Sarah Venning’s recipes

4tbsp heaped white breadcrumbs
1 large onion grated or v finely chopped
1 heaped dsp dried sage
900g pork sausagemeat
1 egg beaten
salt and pepper

Combine breadcrumbs, onion and sage in a large bowl and add a little boiling water. Mix thoroughly. Add sausagemeat to mixture and season. Add egg.

2 egg yolks
1 level tsp Dijon mustard
300ml light oil (eg sunflower)
1 tbsp lemon juice
0.5 tbsp Pernod
salt and pepper

Beat egg yolks with mustard. Add oil one drop at a time. After adding a third of the oil, beat in half the lemon juice. Carry on adding oil, beating mayonnaise continuously. When all the oil is added, beat in the Pernod, salt and pepper to taste.

If having langoustines, roast them at 240°C, having greased them first, for five minutes.

Serves six to eight
Caramel: 140g sugar
Custard@ 600ml medium coconut milk
1 vanilla pod
1 cinammon stick
2 cardamom pods
4 eggs
30g caster sugar

Stand six to eight ramekins in a roasting tin in an oven at 150°C/300°F/Gas 2. Put caster sugar for carmel in pan with 5tbsp water. Stir over moderate heat until sugar is dissolved, brushing in any stray crystals. When syrup is clear, bring to boil and boil hard until it caramelizes to a hazelnut brown. Don’t stir, but swirl pan around to even out hot spots. As soon as caramel is done, remove roasting tin and pour caramel into ramekins, tipping each to cover bottom and sides. Leave ramekins to cool then return to roasting tin.

For custard, put coconut milk in pan with vanilla pod and cinnamon stick. Open cardamom pods, take out black seeds and crush. Add to milk. Bring gently to boil, then remove from heat. Cover and infuse for 15 minutes in warm place. Whisk eggs with caster sugar. Bring coconut milk back to boil and pour onto eggs, stirring constantly. Strain custard then pour into ramekins. Add hot water to raosting tin so it comes about halfway up the ramekins. Cook in oven for about an hour until custard has just set. Cool ramekins then store in fridge covered with clingfilm until needed. Invert them into shallow bowls to serve.

Rather good with double cream if in a greedy mood.

http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/pitta-bread,1622,RC.html

Thomas in Morocco via Paris and Clerkenwell:

“You need a chicken, one or two pickled lemons (Waitrose do sell them), half a jar of black olives, powdered ginger, saffron, plenty of parsley and fresh coriander. You sweat an onion in your tagine, then add a teaspoon of powdered ginger, a bit more of saffron, some garlic and salt and pepper, and half a pint of water or more. You salt and pepper the chicken, and then turn it well in the mixture, and leave it to simmer for an hour (as very often with north African recipes, you don’t brown it), turning it a few times. You do a strange manœuvre with the olives in which you blanche them three times in boiling water for thirty seconds (running under the cold tap each time): this seems to soften the taste a bit. Scoop out and discard the insides of the pickled lemons, and cut the skins into strips, and chop up the parsley and coriander. Add all this fifteen minutes before the end. You want to end up with lots of juice to be soaked up by the couscous. The recipe I had said to cook the whole thing in a casserole and transfer to the tagine once it was all cooked, but this seemed like cheating, and I couldn’t really see the point.”