This is pretty much a Jamie Oliver recipe out of a little booklet that my future mother in law gave me a few weeks ago, I changed it slightly as I could’t get any plum jam so ended up buying some cherry jam instead.

How long you cook the meat for will depend on the size of your joint and how well done you like it.

As well as the chilli flakes you could also add some sliced fresh chillis or sliced pickled Jalepeno towards the end of glazing.

The broth from the initial cooking can be used for soup or stock if it’s not too salty and the juices from roasting make wicked gravy.

The meat is delicious hot or cold and will last a while in an air tight container in the fridge.

Ingredients

• 3Kg Gammon joint (smoked or unsmoked it’s up to you)
• 1/2 tbsp whole black peppercorns
• 1/2 tbsp whole white peppercorns (or you can just use a whole tbsp of black ones)
• 1 onion, peeled and cut into wedges
• 1  carrot, cut into chunks
• A few sprigs of fresh Thyme
• 1 Piece of celery, cut into chunts
• Water.
• 1/2 jar of cherry jam
• 1 tsp chilli flakes.
• 1 fresh chilli, halved (optional)
• 6 cloves (optional)

Method

1. Pre heat your ove to 160 degrees.
2. Place the meat in a roasting tray or a large pan that you can fit in your oven.
3. Fill with water so it comes about half way up meat.
4. Place the onion, celery, carrot, thyme, peppercorns, cloves and fresh chilli around the meat.
5. Cover the pan with a lid or foil and bake for 90 mins and cooked through (use a meat thermometer to check if you have one)
6. Remove from the oven, keep it covered and leave to cool for at least 30mins.
7. Once the meat is cool enough to handle, remove most of the skin, leaving a thin layer of fat on the top.
8. Carefully use a sharp knife to score the fat in a diamond pattern.
9. Turn the oven up to 200 degrees
10. Put the meat back into the oven and put the meat back in for 30-40 mins until the fat starts to crisp up.
11. Carefully spread some cherry jam over the meat, sprinkle with chilli flakes and then place back in the oven.
12. Now this bit is where you need to use your judgement, keep roasting the meat for 30-60 mins, basting and adding more jam if necessary, until the jam is crisp and sticky and the meat is cooked how you like it.
13. Remove from the oven, leave to cool lightly and then slice and serve.

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.

Stuart tells me he picked this recipe up on his travels and has slightly westernised i. Apparently as long as it’s bitingly hot, sour, salty and has loads of mint it’ll be good! Stuart has made  it with chicken but  he said pork or fish would also be good.

Stuart also sent me a pic which really shows what a great photographer can do.

Ingredients

• 2 chicken breast or thigh fillets, minced or finely chopped
• 2 sticks lemongrass, inner part only, finely chopped
• 2 large cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 spring onions, sliced
• 1 thumb sized piece of galangal, finely choppped (optional)
• 4 birds eye chillis, sliced
• a good glug of fish sauce
• juice of 2 limes
• huge bunch of mint – I’ve had this in some places with half a garden full greenery
• 1/2 cucumber, peeled and sliced into thin strips (use a potato peeler)
• sticky or jasmine rice to serve
• extra whole chillis to garnish (optional)

Method

1. Mix  the chicken, lemongrass, garlic, spring onion, galangal, and chilli in a bowl and leave to marinade for 10mins.
2. Get a wok smoking hot on a high heat, add a little groundnut oil and fry the mixture for 2 – 3 mins.
3. Add the fish sauce and lime juice and cook for 30 secs.
4. Add the mint, roughly chopped, (and the extra chilli if using) and serve immediately with the rice and the cooling cucumber.

To me that sounded really simple yet really tasty so i will be sure to give it a go.

If any of you reading this make it then please leave your feedback on here so we know how it went.

Ingredients

1 large free range egg
115g sifted plain flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
115g butter, at room temperature
100g  soft brown sugar
4og oats
80g of your fave choc, broken into chunks

then depending on how hot u want it:

1/2 to 1 tsp chilli powder
1/2 to 3 fresh chillis …chopped and deseeded.

Method

put all of the ingredients apart from the chocolate in your food processor and whizz up until smooth and creamy then mix in the chocolate chunks.

place the dough on some cling film and wrap up into a saussage shape, about 3-5 cm in diameter (depends on how many cookies you want to make and how big you want them)

place dough in freezer for half an hour. While the dough is chilling pre heat your oven to 170 degrees c.

when the dough is chilled, slice with a sharp knife and place on some grease proof paper on a baking tray making sure you leave plenty of space between the cookies as they will double in size.

bake in the oven for 8-10mins until golden, allow to cool a bit before eating as they are a bit too crumbly when hot.