How long you cook the sweetcorn for will depend on the size of your sweetcorn and how hot your pan is. There is a very similar recipe in the Mexican Food Made Simple book too.

spicy corn on the cob

Ingredients

• 1 Corn on the cob per person.
• Small knob of butter, per person.
• Pinch of paprika per person
• Pinch of chilli powder or chilli flakes per person.
• Pinch of lime zest per person
• Teaspoon of lime juice per person.
• Salt and pepper

I made this a few weeks ago and it went down really well, I served them with some cod fillet rolled in Indian spices.

It serves 2 but can easily be up-scaled, you can also speed up cooking time by microwaving the spuds.

Ingredients

• 1 big sweet potato
• 1/2 red onion, chopped
• 1 clove of garlic, crushed
• 60ml of cider
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 chilli, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp light cream cheese
• black pepper
• salt
• 1 thumb sized piece of ginger
• 60g of frozen peas.

Method

1. Bake the potato in the oven at 170 degrees until it’s soft and cooked through while the potato is cooking:
2. Put the onion and the cider in a pan and bring to the boil, add the peas followed by spices, chilli, garlic and ginger, cook until the peas are ready. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.
3. When the potatoes are ready, cut in half and carefully scoop out the potato, leaving the skin intact, put the potato into the pan with the pea mixture, add the cream cheese and mix well, season to taste with salt and pepper.
4. put the mixture back into the empty skins, place on a baking tray and bake until cooked through.
5. Serve with your choice of meat or fish.

It had some rather tasty looking recipes in, some of which even had the most magic of ingredients the chilli, so I thought I would share them with you over the next couple of days. They even suggest te wine to have with each dish.

The first is Parma Ham, melon and mozzarella salad with chilli mango dressing served with White Douro Wine
Serves 4

2 large ripe mangoes, peeled, halved and pitted
2 tablespoons lime or lemon juice
2 teaspoons fresh red chilli, finely chopped
4 handfuls rocket
4 wedges cantaloupe, Galia or honeydew melon
2 balls mozzarella cheese
freshly ground black pepper
16 slices Parma Ham

Cut one mango into neat slices to use in the salad. Chop the flesh of the other
mango roughly and blend this with the lime or lemon juice, chilli and two
tablespoons of cold water, using a hand-held stick blender or regular blender.

Share the rocket between two serving plates and arrange the sliced mango on top.
Remove the skin from the melon, cut the flesh into slices and arrange on the salads.

This is one I will most certainly be giving a go, you can find more delicious recipes on here over the next few days and a by checking out the Discover the Origin website

It serves 2, so just buy a piece of fish that’s the size you want depending on your appetite, the addition of some lemon grass might also be quite nice but I didn’t have any.

It can be cooked on the bbq, under the grill or on a griddle pan, I think BBQ would work best but it was raining so I used the grill.

Ingredients

• Monkfish tail
• 1 clove of  garlic crushed
• juice and zest of 1 lemon
• juice and zest of 1 lime,
• 4 kaffir lime leaves crushed
• 2cm piece of fresh root ginger,
• 1 red chilli or 1/2 tsp chilli flakes,
• pinch of salt
• pinch of pepper
• 1/2 tin of coconut milk
• BBQ Skewers
• Rice and veg to serve with.

Method

1. Chop the monkfish into nice big chunks, place in a bowl and then add the garlic, chilli, ginger, lemon and lime juice and zest, lime leaves, salt, pepper and coconut milk.
2. Leave to marinate for as long as you have got.
3. Thread the fish onto the skewers, I used 2 skewers per kebab as it stops the fish spinning round when you turn it.
4. Baste with some of the left over marinade and cook for 8-10mins depending on heat and size of fish, turn regularly and baste as often as you like.

Spicy and refreshing minted pea and chilli soup

I made this as a bit of an experiment, I love peas with mint and chilli so thought I would try and combine them into a lovely spring/summer soup ready for my fresh pea harvest.

Serves: 2
Cooking Time:  10mins

Ingredients:

• 250g frozen peas (or fresh if you have them)
• 300ml chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 Onion finely diced
• Either a handful of fresh mint or a tablespoon of dried mint
• 1 dry red chilli (crumbled) or 1 1/2 teaspoons of chilli flakes
• 1 clove of garlic, crushed.
• Big knob of butter
• Salt and pepper
• 1/4 block of feta cheese, crumbled

Method:

1. Fry the onions and garlic in a the butter until soft and translucent, try not to colour them.
2. Add the mint and the chilli and fry for 30 seconds
3. Add the Peas and fry for a couple of minutes before adding the stock.
4. Bring to the boil and simmer for 5minutes
5. Add the mixture to a blender, whizz until smooth, season with salt and pepper.
6. Serve with the feta crumbled over the top.
7. Enjoy

You can also use the recipe, minus the stock and feta to make a great side dish for with meat, fish or chicken. Just fry the peas until cooked then crush lightly with a fork.

Sorry if its a bit rough but i tend to do it out of my head when i make it so just add extra bits to taste

Ingredients:

• 3 or 4 parsnips – peeled and roughly chopped
• 2 litres of Chicken stock
• 1 fresh red chilli, chopped
• 1 clove of garlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoon of chilli flakes (i usually use 2 but that makes it quite firey)
• Grated ginger (to taste) i usually use a good thumb sized piece
• Honey or maple syrup.
• 1 onion or leek finely chopped
• splash of milk (optional)
• A couple of knobs of nutter
• Salt and pepper
• Olive oil

Method

• Preheat oven to 200 degrees
• Par boil the parsnips in some water, then drain, add a knob of butter and a drizzle of olive oil to a frying pan and heat, add the parsnips and fry for a few mins until slightly browned, sprinkle with chilli flakes ,ginger and drizzle the honey over, fry for a few more minutes.
• Empty the parsnips onto a baking tray and bake until nice and golden,  (you can skip this step by keeping them in the pan longer but i always end up burning the honey)
• In the meantime fry the onion in a knob of butter until soft and then add the garlic.
• When the parsnips are ready, mix them with the onion.
• Blend with the milk and stock until you have your desired consistency, i usually strain the soup to remove lumps and then liquidise the lumps with the remaining stock until the soup is nice and smooth and creamy.
• Season to taste with salt and pepper

If you prefer thicker soup you can add a potato or 2 or leave the parsnip lumps in.

I like to serve it with homemade parsnip crisps on the top and homemade bread.

This works best if you have some leftover chicken from Sunday lunch but you can use any kind of leftover or fresh chicken. Quantities are kind of to your own liking but if I have a cold, I really ramp up the ginger and chili!

Step 1

From leftovers:

Deflesh what remains of your chicken and put to one side, quarter the remaining carcass and boil for around an hour to make a stock. Remove the carcass and strain stock through a sieve.

From fresh:

Take a couple of chicken breasts and slice into inch thick strips, add them to a pan and poach gently until cooked (about 10 or so mins)

Step 2

Finely slice a thumb sized piece of ginger and two hot chillies, add them to a hot pan with some vegetable oil and gently fry, add some thinly sliced spring onions and garlic and fry gently for a few more minutes. Add your chicken and a couple of pints of (either cube or proper) chicken stock, add a good slug of soy sauce. Boil for about 20 mins on a low heat.

Three or four mins before serving add a couple of nests of dried medium egg noodles and continue boiling until they cook.

Just before serving thinly slice some pak choi and add along with some beansprouts.

In the meantime her is the recipe, it sounds awesome and as if it would just as happily suit a posh dinner party as being taken out into the hills in your flask, if you make it please leave some feedback!

Ingredients:

• 2tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 medium red chilli
• 700g parsnips peeled and chopped
• 1 lime, zest only
• 1.3 litres vegetable stock
• 150ml double cream

Method

1. . Heat the oil in a pan, then cook the onion and whole chilli for 5mins until softened.Add the parsnips and lime zest. Stir well and cook for 2mins.
2. Add the vegetable stock, bring to the boil, then simmer for 20-25mins. Remove chilli from the soup. split in half and remove the seeds and stalk.
3. Liquidise the soup in a blender with the chilli until smooth.
4. Return soup to clean pan, add 150ml cream, stir well, season to taste, then gently heat through.
5. Alternatively, miss out step 4 and add a large spoonful of creme fraiche to each bowl when serving.

If you want to add a bit of extra smokiness to the soup you might want to char-grill or oven roast your peppers first instead of frying them .

All the peppers, chillis and onions were home grown so it works out really cheap.

Ingredients

• Chorizo – about half a sausage – or as much/little as you like
• 2 or 3 red peppers (more if you are using the sweet pointy ones)
• 400ml Vegetable or chicken stock
• 2 cloves of garlic (crushed)
• 2 Hot Chillis or some chilli flakes
• 1 Red Onion (or 3 smaller ones)
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes with herbs
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• Salt and pepper
• Chilli flakes

Method

1. Chop the chorizo into small pieces
2. Chop the onion, peppers and chilli’s keeping a few bits of pepper for decoration.
3. Dry fry the chorizo – you don’t need to add oil as the chorizo is oily enough, remove the chorizo from the pan and place on some kitchen paper
4. Fry the onion, peppers and the chilli in the chroizo oil until soft then add the garlic and paprika and tomatoes, cook for 5-10 mins.
5. Add 2/3 of the stock
6. Simmer for 15 minutes.
7. Taste and season
8. Now you depending on how you like your soup you can either liquidise it all or liquidise half of it, either way liquidise until you have your favoured consistency (adding more stock if necessary)
9. Add the chorizo back to the soup.
10. Garnish with a couple of pieces of pepper and a sprinkling of chilli flakes, Serve with homemade bread.

If you don’t have a deep fat fryer then fill a big saucepan up with oil, leaving a few cm gap from the top of the pan, and be very careful.

This serves 2 or 3 but you can increase it if you want to serve more.

Ingredients

• 1 Ball of Mozzarella cheese, drained.
• Fresh white breadcrumbs
• 1tsp chilli flakes or chilli powder
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/2 tsp dried mixed herbs
• salt + pepper
• 2 beaten eggs
• Salad and dip to serve (i used the chilli jam again but the lion serves theirs with spicy pickle which works a treat.)

Method

1. Chop the mozzarella into slices or chunks, depending on how you would like them. Pat them dry with some kitchen paper.
2. Crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk together.
3. Put the breadcrumbs into a separate bowl, season with salt and pepper and add the garlic, chilli, herbs and paprika, mix well.
4. Dip the cheese slices/chunks in the egg followed by the breadcrumbs, making sure they are coated all over.
5. Fry in the oil until crisp and golden – usually only takes a minute or two.
6. Serve on a bed of salad with the dip of your choice.

Sorry no pic as of yet as i can’t find the one i took, i will re- take one next time i make them.