Warm lamb salad to woo women

My last flatmate before I got married was, shall we say, a socially active young man. Good-looking, funny, sporty and kind, while we shared that place there was a veritable revolving door on his bedroom and I considered getting the sofa steamcleaned.

But he had a problem. His first-date technique was superb - he would pack an insulated bag with strawberries, cheese and a bottle of chilled dessert wine, and take the girl to Balmoral Beach, for a lovely walk to a remote promontory, and there unpack the surprise picnic. Very nice. And then he had no follow up. What to do for a second date to match that show of sensitivity and caring?

So I taught him how to make this warm lamb salad. It's a good date meal because it isn't fiddly to eat, it's proper food but you don't feel weighed down after it, there isn't anything scary or exotic that might put a girl off. Unless she is vegetarian, which I think needs to be ascertained on the first date, not the second.

It's also one of Paul's favourites, and he got a bit grumpy with me for not having made it in ages. So I bought a part-boned lamb leg, he cooked it on the Weber over charcoal and hickory chips, and we made the best version of this warm lamb salad that has ever been seen. But I will write the recipe as I showed it to my flatmate, all that time ago. It really is a cracking salad. The butternut and veg can be prepared ahead of time and the dressing made and then the lamb gets a last minute flurry of activity.

Warm lamb salad (serves 2)

300g lamb backstraps
1/2 butternut, peeled and cut into small chunks
2 cloves of garlic, whole & peeled
1 bag baby spinach
1 block of feta
handful of toasted pinenuts
olive oil
balsamic
dijon mustard
ground black pepper

- optional: ripe tomatoes, avocado, artichoke hearts

Toss the chunks of butternut and cloves of garlic in a little oil, place in a roasting dish and bake at 200C for half an hour until they are toasty at the edges, caramelly and gorgeous. Mash the soft, roasted cloves of garlic in a small bowl with a fork. Add a spoonful of mustard, some olive oil and balsamic and put the dressing aside until the end.

Season the lamb backstraps with ground black pepper, and pan fry them in a splash of oil to taste - about 4 minutes a side should be fine - and allow to rest.

In 2 big noodle bowls, arrange the spinach leaves, crumbled feta and toasted pinenuts (and avocado, artichoke hearts and anything else you are adding), top with the butternut. Slice the lamb on the diagonal into dainty girlie bitesize chunks and fan out faffily on top of the veg. Drizzle with the roasted garlic mustard dressing. Provide lots of napkins so she doesn't splash dressing on the silk blouse she bought to impress you.

Turkey Parmigiana

I don't know why it is, but recently I have been really craving chicken parmigiana. It isn't something I really had growing up, but it is an absolute staple of Australian pubs. And fair enough too - it is inexpensive, tasty and lends itself both to the bain marie and to eating with chips. It isn't something I have seen on menus in the UK, so I knew that if I wanted it I was going to have to make it myself.

And so I did. Taking shortcuts wherever possible. Still tasted good! After all, can you go wrong with bubbly, brown melty cheese? It's like a reduced carb version of lasagne.

Turkey Parmigiana (serves 2 healthy appetites with salad and enough leftover for a sandwich the next day)

400g turkey breast escallops
1 egg
dried breadcrumbs
a splash of oil for frying
100g baby spinach leaves
1 jar tomato-based pasta sauce (I used roasted garlic and basil)
1 block mozzarella
2tbs grated parmesan

Egg & crumb the escallops, then fry on both sides until browned. It's a texture thing, it'll be cooked really thoroughly again, so you don't have to be precious about cooking it through.

Line a dish (I used my trusty pyrex lasagne dish) with baby spinach leaves, and top with the escallops in a single layer. Pour over the pasta sauce, top with slices of mozzarella and sprinkle with parmesan. Bake at 190C for about 45 minutes or until everything is bubbly and browned and gorgeous. Allow to sit for 5 minutes to firm up slightly. Serve with a green salad (and some buttered macaroni if you need to bulk it out to serve an extra person).

More Urchin

Sorry - couldn't resist. Here is another clip of my favourite cat - this time playing with her helicopter.

For Ms Crankypants

The very readable Cranky recently asked for more pictures of Urchin. Better than a photo, here is the little beast discovering the sprinkler.

For someone who claims to not like water (she runs in screaming when it starts to rain) she doesn't seem to mind playing with the hose!

Warm chicken salad

If I had £1 for every time Paul has made this gorgeous, simple salad, we'd be able to afford quite a nice dinner out. It has very few ingredients, so they need to be good - free range chicken, properly ripe avocado and perfectly washed baby spinach leaves.

Warm chicken salad (serves 2 as a main course)

1 bag baby spinach leaves
6 chicken thigh fillets
splash of oil for cooking
1 ripe avocado
handful of something crunchy (we used sunflower seeds on this occasion - pinenuts, pumpkin seeds and cashews have all been tried in the past with equal success)
drizzle of balsamic
good splash of soy sauce

Divide the spinach leaves, avocado and sunflower seeds between 2 large bowls and drizzle with a little balsamic. Cut the chicken thighs into bite sized pieces and saute in a splash of vegetable oil until really well browned and cooked through. Deglaze the pan with soy sauce, and shake around while the soy reduces and glazes the chicken. Divide the hot chicken and pan juices between the two bowls and eat immediately.

Summer Berry Yoghurt Cake

Last weekend we went to Hampstead for lunch. At least, we set out for Hampstead, but after we'd spent an hour on the M1 and had travelled 1/4 mile, we aborted the mission and came (very slowly) home. And thus the beautiful Summer Berry Yoghurt Cake that I had nursed on my lap for the entire tedious journey only ended up with an appreciative audience of two. Which is a crying shame, because it was a bloody good cake.

I spotted it on Farida's Azerbaijani Cookbook, and she had adapted it from a recipe on the wonderful Elle's New England Kitchen.

And now this is my version.

Summer Berry Yoghurt Cake

2 cups plain flour
2tsp baking powder
1/2 cup butter (I only had salted in, so I didn't add any extra salt to the cake)
1 cup raw caster sugar
3 eggs (Farida's recipe called for 4, but I only had 3 and the texture was just fine)
Splash of vanilla extract (adds a little flavour, but it is mostly because I adore the scent of baking vanilla)
1 cup strained Greek yoghurt
1 cup frozen mixed berries (blueberries, raspberries and blackberries in this mix)
Finely grated zest of a lemon
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/4 cup demerera sugar

Cream the butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy with a wooden spoon, add the eggs one at a time, beating each one in well. Add the yoghurt and vanilla and mix well.

Add the sifted flour and baking powder and mix until just blended. Fold in the berries and lemon zest (I over-mixed at this point - ignoring common sense - and the cake went an odd purple colour).

Pour into a greased 21cm x 11cm loaf tin and bake in a 180C oven for 70 minutes or until the cake is golden and a skewer comes out clean.

Mix the lemon juice and demerera sugar, and pour evenly over the hot cake. Allow to cool in the tin before turning onto a wire rack.

Keeps really well - I had the last slice today and it was still moist and delicious 8 days after baking.

Cardamom, Rosewater and Saffron Kulfi

About 10 years ago, a friend of the family was visiting family in India, and she very kindly bought me some kulfi moulds. So the other week when I made Dharm's lovely wife's curry, I thought it was about time I used them... and of course, by the time we'd eaten curry, aubergine, lentils, rice and pineapple, we really didn't have enough room for dessert!

Still, it never hurt anyone to have some icecream stowed away in the freezer.

The really special thing about the kulfi moulds is that they are handmade, so the thread on each lid only fits its own mould. Hence the purple nailpolish numbering so that I can keep them matched up.

This is a cheating version of kulfi that I made up after reading lots and lots of other recipes - it uses condensed and evaporated milk, instead of carefully cooking down fresh milk the way you are supposed to. Still, it tastes good; sweet and perfumed. I used reduced fat versions of all the dairy products in it, and it worked OK - but feel free to use full-fat.

Easy Kulfi

1 can reduced fat evaporated milk
1 can reduced fat sweetened condensed milk
300ml reduced fat thickened cream
The seeds of 3 green cardamom pods
Rosewater to taste
Pinch of saffron threads

In a mortar and pestle, crush the cardamom seeds and saffron to a powder and mix with the other ingredients. The specks of saffron will start to bleed beautiful patches of gold into the mix, and you can either wait until they have infused thoroughly, and the mixture is a fairly uniform colour, but I like the almost marbled look.

Pour the mixture into your kulfi moulds (or a loaf tin lined with cling film) and freeze. Kulfi freezes hard, so there is a balance to be struck between being too hard to eat and melting. Some passionfruit or other tangy fruit would be good with it, too moderate the sweetness a bit, but Indian desserts do tend to be very sweet! If I'd had a bit of edible gold leaf I think I would have had to use it.