Prawn Curry Soup

I recently experienced somewhat of a craving for curry, and I'm not referring to the fluorescent orange tandoori found in most middle England towns, but to something rather softer, and less harsh, more fragrant and aromatic than fiery and spicy.

Whilst curry is wonderful it can often get boring, so I created this dish to use similar flavours as a curry, but without needing rice as an accompaniment, here I serve it instead with a toasted pitta, which is clearly not traditional, given the vast distance between the middle east and south-east Asia, it has a texture almost reminiscent of a chapati, but is much easier to procure.

Start by chopping a head of broccoli into fine florets, discard the tough stalk and stir-fry them in a little vegetable oil until tender, add the cooked prawns and toss in the hot oil. Add the korma paste and stir until the prawns and the broccoli are coated. Add the double cream and stir until it is a uniform ochre tone. Add 250ml of water from a recently boiled kettle and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Simmer for 20 minutes stirring sporadically until the soup has thickened, and serve, with a freshly toasted wholewheat pitta.

ingredients

150g cooked king prawns
1 head broccoli
3 tablespoons korma paste
50ml double cream
salt & pepper

Banana Pancakes

Yes, I too was sceptical. These sound disgusting and bizarre, but believe it or not they do actually make something resembling pancakes in style and in taste. I was inspired to create this recipe when I saw on snapchat that my friend and colleague Zoe had made something similar, and they looked so good, so I made my own!

To start chop a banana roughly into a bowl, mash the banana using a fork until it is smooth and without chunks, whisk an egg and add it to the banana along with a teaspoonful of vanilla and half a teaspoon of baking powder. Mix together until smooth. At this point you can add pretty much anything you want, be it honey or chocolate chips or berries. You can also double up on the quantity if you wish to make a larger batch, the amount used here will make enough for one.

Heat a small knob of butter in a skillet or griddle, and then add a ladleful of batter when it is hot, cook it until the edges of the pancake start to frill and the top resembles set jelly, check that the bottom has browned, flip it over and cook the other side until brown and firm. Place on a hot plate and cook the rest of the batter, if you are cooking a large batch you can keep the pancakes warm in a low oven. Serve in a stack with syrup.

ingredients

1 banana
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
butter

Naan Pizza

When the craving for soft or crispy dough topped by tangy tomato and gloriously stringy cheese hits I find that it is often at an inconvenient hour. And given that I sadly don’t live in an urban area where pizza-by-the-slice is readily available even at the witching hour, I need to resort to other measures.

Making pizza at home is often fraught with problems, thick premade pizza bases are often doughy with an unpleasant chemical aftertaste, and fail entirely to replicate the italian heaven I so often crave. Ready rolled dough is also available, and though it is ultimately inoffensive in itself, conventional household ovens rarely get hot enough for the dough to crispen and brown, leaving an unfortunate soggy bottom. If your passion for pizza is so great that you have installed a wood fired pizza oven in your garden, and are willing to light it whenever the craving hits, then by all means use ready-rolled pizza dough.

For those of us without such dedication, Naan bread makes a fantastic substitute for pizza dough, it is already cooked, so these flatbread pizzas will cook in no time. I try to always have naan breads and a tin of tomatoes in my pantry, so as to be prepared whenever the craving hits. As for the rest of the ingredients, I have given an example here, but you can of course use whatever you have leftover in your fridge, this recipe is but a guide and an idea.

Start by spreading the naan bread with the tomato puree, drain the chopped tomatoes and top the naan with two tablespoons of the tomato. Roughly dice the courgette and fry it lightly in olive oil, and add this to the pizza.

Finally add the cheese, peel the mozzarella ball into thin leaves and strew them atop the naan, and finally top with grated cheese. Place in a hot oven straight onto the oven rack for about 3 minutes, or until the naan has crisped and the cheese has melted, and serve

Ingredients

1 Naan bread
2 tbsps tomato puree

1 can chopped tomatoes, drained

1 courgette

1 mozzarella ball

50g grated cheese

Polenta Napoletana

I am usually somewhat a purist when it comes to pizza, taking something as delicious as pizza and substituting the delicious chewy dough base, browned and bubbling, for some ground up cauliflower, arguably the blandest vegetable. That said, this recipe, which uses baked polenta is wonderful, and I give it a pass because its creation came not from a desire to cut out carbs or to lose weight, but simply because it is so delicious.

Start by heating a litre of water in a large saucepan to a rolling boil, and dissolve in two stock cubes, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and some dried oregano, sprinkle in the polenta whisking rapidly until the polenta is smooth and the whisk will stand up in the polenta without falling over.

Spread the polenta over an oiled swiss roll tin, with a palette knife until it is smooth and covers the whole tine, and bake it in a very hot oven for about half an hour until it is crisp and the top has hardened slightly.

For the topping you can choose pretty much whatever you want, I use a concentrated tomato puree as the base, and cover it with cherry tomatoes, cut in half and placed cut side up.

For the other toppings, you pretty much let your imagination run wild, This can be a good dish to use whatever you have in the fridge, here I use mushrooms, black olives, feta cheese, and then a couple of balls of torn mozzarella. Drizzle with extra virgin oil and season with some sea salt flakes, and some freshly ground pepper.

Bake again in a hot oven until the tomatoes have become burnished and shiny, and the cheese is melted. Serve cut into wedges with a fresh green salad.

ingredients

for the polenta base:
250g dry polenta
2 tbsp Olive Oil
2 tsp dried Oregano
salt & pepper, to taste

for the topping:
tomato concentrate
mushrooms, sliced
feta cheese, crumbled
pitted black olives
cherry tomatoes, halved
mozzarella balls, torn
olive oil
salt & pepper

Tagliatelles à la crème aux champignons

This is a recipe I am inordinately proud of, and is one that I have been making for years, I started this website partially so that I would have somewhere to write down all the recipes I have developed and honed over all the years. This is one of my favorites, and it tastes incredibly luxurious despite being incredibly simple to make.

Start by wiping and chopping your mushrooms, don't wet them or they will be slimy. Cooking mushrooms is incredibly simple yet it is so often done badly, there are a few simple rules, firstly don't crowd them, or they won't brown, secondly always cook them in butter, as olive oil has too brusque a flavour and will overpower the delicate mushrooms, finally never salt them until they have finished cooking, if you season them too soon they will ooze out all their water, and will be slimy.

Put a large knob of butter in a cold heavy based frying pan and crush in two cloves of garlic, heat gently until the butter melts and add the chopped mushrooms, stirring to coat them in the butter, they will give out some liquid as you cook them, and when this liquid has been soaked back up, add a small glass of white vermouth to the pan. Stir over a high heat until all the vermouth has evaporated.

Start cooking your pasta, I like to use fresh tagliatelle. Then add 400ml of single cream, and stir to combine, simmer it for a few minutes and season with salt and pepper, and a little parsley if desired. Turn off the heat and add some grated parmesan to taste, stir in the cheese until the sauce is smooth. Drain the pasta and top with the cream sauce, stir so that the sauce is well distributed through the pasta and serve garnished with chopped parsley.

ingredients

400g fresh tagliatelle
300g mushrooms
400ml single cream
small glass white vermouth
grated parmesan, to taste
small knob butter
salt & pepper
chopped parsley, to garnish

For the Love of Pizza

The history of pizza is long and contested, some say that it originates with the greeks, who topped their bread with oils and herbs, and sometimes cheese, the more accepted story, is that it was created in Naples, where it evolved from the garlic, cheese and basil topped flatbreads which somewhat resemble modern focaccia.

Popular legend holds that the modern neapolitan pizza was created in 1889 when, in honour of the visiting Queen Margherita, a local pizzaiolo created a pizza in her honour, which he swathed in the colours of the italian flag, using red tomato sauce, white mozzarella and green basil. According to recent research, this story is total baloney, but it's a rather nice tale nonetheless.

I am not a food snob, my love of pub grub and greasy spoons is well documented and is mostly lampooned by my friends, however, I will admit that when it comes to pizza, I prefer something slightly more refined than your average take-away can deliver. Maybe living in Italy for a year has destroyed my ability to enjoy doughy take-out pie, but after living in a country where you can buy the most amazing pizza on the street for a mere euro, it is difficult to spend a tenner for a pizza that usually ends up being a thorough disappointment.

My ideal pizza is always topped with artichoke hearts, I am almost addicted to these as a topping, they are simply fabulous, and have been my favorite for as long as I can remember. Also brilliant is asparagus. I am fairly indifferent to asparagus generally, except in this case. Rocket is also great when added after the pizza has been cooked, adding a crunchy freshness to the pizza.

Finally, egg. Egg makes the most wonderful pizza topping, baked on top of the pizza so that the white has cooked and the yolk is still runny, providing some much needed lubrication. The use of egg on pizza is highly controversial in my family, and for those who haven't tried it is sounds bizarre and horrific, but it's one of my favorites.

White Chocolate and Raspberry Victoria Sponge

One of my fondest memories of being a child was when my mother made a birthday cake every year for my birthday, I haven't been at home for my birthday for a few years now, given that my birthday is in october, but these memories were reborn last year when my housemate Zanna made me a beautiful chocolate cake for my birthday.

This year, mostly thanks to the suggestion of my friend Alice, I sought to bring the same joy that I had felt to someone else, and made a cake for my friend Morgan. Given that Alice was busy working, my friend Ali and I got to work. I will admit to not having actually made a sponge cake in many years, but it turned out pretty well, so it's either thanks to Ali, or its just like riding a bike. I think it's probably thanks to Ali. (unlike me he remembers to check the oven before the sponge burns to a cracker)

Start by creaming together your sugar and butter until it is light and fluffy, and crack in four eggs and mix them together until combined. Add the self-raising flour one spoonful at a time, folding in the flour gently. Separate the mixture between two lined cake tins at 180 for around 20 minutes until risen and springy, or until a skewer pushed into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Remove the cakes from their tins and place them on a wire rack, wait until they've cooled entirely, and spread the tops of both of the cakes with raspberry jam. Place one cake on top of the other, and you can turn your attention to the whipped cream icing.

Place your double cream in a clean and dry glass bowl, and start to whip it with an electric whisk. Whip until it forms soft peaks, but isn't yet hard or discoloured, if your cream has a yellowish tint you have whipped it too long and you are now on the way to making butter, it will be delicious on your toast, but won't make a good cake topping. When the cream has been whipped, and this will take a while, fold in 8 tablespoons of icing sugar and two teaspoons of vanilla.

Spread the icing over your cake, making it smooth and even, though you will struggle to get it entirely flawless, and its lack of perfection is part of what I love about this topping. I am not the greatest cake decorator, unlike both my mother and my housemate, both of whom are practical artists. This icing is great for me, because it has an imperfect elegance.

Top the cake with upside down raspberries, and surround the outside with white chocolate fingers.

Not only is this cake delicious, and you can alter it using whatever sponge cake you like, red velvet would be particularly good, but it is also gloriously pretty, and the combination of the white chocolate and the red raspberries is particularly elegant.

ingredients

for the cake

225g softened butter

225g caster sugar

4 eggs

225g self raising flour

for the topping

600ml double cream

8 tablespoons icing sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 x 114g boxes white chocolate fingers

150g raspberries

Roasted Vegetable Risotto

I made this for the first time last night on a whim, and I will admit that I am quite taken with it. I invented this recipe fairly randomly, after my friends asked me to cook them dinner, and it was thankfully successful.

Start by slow roasting your vegetables, I used courgettes, red onion and red peppers, but you could also use any vegetables you like. Dice the vegetables into small chunks and sprinkle them with a little salt and some freshly ground black pepper, drizzle them with olive oil and toss, ensuring that they are fully coated in the oil. Grate or mince over a few cloves of garlic, and place them into a medium hot oven for about half an hour. About 10 minutes before the risotto is due to be finished, add some sun dried tomatoes, which add a nice tang to the risotto.

After the vegetables have been cooking for around 10 minutes, start on your risotto, finely chop half a red onion and put it into a mini blender to achieve a fine chop. Put the contents of the blender into a large frying pan with some salt and pepper and sweat it off for a few minutes on a high heat. Add the rice, and a little white wine if you wish, and cook off the wine, stirring as it cooks.

Make up your stock, and you will need quite a lot, I normally make about a litre to start off with, and then when the first litre has been absorbed, I taste the rice to see how chewy it is, and how much more stock it will require. Add the stock a bit at a time stirring with a wooden spoon until the stock has absorbed and then adding more, continue until all the stock has been absorbed and the rice is tender.

When the rice is cooked take the frying pan off the heat and add a large knob of butter, add some parmesan and stir it into the risotto. Remove the vegetables from the oven and add the risotto to the tray, use wooden spoons to toss the risotto and the vegetables together until combined, and serve, on warmed plates.

I created this on a whim and I will admit that I am immensely proud of it, it has a vibrancy and tang that makes it the perfect antidote to bland and boring white risottos, which so often lack interest and taste. This also makes the perfect dish for feeding a lot of people, as upscaling the quantities is pretty simple.

Ingredients

400g arborio rice
1 litre vegetable or chicken stock
small glug or white wine or vermouth
90g freshly grated parmesan
3 courgettes, diced
3 red peppers, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
salt & pepper
olive oil
large knob butter

Chicken and Bacon Pie

I am always looking to try new recipes, and the genesis for this dish came from a leaflet my friend picked up at the supermarket. My mother has made pies like this for years, mostly using swiss chard or spinach, and a cheese, often mozzarella. This simple but comforting dish is almost embarrassingly easy, and makes a great standby supper.

This dish is similar to the pies my mother used to make but with a vaguely more complicated filling, though it is still fairly manageable. What is also great about this pie is that it can be made in advance and stored, ready to be cooked in the fridge. You can also make a vegetarian version of this pie, using quorn chicken and omitting the bacon, though you will need to add more liquid, as not only will the quorn not give out any liquid, on the contrary it will soak it up.

Start by preparing and dicing the chicken thighs, and chopping 4 rashers of streaky bacon, and browning them in a pan with a little olive oil and some thyme leaves.

When the chicken has browned add two tablespoons of plain flour, and stir vigorously until the flour has combined with the juices. Pour in some white wine and allow it to bubble for a few minutes.

Dice the mushrooms and make up your chicken stock, add both to the pan and allow it to simmer until the sauce has thickened and the mushrooms are tender. At this point the chicken should be cooked through and there should be no pink. Remove from the heat and add the creme fraiche, stirring to combine.

While the filling is simmering roll out the puff pastry to slightly larger than your dish and cut a cross in the middle to let the steam escape. Ladle the pie filling into an ovenproof dish, and cover with the pastry, folding the points of the cross over to make a square hole. Fold the excess pastry over to make a border and crimp the edge with a fork. Brush the pastry with milk.

Bake the pie in a 200 degree oven until the pastry is golden and crisp. Serve with mashed potatoes made by mashing peeled and boiled potatoes with the leftover creme fraiche, season well.

ingredients

olive oil
4 rashers smoked streaky bacon, chopped
6 boneless chicken thigh fillets, diced
2 sprigs thyme
2 tbsp plain flour
100ml white wine
300ml chicken stock
250g button mushrooms
4 tbsp creme fraiche
1 pack puff pastry
2 tbsp milk

Sausage Traybake

I can take absolutely no credit for this wonderful recipe, my friend Alice made it for me for the first time last week, and was entirely taken by it.

Traybakes are perfect for students as they are relatively cheap and very easy, given that you can basically put everything in the oven at the same time. This tray bake is a wonderful combination of flavours, and might even be able to convince the average student to eat a vegetable occasionally.

You can use pretty much whatever sausages you want for this, thyme and rosemary sausages work especially well. Even vegetarian sausages will work, though you may need to add some liquid to the tray if you do this.

Start by roughly dicing your potatoes, and put them in the bottom of the pan with some olive oil and seasoning, stirring to coat the potatoes. Prick the sausages lightly with a fork and coat them in oil, strip rosemary needles from the stalk and crush a few cloves of garlic and sprinkle them over the potatoes and sausages. Roast in the oven on a medium heat until the sausages have browned slightly.

Peel a red onion and slice it into eighths, sprinkle it over the sausages, and return the tray to the oven. Finally dice some button mushrooms and add them to the tray with some cherry tomatoes and a little more oil, until the sausages have cooked through and have browned, and the potatoes are soft in the middle.

Ingredients

9 sausages (or 3 per person)
300g potatoes, diced
1 red onion
200g button mushrooms
a handful of Cherry Tomatoes
olive oil
salt & pepper

A British Institution

Cooking a roast dinner can be fairly challenging, and I give great amounts of kudos to all the women (or men) all over the British Isles who cook a sunday roast every single week, for it is no mean feat.

I have been meaning to cook a sunday roast with my friends ever since I moved back to the UK over a year ago, and this week I finally got round to it. The real challenge of a roast is making sure that everything is ready at the same time.

The first thing you should cook is your protein, we opted for chicken, stuff the chicken with a lemon, that has been skewered with a knife and with a few thyme stalks, and top with thyme sprigs, oil, and salt and pepper, massaging the oil into the bird.

Prep your veg. Quarter and parboil the potatoes, cooking them until they are still firm, but are almost cooked through. Toss the potatoes, and other root vegetables in oil and seasoning, and cook them separately in the same oven as the bird.

Now you can turn your attention to your green veg, I cooked broccoli and green beans, separate the broccoli into florets, top and tail the green beans, and set them aside ready for cooking later. Around now you can start making your yorkshire puddings, I have already detailed how to make the perfect yorkshire puddings here.

Finally, you just need to cook your green veg, and make your gravy. Lightly steam the broccoli florets until they are tender and cooked through. Cook the green beans in lightly salted boiling water, and when they are cooked drain them, and add a large knob of butter to the pan and a few cloves of crushed garlic, stirring until the butter has melted and been infused with the hot pungent garlic.

Finally, make your gravy, you can do this one of two ways, if there are no pan juices, you can just use granules, which will make a perfectly fine gravy, or you can deglaze the pan in which the chicken was cooked.

Add the drippings with a little white wine. Slake a little flour with some stock and add it to the pan. Reduce over a medium heat, whisking in some stock if needed, until you have a thick and luscious gravy.

Getting everything adequately cooked, and ready at the same time is no mean feat, luckily the only items which require any precision are the chicken and the yorkshire puddings, with everything else you have a fair amount of leniency.

All thats left is to enjoy this british institution, perhaps with a glass of chilled chardonnay and a board game.

ingredients

1 chicken

oil

salt & Pepper

A few sprigs of thyme

1 lemon

1 kg potatoes

500g green beans, trimmed

1 kg parsnips

1 head of broccoli

1 recipe yorkshire puddings

Tarte Tatin

I'm not usually a fan of attempting french baking at home, I find it far too fiddly and complicated, and, given that my parents live in France, I am fortunately able to leave the delicacy of patisserie to the experts. I have little desire to whip egg whites to make macarons, when there is a man down the road who I can pay to do much the same thing, with a whole lot more finesse.

Tarte tatin is an upside down apple tart, in which the apples are slow cooked soaking in caramel, with a layer of crisp pastry above. The proportions of this recipe are relatively tricky, and it is challenging to get the tart with not too much caramel, but with enough apple and pastry. A trick I always follow, to get the right amount of pastry, and to get it thin enough, is to make a half batch of pastry, this ensures that you won't have left over pastry, and that it will be thin enough. You will also need to decide how dark you want your caramel, my parents love everything bitter, so I made my caramel very dark, if you prefer your caramel slightly paler, reduce the cooking time of the caramel.

Start by melting in a pan, the butter with the caster sugar, while this is melting together peel, core and halve your apples, and put them in a bowl with lemon zest and juice, and a little sugar, leave them to steep, by which time your caramel should be starting to brown. Turn off the heat under the caramel and place the apples in the pan round side down. Use a spoon to cover the apples in the caramel and put the pan in the oven.

Next make your pastry, and roll it out very thinly, the pastry should be more of a base for the apples, and not the main event, so fir this reason I use a simple unsweetened shortcrust pastry. Remove the apples from the oven and cover them gently with the pastry, working fast to not melt the butter, push the pastry into between the apples and bake it in a medium hot oven until the pastry is crisp and golden, and cooked through.

Turn the tart out onto a serving dish and serve when cooled.

Ingredients

For the Filling
6 Golden Delicious apples cored, peeled and halved
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 cup granulated sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
pinch salt

For the Pastry
110g plain flour
50g butter
pinch salt

Slow Roasted Tomato Cobbler

Cobbler can be used to refer to a variety of foods, in this case it refers to a cooked vegetable filling, covered with a savoury scone. In theory you can take this concept and apply it to virtually any filling and topping, however given that the scone topping is relatively dry, the filling needs to be relatively wet.

My mother first introduced me to this recipe a few weeks ago, and I was instantly rather taken with it, the flavours of herbes de provence, rich, sweet tomatoes and caramelized onions melded so fantastically together. When I arrived back in britain for the new term, I made the dish for my housemates.

I started by slow roasting the tomatoes, and yes, I was forced to roast them significantly faster than I would otherwise have liked to. This being january, the tomatoes pale in comparison to the ones from my parents garden, but they were delicious nonetheless. I put the tomatoes in a large earthenware dish, doused them with olive oil and salt & pepper and roasted them for a good hour and a medium-hot oven.

When the tomatoes are almost done, lightly fry a couple of onions until soft. In order to stop the onions from browning, season them lightly with salt. When they are cooked through, turn off the heat and add balsamic vinegar to the pan, reducing it to form a thick sauce, tossing the onions in the vinegar to coat them.

Remove the tomatoes from the oven, and cover with the onions, make the scones (recipe below) adding parmesan and herbes de provence and roll the mixture out to a 1/2 inch thickness. Cut out the scones using either a cookie cutter or a wine glass, and cover the onions with them. Brush the scones with an egg wash and cook the dish on a high heat for half an hour, or until the scones are risen and golden

Marrakech - A Culinary Odyssey

This week I visited Marrakech, and I fell in love. I've had a vision since I was seven, of walking through a market in morocco, and I finally made it come true. I will admit to not being especially passionate about moroccan food, unlike my parents, who are quite simply obsessed with it.

I arrived in Marrakech on tuesday night, having been delayed for two hours. We finally touched down on the tarmac to find the city being lashed with torrential rain, not exactly the weather I was looking for. We managed to hail a cab outside the airport, which is, incidentally the same airport where Sex and the City 2 was filmed, and made it to the hotel after a short dash through the streets of Marrakech which were swarming with mobylettes and beige coloured taxis.

After freshening up we walked to dinner, stumbling upon a small cafe a few streets from our hotel. The cafe was devoid of all tourists and filled with moroccans and smoke (yes you can smoke inside there). I ordered a pita and a virgin mary, as sadly the cafe didn't serve alcohol, as many places in Marrakech don't. The pita arrived on a metal contraption which resembled a keyboard stand and though the virgin mary was sadly lacking a splash of vodka, it was otherwise refreshingly salty and cool. I tucked into the pita with gusto, having eaten nothing but airplane food that day, except for a slice of banana bread that morning. The pita was fresh and thick, and the dressing was thankfully plentiful, I slept satisfied that night.

I got up early the next morning ready to explore the city, at breakfast there was a woman cooking fresh donuts in a large wok, taken still warm from the oil and tossed in sugar these are wonderful, and were a welcome start to the day.

Heading out into the sunshine I became embroiled in the hustle of the city. I stopped for a coffee outside the koutoubia mosque, enjoying the sun on my pasty british skin. Coffee in Marrakech is rarely brewed in the turkish was as is common in other parts of the middle east, however it is often served in a coffee cup without a handle, a style that is now being appropriated in trendy parts of Europe.

Moving on I walked past the koutoubia mosque to the Jemaa el-Fnaa square. There is no direct translation of Jemaa el-Fnaa into english, but it may be paraphrased as either the "congregation of the dead" or rather more poetically "the mosque at the end of the world". The square has historically been used for executions, and an underground prison actively remains beneath the square. Today however the square is mainly filled with orange juice vendors selling freshly squeezed juice for a mere few dirham, and tattoo artists offering henna tattoos.

Near the entrance of the square there were men with chained barbary apes on their shoulders, which should have been cute but was actually fairly repulsive.

I spent the rest of the morning wandering the souk, being propositioned by vendors and bartering for tea sets and tajines. I found a sunny corner of the square and spent a few hours eating couscous with mixed vegetables. The couscous was yellow with saffron and fluffed, and the vegetables were fresh and tender. After lunch I had a cup of mint tea, hot and sweet and refreshing. Mint tea is almost addictive to moroccans and to the rest of the maghreb, who drink is copiously after every meal. It is considered rude to refuse mint tea if it is offered to you when you are a guest.

I spent the rest of the afternoon shopping and enjoying the hot african sun, before taking a tour of the city on a horse drawn cart, which litter the city in huge numbers. Our driver took us on a tour of the old walls of the city, and in spite of the cars and mopeds swarming around us, it was remarkably peaceful.

The next day it was time for round two, at breakfast a woman was making moroccan pancakes, she stretched them out with her hands, folded them over and cooked them on a griddle, flipping them with her bare hands with an impressive agility and dexterity.

I was hoping to see a snake charmer, and whilst in theory there is something magical and mystical about snake charmers, in reality a grown man walking towards you waving a large poisonous snake is fairly intimidating.

After having a sandwich for lunch, I decided to go to the Jardins Majorelle, once owned by Yves Saint Laurent the gardens are a beautiful oasis in the heart of a rather rough neighbourhood. The garden is calm and still, and it made a welcome break from the exuberant chaos of Marrakech.

Having had my fill of peace I took a horse drawn carriage back to the hotel, ready to sleep and recuperate for my flight tomorrow. Upon leaving Marrakech I can't wait to return to the spice, the heat and the bustle. Marrakech, shukran.

Red Lentil and Lemon Soup

There are few things as comforting or as nourishing in the dead of winter as a bowl of warm soup, with bread and cheese to soak up the excess. This morning with little else to do I decided to spend my time pottering around the kitchen making soup for lunch, which is an oddly perfect way to spend a tranquil monday morning.

My mother had recommended to me a soup featured in the New York Times some months earlier, but I find making soup only for myself a terrible bother, and I always end up making too much, and eating it three meals a day for the next week.

I started by lightly sweating some onions and garlic in a large saucepan. When I’m staying with my parents I generally use a cast iron Le Creuset pan for making soup, they allow an incredible diffusion of heat, ensuring that nothing sticks, and you can put them in the oven, so they are great for casseroles. Yes they are pricey, but the one I am currently using was bought over two decades ago, and is still going strong today.

Another tip I always follow when cooking garlic, is to add it to the pan while the oil is still cold, and to heat the garlic and oil up together, this ensures that the garlic won’t burn as easily, and nothing ruins a dish more easily than burnt, acrid and bitter garlic.

After sweating these down I stirred in a little tomato paste and some spices, I always sweat tomato puree in the pan for a few minutes, and I find this helpful to rid it of some of its acidity. Then I stirred in cumin, slightly bruised in a pestle and mortar, salt and pepper and cayenne. For more exact measurements see the recipe below.

Finally I added diced carrots and stock, bringing the mixture to a rolling boil before adding red lentils and turning down the heat.

Some cooks loathe the idea of a thin blended soup, and I tend to agree with them in most cases, the vast majority of soups should be a little chunky, and this soup is no exception. So I remove half of the soup and blend it, leaving the rest untouched, and pouring the liquidized soup back into the pan and combining.

The soup is best served hot with both lemon juice and zest, with a little chopped fresh coriander. It was delicious, with the lemon providing freshness and brightness, and the spices creating a beautiful warmth underneath. I have in the past found red lentil soups to be rather gloopy and challenging, but this soup is warming, fresh and fragrant. The recipe in full can be found below.

Ingredients:

• Olive oil, for frying
• 1 large onion
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• salt & pepper to taste
• pinch of cayenne
• 2 pints chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 cup of red lentils
• 1 large carrot, diced
• juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
• 3 tablespoons of chopped coriander

Method

• Sweat the garlic and onion in a little olive oil, and add the tomato paste and spices, stirring with a wooden spoon
• Add the diced carrot and the stock to the pan, and mix in the red lentils, simmering the mixture until the lentils are cooked and the carrots are tender
• Before serving grate the zest of a 1/2 lemon and add the juice, and season to taste
• Serve garnished with chopped fresh coriander and with fresh bread