Once more unto the pig, dear friends ...

As usual, lunch with Sophie again: I decided to have another go at my mille-feuille au trois fromages again (just to make sure that it was as good as I thought) and, somewhat to my surprise, it was. Provided you like cheese, anyway. It's a simple but relatively elegant dish which doesn't take much time, and the only exotic ingredient is the batusson. I suppose you could use cottage cheese beaten up with herbs to replace that, but as cottage cheese is rather exotic around here I can't say with any certainty.

In any case, all you need to do is stack up some phyllo sheets: paint one with melted butter, sprinkle with paprika, herbes de Provence and a bit of gros sel, put another sheet on top of that and repeat the performance ... four or five sheets should do the trick. Cut this into three rectangles and pop them into a hot oven for about ten minutes, until they go nicely crispy. While that's going on, chop a small red bell pepper and fry that up in butter till it goes soft, then stir it into about 200gm of batusson.

And when the pastry's ready, put one rectangle onto a serving dish (one that can go into the oven, please) and carefully spread the batusson over it: put the second sheet on top and cover with sliced mozzarella, then put the last sheet on top of that and sprinkle liberally with parmesan and a bit more paprika. Put the whole thing back in the oven for five or ten minutes to heat everything through before taking it out and eating it. It is a bit rich: makes a good light lunch in itself, or a flash entrée for dinner.

Anyway, I promised you filet de porc normande, amongst other things, so here goes.

First of all, a warning: you will need some white wine for this one, so get a couple of bottles in just to be sure. It also does need to be flambé, so make sure you have some calva to hand - or failing that, some whisky. Good stuff, not the bottle you keep for uninvited guests.

To begin, you'll need a pork fillet or two. Around 700 gm should be fine for four. Now take a sharp knife (is there any other kind?) and pare off all the sinew and any fatty bits around the meat. There's what's called the "chain", which is a very thin strip of meat attached to the actual fillet: you may or may not be able to get some meat out of that as well, if not the dog'll love it.

Now you need to cut the meat into half-inch slices against the grain this is important, to ensure that it's tender) and then cut the slices into strips. Once that's done, you should have a large pile of pork strips, which is good. Put them in a bowl (or, even better, a plastic tub with a lid) and contemplate them while you check out the wine. Personally, I'd go for something not too dry - a reisling would probably be good. And don't worry about authenticity - it's not as though they actually make wine in Normandy. (You could, I suppose, use cider. But that wouldn't be as much fun.)

Okay, now you need to flour the meat. This is why a plastic tub with a lid is a good idea: you put the meat in, add a quarter-cup of flour, some salt and herbs of choice, then put the lid on and shake it all about so that each strip of piggy-meat is nicely floured. You can do it in a bowl, with a fork, but it's harder and messier.

From here on it's remarkably easy. Heat some butter in a pan along with a bit of oil (so the butter doesn't burn) until sizzling, then fling the meat in and stir constantly until nicely browned on all sides. When it gets to that point would be a good time to add a quarter-cup of alcohol, wait 30 seconds and set fire to it. Do not hover over it whilst doing this, unless you feel you'd look better without eyebrows. Which is, I suppose, perfectly valid as a fashion statement, even if it does make you look like a prat.

Once the flames have been extinguished, add a half-bottle of white, turn the heat down low, and let the mess simmer. You have about half an hour during which you've nowt to do but stir it occasionally: you could profitably use this time finishing off the first bottle of white, opening the second, and getting whatever it is you plan on eating with it ready. Traditionally, that'd be buttered noodles, and I must admit that I can live with that. The other possibility is plain rice, but the noodles are better. You could also get a salad ready, and maybe fry up some apple slices in butter and finish them off with a dusting of sugar so that they caramelise.

I said to open a second bottle because you may, during that half-hour or so of cooking, need to top up the level in the pan, let alone your glass. You will also need to get some button mushrooms ready: this may involve opening a tin of them or, if you feel that way inclined, slicing and frying up some fresh ones. Either way, now would be a good time to sling them into the pan with the pork, which should be bathing in a fairly thick wine'n'herb sauce by now. We'll do something about that too, which is as simple as stirring in about 20cl of thick cream (they don't call this "normand" for nothing, you know).

Turn the heat up a bit and stir well until the whole mess thickens nicely again, at which point you could arrange the caramelised apple slices on top (these are optional, but I rather like them. Margo won't eat fruit with her meat, so she misses out.) and dust the whole lot with chopped parsley before serving. Don't forget the noodles. With lashings of butter, please.

The other thing I promised was clafouti. Way back when this was a simple peasant treat: fruit in some mangy batter, cooked in the oven. Everyone agrees that the original comes from the Auvergne, and that the fruit concerned has to be cherries. Unpitted. Personally I can't be having with that, and if I do make one with cherries I will in fact pit them first, mainly because I can't be arsed putting a spittoon next to every guest along with the dessert plates.

Of course, the original was just a thick pancake batter: egg, milk, and flour. We've evolved since then, and the recipe has forked (that's IT-speak for "has diverged in multiple directions") to produce some rather startling results. I have even seen clafouti, in an otherwise reputable patisserie, which was in a pastry case; this is an abomination. Not a good idea. I mean, just call it a flan and be done with it, why not? A lot of them tend to be rather stodgy, and I suppose there's nowt wrong with that if you like stodge, but we like this version, which is light and fluffy.

The other vexed question concerns the fruit. As I said, the original involves cherries and I must admit that it is delicious, but not everyone has a cherry tree close to hand (and anyway, the cherry season is short and it seems a shame to eat this only during a three-week period) nor a freezer full of cherries. Although bottled or tinned cherries work rather well. But in fact any firm fruit works well, and apricots exceptionally so. Or at least, that's the general opinion around here. And tinned apricots are, let's face it, easier - and cheaper - to get hold of than cherries.

First off, you will need to butter a large baking dish. I use one that's about 50cm x 25cm. It serves four, after everyone's taken seconds. Whatever, butter it, then sprinkle the butter with castor sugar and swirl that around a bit. It should caramelise during cooking, which is good.

Now it's time to make the actual batter, which is actually rather simple. Two cups of flour in a bowl with maybe a 1/4 cup of sugar, some cinnamon (which is not at all traditional but I like it), maybe some orange-flower water or a drop of lemon essence, and three egg yolks. Use a balloon whisk to mix all that together and add milk, whisking all the time, until you get something a bit thicker than thick cream, then whisk in about 50gm of butter, softened and cut into small chunks. Set that aside and turn your attention to the three egg whites (which I hope you didn't chuck, that'd be a waste): beat them well until you get, as they say, "stiff peaks", which just means that when you pull the beater out the beaten whites form a peak which doesn't slump sadly back into the mass. At which point add 1/4 cup of caster sugar and beat that in too.

I hope you can remember how to put a soufflé batter together, because that's what you have to do now. Scoop about a third of the whites into the batter and stir in with a rubber spatula until well mixed, then pour the result onto the rest of the whites and incorporate gently. You don't want enormous lumps of beaten white sitting sullenly around, but neither do you want to get rid of all those lovely microscopic air bubbles trapped in there which are going to make it rise when cooked.

Having got this far, open a 500gm tin of apricot halves or, in season, halve some fresh apricots. Note that if you're using fresh one you may need to sprinkle a little extra sugar over them when they go in, 'cos the little buggers can be acid: if you're using tinned ones, do try not to cut your wrists on the sharp edges. Anyway, pour half the batter into the buttered baking dish, arrange as many apricots as you think necessary on top, then pour the rest of the batter over and smooth it out a bit. At this point you can stick it into the fridge if required; it'll sit there happily for an hour or two without deflating.

Whatever, when the time comes to cook it, stick it in a hot oven for about 20 minutes, until it's starting to set and the top is going golden. It should also have risen rather nicely by then. So now take it out of the oven, sprinkle heavily with icing sugar, and put it back in for another five minutes. Then remove and serve to general applause.

This little piggy stayed home ...

One of the things that you have to learn when your household down-sizes is creative ways to deal with leftovers. Case in point - Malyon ran off to Glasgow a few years ago, which left three of us, and now that Jeremy's boarding at the lycée technique hotelière (where you'd have thought he'd have learnt enough to help out with the cooking around here, but that's another story) there's just the pair of us for most of the week. And as I've still not quite come to grips with little things like quantities for two, that usually means there's more than enough food, even after we've both pigged out.

Like the other weekend, when I did a rather nice pork roast. A bit of rolled shoulder so it was just nicely marbled with fat which melted into the flesh as it cooked, and on top of that cooked just right so it was still pink inside. (No, I'm not advocating eating your pig all wobbly, but as sanitary controls are so strict these days that you're far likelier to have a grand piano fall on you in the bath than you are to catch trichinosis,  there's no need to cremate the joint until it becomes gray tasteless cardboard. Unless, of course, you actually like it that way, in which case you probably shouldn't be reading this. Just saying.)

So, what to do with it? Honestly, what I often do is grind the rest up in the whizz and stick it in the freezer in ziplock bags ready for making steamed pork buns, but this time (as the freezer's full anyway) I thought I'd go for a little gratin, sauce piquante. (Which, incidentally, is rather nice done with left-over tongue, if that's what you happen to have.)

First of all, make yer sauce piquante. Start by finely chopping an onion and stewing it gently for ten minutes or so in butter so it goes all soft and lightly golden (I said, "gently"), at which point you could usefully sprinkle over a teaspoon of sugar and carry on cooking for another few minutes until that caramelises. Then sprinkle with a tbsp or so of flour (you will probably have to add more butter) and stir that around, and add a tsp or so of instant beef stock (good stuff, please), and stir some more.

Add some water (not too much just yet) and whisk it round to incorporate, and then add 2 tbsp of vinegar (I like to use my vinaigre aux piments for a bit of added excitement, but cider vinegar's fine if that's all you have) or more if you really like piquante qui pique, and whisk that in too. Some would add a bit of mustard powder: I leave that to your discretion. Add more water if required to get a nice thick sauce, add some finely chopped gherkins and/or capers, and leave that to cook very gently (off to one side on top of the wood-burner is good) for ten minutes so that it doesn't have that faint whiff of wallpaper paste about it.

While that's going on, pour yourself a glass of white (you could use that instead of water for the sauce, which gives you a good reason to open the bottle, should you need one), butter a gratin dish, and slice the meat into thickish slices. This should only take five minutes, which leaves you five minutes for another glass before putting the dish together.

Which involves nothing more complicated than spreading a layer of sauce in  the gratin dish, arranging the slices of meat on top of that, covering them with the rest of the sauce and then sprinkling the whole lot with breadcrumbs and grated cheese. Into a hot oven with it until the sauce is bubbling and the breadcrumbs have formed a nice crust (another ten minutes or so, I reckon) and it's fit for purpose.

Were it summer I'd serve it accompanied with a decent salad and lots of bread for lunch: as it's not, I found buttery mashed potatoes and petits pois à la française went pretty well.

The latter, by the way, provide an excellent way of cooking frozen peas. Put as many of these as you think you're likely to need into a saucepan with a lump of sugar, a 1/2tsp salt and the bare minimum of water: bring to the boil. When that comes to pass add five or six lettuce leaves (I use my old favourite, rougette, but you may have to make do with feuille de chêne) either ripped into pieces or sliced into strips (some hold that slicing lettuce leaves makes them bitter. This is utter crap.) and a sliced spring onion or a shallot or heaps of chives, and turn the heat right down whilst the lettuce wilts and you stir in a bit of beurre manié to thicken it up.

This is no more than a heaped tsp of softened butter into which you've incorporated a tsp or two of flour to get a smooth paste. It means you'll have no nasty floury lumps appear when you stir it into the peas. With any luck the mixture will be quite (very) thick: stir in cream (personally, I like to use crême fraîche, aka sour cream, but ordinary pouring cream is fine) until it's the consistency you like, and cook gently for another five minutes or so before serving.

Still more of the pig, in all its glory ...

Don't know about you, but I've had my fill of winter. It's fun enough for a day or so, what with the snow deep and crisp and even and all, but any more than that and I'm a whore for global warming. As if. We headed off to Grenoble yesterday to

• pick up our dearly beloved daughter and
• check out some likely spice shops

and it was bloody Siberian. OK, they'd had more snow than us, and yes, Grenoble is a hole, but still ... had my woolly scarf, thickest eiderdown jacket I have, slinky gloves and I really should have put on an overcoat as well. And walking around in icy slush is not my idea of a good time.

Still, on the bright side we managed to find Rajah Bazar (recommended for its selection of spices, dried pulses, Marmite and comprehensive collection of at least 5000 Bollywood DVDs), World Market (good spice selection, great line in hair extensions) and Saigon Store (need any frozen prepared Vietnamese or Thai food? Go there) whilst freezing our arses off. And I do it all for you. Without even a drink at the end of it, in this case.

We also made it to The Cake Shop at 11 rue Thiers, who will do marvellous personalised birthday cakes with proper icing and everything, stock a great range of cooking implements (if, for you, "cooking" = "patisserie") and also have a seemingly endless stock of Philadelphia cream cheese. Which is the only true base for a real cheesecake, although in these benighted parts we've been forced to make do with Samos 99. And I also found a Christmas present for Sophie - some rather exotic chocolate and a slim volume entitled "Erotic Recipes for Lazy Women" (reads better in French - "Les Recettes Erotiques de la Paresseuse").

The young English lad who gift-wrapped it for me seemed quite embarrassed - at least, he took some time doing the wrapping. Maybe he was flicking through it.

What I'm leading up to is that I'm really quite looking forward to dinner in a couple of nights - should be, seeing as I started it yesterday. It is, of course, a jarret de porc braisé, aka jambonneau, aka pig foreleg. This may seem cruel, I know, but no part of the pig goes to waste - and in any case, whenever I see the little chap (an odd term for a one-tonne porker) hobbling around on three legs and a crutch I always give him a friendly wave, just to say thank you. I think he appreciates it.

On the other hand, the next time we have this I shall have to seriously think about chipping in to buy him a skateboard or something to slip under the front, 'cos I'm not sure he'll manage too well with two crutches.

The recipe is simplicity itself, although it does help if you have a wood-burner. Mind you, you could certainly do this in a crock-pot or slow-cooker or whatever.

First of all, you need to obtain a pig's foreleg. You could either go down to the supermarket or go see your friendly local butcher (whom you really should cultivate, he is your friend) and get one, or you could go the DIY route late one night with a chainsaw at a pig farm, that's up to you.

Whatever, having done that you really need to brown that on all sides in yer trusty cast-iron poele, then fish it out and fling in a sliced onion, ditto carrot, and a teaspoon or so of juniper berries. Let them slowly sweat in the fat for ten minutes or so, then put the pig back with a bayleaf or two, sprinkle with a bit of five-spice powder and maybe a pinch of ginger, and let it all continue sweating away. For another ten minutes.

At the end of such a long wait it's always a good idea to add some alcohol. In Alsace they'd add some pinot noir: I'm not in Alsace and I didn't have any so I used the last of some rather nice beer and chucked in a couple of sugar cubes. (Quantities may vary. I had about that much beer left, so that's what I used: two 130ml glasses of wine should be fine.)

Bring it to a simmer and let it fester, uncovered, for ten minutes more whilst you consider the rest of the wine and your options concerning it, then cover and let it cook slowly for another three hours.

As an aside, some recipes advise you to wrap your jarret in a teatowel once it's browned, to avoid it "decomposing" (ie falling apart, not going rotten) during cooking: I can't be arsed, you can't get the stains out of the teatowel, and in any case I've never had that happen to me anyway - just be delicate when you stick the fork in to turn it over (as you should do from time to time).

Once all that's done, you should have a very soft hunk of meat on the bone sitting in its own juices: put it aside somewhere until you really want to eat it. Preferably within the next couple of days, otherwise it's an open invitation to whatever bacterial toxin happens to be flavour du jour.

When the time comes, stick the jarret in an oven dish and - surprise! - stick it in the oven, ladling a few spoonsful of its juices over it as you do so. There'll still be lots left, and I would personally cook dumplings in it to go with the meat, but Margo doesn't like dumplings so there you are. If you don't like dumplings either, you'll just have to reduce the juice to about half so it goes thick and syrupy. Either way, pour some juice over the meat every ten minutes or so whilst it finishes cooking for the next hour, so it gets nicely glazed and caramelised.

At the end of this time the meat will be falling off the bone and practically sitting up and begging to be eaten, so you'd better get on to that. Dumplings go well with it (did I mention that?) and green vegetables of your choice - around here that's broccoli or brussels sprouts, you could probably get away with peas.

Dessert is up to you - we had blackberry and apple tart tonight, and I think I can recommend that. Might not be an option if you've no blackberries in the freezer, mind you. I'm sure you'll think of something.

Rude pork bottom parts ...

Good day today - it was my birthday yesterday (51st, if you really want to know or would like to send an appropriate present, preferably cash), my laptop went titsup with the rather ominous warning that NTOSKRNL was missing or corrupt, and I'm off to Sophie's 48th birthday party tonight.

Which means that before I go up to Paris on Sunday I have to get my laptop working again, and get food ready for Jerry and Rémi, who happens to be Sophie's youngest and who's spending the night at our place. Rather atypically from a Frog-person, he quite likes exotic cuisine, and it fact it was he who asked for what our kids used to call (back in the days before they'd completely mastered the art of the consonant) "steamed pork bums".

Which are not as rude as they may sound. What you need is about 400gm of left-over barbecued pork (or a mix of pork and beef is nice), finely minced. Personally, every time I barbecue a bit of rouelle de jambon (which is just a 2 or 3-inch thick slice from the poor animal's leg) there's always heaps left over (unless of course we've got a pile of friends around) so I just cut the meat off the bone, chop it into chunks and stick them in the good old Kitchen Whiz, then stick the resulting mince into the freezer until I need it.

Once that's thawed out you need to make the sauce. Peel and finely chop a good chunk of ginger, ditto a clove or two of garlic, and fry them up gently in a little oil for a minute. Then add, in no particular order, 2 tbsp hoi sin sauce, 2 tbsp oyster sauce, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp sesame oil and, if you're that way inclined, a dose of hot chili sauce. Let that cook for a little, then add 3 tsp cornflour mixed up in a little water, bring to the boil and let it get good and thick. At which point take it off the heat, stir in the mince well so it's all nicely mixed, and let it cool.

So now it's time to make the dough. You can buy special bun flour from most Asian grocers, or you can use standard flour, or I like a half and half mix of normal flour and rice flour, which gives a lovely silky texture but, due to the lack of gluten (or something) makes a very fragile dough. Be warned. Whatever. You'll need two cups of that, about 70 gms of pork dripping and 1 tbsp of sugar - stick the lot in the whizzer and give it a good pulse to mix in the dripping.

You've two options at this point: use baking powder or yeast. If you're using baking powder, put a teaspoon in with the flour and add a tbsp of vinegar to the water; if yeast, it's be a good time to mix up a sachet of instant yeast with about 100ml of warm water and a bit of sugar to let it froth. I use yeast, myself, but it's up to you.

Whichever you prefer, put the food processor onto slooow and add the yeasty mixture (or vinegar/water): you will definitely need to add more than the 100ml but do it slowly, especially if you've used rice flour, as the line between dry and sloppy is a fine one. Once you've got a soft (but not too soft) dough, set it aside and let it rise. Which'll take about an hour. I used that time to do a few quick searches and recreate my BOOT.INI file, which at least got me to the point where my laptop was booting (and then hanging). Progress, of a sort. Still hadn't got anything ready for Sophie.

When all that's done, roll the dough out into a log and slice that into chunks. You will need to roll each chunk out into a 9cm diameter circle, so make them the right size for that. As you may have guessed, you must roll them out. Then place a heaped spoonfull of the meaty mixture on each circle of dough, fold the dough over and pinch the edges together to seal - just like Cornish pasties, really.

Except that these ones get steamed. I do that in the wok: I have a big one, with a big domed lid, and a cake tray which just fits in; it works for me. About ten minutes steaming per batch should do the trick. When you want to eat them just stick them in the microwave to reheat and serve with the dipping sauce(s) of your choice (sweet chili sauce is a must around here, but garlic/vinegar or whatever else takes your fancy is good). The little buggers freeze really well too, so freeze any leftovers for one of those days when you really can't be arsed cooking.

At around this time I managed to get my laptop back to the land of the living, after replacing a couple of files (thank god for Linux distros on a bootable USB key) so it was time to think of dessert for Sophie. And as we had three or four ripe pears lurking in the fridge that wasn't too difficult - a pastis aux poires.

In this case, pastis has nowt to do with the quintessential (and absolutely disgusting, as far as I'm concerned) provençal alcohol flavoured with aniseed: it is in fact a corruption of pastilla, which is an Algerian/Moroccan pie made with meat (often pigeon), sugar, almonds, spices and godnose what else.

I found it on Clotilde Dussolier's excellent Chocolate & Zuchini blog yonks back, and it's become a favourite. You need to start, fairly obviously, with some pears. About four would be good. Peel them, core them, and cut them into cubes, then fry them very gently in butter until they're smelling of pear heaven. At which point you should add a good handful of raisins, 1 tbsp of sugar, maybe some cinnamon, a dash of the poison of your choice and, if it looks dry (which it shouldn't) a bit of water, then cover and let simmer for 10 minutes.

During which time you can get the pastry ready. This is just the bog-standard phyllo you've come to know (and, I hope, love) - brush a sheet of phyllo with melted butter, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, line pie dish with it - then repeat two or three times. Old history.

Scoop the pears and raisins out of their juice and into the pie dish, fold the floppy pastry edges over the top and brush them with melted butter as well while the pear juices reduce like mad over a really hot flame. When all that's nicely syrupy dribble it over the tart and bung it in the oven for twenty minutes or so.

This is nice the next day if you happen to have any leftovers, but you really do need to give it 5 minutes or so in the oven. Otherwise the pastry is all soggy, which is not so good. But at least my computer is good to go, so I'm fine for Paris.

And, in case you're interested, the birthday party was really good. First time in years I've seen Sophie in a dress. Got elegantly wasted, as usual, but at least it was with a 98 Burgundy that I'd had lurking in the cellar for years. And those Frog-persons really do have natural rhythm when it comes to dancing.

Quick & cold Oriental-style meal

A heat wave hit the Alps, with the effect that I literally can't take the heat in the kitchen. Yesterday we had a BBQ, so technically I was away from the cooker. A few left over porkchops gave me the idea for tonight's dinner. These are quick adaptations of recipes from different Asian countries for when you have leftovers & don't feel like cooking ( or have friends show up unannounced-a frequent situation chez nous).

The porkchops were marinated in an Oriental type sauce, then expertly BBQd by hubby (he has his culinary contributions, greatly encouraged & appreciated!). The marinade is simple: soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, rice wine, sugar, tamarind (optional-can't always find it).

Thai style cold satay noodles
7 oz wide rice noodles
chives or green onions
fresh coriander
sesame seeds or peanuts
lime or lemon slices

Satay sauce: cocunut milk, peanut paste, sesame paste (tahini), soy sauce, vinegar & sugar

Put water to boil & prepre ingredients for all the salads. All the sauces can be made ahead of time & stored in the refrigerator.
Cook noodles, rincse, drain, sprinkle with oil & set aside to cool.
Add satay & garnish.
Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Cold pork salad with bamboo shoots
3 leftover chops
1 cup bamboo shoots
3 red chilis
fresh mint
fresh chives
Sauce: rice vinegar, soy sauce, sugar

Debone pork. Slice as thinly as possible. Add other ingredients. Mix together. Refrigerate until ready to serve.


Mushrooms & waterchestnuts (hot or cold)
2 oz dried mushrooms (any kind)
2 oz waterchestnuts
1 carrot
chives
Same sauce as above.

Bring water to boil. Place mushrooms in a bowl, cover with boiling water. Cover & let sit.
When mushrooms absorb water (about 20 min), let cool.
Add sliced waterchestnuts.
Peel carrot and shave onto mushrooms.
Add other ingredients.
Put aside until ready to eat.

Cucumber salad
Slice cucumber thinly. Sprinkle on the same sauce. Add sesame seeds & thin slivers of ginger. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Definitely NOT a light lunch ...

I can still remember, when we first turned up in France about 20 years ago, buying my first Savoyard cookbook. One of the things that struck my fancy was (page 273), "Les Pets de Nonne": nuns farts. Deep-fried fritters flavoured with orange-flower water, basically, but from the name I'd always imagined something sort of ethereal, light and fluffy ... every time I've tried to make them they've turned out heavy and lumpen, which I suppose is in fact closer to how they'd really be, given what a nun's diet is supposed to be - I think my deep-frier is just not hot enough. And yet I can make great doughnuts. I can see I'll have to go and upgrade my stove, get one of the Rosières jobs with the built-in deep-fryers that can go up to 300° - in my dreams.

In any case, setting aside these farty delights, what I really wanted to talk about was cassoulet. Not, I must admit, a light dish - certainly not one I'd plan on for a summer lunch. But for dinner, with a good Chateauneuf du Pape, it's hard to beat. And you don't even need a salad to go with it.

On the other hand, given that you simply cannot make cassoulet in any quantity other than what can be loosely described as gargantuan, you will need a very large dish or dishes to stick the stuff in. And an oven that'll hold them. I have one of those enormous German earthenware dishes for doing chicken and things - a Strummelwotsit, or a Strewelthingy - and by using both the top and the bottom halves I usually manage to fit everything in.

Anyway, cassoulet is one of those things where there are at least 500 recipes, each of which is the only true and traditional one. According to someone, anyway. Some call for goose only, no lamb - others banish our piggy friend from the menu. According to one, if you stick other than duck in you'll be excommunicated - go straight to hell, do not pass redemption. And I swear that I've seen one that called for putting lobster in, which in my opinion is definitely a sin of the worst order, meriting extermination. With buzzy noises.

My take on cassoulet is quite simple and I'm open to anything, except lobster. Start, anyway, the night before the feast with 500gm of dried white beans, stick then in a bowl - preferably large enough to hold them, if not it gets messy - and cover them with water. Then leave them like that for twelve hours or so. You could go and have a drink, they're unlikely to be going anywhere by themselves.

The next day, when you stumble bleary-eyed downstairs (or trip over the cat, for those of you that aren't blessed with the privilege of having stairs that actively try to kill you), you could probably drain and rinse the beans. They won't thank you for it, but they'll smell better.

Then, once you feel up to it, take a large saucepan and fry up some bacon in it (yeah, the home-cured stuff ...) and when that's smelling good have a large orange juice and eat some of the bacon before adding two coarsely-chopped onions and some (lots) garlic. When that's all gone transparent and smelling lovely it's time to stick in 2 (two) 200gm tins of peeled tomatoes and mash them up with a fork. A glass of white wine is also a good idea, and don't forget to stick another glass of it into the saucepan.

Add the beans, just enough water (or wine, if you've got any left - at this hour of the day you should have) to cover, thyme, basil - whatever, and let simmer for about an hour and a half. Or so. It's not that important. Then turn it off and let it consider the error of its ways, whilst you go and have lunch. I'd recommend something light, like a slice of stale bread and half a glass of water, considering what's in store.

OK, it's mid-afternoon and the beans should still be sloshy. Now you need to fry up at least:

• 3-4 duck legs, cut into drumstick and thigh
  
• 2-3 lamb shanks
• a jarret de porc (pork foreleg)
  
• 1 slab of pork belly, sliced thickly
• 1 garlic sausage, ditto

There will be a lot of fat, don't chuck it. It's low-cholesterol, and anyway it is your friend. If there's anything else you want to stick in (apart from lobster) now would be the time to fry it up too.

Now it's simplicity itself: mix the beans and the meat and the fat and the juice, stick it into whatever you've got that's big enough to hold it and go into the oven (I told you I used both halves of my pottery thingy), sprinkle with breadcrumbs and chopped garlic, and stick in the oven on low. It's going to be cooking for about 4 hours, so open another bottle while you wait.

According to tradition (that is if you're making a traditional Toulousain cassoulet, which this isn't) you should stir the breadcrumbs in under the surface seven times during cooking: I can't be arsed, and no-one seems to worry. About an hour before the thing is done, bung in half a dozen good pork sausages - smoked if you've got'em. Just poke them in under the breadcrumbs. If it's drying out too much, add more wine. Or water. Whatever.

It's ready when everything is tender and it smells yummy. It also serves about ten people, with seconds, and probably leftovers. A simple green salad is more than enough with this - and bread, of course.

Oh, I hope you really really like beans. Our kids don't, but then they don't like choucroute either, which means they're on the direct route for the nether pits of hell. On the bright side, we'll probably get visiting rights.

sweet & sour marinade

This is a quick marinade great for BBQ or oven. Usually I make it with (skinned!) chicken or pork. Meat should be marintaed the longest possible, I often prepare the day before, but this can be applied even at the last minute. In summer I make a large batch of marinade & keep it handy in the fridge, since it lasts 4/5 days if well sealed.
Amounts given are for 4 large chicken legs & thighs.

4 tbsp sweet & sour sauce (mild or spicy)
4 tbsp ketchup
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsps garlic powder or salt

Mix all ingredients together.
Place meat in a bowl with lid.
Pour marinade onto the meat, distribute evenly.
Once meat is placed on grill or oven dish, keep remaining marinade & brush onto meat while cooking.