The Family Cook Book

Martha had a friend over and we weren't sure how 'experimental' she might be with food. We sometimes forget that shaved fennel and Turkish chopped salad aren't on every kids list of favourite things to eat so we wanted to make sure that we weren't labelled as the weird foodie parents ......but given we were going to eat it too we wanted it to be something at least a little bit interesting. It was also a beautiful day so we thought we should barbecue. These Lamb Koftas from Jamie sounded a bit more interesting than burgers and the introduction of pistachios and Sumac just adds a little bit of Middle Eastern magic ... ps after not being able to find Sumac anywhere I can now announce that it is available in Esher Waitrose. Hooray Serves 4 ingredients • 500g trimmed shoulder or neck fillet of lamb, chopped into 2.5cm chunks • 2 heaped tablespoons fresh thyme leaves • 1 level tablespoon ground chilli • 1 level tablespoon ground cumin • 4 level tablespoons sumac, if you c

I was talking about my lack of blogging this morning with one of my very few followers, yes that's you Will. He was remonstrating (well maybe observing rather than remonstrating) that I hadn't been blogging much. Sometimes that's because I am in a bit of a revisiting rather than discovery phase. This recipe from Allegra Macavedy, that I have already written about once, is an absolute breeze to make and is really different and delicious. The salad here is a little spin on the last entry as it has the addition of radish and lemon juice ... definitely an improvement..... and maybe, just maybe, that justifies a second entry. Lisa and I had this with Joe who returned to Uni today and is therefore unlikely to have Monkfish couscous for some time! Ingredients (Serves four) 180g cous-cous ½ teaspoon ground cumin ½ teaspoon cumin seeds 3 spring onions, thinly sliced 1 preserved lemon, golf-ball sized, roughly chopped 10g fresh coriander, washed and roughly chopped 10 cherry tomatoes

I got the new Mark Hix book for my birthday and one of the things I spied was his recipe for picallili. I love picallili, I associate it with my childhood and in particular a ham and picallili sandwich, which is still one of my favourite things in the whole world..... well ok maybe not in the whole world ... but its pretty damn lovely. The recipe is very very easy. I can't tell you what it tastes like yet because I have to let it sit for at least a week ... which is torture. I will report back when I unleash the turmeric hued loveliness from its darkened lair in the cupboard above the pasta. Ingredients * 1 medium cucumber, halved and seeded and then quartered * 1/2 large cauliflower, cut into small florets * 1 medium onion, diced (I had to use a red onion) * 1 tbsp sea salt * 150g caster sugar * 70g english mustard * 1/2 tsp ground turmeric * 1 small red chilli, chopped * 275ml cider vinegar * 125ml white wine vinegar * 1 tbsp cornflour