Serves 4 as a side or two as a main.

Ingredients

300g green lentils
A large-ish onion
Two garlic cloves
Table spoon olive oil
Teaspoon of cumin powder or crushed seeds
Teaspoon of coriander powder
Teaspoon of methi / fenugreek
Teaspoon of dried chilli
One litre of veg stock
Juice of a lemon
Natural yoghurt, to serve

Finely chop the onion and roughly chop the garlic, fry gently for about 5 minutes in the oil until softened. Add in the spices, stir in well and continue frying until aromatic – a couple of minutes.

Add the green lentils, mix well with the spiced onions. Cook for a further couple of minutes and then add the stock – all of it.

Simmer for 25 mins or until all the stock is absorbed, stirring occasionally.

Let it sit for a couple of minutes and then stir in the lemon juice.

Serve with the yoghurt (mixed in if you like), pitta or naan and rice.

Ingredients

• 150g light peanut butter
• 250ml water
• 1 onion
• 2 red chillis (or more if you like it hot)
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 tablespoon of dark brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons of balsamic vinegar
• 1 teaspoon of peanut oil (sesame oil or sunflower oil are OK as replacements)
• A few drops of nam pla (Thai fish sauce). Veggies – you’ll need to omit this.

Recipe

1. Slice the onion as finely as you can. Heat up the oil in a medium sized pan and cook the onion over a low-medium heat until golden (about 5mins)
2. Whilst it’s cooking finely chop the chilli (deseeding if you prefer) and peel/crush the garlic cloves. Add to the onion and cook for another minute or two until the garlic gives off a lovely aroma.
3. Take off the heat. Stir in the peanut butter until really well combined, and add the sugar, lemon juice and balsamic.
4. Turn up the heat a bit and return the pan. Slowly add water to the mix, stirring vigorously. Take care as the sauce will begin to bubble volcanically. Once bubbling, cook for another 3 minutes or so until it thickens.
5. Season with the fish sauce. Leave to cool before serving.

The final result

It’s delicious – enjoy!

Ingredients

For the kebabs

• Two large courgettes
• One red onion
• One red pepper
• 250g pack of halloumi

For the marinade

• 1 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp coriander seeds
• 1/2 tsp chilli flakes
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled
• a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, roughly chopped
• a pinch sea salt
• 1 tbsp garam masala
• 1/2 tsp ground tumeric
• 100ml natural yoghurt

For the dressing

• 250ml natural yoghurt
• Juice of a lemon

First, make the marinade. Whizz up all the ingredients together; I used a HC Chopper attachment for the Braun handblenders.

How the tikka sauce looks

Then slice the halloumi whichever way you like so it ends up in appx 2cm by 2cm pieces about 0.5cm thick. Dab the marinade over the halloumi with a pastry brush.

Slice the courgettes into rounds about 1cm thick. Chop the red onion roughly so you end up with 2cm by 2cm or so pieces that are at least 3 layers thick. Roughly chop the pepper. Brush a griddle pan with vegetable oil and griddle the courgettes, onion and pepper, in batches if necessary. When all are nicely charred, brush on the tikka marinade and cook for a further few minutes.

This is what I call nicely charred

Cook the marinaded halloumi in a frying pan, flipping so both sides are nicely browned.

Assemble the kebabs on barbeque skewers and serve immediately. Drizzle with yoghurt and lemon juice, or let your guests do this themselves. Great with salad, tabbouleh/couscous.

Serves: 2 as a main or 3-4 as a starter

The original recipe was from BBC Good Food. I’ve adapted it to include some cider

Ingredients
2.25kg (ish) green tomatoes
500g onions
25g salt
250g raisins
250g sultanas
25g fresh ginger
4 red chillies
500g demerara sugar
500ml pickling vinegar

1. Wash and finely chop the tomatoes, cutting out the hard bit where the stalk joins. Peel and finely chop the onions.
2. Place the two together in a bowl, sprinkle with the salt and leave for at least an hour; ideally overnight.
3. Bring vinegar and sugar to the boil.
4. Roughly chop the raisins and sultanas.
5. Add tomatoes and onion mix, with the raisins and sultanas. Put in the ginger (just as a big lump – I put it in straight from the freezer where I keep ginger) and the chillies (whole is fine – you will fish them out later).
6. Bringback to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for an hour or so with the lid off.
7. Pour into hot sterilized jars and seal. Leave in the fridge for at least a few weeks for the taste to develop.

Great with cheese!

I really like it cold the day after, as the flavours come out even more. Perfect with pitta, hummous, tabbouleh.

Ingredients:

• 2 large aubergines, firm skinned as you can get
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed or chopped
• 2in fresh root ginger, grated (I keep the ginger in the freezer; it’s easy to grate from frozen)
• 1 tbsp ground cumin
• Chilli powder or half a red chilli, chopped
• 6 tbsp clear honey
• Juice of a lemon
• 1/4 pint hot water
• Olive oil, salt

Peel and then slice the aubergines into 1cm (ish) slices. Salt and grill (in batches if necessary) until very brown on both sides. Don’t worry if they char a bit – it adds to the flavour.

In a big frying pan, flash fry the garlic for 30seconds in olive oil. Add the aubergines (again, in batches if necessary), cumin, ginger, water, honey, lemon juice and chilli (if required). Tip: mix the honey, water, lemon, ginger and cumin whilst the aubergines are cooking. Bring to the boil and then simmer for about 10mins. If you are doing batches, extract the first batch from the sauce to a serving dish, and then add the next batch. The sauce should end up being like a thin gravy in consistency – add more hot water if required.

This recipe was inspired by Claudia Roden’s Tamarind and Saffron cookbook (highly recommended).

• 4 large red peppers, deseeded + roughly chopped
• 1 onion chopped
• One garlic clove, squished /chopped
• Tablespoon of tomato puree
• 1.5l of stock
• Salt
• Grated rind and juice of a large lime
• Either fresh red chilli, chilli powder or chilli for cheats in a jar – as much as you can take
• Food processor is essential

Sweat the peppers, onion and garlic in a covered pan over a low heat until softened – about 10mins. Stir in the tomato puree and chilli; add the stock. Transfer the whole lot to the processor and whizz until smooth. Add more stock if required. Just before serving, stir in the lime juice and rind.

First, though, it seems that getting Pisco in the UK might be tricky. I’ve tried in a couple of off licenses now (Thresher and Oddbins) and neither stock it. I’m not sure if this will be true of all Oddbins so I will keep hunting.

EDIT: googled some here although it’s v expensive.

In the meantime I will need to eke out the small bottle that, despite the best efforts of Madrid Airport’s delightful security, I was able to being back from Lima.

If you have Pisco, the rest of the ingredients are very easy to get and the whole thing can simply be whizzed up in a food processor in seconds.

Ingredients

60 ml (2 oz) pisco brandy
30ml (1 oz) fresh lemon/lime juice
10ml (1/4 oz) simple syrup (ie sugar dissolved in water)
1/2 egg white (more makes it v frothy and it’s not the same drink with none)
1 dash Angostura bitters

Preparation

1. Beat the egg white and sugar in a blender
2. Add pisco, lime juice, ice
3. Blend more and pour into glasses. Decorate with a dash of bitters.

• A pound of carrots
• Clove of garlic (crushed)
• Two teaspoons of cumin
• Tablespoon of red wine vinegar
• Half a teaspoon of harissa
• Salt

Peel the carrots, roughly chop and boil for about 15-20 mins until soft. Drain them, then add the rest of the ingredients. Mash well until you get a rough paste. Chill and serve with warm bread.

• Three good-sized, firm aubergines
• Juice of one lemon
• One or two garlic cloves
• Two tablespoons of tahina
• Salt
• Olive oil
• You really need a food processor for this, too.

Make some little slices in the skin of the aubergines, and oven roast them for 30-40 minutes (180C), or until you’re able to peel off the skins from the flesh. Let them cool, then peel them, and mash the flesh with some salt in a colander until most of the juice has come out. Put the flesh and the rest of the ingredients in the food processor and whizz it all together. Add more olive oil or water to adjust consistency to your liking. Serve with warm bread.