Cheat's moussaka

My love of Greek food is limitless and moussaka is one of my favourite comfort foods, especially in winter. There's a passing resemblance to lasagne, with its layers of meat, bechamel sauce and cheesy topping, and the pasta replaced with aubergine and potato.

Like lasagne, it's fiddly to assemble if you go down the traditional route and make a bechamel - something I'd only bother with if cooking for friends. This cheat's version substitutes the bechamel with yoghurt and crème fraiche. I also don't bother to fry or grill the aubergine slices first, but layer them straight in uncooked.

Enough for two portions, so you can freeze one (or it'll keep in the fridge for up three days).

What you need: 
300g minced lamb
1 onion, diced
Olive oil
2 tomatoes, finely chopped
1 dsp tomato purée
Glass of red wine
Oregano
Salt, pepper
Small aubergine, thinly sliced
Medium potato, peeled and very thinly sliced
Greek yoghurt / crème fraiche
Feta or Parmesan cheese
Breadcrumbs (optional)

What to do:
Sauté the onion in a glug of olive oil over a medium heat for about 10 minutes until soft and translucent. Turn up the heat, add the lamb and fry it until it's browned. Add the tomatoes, tomato purée, wine and oregano. Turn the heat down and simmer for 30 minutes. Season to taste.

To assemble the moussaka, put a layer of potatoes in the bottom of two individual-size pie dishes. Put a layer of aubergine on top. Add the lamb, then another layer of aubergine and spoon over enough yoghurt to cover. Finish with a layer of potato. Cover each moussaka with a couple of spoonfuls of the creme fraiche, then sprinkle over a little crumbled feta or finely grated Parmesan cheese. You can layer on some breadcrumbs before the cheese, as some Greeks do. Bake for an hour at 180C until the potatoes are tender enough to put a knife through.

Cook's tips:
Make sure you slice the potatoes as thinly as possible - they should be almost translucent. If they are too thick, they will take too long to cook through and everything else will be overcooked and possibly burned by then.

To make the honeyed thyme carrots in the photo, cut the carrots into batons, put in an ovenproof dish, then add a small amount of olive oil a generous drizzle of runny honey, a pinch of dried thyme (or some fresh leaves stripped off the stalks if you have some) and some seasoning. Bake alongside the moussaka for about 45 minutes. Sometimes I make khoriatiki if I fancy a salad instead.

Hare au vin

I regularly cook rabbit - finding hare is much harder but a good butcher should be able to supply it (and I know Lidl sometimes has packs of hare legs in its freezer section). There's a lot of meat on a hare, particularly the hind legs which are its powerhouse and thus have plenty of well-developed muscle. The forelegs are less meaty but still pack flavour, so if you have them then chuck them in the pot too.

I was lucky enough recently to attend a butchery class on game where I learned how to skin rabbits and hares plus butcher them. It was bloody but fun and I came away with a new skill. The pics are here. I brought a prepped whole hare home to joint. The legs went in the slow cooker - the breast fillets are in my freezer and will go into a game pie at some point.

This recipe is based on the classic French coq au vin (which uses a rooster rather than a chicken) and makes 2 portions, so you can freeze one for another day.

What you need:
Hare legs - 2 hind (and 2 fore, if you have them)
1 bottle of red wine
1 bouquet garni
2-3 bay leaves
4-5 slivers of dried orange peel
Freshly ground black pepper
6 sun-dried tomatoes
A couple of sprigs fresh thyme

12 dried prunes
6 baby onions or shallots, peeled and left whole
12 dried porcini
Tomato purée, about a tablespoon
Salt and pepper

What to do: 
Marinate the hare overnight with all the aromatics and the bottle of wine. Next day, add the rest of the ingredients - cut the onions in half leaving the root intact if they are a little on the large side. Then cook in a slow cooker for around 8 hours, or in the oven at 120-140C for around 5 hours. Check the seasoning and adjust if needed. Serve with plenty of buttery root mash (here, I used turnip, swede and carrot).

Cook's tips:
Keep an eye on the liquid levels during cooking and top up if it looks like drying out. The gravy should finish up thickish and glossy. The meat should be falling off the bone by the end of cooking - watch out for very small bones, particularly from the forelegs.

Making dried orange peel is very easy. Use a vegetable peeler to pare strips of rind off the fruit, taking care to avoid the pith. Spread the peel out on a baking tray and leave to dry naturally for 2-3 days (if you have an airing cupboard, it's ideal). Then store in an airtight jar. They keep for ages and are a good flavouring for red meats, particularly venison and game.

To add a note of spice to the marinade, try a cinnamon stick and 2-3 star anise.

A fruity goat tagine

By now you're probably aware how much I love goat meat. It's not eaten just in Greece, but all round the Med - I've never quite managed to erase the memory of the sight of a row of skinned kids' heads lined up on a butcher's stall when on a stroll through the Arab market in Jerusalem's walled old city. Their eyes were blue and, like the Mona Lisa's, they seemed to follow me as I walked past. Creepy eyes aside, I'm sure the heads were delicious when cooked.

No heads for needed for this recipe, just some diced shoulder. And don't be put off by the long list of ingredients - this is simplicity itself to make. It takes just 5-10 minutes to prep. Makes enough for two portions, so you can eat one and freeze one.

What you need:  
A good glug of olive oil
About 300g goat meat, cubed
1 onion, chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed
About 3/4 pint chicken stock
1 orange, juiced and zested
Piece of cinnamon stick, about 3cm
Piece of fresh ginger, about 2cm, peeled and very finely chopped
Half a preserved lemon, finely sliced
Handful of pitted green olives
Handful of dried apricots
Handful of finely chopped fresh mint leaves
2 dessert spoonfuls of ground almonds
About a dessert spoonful of flaked almonds
Seasoning
A little chopped coriander

What to do: 
Using a heavy sauteuse, brown the goat in the olive oil over a high heat then scoop it out and set aside while you fry off the onions and garlic in the same oil until translucent and giving off aroma. Return the meat to the pan and pour in the stock, plus the orange zest and juice, cinnamon stick, ginger, preserved lemon and green olives. Grind in some black pepper. Turn down the heat until it's just simmering and leave for about 2 hours. (You can transfer it to the oven if you prefer - about 160C.) Check on it occasionally and top up with boiling water if it looks like it might dry out.

After 2 hours, add the apricots, mint and ground almonds, stir through and let it cook for another half an hour or so. The meat should be tender by now and the juices thickened by the almonds. If the meat's not quite ready, just cook it a while longer - it won't spoil.

Season to taste, stir in the flaked almonds and scatter over the coriander then dish up with some cous-cous and a side salad of tomatoes, cucumber and mint dressed with a little olive oil and lemon juice.

Cook's tips:
If you can't get goat meat, use mutton - it'll need about the same cooking time, but be sure to trim off the fat first. If you use lamb, it will only need about an hour to 90 minutes in total to cook.

Tagines are very flexible - if you don't have any apricots, use some dried figs or dates. Black olives can be used instead of green.

If you freeze a portion, do it before you add the flaked almonds and coriander.

Cous-cous doubles in size when it's ready so measure out about half of what you want to eat. Dump it in a heatproof bowl and cover with the same amount of boiling water. Put a plate over the bowl to trap the heat and steam and leave it for 5 minutes. It should have fluffed up - fork it through to break up the grains. If it looks too dry, add a little more water and leave for another minute or so (it's better to have too little water and top up than too much, which will make it soggy). If you have leftover cous-cous, cover it with cling film and chill in the fridge - it makes a good base for a salad.

Homemade duck confit

If I'm eating out and duck confit is on the menu, it's pretty much a given that I'll order it. It's irresistible, delicious and one of my favourite ways to consume meat. It can also be a bit pricey in restaurants, inexplicably so when the ingredients are cheap and preparation doesn't require lots of complex steps. It's simply meat poached gently in its own fat.

Of course, if you're in France on a break it's much cheaper to buy a tin or jar or two from a supermarket to bring home. The main disadvantage is the weight - if you're flying, lugging back confit will seriously affect your baggage allowance.

My advice is make it yourself. Duck legs are incredibly cheap - you can usually buy a pair from around £3.50-£4 in the bigger supermarkets. They sell at this price because the breast is in greater demand as a separate cut. As well as a frugal treat, confit is incredibly simple to make, but it does need time so it's probably best to do it on a weekend when you can be around to keep checking on it. This is how Parisian Boy's mother taught me to make it.

What you need: 
2 duck legs
White wine or white vermouth
Fresh thyme and bay leaves
2 cloves of garlic
2 heaped teaspoons of sea salt

What to do:
Check the skin on the duck and pull out any stray feather stumps. Chop the garlic roughly and tear the bay leaves into pieces. Make a layer of half the garlic, half the bay leaves and thyme sprigs and half the sea salt in a dish in which the legs will fit snugly. Put the legs on top, skin side up, and cover with more salt and the rest of the garlic and herbs. Cover with a lid or some clingfilm and pop it in the fridge for 24 hours.

Next day, brush off all the salt, garlic and herbs from the duck. If there's liquid in the bottom of the dish, discard it and pat the legs dry with kitchen paper if necessary. Place both the legs, skin side down, in a snug saucepan - they should fit as tightly as possible. Pour over a very generous glass of wine or vermouth - at least 150ml. Turn on the hob and bring the pan almost to the boil - as soon as it starts to bubble, turn the heat right down to the lowest setting and put a lid on the pan.

You can now leave it to poach for 2 hours. The fat should start to render fairly soon so check on it regularly - you don't want the fat bubbling over and catching fire. This shouldn't happen on such a low heat, of course, but you also don't want the meat cooking too fast so use a heat diffuser if you need to reduce the lowest setting a little further.

By the end, the meat should have shrunk back from the ankle and the skin should look thin rather than plump with fat. Take the pan off the heat and let the legs cool in the fat for 20 minutes. Once the fat is cool enough to handle safely, you can take the duck legs out of the pan.

To eat, reheat in the oven, skin side up, for about half an hour at 200C. The skin should crisp up nicely. 

Cook's tips: 
To store, pack one or both legs into a plastic or foil container or a wide-necked glass jar and cover with the fat. It'll stay fresh in the fridge for at least a month as long as it is completely submerged in fat. You can freeze the duck at this stage - defrost only in the fridge overnight, not in a microwave.

If you're like me, you'll want to eat one of them immediately, but the confit will stay fresh for a day in the fridge without submersion in its fat. Just pop it into an airtight container or cover it with clingfilm on a plate.

Don't throw away the fat - it's full of flavour and makes the best roast or sauté potatoes. If you make confit more than once, use the fat on subsequent occasions for the poaching - the vermouth brings flavour but is really there to kickstart the initial process. The fat will stay fresh indefinitely if you keep it in an airtight jar in the fridge. Sometimes enough liquid is released during the poaching that it will form a layer of jelly under the fat - you can use this to make gravy.

Boston baked beans

Ah, beans on toast - possibly one of the finest comfort foods around, as well as being nutritious, cheap and filling. I've had many a supper of just a small tin of beans atop a couple of slices of wholemeal bread, occasionally with a slice or two of grilled black pudding or some grated cheddar on top. On busy days, beans on toast makes a hearty breakfast and a welcome change from porridge.

But when a tin just won't hit the spot, it's time to brew up a pot of the real thing. Boston baked beans date back to the American pioneers some 300-400 years ago and there are dozens of recipes for this dish - what they have in common are some sort of beans, tomatoes, some cut of pork, and flavourings that include sweet and sour - often molasses or treacle matched against vinegar. Other seasonings can vary wildly. And many versions include vegetables such as carrot and celery.

This is my take on this classic dish, stripped right back to the basics, and it's enough for two portions, so you can freeze one for another day or invite a friend round to share it over a bottle of robust red wine. It takes only 15 minutes to prep and then you can leave it to cook slowly for several hours.

What you need:
1 400g tin of haricot beans
1 large onion, finely chopped
A punnet of cherry or baby plum tomatoes
2 slices of belly pork, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
A heaped dessert spoonful of muscovado sugar
Two dessert spoonfuls of balsamic vinegar
A splash of red wine (optional)
Tomato purée, a good squirt or a small tin's worth
A clove of garlic, crushed
1 bay leaf

What to do:
Gently fry the chopped onion in a little vegetable oil until translucent. Trim any excess fat off the belly pork (if it's very fatty, I grill it a little first to get rid of some of it) then add it to the onions and fry for another 5 minutes. Tip the onions and meat into either a small casserole dish or a slow cooker, add all the other ingredients and mix well. If using the oven you want a moderate heat of around 140C. 

Leave it to cook for around 3 hours. Taste it an hour or so in and adjust the proportions of sugar to vinegar to your preference. Check it now and then to make sure it doesn't dry out, adding a little water if needed - the sauce should be thick rather than watery but you don't want it so dense that it's more like a paste. About 10 minutes before it's ready to eat, check the seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste. Don't add the salt at the start as it can make the beans harden.

Mop up the sauce with some crusty bread.

Cook's tips:
You can use any sort of white bean - borlotti, pinto and cannellini beans are all good options. I use tinned beans for pure convenience but if you can be bothered to soak the dried variety overnight, you'll need 100g for every 400g tin. You can also substitute the fresh tomatoes for chopped tinned ones, if you must - the beauty of this dish is that you can make it almost entirely from store cupboard staples.

The belly pork makes this a very meaty dish. For a lighter touch, use a half-packet of lardons or snip a couple of bacon rashers into strips. Vegetarians can leave out the meat entirely, obviously, but then I'd add in some dried porcini for depth of flavour.

The sweet/sour combination is entirely down to preference. I'm not keen on black treacle and prefer the more toffee-flavoured muscovado. Demerara will just about work but it does lack the smokier tones of a darker sweetener. If you've no balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar is the second best choice but even a malt vinegar will do - just rein it back a little. Adding a little red wine adds both sharpness and flavour.

Ready meals - the good, the bad and the just plain horrible

I moved house last week and was minus a cooker for the best part of a week as I waited for a new one to be delivered and installed. In the interim, I didn't have much to fall back on when it came to cooking - my microwave, which I never cook with as I only use it for defrosting or reheating occasionally, and my slow cooker, plus a toaster.

I often batch cook, eating one portion and freezing two to three more - these are my homemade ready meals and what I eat when I'm too tired or unwell to cook or when I'm in a serious hurry to go out but still need to eat quickly. Casseroles, stews and curries all freeze well and are worth making because in all honesty making just one portion of any of these is a lot of work - you might as well make more for later on. I also sometimes make a lasagne from scratch - my lasagne dish holds 4-6 portions and homemade is far nicer than the supermarket version, as I discovered a few days ago.

I quickly ran out of my homemade frozen dishes and found myself forlornly staring into the chill cabinet of my nearest supermarket. What a depressing sight - apart from the vegetarian options, none of them seemed to contain any vegetables. They were a slew of carb-heavy, meat-heavy concoctions such as pasta with sauce, shepherd's pie and sweet and sour chicken with rice. I came home with a readymade lasagne and a macaroni cheese, both of which were bland and tasteless as airline food. Only a salad, freshly tossed with some homemade French dressing, made them bearable.

The one meal I found that actually contained a portion of vegetables was so disgusting that only raging hunger stopped me tipping it straight into the bin after two bites - this "roast chicken dinner" contained a chicken breast that at least had the skin on but had clearly never seen the inside of an oven, a handful of floury and utterly unflavoursome roast potatoes, and a heap of baby carrots and peas that were edible (just) but had been slathered in a brown gloop that I think was the advertised gravy but I couldn't be sure.

Never again.

Some of my recipes on here will be the ones I batch cook, with recommendations for freezing or chilling - just look for the tag "ready meal" if you need inspiration. I can promise you'll never look in a supermarket chill cabinet ever again...