Shortbread

Ingredients

• 6oz plain flour
• 2oz caster sugar
• 4oz butter, at room temperature

Method

1. Beat the butter until soft

2. Add sugar & mix to a paste

3. Work in the flour gradually (it should come together to form a ball when ready)

4. Roll out on a surface dusted with caster sugar, to a depth of about a quarter to half an inch and prick all over with a fork

5. Cut into individual biscuits (eg fingers 2" long and no more than 1/2" wide - they will spread out in the oven)

6. Place biscuits onto greaseproof paper dusted with sugar, about 1" apart

7. Cook at 150 degrees centigrade for 30 minutes

Linguine with Mussels in Red Sauce

I've only cooked this once, but it was delicious!

Ingredients

• 6½ lb mussels, cleaned
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled & finely sliced
• 5 fl oz white wine
• handful flat parsley, chopped finely
• extra virgin olive oil
• 1 fresh red chilli, seeded and chopped
• 2lb fresh plum tomatoes, seeded & chopped
• a handful of basil, chopped
• sea salt and black pepper
• 9 oz linguine

Method

1. Cook the mussels in 2 tablespoons olive oil with half the garlic and the wine over a high heat until they open. Leave to cool. Remove from their shells, reserving liquid.
2. Heat the remaining olive oil and garlic and half the parsley. Fry until the garlic colours, then add the chilli and tomatoes. Cook together gently, reducing the tomatoes to a sauce. This takes about 30 minutes.
3. Add the reserved mussel liquid and return to the boil. Remove from the heat and add the mussels, basil, salt and pepper.
4. Cook the pasta in plenty of boiling salted water. Drain well and add to the mussel sauce.
5. To serve pour over a little extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle with the remaining parsley.

Mrs Cosmopolite's Five Continents Jumble

It's a complex name for a dish, I'll grant you, but when I first did this dish for my Mum, I’d made it up and hadn’t thought of a name for it. She came up with "Mrs Cosmopolite's Five Continents Jumble" and I've never really managed to better it. She decided on this rather Terry Pratchett influenced name because it's such an eclectic dish - it's stir-fried, like Chinese food; it contains baby corn, which is a Mexican vegetable (well, corn is… sort of); it is served on cous-cous, which is Moroccan and it contains mange-tout, a French term.

Yes, I know that's only 4 continents, but we couldn't work out a way to build Australia into the mix and "...Four Continents Jumble" sounds rubbish!

Ingredients

• Chicken breasts, 2-3
• Mange-tout
• Baby corn
• Tomatoes, 4-6
• Tomato puree
• Garlic
• Chilli
• Cilantro (Coriander leaf)
• Olive oil

Method

Cous-Cous

I like cous-cous and use it a lot when I'm concocting meals. However, it can be very dull unless it's suitably seasoned.

The following recipe will make enough cous-cous for two people if it's to be the main part of the meal, or three to four if eaten with a sauce.

Ingredients

• 9 oz (dried) cous-cous
• 9 fluid oz water
• tbsp olive oil
• knob of butter/margarine
• salt and pepper, to taste

Method

1. Add the oil to the water and bring to the boil
2. Take the water off the heat
3. Add the dried cous-cous and make sure it's all covered by the liquid
4. Leave the cous-cous off the heat to absorb the water for about 10 minutes
5. Add the butter/margarine and return to a very gentle heat for 1-2 minutes to re-warm, while fluffing up the cous-cous with a fork to separate the grains

To spice up the cous-cous, try adding any of the following to the water before bringing it to the boil:

• Vegetable or Chicken stock cube
• Tomato puree, garlic and coriander leaf
• Lime juice and fresh chopped coriander leaf
• Tomato puree, garlic and minced chilli

Or any of the following after cooking the cous-cous:

• Finely chopped pepper, onion, (deseeded) tomato and coriander leaf
• Finely chopped pepper and smoked sausage with sweetcorn
• Finely chopped, grilled asparagus tips, courgette, pepper and coriander leaf

Mama's biscuitty things

These are family favourites - half way between biscuits and shortbread. Mama (my maternal grandmother) is said to have "discovered" them accidentally when she got the quantities for something else wrong, but they were so popular that she's made them ever since!

Mama usually fills them with a sort of butter cream concoction (it's rather like "frosting" but not so light) and then puts either lemon or chocolate icing over the top. However, they're also delicious on their own, eaten as biscuits.

I apologise ahead of time for the brief instructions. I think they take about 20 minutes to bake, but she didn't elaborate on what's here when I asked her for the recipe. When they're done, you'll be able to smell that they are ready and they should be a pale golden brown.

Ingredients

• 8 oz flour
• 8 oz margarine
• 6 oz sugar

Method

1. Mix all the ingredients together (in a food processor if possible)
2. Place balls of mixture into greased tins (they'll flatten themselves out as they cook)
3. Cook at 150°c

Thai Green Curry

I've seen lots of different recipes for Thai Green Curry, but they all have two ingredients in common with each other - Thai Curry Paste and coconut milk.

Most commonly, Green Curry seems to be chicken based, but in theory you can use any meat (adjust the stock used accordingly, of course). It's a delicate and quite mild curry and the sauce doesn't thicken much. If served with plain boiled rice, the sauce will soak into the rice and flavour it marvellously.

The Thai Curry Paste is an essential ingredient in this dish. Bart Spices and Blue Elephant do good ones and they are relatively widely available in larger supermarkets. It contains, among other things, lemon grass, coriander (which is what gives the curry it's green hue) and Thai fish sauce (don't worry if you don't like fish, the resulting curry doesn't taste of fish at all)

Ingredients

• 2 to 3 chicken breasts, cubed
• 2 teaspoons of Thai Green Curry Paste
• About half a pint of coconut milk (1 tin is fine)
• About quarter of a pint of Chicken Stock
• Half teaspoon Turmeric
• 1 to 4 green chillies (according to your taste: the larger chillies are the mildest)
• 1 onion, sliced
• Garlic (to taste)
• 1 or 2 sticks of lemon grass (finely chopped)
• LOTS of fresh coriander leaf (as much as you can get hold of!)
• Peanut oil for frying

• 1 green pepper
• 1 aubergine (roasted, peeled and cubed)

Method

1. Fry the chicken and onion in the peanut oil with the Thai Green Curry paste, turmeric, garlic and chilli over a high heat until the chicken is "sealed"
2. Turn down the heat, add the coconut milk, chicken stock, lemon grass (green pepper and aubergine if you're using them) and HALF the chopped coriander leaf - this half will give the curry it's colour.
3. Stir thoroughly and simmer for at least 45 minutes (preferably an hour) - you will notice that although the mixture looks yellow when you leave it to simmer, when you return 45-60 minutes later, it will be very green
4. Add the remaining coriander - this half for flavour - simmer for another minute and serve over plain boiled rice or noodles.

Chocolate Truffles