Waitrose and Heston Blumenthal have released strawberry crumble crunch as a recipe card in store to help celebrate the Jubilee. Sounds a bit like Mr Tumble Jumble to me. I’ll be honest; I didn’t seen the recipe card before making this but I had seen the recipe video on YouTube. Based on that I slung it together at work; during my lunch break I wasn’t able to get everything possible and I had to make do with the equipment to hand (microwave, kettle and fortunately a George Foreman Grill!) All things considered I think I ended up with a pretty tasty dessert! Perfect for such a hot day and created lots of smiling faces in the office. Took about 15 minutes and is well worth it!

Heston’s a bit obsessed with trifles. If you’ve made the real thing I’d love to know how it ended up.

Heston Blumenthal’s strawberry crumble crunch (serves 8 – 10):

300g strawberries, hulled

1 tablespoon of sugar

400ml double cream

8 meringue shells

A small pot of strawberry yoghurt

A satsuma

20g hazelnuts

1. Put your serving bowl in the fridge to get nice and cold. Put the sugar and strawberries in a bowl (keep back one strawberry) and mash roughly with a fork. Add a splash of water and microwave for 4 minutes. Once the fruit is mushy add a grind of black pepper, pop into the base of your trifle bowl and refrigerate while you do everything else.
2. Whip the cream until thickened to where it barely falls off a spoon. Stir through the yoghurt and squeeze in the juice of ½ a satsuma. Crush the meringue shells and stir through.
3. Preheat a dry frying pan or George Foreman Grill to its highest setting. Thinly slice the remaining strawberry, sprinkle with sugar and grill until starting to turn black, and then flip over and grill the other side. When they’re done remove to one side, bash up the hazelnuts and pop those on the grill for a couple of minutes until lightly toasted.
4. Once the strawberry mix in the fridge is cold, layer on the cream mix, top with the nuts and sliced strawberry.

It’s long established that cocoa bean flavours work really well with chilli, such as mole, and coffee is often added out in Mid-West America to “a bowl of red”. So as part of the Lavazza Coffee, Set, Match challenge I thought I’d chuck some in a chilli today! It lends the spicy meat a dark and fruity tone, a really interesting character.

It was also handy using espresso for this chilli as this was all about speed: I got in late and needed to fix up a chilli on the quick. I used a couple of shortcuts to help me get there, caramelized onions and hot sauce to get me a few steps ahead.

To be in with a chance to win one the fantastic Lavazza Wimbledon prizes look out for promotional cups on take away Lavazza coffees, or enter online at http://promotion.wimbledon.lavazza.com/ Prizes include six pairs of tickets to Wimbledon, 90 Lavazza A Modo Mio Favola Plus Wimbledon Limited Edition coffee machines and 500 sets of four exclusive espresso cups created especially for the tournament.

Express espresso chilli (serves 4):

800g beef mince

200g caramelized onions

2 cloves of garlic

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon coriander

1 teaspoon chilli powder

100ml espresso coffee

1 tin tomatoes

200ml beef stock

1. Get a large casserole pan really hot and add a splash of oil. Brown the mince, in batches if necessary. Add the onions, crush in the garlic and add the spices. Stir fry for a couple of minutes.
2. Add the coffee, tomatoes and stock and bring to the boil. Lower the heat, pop on a lid and simmer for about 20 -30 minutes until thick, rich and tasty – you may need to add a little salt or vinegar to balance out the flavours (or more chilli if you’re so inclined). Serve with flour tortillas, creme fraiche and a zingy salsa.

I’m not much of a golfer at all but I do like to chase a ball into the rough for a couple of hours, and drink a flask of coffee in the horizontal rain. A couple of years on the trot a buddy took me along to the annual Wentworth weekend PGA tournament. It’s a great day out and I really recommend it, but the most fascinating thing as a dorky sub-player is to watch a real pro at close quarters. It doesn’t come across on TV but the mental rehearsal they go through, the microscopic movements of the arms, the careful concentration in the swing… these small details contribute massively to your own game, offering these sudden light bulb moments of inspiration that only the years of craft can give, shamelessly stolen by this charlatan. And so it was when I attended the Waitrose Cookery School recently.

I was one of the winners of their Easter Lunch Facebook competition. We were to be taken through a three course menu which we would then reproduce: Coquilles St Jacques, rack of lamb and lemon tart. Our hosts were Jon Jones and James Campbell, both experienced, genial and patient trainer chefs. And being able to observe a professional chef up close as they go through their routine just helps those little things slip into place. The way you work a knife, the mise en place, having an “s-star-star-t bucket” as James put it… all those tiny things you miss when you’re watching a cookery show.

Jon, a veteran of Fortnum &  Mason’s, took us through our savoury menu: the scallops were fresh, tender and mushroomy. The lamb was sumptious, rich and meaty. But the dessert was out of this world, possibly one of the best desserts I’ve ever eaten. The genius touch of leaving the fruit to macerate in a little vanilla, icing sugar and lemon was just perfect. Combined with a creamy lemon tart,a yoghurty lemon sorbet and wafer-thin orange and sesame tuile, this was clearly a dish constructed by someone who knows his puds. James has spent time in five different Michelin-starred restaurants, with accolades as long as your arm, and it shows. His passion for constructing and instructing is clear from the beginning. I’ll be making this again at some point, and I’ll run through the recipe in more detail then.

I went with my Dad, an experience in itself as I’m fairly sure he’s never made anything for me besides toast. Other members of the family advised me to keep him away from a tin of beans lest he chuck it into the scallops. But he had a great time too, despite phrases like “nappe” and “roux” going right over his head. If he can attend and get something out of it, anyone can. This is my second time at the cookery school, and I can’t wait to go back again.

Waitrose filmed parts of the day, I appear in the video far too much.

Update: Waitrose kindly sent through the recipe in handy PDF format: Waitrose recipe – Inverted lemon tart, summer fruit salad & lemon yogurt sorbet

I was asked if I would like some samples of Essex-grown Fairfields Farm Crisps. Being proud of Essex and an enormous fan of potatoes it took me all of 8 milliseconds to tear off someone’s arm to get some. And what a treat they are.

It’s great to be able to champion a really local product. I smiled at the fact that the flavouring for the bacon comes from Wicks Manor Farm, somewhere I’ve frequented often for their amazing hams and sausages. It’s just a couple of miles from where I work in Maldon and has a lovely farm shop. I was also quite tickled with the fact that Robert of Fairfields featured on The Apprentice as a mentor and crisp expert. On to the crisps themselves and they present some interesting flavours: Butter & Mint which tastes far more minty than you think crisps could; Sea Salt & Black Pepper which is a lovely balance; Smoky Bacon which just makes me drool. There’s also No Salt which I approached with some trepidation but I needn’t have worried. The absence of extra salt just highlights how great the potatoes themselves are; earthy, full of flavour and just cooked enough so as not to destroy their potatoeyness.

There’s a bunch of other flavours too:

• Lightly Sea Salted
• Sea Salt and Aspall Cyder Vinegar
• Sweet Chilli
• Farmhouse Cheese and Chive
• Parsnip Crisps with Essex Honey & Black Pepper

I have to try the Aspall ones too, I absolutely love Aspall’s cider. If you see them near you, try a bag out. You won’t be disappointed. Fairfields Farm Crisps are available from farm shops, delicatessens and branches of Co-op in the East of England, and by mail order via www.fairfieldsfarmcrisps.co.uk. You can say to the team on Twitter too.

Sometimes, when you’re cooking dinner you just know it’s going to be good, you can feel it. This was one of those times.

It was an excuse to eat peas, this one: the peas are a recipe from attending Waitrose Cookery School recently (more on that in a future post). I know it’s a classical French recipe but this is just so damn tasty. This from someone who isn’t that bothered about peas. Seriously, they’re amazing. Try this on their own. I would of course usually roast a chicken in my favourite Heston way, but on this occasion I was caught short and had to cook the chicken on the quick and roasted it in the traditional way. It was fine, but I do miss the succulence afforded by lovely brined meat. All that aside, this combination of chicken and braised peas is just brill. The gravy is inspired by a method described in Alex Mackay’s new book Everybody, Everyday.

By the way, note only the breasts were required for this recipe. I used the other parts of chicken for meals elsewhere in the week.

Roast chicken with petits pois a la français (serves 4):

For the chicken:

1.7kg chicken

1 onions, quartered

1 head of garlic, halved horizontally

For the peas:

25g butter

1 onion, peeled and finely diced

4 rashers bacon, sliced

1 sprig of rosemary, leaves picked and finely chopped

250g petits pois

2 little gem lettuces, shredded

A large handful of parsley, finely chopped

For the gravy:

600ml chicken stock

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon cornflour

Sourdough bread, to serve

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C.
2. Free the chicken from its trussing, put it in a roasting tray, slather it in olive oil and season well. Pop a quarter of the onion and half the garlic in the cavity, and scatter the remaining alliums around the chicken. Pop in the oven for 1 hour to 1hr 30mins, until a thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the breast reads 70°C+. Allow to rest, covered, for at least 15 mins before carving (only the breasts are required for this recipe).
3. When the chicken has been in for about 30 mins, melt the butter in a large saucepan and gently fry the onion for a couple of minutes until softened. Add the bacon and rosemary and cook for a couple more minutes, then add the peas and lettuce. Cover and allow to raise for 30 mins, stirring occasionally. When the peas are tender check for seasoning and add the parsley.
4. For the gravy, boil the stock and soy together until reduced by a quarter. Mix the cornflour with a splash of water and whisk this in. When the chicken has been removed from the oven add the juices from the pan to the gravy. Serve everything together with sourdough bread to soak up the gravy.

Lavazza are sponsoring Wimbledon this year and have released a rather snazzy themed espresso machine. They sent one along for me to try out, and it’s one of the neatest pod-style machines I’ve used. I’ve been necking espresso at a GP-bothering rate but not before I came up with some coffee recipes to celebrate. Here’s a fudgy-textured and sweet dessert recipe to get us started: the diplomatico, the distant relative of the tiramisu lacking any kind of PR. I’ve blended elements of both desserts to create a sort of diplomisu, if you will. This can be made a day or so in advance and for best results leave it out of the fridge for 20 minutes or so before eating; the textures soften and taking the chill off enhances the silky, creamy texture. If you like boozy coffee-alcohol puds, this is definitely one to try.

Sponge finger tip: I think this works best with really sodden sponge biscuits. You can obviously only submerge them for a few seconds before they turn to mush in your hands. To avoid this, give them a short dip until starting to soften and place them in the dish. Then gently drizzle with more marinating liquor to increase their drunkenness. Do this slowly to ensure the fingers have time to absorb the liquid.

Diplomatico:

500ml double cream, whipped to soft peaks

250g mascarpone cheese

120g dark chocolate, melted

50g icing sugar

150ml espresso, cooled

5 tablespoons marsala

About 30 sponge fingers

Grated chocolate, to serve

1. Whip the cream to soft peaks, and reserve about a third of it.
2. Stir the icing sugar and mascarpone together, then fold into 2/3 of the softly whipped cream. Gradually fold in the melted chocolate. Check for sweetness at this point as this will be where most of the sweet taste from the pudding will come from, and add more icing sugar as necessary.
3. Stir the coffee, marsala and a tablespoon of icing sugar together. Dip the sponge fingers in the mix until soggy, and then make a layer of them in a rectangular cake tin (I use a silicone one to get the dessert out easier later).
4. Add a layer of chocolate cream, then follow with more boozy biscuits. Keep layering, ending with sponge fingers. Add the remaining cream on top of this and refrigerate for at least a couple of hours.
5. Before serving garnish with grated chocolate, then cut into thick slices.

To be in with a chance to win one the fantastic Lavazza Wimbledon prizes look out for promotional cups on take away Lavazza coffees, or enter online at http://promotion.wimbledon.lavazza.com/

Prizes include six pairs of tickets to Wimbledon, 90 Lavazza A Modo Mio Favola Plus Wimbledon Limited Edition coffee machines and 500 sets of four exclusive espresso cups created especially for the tournament.

this image copyright GerogeForeman.co.uk

To celebrate National Get Grilling Week (yes, really) all this week I’m giving away a Geroge Foreman 2 portion grill. All you have to do to win one is leave a comment below answering the question:

What would you cook in your George Foreman grill?

• Competition closes 10pm 27th May. Comments posted after then won’t be counted.
• I’ll pick the winners at random using some fancy random number generator.
• Entrants must be 18 years or older.
• If the winner hasn’t replied within two weeks, someone else will get it.
• Only people from the UK please. Additionally, I’ll only post to a UK address.

Don’t want to chance it? Head over to GeorgeForeman.co.uk where they’ve got a sale on. Not only that, use the code GFSAVE10 and you can bag yourself 10% off until 31st May 2012.

With thanks to Sophie for the grill to give away.

…Instead of Sunday roast, geddit? Except it wasn’t roasted, and I ate it on a Wednesday. Simple, eh? Let me explain…

George Foreman Grills are making a comeback, it seems. They passed me by the first time around; just wasn’t in the right place at the right time. So when I was invited to test-drive their new monster 4-Portion family grill I was intrigued. I tried out a few things but they were keen for me to try cooking a delicious four person meal.

Whatever my recipe was how could I leave out my thing, roast potatoes? So a version of that was definitely going to feature; from there it was only a short step to deciding I might as well do as much of a Sunday roast as possible on the little dude. I can’t use my beloved Maris Pipers though, their texture will cause them to fall apart on the griddle. So I’m bucking the trend and using new pots here. Technically we end up with something closer to a saute potato but so much healthier.

With the potatoes sorted, it’s on to the meat. Chicken seems like the way to go. But I want to maximise the flavour, I am not actually roasting here so a few leg-ups are needed to make regular grilled foods punch above their weight. My love affair with brining told me to try it here; it provides you with excellent seasoning and gives a much ‘bigger’ flavour. The final touch for the chicken is to rub it with a stock cube to impart even more deep chickeny love.

So there it is – my quick and tasty Sunday Grill. Once your chicken has brined I reckon it will take you 25 minutes to get it on the table, so it’s a great midweek meal. Check back later this week where I’ll be giving away a grill of your very own!

If you want to go shopping for a grill now, here’s a deal for you: run over to George Foreman Grills and they’re currently offering free UK delivery and a 50% off sale. But for an extra 10% off, use the code GFSAVE10 and grab yourself a bargain!

Thanks to Sophie for going to a lot (!) of trouble getting me a grill to test on. For more George Foreman Grill inspiration, check out Helen’s lemony maple chicken thighs, and Katie’s sticky griddled plums!

Sunday grill (serves 4):

4 chicken breasts

Lots of salt

1 bay leaf

1 tablespoon honey

1 chicken stock cube

500g new potatoes, halved

750g carrots, peeled and chopped

1 shallot, peeled

50g cooked chestnuts

4 pork sausages, skinned

1 rasher bacon

3 sage leaves

25g breadcrumbs

Gravy, to serve

1. Put your chicken breasts in a bowl and put it on top of some scales. Cover the chicken generously and note how heavy the water is. Work out 5% of the weight of the water, and add that amount of salt to the bowl. Ad the bay leaf and honey, cover and leave refrigerated for at least an hour, but no more than 6 hours.
2. When you’re ready to cook, drain the chicken, give it a brief rinse in cold water and pat dry with kitchen roll.
3. Pre-heat your George Foreman grill to it’s highest setting on both grill and griddle. Get a large pan of water on to boil. Crumble half the stock cube into the water. When it’s ready pop the potatoes in and boil for approximately 8 minutes or until tender enough that a knife can pass into it. Drain and allow to steam-dry for a couple of minutes. As they cool add a teaspoon of oil and toss thoroughly.
4. In a food processor, whizz up the shallot, then add the chestnuts, sausagemeat, bacon, sage and breadcrumbs. Season well with salt and pepper and pulse several times until the whole mixture pulls together. Scoop out the mix and form into 4 balls, then flatten.
5. On the griddle section, add the potatoes cut-side down. This will cook for about 1o – 12 minutes, until the are beautifully golden brown. You should also just about have room for the stuffing patties. After about 6 minutes the stuffing should be flipped over and cooked on the other side.
6. Meanwhile, fill the saucepan that held the potatoes with boiling water again and get the carrots on to cook until tender to your liking.
7. After the potatoes have been on for about 4 minutes, rub the remaining stock cube half all over the chicken and add the chicken breasts to the grill. Cook for 7 – 10 minutes until cooked through. They will take longer to colour because of the brining, but they will cook inside in the same time. Serve everything up and pour over your favourite gravy.

I absolutely love Two Greedy Italians. Not only are Gennaro Contaldo and Antonio Carluccio the most avuncular and affable guys on TV, joshing and fondly trading insults, they also serve up some jaw-droppingly good Italian food. In the series where they tour Italy, revisiting places of their youth and being tourists everywhere else the former colleagues eat their way through just about every culinary region of the Old Boot.

In this episode traversing the Alps, they went to a region where they historically couldn’t grow wheat so used chestnuts for all their flour. Gennaro then used this to make a delicious chestnut gnocchi with mushrooms. I had to give it a go myself, but all my previous attempts to make gnocchi have been messy, hideous and not worth the effort. The recipe also isn’t listed on the site. So I bought shop-made gnocchi and improvised a sauce. This was fab, I’m definitely doing it again and I hope I’ve paid enough tribute to Gennaro’s original recipe. Watch the sweetness, you will probably need a good dose of salt to balance it out.

The recipe is probably in Two Greedy Italians Eat Italy, but I don’t have it so no guarantees!

Chestnut gnocchi (serves 2):

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

100ml Marsala

300ml beef stock

200g chestnut mushrooms, sliced

1 tablespoon chestnut puree

1 pack of potato gnocchi

Handful of parsley, roughly chopped

Parmesan shavings to serve

1. In a small saucepan heat some oil over a medium heat. Add the garlic, Worcestershire sauce, a pinch each of salt and sugar and cover the pan. Cook for 3-4 mins, stirring regularly until the garlic is starting to brown. Add the Marsala and allow to reduce by half. Then add the beef stock and reduce this by half. Add the chestnut puree and check for seasoning. Keep warm while you do everything else.
2. Into a frying pan add a knob of butter and the mushrooms. Fry for 8-10 mins until the mushrooms are browning, then add a good whack of black pepper. While the mushrooms sizzle, cook the gnocchi for 2-3mins in salted boiling water until floating at the top. Drain until needed.
3. When the mushrooms are ready, add the sauce and gnocchi to the pan and toss vigorously to combine. Give it a final check for seasoning and top with parsley and parmesan for serving.

I cannot tell you how excited I get when late-April rolls around, and the asparagus season rushes on to us. Yes, you can get it almost any time of year but the Peruvian imports of November taste like skinny peas. It just doesn’t travel well. This is one ingredient where buying British is unequivocally best.

Thankfully scarcity is not the only reason to cherish it; the wonderful vegetable can paired with so many flavours. It loves strong salty partners like feta cheese, olives and Parma ham; yet happily mellows along with white sauces, soft-boiled egg yolk and mozzarella. And asparagus can be cooked in a multitude of ways: steamed and dotted with butter, roasted and drizzled with balsamic vinegar, barbecued and wrapped in prosciutto.

A couple of years ago I took a tour of a local farm at the start of asparagus season and had a go at picking the first of the crop. Fresh out of the ground it was crisp and vibrant, emerald-green and tempting. If you want to find a farm near you check out British Asparagus. You cannot beat it locally grown, except perhaps at home! I’ve grown it in the garden before (see above!) and after the 3 year gestation you end up with fabulously luscious and tender spears.

It’s narrow window of perfection, plus the various ways you can make the most of asparagus, that makes it feel like a treat. It’s not an everyday workhorse like the carrot or the broccoli but a brief guest on the dinner table, and should be spoiled rotten while you can.

Waitrose asked me to write about something that is ‘Best of British’. What could be better? This will soon be up against some other ‘Best of British’ things on their Facebook page so cheer me on!