, or even penne. It's dead easy to make and quick too - which means more time listening to the wife's 'interesting' work tales and less time hiding in the kitchen. Oh well, you can't have everything.

Oh, and apart from being easy and delicious, this dish is cheap too: £2.75 per serving.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
2 tablespoons of pine nuts
1 x 300g pack of tortellini, cooked as per the instructions
Handful of fresh basil leaves
100g gruyere cheese, shaved, using a potato peeler
Salt and pepper

Mix the oil and garlic together and set aside to infuse. Toast the pine nuts in a dry pan until golden and set aside. Cook the tortellini and transfer to a serving dish. Dress with the garlic-infused oil (taking care not to add the raw garlic to the dish) and garnish with the pine nuts, basil and gruyere shavings. Season to taste and serve immediately.

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.

Rainbow Greek Salad

The weekend is upon us! Which means boozing, partying, eating meat and no bloody work. Nice.

Mrs Ribeye and I have been pretty pretty good at keeping away from the flesh during schooltime, but as soon as Friday night approaches, our carnivorous instincts re-awaken and I break out the beef. That's not to say that we exactly suffer for the other 5 days a week, but man oh man, those vegetarians do not know what they're missing.

Still, if was a veggie I wouldn't exactly starve. As long as you've got a nice bit of feta cheese and some crunchy salad veg, you're going to eat well - as today's recipe testifies.

I love a Greek salad. But as always, I reckon I can improve on it. Go to any Greek restaurant and the salad arrives after the main course and just before the baklava. I'm a big fan, but why have the Greeks decided that a salad has to be so damn boring? I've been to tavernas in Corfu, Crete and London, and they all seem to agree that a salad should consist only of tomato, cucumber, sweet peppers, onion, olives and cheese. All very good, but not colourful enough. With our supermarket shelves heaving with fresh colourful produce from all over the world, why stick to the basics?

Nowadays, a Greek salad for me is a challenge to buy the most eclectic mix of colourful vegetables I can find. Hence, my 'Rainbow Greek Salad'. Try making yours with beetroot, radishes, baby corn or roasted aubergines. It's a chance to put the 'Wow' back into your meze!

Feta cheese tastes the same to me whether I buy the dearest artisan block or the cheapest value range - so I always buy the cheapest. I'm not sure why feta cheese is ever expensive. After all, it's only separated milk (which can be bought for 45p a pint). Be a skinflint like me and this dish comes in at a very pocket-friendly £1.50 per serving. Or buy the dearer stuff if you like. After all, it is the weekend...

A great lunch dish, starter, or pre-baklava meze staple. Just don't tell the Greeks...

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

Tomatoes, cucumber, yellow and red peppers, spring (salad) or red onions, peeled carrot - all cut into 2 cm dice
Handful of pitted black olives
1 x 200g block feta cheese, cut into 2cm dice
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar
Pinches of salt and pepper

Arrange the vegetables on a serving plate with the olives and top with the feta chunks. Sprinkle oregano over the cheese and dress with the oil and vinegar about a half hour before serving. Season to taste (remember that the cheese is naturally quite salty).

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.

Insalata Tricolore

It's such nice weather for a September morning, that it was a pleasure to do my new early morning 6k trot around Regent's Park.

In the last month or so, I have managed to keep up my 'three trots around Regent's Park per week' routine fairly well, and I am pleased to say that I have managed to shed a whopping 7.5 kilos. I am now half way to my target weight of 80kgs.

Of course, it's not all about exercise - I need to stay away from my hamburger obsession. I haven't totally managed it (McD's on the weekend - oops), but I am definitely doing better than usual. One way to keep eating well is to eat a lot of raw foods. Today's dish is a perfect example.

I have no idea  how many calories are in a ball of mozzarella, or in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, and I don't care. If this dish is all I'm eating for a meal, then BRING ON THE CHEESE! Obviously, my lackadaisical attitude towards dairy consumption can't be all bad, or I would not have lost a few inches of tread from my spare tyre so effortlessly. So there.

The key to a good insalata tricolore, is to use lots of fresh basil - like a salad garnish rather than a herb - lots of good quality dried oregano to season the cheese, and lots of top quality peppery extra virgin olive oil. I also use a splash of red wine vinegar to cut the richness of the cheese and avocado, but this is strictly a personal preference.

Oh, and one last thing: I only use cheap mozzarella (not the hard or grated stuff, but the 'value' one in the plastic bag full of water). For some reason, a good quality buffala seems a bit to gooey and jelly-like for this recipe. Buffala is great in cooking, but when eaten raw in a salad, the firmer cheaper stuff compliments the other ingredients a little better.

Because I'm using cheap mozzarella in this dish - 44p per 125g ball - this recipe comes in at a fab £1.50 per serving. Great as a starter or lunch, or as a dinner with garlic bread if you're not feeling as wobbly as me.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

1 large avocado, peeled and cut into large chunks
2 balls of mozzarella cheese, cut into 1cm slices
4 tomatoes, cut into 5mm slices
Large handful of fresh basil leaves
2 teaspoons of dried oregano
3-4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
Splash of red wine vinegar (optional)
Salt and black pepper

Arrange the avocado, mozzarella and tomatoes in to three strips down the centre of the plate to make the stripes of the Italian flag. Garnish with the basil leaves and sprinkle the oregano over the cheese and tomato. Sprinkle with the oil and vinegar, if using. Season liberally - the ingredients are deliciously bland and need heavy seasoning.

Asian Salad

Asian food is so delicious and appropriate at this time of year; when your dietary requirements are lighter and  your palate has taken a summer break from needing to be satisfied by large plates of lardy goodness.

Don't get me wrong, I love eating winter warmers, but at the beginning of September, I'm starting to get a bit anxious that the autumn chill is nearly upon us, and so, in denial, I carry on with my summery diet until the last leaf has fallen of the trees.

I actually love autumn. Mrs Ribeye and frequently I take a nice evening stroll through Regent's Park, just a few hundred yards away from Potless Towers, and we love to notice that the evenings are getting a little chillier and the trees are starting to lose their fresh lustre. You'll notice that the photography on the site will start to be a little less bright as I take photos indoors instead of on the roof terrace during the summer months (I was a bit worried that I would need to get a bright lamp to take pics, but why? I think it's nice to chart the seasons on the brightness of my photos).

On the weekend, we had an Asian-influenced dinner party with some very close friends, and this salad started us off nicely. The main course was a delicious Malaysian Laksa (recipe to follow), and the two courses complimented each other beautifully. The evening was a little bit spicy, a little bit rich, a little bit fresh and a little bit drunk (oops).

For your Asian salad; just choose the crunchiest, most colourful vegetables you can buy. Even raw cabbage is brilliant. The dressing is inspired by my many visits to the Benihana chain of restaurants - Benihana pretends to be Japanese, but it's really American. My dressing pretends to be Asian, but it's really from Marylebone in London. I bought a ton of specialist ingredients from my local Asian grocery and whacked them together with no idea if it would all work out.

I needn't have worried. The salad was incredible, and my laksa was equally terrific. If you serve these two dishes together as a dinner party menu, then make life easy on yourself and serve a flavoured yoghurt with fresh fruit as a dessert. It sounds a bit easy and a cop-out - except that I was served it at my friend Ying's house, and if it's good enough for a real Asian person, it's good enough for an aspiring one! Needless to say, our guests scoffed the lot (one of my most important criteria in selecting friends, is their capacity to greedily scoff).

Cost-wise, this recipe is as reasonable as it is tasty. £1.25 per serving is all it is.

Serves 4 (as a starter)

Salad ingredients:

1 small packet of wild rocket leaves
1 yellow pepper, cut into 5mm matchsticks
1 large carrot, peeled and cut into 5mm matchsticks
Third of a cucumber, deseeded and cut into 5mm matchsticks
Handful of beansprouts

Thumb of ginger, peeled and cut into 2mm matchsticks, for sprinkling
Sesame seeds, for sprinkling
Fresh coriander leaves, for sprinkling

Arrange the vegetables in a haphazard manner - you are looking for a light, random colourful pile. Dress the salad first, then garnish with the ginger, sesame seeds and coriander leaves.

Dressing ingredients:

3 pieces of stem ginger in syrup, drained
2 tablespoons stem ginger syrup
1 clove of garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
3 tablespoons of water

Whizz the ingredients up in a blender and refrigerate for at least an hour to let the flavours mellow and develop. Serve the salad immediately after the dressing has been added.