My book of the moment

On Monday I cooked supper for Beatrice, Sophie, Jules and Archie; we had rack of lamb with roast potatoes and cannelloni beans, followed by homemade cheesecake with blackcurrants – all from Joanna Weinberg’s brilliant, brilliant, Feed Your Friends With Relish. I have stacks and stacks of cookery books - too many - but at the moment hers is the only one I want to cook from. She has the same views as me on not matching plates, and cooking roast chicken a lot, and drinking wine out of tumblers, and always having flowers around even if they're from the petrol station, and eating by candlelight... Last week we had her macademia and raspberry brownies; her walnut and roquefort pie and her poached plums. Here’s her lamb recipe:

For the lamb:
6 garlic cloves, crushed to a paste with salt
4 sprigs rosemary, finely chopped
1 tin anchovies
4 tablespoons olive oil
3 racks of lamb (about 18 cutlets) – ask for French trim but leave off the white hats
salt and black pepper

For the potatoes:
6 large or 12 medium potatoes, cut into 1cm cubes
4–6 garlic cloves, unpeeled
2 or 3 sprigs rosemary
2 tablespoons olive oil

For the beans:
2 x 400g tins cannellini beans, drained with a few tablespoons of liquid reserved

* Mash together the garlic, rosemary, anchovies and olive oil, and season with salt and pepper.
* Rub three-quarters of the mixture generously in and around the lamb racks, getting into any crevices between the meat and bone that you can find or would like to make. Leave to marinate for as long as you can.
* Preheat the oven to 220C/430F/gas mark 7.
* In a large roasting pan, toss the potato cubes, garlic cloves and rosemary sprigs thoroughly in olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Make space in the middle to stand the lamb, bones pointing up.
* About 45 minutes before you want to eat, roast for 22–26 minutes depending on how well done you like the lamb (22 will be a deep rose, 26 the medium side of rare. I like mine on the nose of 24).
* Take out the lamb and wrap it with foil, making a baggy but firmly sealed packet, and leave to stand somewhere warm (such as on top of the oven or hob) for 20 minutes. * Give the potatoes a good shake and return them to the oven for a further 20 minutes, checking and turning once more during cooking.
* Meanwhile, in a saucepan, gently fry the remaining garlic-rosemary-anchovy mixture for a couple of minutes until it softens and tempers.
* Add the drained beans and reserved liquid and warm through, stirring and mashing so that some of the beans break up.
* Add a little extra olive oil if you’d like to. Turn off the heat (the beans can be served warm or at room temperature).
* After 20 minutes, the potatoes should be golden all over. Divide them between serving plates, or empty into a bowl for people to help themselves.
* Unwrap the lamb and carve into individual cutlets, which should be a perfect pink inside.
* Serve with the cannellini beans, redcurrant jelly and mint sauce, and a soft green salad or vegetable.

Nygårds Anna

I love Swedish things - pickled herring on ryebread, lingonberry jam, wooden cabins on lakes, of course - but particularly their clothes. They go for a type of chic-comfty-feminine-frumpiness that it right up my street. I'm going to have to hunt down a shop in London that sells Nygårds Anna http://www.nygardsanna.se/

Wishbone hoarding

I've been saving a wishbone since Christmas. I carefully cleaned and dried it and it's propped up on our kitchen shelf. I think I'm waiting for a really good wish to use it; you mustn't waste a wishbone on something trivial, that's the rule. In the meantime I love this fiddlesome rose-gold wishbone necklace by Jennifer Meyer.

Chorizo with crushed new potatoes

I love chorizo. I happily make the hour-long trip to Brindisa at Borough Market just for one of those oily, spicy chorizo sandwiches with slithers of marinated red peppers and a few wisps of rocket, wrapped in paper, which you eat sitting on the curb - not even noticing when a splatter of the ruby-red juices end up on your white t-shirt. I got this pic, above, from an equally keen chorizo devotee. http://chorizoblog.blogspot.com/

This is one of my favourite ways to cook chorizo at home - involving ridiculously few ingredients.

Half a chorizo sausage, sliced into thick rounds

Two handfuls of tiny new potatoes

Flat leaf parsley

Olive oil

Bring to the boil a large saucepan of slighty salted water. Tip in the potatoes and boil gently until tender. In a separate saucepan, tip in the chorizo rounds and gently cook, for a few minutes, so the juices are released and the meat begins to brown and sizzle. Turn the heat off and allow to rest. When the potatoes are cooked, drain them well and tip them into the chorizo saucepan. Turn the heat back on and stir vigourously - it doesn't matter if you break the spuds up a bit - to coat the potatoes in ruby juices. I sometimes use a potato masher to bash and crush the potatoes up a bit - it makes it look rough and peasanty, which I love. Add sloshes of olive oil if you think it needs it (I always do), plus salt and pepper. Arrange on plates and scatter with parsely. On Saturday we had it with a chicory salad with a squeeze of lemon.

Beach things

A month from now I'll be stretched out on the sand in Jamaica - and in my dreams I'd be fully kitted out in beach things from Zimmermann. www.zimmermannwear.com

A green supper

It might only be temporary, but it certainly looks like spring has sprung out there. Which puts me in the mood to cook things like this:

Lamb chops, real mint sauce, lemon quinoa

Coriander seeds
Lamb chops
Garlic
Maldon salt
Pepper
Olive oil
Mint
Lemon
Quinoa
Parsley
Green chilli

Pound some coriander seeds in a pestle and motar, throw in a fat clove of garlic, a pinch of Maldon salt and pepper – and pound, pound, creating a paste. Rub this paste into the meat, along with a generous slosh of olive oil. Cover and leave in the fridge for an hour or so.
Meanwhile, pick the leaves from a large, bushy bunch of mint and tip into a food processor. Add a small clove of garlic, a squeeze from a half a lemon, a pinch of salt, black pepper and a good couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Whizz until smooth-ish. I always put this in a separate bowl on the table, for people to help themselves. It looks so pretty.
Tip the quinoa into a sieve and rinse well with running cold water. Heat some olive oil in a heavy saucepan and tip in the quinoa. Cook, stirring briskly, on a high heat for a minute. Pour in some boiling water (from the kettle) – enough to cover the quinoa amply. Put the lid of and simmer for about ten minutes – the quinoa grain must loosen itself from its case. Keep checking that it doesn’t dry out.
Zest a whole lemon, and finely chop plenty of flat-leaf parsley. Stir the zest and parsley through the quinoa while its hot, with a slosh of olive oil.
Meanwhile heat the grill to hot, and grill the chops for 5 mins on each side – or less, or more, depending on how you like them.
Serve chops with the quinoa and a big spoonful of the mint sauce (you need loads of it).

A supper for the first warm day of spring

Grilled mackerel, Charlotte potatoes, mint butter, watercress salad

Serves two
Four mackerel fillets, boned, skin on
Olive oil
Four garlic cloves
Teaspoon fennel seeds
Maldon salt
Pepper
Charlotte potatoes
Large bunch mint
Butter
Watercress salad and a lemon to dress it with.

Smash four garlic cloves with the side of a knife, and throw into a bowl. Crush a teaspoon of fennel seeds in a pestle and motar and tip into the bowl. Slosh with a good four tablespoons of olive oil, a generous sprinkling of Maldon salt and pepper - and swirl the marinade together with your fingers. Clean the mackerel fillets and pat completely dry with paper towel. Lay the fillets in the marinade and turn, and turn until completely coated. Leave the fillets flesh-side down in the marinade, cover with clingfilm and put in the fridge for as long as poss (an hour is good). Bring back to room temperature while you heat your grill to hot (I cover the grill well with tin foil to save on cleaning). Meanwhile boil the potatoes until tender. Smash a handful of finely chopped mint leaves with some butter and Maldon salt. Grill the mackerel for a few minutes on each side (start with skin down), checking regularly. Drain the potatoes well, and while still hot, toss in the minted butter. Serve the fillets with the potatoes and a watercress salad, dressed with lemon juice, Maldon salt and olive oil.