From Sweet; Yottam Ottolenghi / Helen Goh

Ingredients
400g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp ground cinnamon (or to taste)
½ tsp salt
100 unsalted butter, cubed
240g soft dark brown sugar
70ml water
150g whole almonds, skin on
90 shelled pistachio kernels
100g dried sour cherries / cherry and berry mix

Method
Line a regular 900g loaf tin with baking parchment and set aside.

In a large bowl mix together the four, bicarb, cinnamon and salt.

Place the butter, sugar and water into a small saucepan over a medium heat. Cook for about 5 minutes until the butter is melted and the sugar is dissolved. Pour into the flour mix and add in the nuts and fruit. Mix everything together to form a smooth glossy dough. Tip the dough into the lined loaf tin, press it down firmly to level, and cover the top with a piece of baking parchment. Put the dough in the fridge and leave for at least 4...

From Nordic Bakery Cookbook; Miisa Mink

Pastry

250g Unsalted Butter, softened
250g quark cheese
250g strong white bread flour
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt

Put the butter and quark in a mixing bowl and beat together until well mixed.

In a separate bowl mix the flour, salt and baking powder, tip the dry ingredients into the butter / cheese mixture and mix until a dough forms.

Roll the dough into a ball, flatten into a disc and wrap in clingfilm. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before using.

Gravadlax

Take a salmon fillet (approx 600g) and sprinkle with about 2 tbsp of coarse sea salt, 1 tsp of caster sugar and scatter about 15 / 20 g of fresh dill (torn onto small pieces) over the top. This will cure quite nicely overnight in the fridge, or if you want to compress the fish further then wrap it tightly in greaseproof. I cut the fish in half and put one half on top of the...

From the Yo Sushi Cook Book Kimiko Barber

Normally I rewrite the recipes, but with this one I have blatantly scanned in the book, because it’s much easier with the pictures!

To Make Sushi Rice

To make a certain weight of cooked rice, start with the weight of the dry rice and then add 50% to come up with the weight of cooked rice - so 200g dry rice will give you 300g of cooked rice.
To cook the rice then the amount of water you will need is about 110% of the weight of the rice - so 200g rice needs 220g water to cook it.

First rinse the rice, put your rice into cold water, swish it around and pour off the now milky water, repeat this up to 5 times, until the water is clear.

Put your rice and the required amount of water into a heavy bottomed pan with a tight fitting lid, and bring the pan to the boil. Try not to look in, listen for the sounds of boiling, once at the boil turn the...

Soframiz

Dough
½ cup warm water
1 teaspoon active dry yeast / 7g fresh yeast
1 tablespoon honey
1 ½ cups breadflour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil

Whisk together the water, yeast and honey, if using dry yeast leave it for about 5 minutes before using, if using fresh yeast, you can use it straight away.

Add the flour, salt and 1 tablespoon of the oil to the liquid and knead, either using a stand mixer and a dough hook or by hand. Add more water if necessary. Once the dough is smooth, knead it into a ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover the bowl with clingfilm or a towel and let the dough rise until doubled in size, generally about an hour.

Filling
12 Ounces minced lamb
1 small onion, finely chopped,
2 teaspoons Baharat spice or Persian 7 spice
1 tsp dried mint
1 tablespoon dried pepper flakes (or chilli flakes to taste)
2 teaspoons red pepper / chilli paste
1...

From Yottam Ottolengh / Helen Goh Sweet

Ingredients
Cake
3 cardamom pods
150 shelled pistachio kernels, plus extra 25g (finely chopped) to serve
100g ground almonds
170g fine semolina
1 ¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
300g unsalted butter at room temperature (plus extra for greasing)
330g caster sugar
4 large eggs, lightly whisked
grated zest of 1 lemon
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp rose water (not essence)
½ tsp vanilla extract

Syrup
100ml lemon juice
80ml rose water
100g caster sugar

In the book there are also candied rose petals and a rose cream, You can find details of them here, I just used ordinary dried rose petals and served with plain double cream.

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C and grease a 9-inch/23-cm round springform pan and line with baking parchment.

Use the flat side of a large knife to crush the cardamom pods and place the seeds in the small bowl of a food processor...

From the book Rick Stein’s Far Eastern Odyssey

The recipe below is for 4 but can easily be scaled. The quantity of ingredients can also be altered to taste, levels of chilli and lemongrass for example. Do use the mint though, beef and mint seems wrong but works here.

Ingredients
500g Lean minced beef
1 tsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp roasted rice
5 fat lemongrass stalks, core thinly sliced (or to taste as lemongrass is highly perfumed)
75g shallots, thinly sliced
1 ½ tsp crushed dried chillies (or to taste)
2 red bird eye chillies very thinly sliced (or to taste)
4 tbsp lime juice
3 tbsp fish sauce
30g mixed fresh mint and coriander, roughly chopped
Crisp lettuce such as an iceberg, romaine or baby gem, split into separate leaves.

Method
To prepare the roasted rice, take the amount of rice needed and cook in a dry heavy based frying pan over a medium heat. Keep it moving until it is nicely...

From the book Falastin; Sami Tamimi / Tara Wrigley

Ingredients
Chicken / Marinade
750g boneless chicken thighs, skinned
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
¾ tsp smoked paprika
½ tsp ground turmeric
¾ tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of ground cloves
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp cider vinegar
Salt and pepper

Rest of the Pie
2 baking potatoes, unpeeled cut into thick discs
45g unsalted butter
1 onion, thinly sliced
200ml chicken stock
10g mixture of chopped fresh parsley and coriander
8 sheets filo pastry
1 tsp nigella seeds
1/3 tsp chilli flakes
Salt and black pepper

Tahini Sauce
50g Tahini
80g Greek style yoghurt (can also use creme fraiche)
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbsp lemon juice

Method
Place the chicken in the marinade ingredients and leave for at least half an hour or up to overnight in the fridge.

...

From the book Mowgli Street Food, Nisha Katona

The recipe below is the Mowgli one, but I use a lot less sugar which is to my taste. I only used the equivalent of 1 cup of icing sugar which worked just fine.
You can also scale this recipe to suit your equipment. I actually used 3 tins of mango which came to 675g of fruit, along with 1 ½ cups of sugar.

Ingredients
3 fresh mangoes, peeled stoned, pitted / 400g tinned mango
230g / 2 cups sifted icing sugar (see comment above)
2 tbsp lime juice

Method
Place the cubed mango in a food processor and blend until smooth. Add the icing sugar and lime juice and mix for about another 20 seconds.

Churn the mixture in an ice-cream maker as per the manufacturer’s instructions. Once churned and frozen store in an airtight container in the freezer for up to about 1 month.

If you do not have an ice-cream maker, chill the puree in the fridge then...

From the book Rick Stein’s Seafood Odyssey
The recipe as written here serves 4, but to slim it down then simply reduce the amount of potatoes.

Ingredients
A good pinch of saffron
900g potatoes (or quantity to suit), peeled and cut into 1cm slices
4 plum tomatoes, or good chunky fresh tomatoes, chopped into quarters
50g anchovy fillets in oil, drained
150ml chicken stock
4 red peppers, seeded and cut into chunks
8 garlic cloves (or to taste, but do put some in) roughly chopped
About 8 sprigs of oregano
85ml Olive oil
1 large cleaned sea bass (Approx 1.6 kg - gutted, descaled and fins removed)
Salt and ground black pepper to taste

Method
Preheat the oven to 200C / 400F / Gas mark 6.
Place the saffron in a small bowl and pour over 2 tablespoons of hot water. and leave to soak.
Put the potato slices into a pan of boiling water and cook for about 7 minutes. Drain, and put them in a...

This is based on the idea from the River Cottage Handbook no’ 13 - Curing and Smoking. I say based on as I have used their technique for cooking the lamb, but my own spices for flavouring as, personally, I find theirs has far too much chilli for me.

Meat
A boneless leg of lamb - butterflied so it will lay flat on the grill

Spice Rub
This really depends on preference, Everything starts with salt when you are smoking, but after that it’s really your own taste.
(On the meat not the fat) - a good sprinkling of salt over the whole of the meat surface, then I use a sparse sprinkling of chilli powder and similar of ground black pepper and coriander powder, but a larger amount of cinnamon powder.

You could also use Persian 7 spice, Chinese mixed spice, you could add garlic…as long as you start with salt just add whatever flavours you fancy.

Rub the spices into the meat and then leave for...