I saw this recipe by Stevie Parle in The Telegraph back in July and fell in love with the idea of combining figs, hazelnuts and pomegranate molasses. It’s just beautiful, in case you haven’t tried it. I’ve ramped up the sweet/sharp thing already going on with the pom syrup and figs by adding a little feta and some pomegranate seeds, for fleshy pops of juice. I also did away with the edible flowers because, unsurprisingly, they’re not that easy to find at 7pm on a Wednesday evening.

This took a few minutes to assemble and although it’s not filling enough on its own as a main meal, it is one of the most perfectly delicious ways to begin; a total triumph in the contrasts department.

Figs, Feta and Hazelnuts with Pomegranate Molasses (serves 1) (adapted from Stevie Parle’s recipe for The Telegraph)

3 ripe figs
1/2 a pomegranate
A little feta
Small handful blanched hazelnuts
A few leaves of lambs lettuce
1 scant teaspoon pomegranate molasses
1 tablespoon light olive oil

Mix the pom molasses and oil together in a small bowl. Arrange the lambs lettuce on a plate. Halve the figs and add them also. Break the hazelnuts slightly in a pestle and mortar and scatter over the figs, along with the feta. Hold the pomegranate half over a bowl and bash the skin with a wooden spoon until all the seeds fall out (remove any white bits that fall in). Sprinkle a few seeds over the salad and eat the rest. Spoon over the dressing. Serve.

The grilling season is upon us. I’m excited. The summer stretches out in front of me like one long BBQ sizzling with stuffed squid, beer-can duck, tikka, grilled pineapple salsa, sardines, smoky baba and of course, plenty of jerk (top tips for great jerk here).

Portuguese piri piri chicken is something I’ve been meaning to experiment with for a while. We’ve survived the winter by ordering from Na Pura in Nunhead. The chicken there has a good flavour and is cooked well but I do wish they’d use better quality birds. They also take forever to cook them. After a batch of wings and a chicken or two I’ve hammered down my own recipe and the time has come to say that I’m sorry, Na Pura, but your services are no longer required.

My piri piri sauce is a combination of shed-loads of fierce little chillies, oregano, paprika, garlic, vinegar, oil and sugar; the sweet/sharp balance makes it perfect for the BBQ and BBQ’d it must be because char is very important for this recipe. The skin should be blackened in places. The vinegar in the marinade tenderises the meat keeping it juicy and moist inside. The other important thing to remember is to keep a pot of marinade and a brush to hand when grilling; brush the bird liberally and often. When she’s done, give her a final coat before serving with wedges of lemon and a big salad. And a beer.

It’s nice to serve a pot of the sauce at the table with a little brush, like Restaurante Bonjardim in Lisbon.

Piri Piri Chicken (makes enough for 2 chickens)

30 piri piri or other small red chillies (obviously you may need to adjust the amount according to the chillies you have available)
3 teaspoons dried oregano (fresh would be lovely but it’s quite hard to find around here)
2 level tablespoons paprika
150ml red wine vinegar
200ml olive oil
6 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons soft brown sugar
Salt
Chicken (see instructions on spatchcocking at the end)

Whack everything in a blender until smooth. Pour half of the marinade over your meat, cover and refrigerate overnight. Turn the bird around in the marinade every now and then. When it comes to grilling your bird/s, get the coals white hot then move them to the edges of the BBQ and put your chicken in the middle. Brush regularly with the marinade. Cook until the skin is blackened in places and the bird is cooked through (about 15-20 mins per side for a spatchcocked chicken).

Brush again with the marinade before serving.

If you’re cooking a whole bird on the BBQ, spatchcock (butterfly) it to ensure it cooks fast and evenly. To do this, place the bird breast-side down on a board, with the tail towards you. Using scissors, cut along each side of the backbone to remove it (this requires a little welly as you’re cutting through the ribs but it’s not that difficult). Turn the bird over and use the heel of your hand to push down on the breastbone so that it’s all one thickness. Use skewers to secure the legs and keep the shape of the chicken by pushing them through the thigh and then diagonally through the breast. A bird will take 15-20 minutes per side. If you want to see someone doing it there are some good vids on youtube.

During our 4 day holiday in Spain, the 3 of us managed to spend £80 on anchovies. This is because the L’Escala anchovy is special. The silver-striped fillets have a very firm and meaty texture. They are still salty, but much less so than those sad brown scraps you get from the supermarket; all the rich anchovy flavour but a refined, pedigree version. Apparently the traditional curing method is very important. After the first salting, highly skilled workers gut and behead the tiny fish in a single movement. They are layered in barrels and left alone for 3 months, during which time flesh and salt get together to form a natural brine inside.

The ‘anchovy coast‘ runs between L’Escala and Southern France. The people of L’Escala are very proud of their little fishes, to the point where they have a museum and a  festival to celebrate their existence. What a wonderful idea. Even the mighty Ferran Adrià has attended, to receive the town’s ‘Golden Anchovy Award’ for his work promoting the local delicacy.

We speculated about what an anchovy festival might involve. The eating of anchovies, surely? Some anchovy-themed live entertainment? People dressed up in giant anchovy costumes?

Sadly, not the latter. On the food and entertainment front though – all systems go. The action was taking place on the beach, the sunshine was glorious and while others were making the most of it sunbathing and swimming in the background, we were joining the long queue for a fishy snack. It moved quickly, and as we edged closer the production line came into view. A group of chattering women hunched over big trays, deftly rubbing sliced bread with tomato and topping each with a fillet. 3 of these slices plus a cup of very easy drinking and perfectly passable red for 1 euro – less than a pound. That still amazes me.

We wolfed them down then finished the remainder of our wine listening to three chaps playing what seemed like some very traditional Spanish music. They were presumably singing about anchovies. At least in my head.

3 anchovies of course, is never enough. There are dedicated shops all around L’Escala and so it was anchovies with lunch, anchovies with dinner and the odd dash to the kitchen for a sneaky one in between. Once the jar was empty, I found myself dipping pieces of bread into the remaining oil. Towards the end of the holiday, I was as natural as a gull – mouth open, head back, down in one. For a slightly more sophisticated way to eat them, here’s a green bean recipe. It has an anchovy dressing with a murmur of mustard and a mashed up boiled egg for richness. I ate mine with extra anchovies.

Green bean salad with anchovy dressing

3 large handfuls of green beans, trimmed
1 shallot, finely sliced

1 clove garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon mustard (I used grainy)
4 anchovy fillets
Juice of 1 large lemon
Twice as much oil as lemon juice, plus a little of the anchovy oil from the jar
1 hard boiled egg, peeled
Black pepper

To make the dressing, smash the garlic to a pulp in a pestle and mortar, work in the mustard and anchovies then add the lemon juice and olive oil and mix well. Finally, work in the egg, pounding and mixing until you have a smooth dressing. Add a little more oil if you fancy, perhaps some from the anchovy jar. Season with black pepper.

Cook the beans in boiling water until just cooked, then drain and pour over the dressing while still warm. Mix in the sliced shallot slices and serve.

Oops…finished 3 of the 4 jars I brought home already…

It’s the end of the summer and the corn is going cheap. I bought four cobs for a quid in Peckham yesterday and a frankly quite staggering twelve red peppers for the same. Twelve. Not joking.

This soup only uses one you’ll be pleased to know, along with two cobs and some classic Caribbean flavours: thyme, scotch bonnet chilli and coconut. It’s a hearty mix, thickened with yellow split peas and potato but my version is light compared with other recipes which use pumpkin or squash and other vegetables. I prefer a fresher version which keeps the focus on the juicy bursts of corn. I strip one cob and slice the other so I’m not denied the pleasure of gnawing on it.

The scotch bonnet chilli is left whole and slit lengthways to release just moderate fruity heat and the creamy coconut milk smooths things over. It tastes tropical and most importantly, it celebrates the corn. At that price, it would be rude not to.

Jamaican Corn Soup

1 large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 scotch bonnet chilli
150g yellow split peas
1 litre stock (I used vegetable)
400ml tin of coconut milk
2 sprigs of thyme
2 cobs corn
1 red pepper, diced
1 large potato, diced

Heat a couple of tablespoons of vegetable or groundnut oil in a pan and add the onion. Let it sweat over a lowish heat for about 8 minutes then add the garlic for a couple of minutes more, taking care not to let it burn. Make a cut down the length of the chilli, but keep it intact and add it to the pan with the split peas, thyme and stock – simmer for 30 minutes.

Prepare the corn by shaving the kernels from one of the cobs, running your knife down the sides, top to bottom. Slice the other one into 2cm thick slices (I nicked that idea from this recipe recently. I also nicked their presentation). Add the corn, coconut milk and potato and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add the red pepper for the final 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Allow the soup to cool a little then remove the chilli, thyme and corn slices (reserve the corn slices) and blend half the soup. If it is still quite hot then make sure not to fill the blender more than half way and hold the lid down because if you don’t you will end up with soup all over your kitchen. It will blast the lid off the blender. Return to the pan and add back the corn slices. Reheat if necessary, adjust the seasoning and serve.

If there’s one thing I wasn’t short on for The Big Lunch, it was yoghurt. Rachel’s Organic filled my fridge, my neighbours fridge and the makeshift fridge in my hallway, consisting of ice and gel packs on a complicated freezer rotation system. It was all very rock and roll.

I’m sure it won’t surprise anyone to learn that I jerked some chicken, but the other half looked like an opportunity to rip through a couple of pots of the white stuff; meat cooked in yoghurt is always so succulent and forms a coating which varies between a silken lip-licking paste and patches of spiced crust.

The ingredients can be twiddled but I think the essential players are turmeric, chilli powder and garam masala. A hefty blob of minced garlic and ginger is non-negotiable. I also added some nigella (onion) seeds and chopped mint, in the absence of coriander. They went down an absolute storm.

Tikka chicken

25 chicken drumsticks

1 x 500g tub of Greek yoghurt
1 x 2 inch piece of ginger
6 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 teaspoon hot chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon onion seeds (optional)
1 small handful coriander or mint leaves

Chop the garlic and ginger then put it in a pestle and mortar with 1 teaspoon salt and grind to a paste. Mix this paste with the yoghurt and all the other marinade ingredients.

Make two slashes across the thickest part of each drumstick then coat them with the marinade, mixing really well and rubbing it into the meat. Leave in the fridge overnight or for as long as possible, at least a few hours.

When ready to cook, remove them from the fridge half an hour before you want to cook them and preheat the oven to 180C. They will take about 25 minutes. The skin should be golden and slightly charred in places and the juices should run clear when you skewer the meat at its thickest point.

Summer food is all about simplicity. Forgotten are the dark, damp days of investing energy in root vegetables; peeling, chopping and roasting. The plop and bubble of a simmering stew is now a faded memory. Epic, steaming bowls of pasta are not needed to provide extra insulation. That’s a lie – I’m still eating those; pasta binges are necessary all year round. It is perfectly possible for a person to go completely insane without them.

Mostly though it’s about flash-grilling, plenty of herbs, zesty salads, crisp white wines and ice cold beers. Sardines are perfect for slapping on the BBQ. Well, not so much slapping as gently lowering in a fish kettle; their flesh bruises easily and their skin will stick to the grill without protection.

My favourite garnish is a classic one – gremolata. It’s a zippy mix of parsley, garlic and lemon zest which I also use to lighten heavier, winter dishes like beef ragu. Here it contrasts well with the oily fish and really, it couldn’t be simpler.

Sardines with Gremolata

Sardines, heads removed, scaled, gutted and cleaned (3 or 4 per person)
Zest of 1 large lemon
1 handful parsley leaves
2 cloves garlic

For the gremolata, just chop everything very finely and mix together.

For the sardines, there are a few options. Either rub them with oil, season and grill on a hot BBQ (ideally using a fish rack to prevent sticking) for a few minutes each side until cooked through and slightly charred on the outside. If you don’t have a fish kettle then it is perfectly possible to cook them on the BBQ but they will probably break and stick a little.

To cook inside: either oil, season and grill, or pan fry. To do the latter, open your fillets out then smear lightly with oil and dip each one into seasoned flour (both sides) before frying in a couple of tablespoons of oil in a hot pan – skin first. They will need a few minutes each side.

It’s probably wrong to eat baby octopus isn’t it? I haven’t looked it up because I may not like what I find. I mean, they’re all small or whatever and we all know that’s supposed to be wrong. Tasty though, perfect for BBQ’s and CHEAP:  £1.99 for a bag of 25 odd (frozen) from the Asian supermarket. Billy bargain. We skewered and char-grilled them on the BBQ.

I thought they deserved a good send off, so I lay them to rest on a comfortable Thai-style bedding of shredded things: practically seedless baby cucumbers, spring onions and herbs dressed with plenty of chilli, lime and fish sauce. I wondered if the sweetness of a seriously ripe mango might be pushing things but the flavour worked even though the texture wasn’t perfect.

There is something quite challenging about eating octopus. I remember well the fear I faced when tackling my first, full-size beasty; he also arrived frozen and went from mysterious, solid and portable to formless and slippery as hell. After I’d manned up though, all I had were thoughts of bite-size chunks scattered amongst just-cooked potatoes dusted with paprika and parsley and slugged with good olive oil. Oh I want it again.

Small octopus are a good starting point if you’re squeamish about these things. Our neighbour stuck his head over the balcony to take a look while we were cooking them and he seemed quite interested; I’ve only ever seen the man grill a sausage or burger.  He let himself down shortly afterwards with the admission that he uses a gas BBQ. We berated him appropriately and moved on.

You want to cook your octopus fast so get the BBQ very hot – the coals need to be white before you start grilling. It helps with tentacles (be it squid or octopus) to try and drape them across the grill to stop them falling between the rungs and burning.  A few minutes each side will do it. The resulting flesh should be tender, the tentacles lightly charred.

Someone once told me that it’s wrong to eat octopus because they are intelligent, as animals go. I’m not sure how that even makes any sense but I believe I answered the argument with one word: pig. Surely swine are a case for us to favour eating beasts with more intellectual capacity? I bet a dolphin would taste amazing. Not right though is it. I’m also not a fan of brains – the equivalent of eating the whole of an animals’ intelligence in one fell swoop. The creamy texture weirds me out. This argument is going nowhere but I am clear on one point: I couldn’t give a flying cephalopod’s arse how the octopus would score on the WAIS-R, fact is they make damn good eating.

Char-grilled baby octopus salad
(The octopuses need a bit of time in the marinade (a few hours) so bear this in mind).

Approximately 25 baby octopuses. You are most likely to find these frozen in Asian supermarkets but if you can’t, just substitute with squid or full size octopus. Defrost them thoroughly before using.
4 baby cucumbers or 1 full-size large cucumber, de-seeded and cut into thin strips
1 handful mint leaves, shredded
1 handful coriander leaves, picked from the stalks and left whole
1 large mango, cut into strips. I find the easiest way to do this is to cut around the stone so you have two cheesk (or use a totally unnecessary but brilliant ‘mango stoner‘ to get the same effect. Then score the cheeks into strips before cutting underneath away from the skin.
4 large or 6 small spring onions, cut into strips. You can make them curly if you are having people over or feeling enthusiastic like I was by plunging them into iced water for 20 minutes or so.
1/2 iceberg lettuce, finely shredded

For the marinade/dressing

1 mild red chilli, finely diced
Juice of 1-2 limes
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon sugar
5 limes leaves, shredded (optional)
1 smallish (3cm square) cube ginger, peeled and chopped

1 tablespoon oil, for cooking the octopus

Begin by making the marinade/dressing. (I make my dressings using a pestle and mortar but if you don’t have one then use a small blender or just crush your non-liquid ingredients then shake everything up in an empty jam jar). Pound your garlic and ginger with the merest pinch of salt (fish sauce is salty) until they resemble a paste. Add the lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, lime leaves and chilli and mix well. Taste and adjust the lime juice, fish sauce and sugar as you see fit.

Use a third of this mixture to marinade the octopus, plus the tablespoon of oil. Rub it all over them and refrigerate for about 3-4 hours.

Light the BBQ about 30 minutes before you’re ready to cook them. When you’re ready thread them onto skewers (soaked in cold water for an hour if they are wooden) and grill for a few minutes each side until tender and slightly charred.

Mix the lettuce, spring onions, mango, herbs and cucumber together in a bowl and dress them with another third of the dressing. Arrange on a plate then scatter the octopus on top and drizzle the remaining third of the dressing over the top.