I was trying to find crab on a bank holiday Monday, so I was trying to find crab that wasn’t tinned and I had to go really out of my way, to a Waitrose. A Waitrose in Clapham. No one should have to do that.

I didn’t realise courgette flowers had so much of a flavour, actually, since I’d only ever eaten them stuffed with cheese and deep fried. I think they deserve slightly more delicate treatment to be honest. I filled them with the elusive crab meat and some itty bitty brown shrimps and fried them in a frying pan with just a touch of oil. Very good indeed with chilli and lemon on top.

Courgette Flowers Stuffed with Crab and Brown Shrimp Recipe

(makes enough stuffing for about 10 courgette flowers)

100g white crab meat
50g brown shrimp
1 tablespoon ricotta
1 red chilli, finely chopped
1/2 lemon

Mix the crab, shrimp and ricotta together and season. Stuff this mixture carefully into the flowers – do not overfill, it’s very tempting. In a frying pan, heat a little vegetable oil and gently fry the flowers until starting to colour on the outside. Eat with chilli, lemon and a glass of chilled white wine.

Oddly, this was the first time I’d ever made honeycomb. That’s some crazy right there. In case you’ve never made it, what happens is that you melt butter, sugar and golden syrup in a pan then bubble it furiously, before chucking in some bicarbonate of soda, which makes it go BATSHIT. It expands massively, frothing up into a giant golden Crunchie. Loads of fun.

Anyway it’s lush crumbled into this ice cream, with cherries and bourbon. Fruit, booze and honeycomb. Yes please.

Cherry, Bourbon and Honeycomb Ice Cream Recipe

250g cherries, pitted
150ml bourbon
225g caster sugar, plus 2 tablespoons
500ml double cream
500ml whole milk
6 large egg yolks

Honeycomb (recipes all over the internet)

In a saucepan, heat the cherries with the bourbon, 50 ml water and the 2 tablespoons sugar. Simmer until reduced by about a third and the cherries are coated in a syrupy liquid. Set aside and allow to cool.

Scald the milk and cream (this means heating it until almost but not boiling, basically when bubbles start to appear around the edge, you’re done). Whisk the egg yolks and 225g sugar together until they turn pale and start to thicken. Continue whisking, and add about 1/3 of the hot milk and cream mixture to the egg mix, then when it is incorporated, add the remaining mixture (again whisking all the time).

Pour the lot into a clean, heavy based pan and cook over a low-medium heat, stirring constantly, until the custard thickens and coats the back of a spoon. You can also test if it’s ready by drawing a line down the custard on the back of the spoon with your finger. If the line stays, it’s ready. A thermometer makes this much easier though. At 80 C it should be about right.

Put the custard aside in a bowl and add the cherries and most of the juice, reserving a little to drizzle over before serving. Cover by placing a layer of cling film or greaseproof paper directly on top of the custard, to stop a skin forming. Leave to cool completely.

To make the honeycomb, er, find a recipe on the internet like I did. They’re basically all the same. Once cool, break into pieces.

When the custard is well chilled, churn in an ice cream maker, stirring in some honeycomb pieces right at the end. Freeze for an hour or two before serving.

I’m patting myself on the back as I write this. It’s hard typing with one hand actually. Modest, huh? The truth is, this sandwich ended up being so brilliant because it was a joint effort between three people and don’t worry, comrades! You won’t go unacknowledged! It started because my boyfriend and I couldn’t stop thinking about the lobster roll at Burger and Lobster. I think about it A LOT. We don’t have time to go, though, you know what I mean? What with him opening a restaurant and me, with, well my own irons in the fire.

Managed to find time to buy lobsters though, didn’t we? Huh. Two live lobbys ready for the pot. They went into the freezer as per RSPCA instructions but when they came out were still pretty frisky. This, coupled with the fact they were too big for the pot but were already halfway in by the time we realised made for a rather traumatic experience; that’s me running the length of the flat with my t shirt pulled up over my face screaming ‘No no no no no no no no no!’ while someone else dealt with the situation in a calm and reasonable manner. Another irritating upshot of this kerfuffle was that we didn’t notice the roe on the tail of the female lobster. An obscene amount of roe in fact. The fishermen are supposed to throw these laden lobbys back but had obviously not noticed either, so we ended up cooking the roe. A shame.

Sorry dude…

Anyway that roe was definitely going into the mayo for extra lobster flavour regardless…but hang on a minute, we are definitely not done with this mayo just yet. Enter, the bisque. We cooked the shells down with a little onion and celery, reducing it good and proper until it was mega intense. The resulting roe + bisque enhanced mayo? I did a little dance. Once mixed with the meat this was the most lobstery-tasting lobster mixture I have ever had the pleasure of lobstering. I’ve taken advice on a method for perfectly cooking lobsters, too, which is to boil them in the pot for 3 minutes, then turn the heat off and leave them in there, lid on, for 7. Absolutely spot on.

I wanted brioche rolls but they were too hard to find in SE London and I sure as hell wasn’t making my own on a weeknight so we improvised with a loaf of white bread. We buttered it, heavily, before toasting it in a skillet on both sides.

This is the best lobster sandwich I have ever eaten. The triple lobster flavoured mixture is the absolute nuts. She may not have the looks but boy, she’s got the taste.

Ultimate Lobster Sandwich Recipe

(serves 2-4, depending on size of lobsters and level of greed)

2 lobsters
2 egg yolks
Vegetable oil, for making mayonnaise
1/2 teaspon Dijon mustard
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 stick celery, finely chopped
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
4 slices of the kind of white bread described above
Butter (I used the kind with salt crystals in it)
Chives, to garnish

For the lobsters:

Put your lobsters in the freezer for 2 hours before you want to cook them. You don’t have to do this, and the evidence for them actually feeling any pain is inconclusive so hey, up to you.

Cook the lobsters by bringing two large pans of boiling water to the boil (or one massive one if you have it). Plunge them in and cover with lids. Cook for three minutes then turn the heat off and leave for 7 minutes longer. Remove them and set aside to cool.

When cool, extract the meat. I did this using a hammer, nutcracker and er, a chopstick. You may have the correct implements. I won’t go into detail here about how to get the meat out as we’ll end up with an essay – there are plenty of guides online if you Google it (I recently came across this brilliant video showing you how to get all the meat out of a lobster – check out the trick with the legs! http://lifehacker.com/the-best-way-to-get-all-the-meat-out-of-a-lobster-483432288). Reserve the shell bits.

For the bisque:

Put all shells into a large clean pan with a splash of vegetable oil plus the finely chopped celery and onion. Fry this for a bit, stirring occasionally. Add about a litre of water. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer for half an hour. Strain and then reduce the strained liquid again, until intense and kick ass tasty. You don’t want much left as you’ll be adding it to the mayo. Consider it an intense little flavour bomb.

For the mayo:

Put the egg yolks in a clean bowl and whisk them together with the Dijon mustard. Whisk in the oil, adding a few drops at a time and making sure each bit of oil is fully incorporated before adding the next. As you whisk in more oil and the mayo starts to thicken, you can start adding it in very slightly larger quantities until you are steadily adding it in a thin stream. Do this is an electric mixer to save muscle pain/hassle. Add the bisque and lemon juice. Obviously if you are lucky enough to get roe than add it but chances are, you won’t. Whisk again and season with salt and pepper. You might want to thicken it slightly if it’s too thin at this point.

For the bread:

Cut and butter liberally. I mean LIBERALLY. Heat a skillet (or similar) and toast on both sides until golden brown (not too much).

Assembly:

Chop the lobster meat roughly (not too small, you want nice big chunks). Mix a little of the mayo with the lobster – do this a little at a time – you don’t want too much. Pile it onto the bread. Garnish with snipped chives. Seal with other piece of bread. REJOICE.

I really, really didn’t want to call this a salsa because…well I don’t really know. There’s just something a bit tossy about it. Anyway, relish wouldn’t work and neither would salad so here we are with salsa. I should’ve just called it THE BEST GRILLED MEAT ACCOMPANIMENT IN THE WORLD because it really is. Last night, we ate it with some BBQ chicken which I’d marinated in yoghurt and a load of spices that would compliment the fruit, like cardamom, cloves and chilli. Stuffed into a pitta with a bit of leafage and a yoghurt sauce thing = really bloody good.

The nectarines and onions are quick pickled, then mixed with mint and olive oil. Simple. It would also be wicked with pork and BBQ fish.

Pickled Nectarine Salsa Recipe

4 nectarines, stoned and diced (leave the skins on)
1/2 small red onion, finely chopped
Small handful mint leaves, finely shredded
120ml white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons sugar
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and pep

Put the chopped nectarine and onion in a bowl. In a separate bowl mix the vinegar and sugar until the sugar dissolves. Pour this mixture over the nectarine and onions, add salt and pepper and press down so all it submerged. Allow to pickle for 10 minutes then drain. You could reserve the liquid for pickling something else if you fancy. It tasty. Stir through the chopped mint and olive oil. At this point it will still taste rather astringent and not quite right, which is why you must allow it to sit for an hour or two before serving. It will transform.