I bought a leg of lamb of very good quality from Waitrose weighing 1.94kg. I used the recipe in Heston Blumenthal at Home. It took quite a while to get the anchovy pieces, garlic slices (I poached in milk AFTER slicing) and rosemary leaves in. I’ve discovered that it’s best to push them in quite far so that they flavour the meat, not just the skin.

I used the small oven and with the dial at 50C the oven thermometer read 90C. The leg of lamb had been defrosting so it started off at room temperature. After 2.5 hours in the oven the meat’s internal temperature had reached 61C and lots of salty (from the anchovies) juices had run out. I made a gravy by sieving the juices and using just 1tsp of flour to thicken. The meat’s temperature goes up during resting so the lamb was more done than I wanted but it was still good. Next time I will check the oven temperature even more carefully and check the meat’s temperature ater 2 hours.

To accompany the roast lamb I made roast potatoes based on Heston’s recipe in the same book except that I boiled the potatoes in salted water (10g salt per litre of water) in accordance with his recipe in In Search of Perfection. The potatoes were done about 15 mins early but then they were quite small. I just took them out of the oven and put them in a warm bowl lined with a sheet of kitchen roll. They turned out very well.

I also made roast squash which I peeled and cut into approx. 1 cm wide slices and coated wih oil, hot paprika and a little salt. These were done after half an hour at 175C, then just to add colour I turned the fan on and cooked for a further 5 mins on each side.

Mark keeps complaining that I overcook baby courgettes when I pan-fry them so after slicing down the middle lengthwise as usual I smeared the flat side with the smallest amount of oil and cooked them on a hot griddle pan instead. They were perfect.

Monkfish were coated with seasoned flour and pan-fried – not the best way to cook monk tails because of the thick skin that curls up

Green beans dressed with 1/4 of:
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons whole grain dijon mustard
1 tsp onion powder – this was overpowering
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Glazed carrots (Larousse’s recipe)
Wedges flavoured with rosemary, thyme and salt

I quite often get my stir-fries wrong; some ingredients end up overcooked or the whole thing ends up too oily or watery. I found some good advice in 200 Wok Recipes which I was given as a Christmas present. In general I don’t like these little bargain bumper recipe books, but this advice seems good. This is my summary:

* Cut all ingredients into small pieces that will cook quickly and evenly e.g. no big broccoli florets next to finely sliced carrots. Add tender veg such as beansprouts at the end to retain crispness.

* Do all weighing, slicing and chopping before you start cooking. Keep all ingredients to hand to be tipped into the wok at the right moment.

* Use only lean cuts of meat trimmed of excess fat and not those that need extended cooking to become tender. Use seafood that keeps its shape e.g. monkfish, prawns and avoid delicate fish like seabass.

* Get the wok smoking hot before starting to cook. It takes a while for the heat to reach the wide rim. When the oil shimmers in the pan it’s time to start cooking. (But won’t this burn minced garlic and ginger?)

* Stirfry in small batches; as soon as ingredients are added to the wok the temperature drops dramatically. Brown the meat or fish first, them remove it to add back in at the end, otherwise it will stew instead of frying.

* Keep stirring to ensure even cooking and prevent sticking and burning. Add a little liquid (usually water but could use stock or soy sauce) to finish, once ingredients have been seared and browned.

So, following from the advice above, perhaps I shouldn’t be adding noodles into the wok as this makes the total volume far too large. Perhaps I should cook them separately and layer the stir-fried stuff between the noodles when serving? Or I could fry off the noodles in a separate wok?

Sounds as if it will be useful to keep a large warmed bowl to hand to transfer cooked ingredients into.

Based on Moroccan bream from Jamie’s 15 min meals this is my Moroccan bream:

I used 2 whole bream, scaled and gutted with heads and fins removed and rubbed harissa inside the fish. The outside of the fish needs to be oiled before being wrapped them in foil, then baked in the small oven for about 30 mins (until the internal temp reached 45 ish), turning halfway through the cooking time, with the dial at 150C. Then rested in the foil for 10 mins.

Roast celeriac was based on Nigel Slater roast celeriac recipe with the large oven at 175C + fan and the flavouring was ras al hanout.

Served with greek yoghurt with chopped mint stirred through it and cous cous containing fried off onions and garlic, petit pois, pea shoots, chopped up stoned olives (instead of salt) and drizzled with pomegranate molasses. One thing about couscous: it swells by about 3 times when it’s cooked, so best to stir through appropriate amounts of the other ingredients afterwards.

I used the Waitrose roast parsnips recipe, except I would set the oven to 175C with fan.

I unexpectedly ended up with a whole sea bass that was scaled, gutted and had the head, fins and tail removed. I decided to do it Moroccan style, after the success of the Jamie Oliver lamb shank & tomato tagine.

I marinaded the fish by rubbing the inside with ras al hanout and leaving it at room temp for half an hour. In the meantime I made the sauce to braise it in using onion, garlic, ground cumin, ground coriander and tinned tomatoes. It was very good.

Based on Jamie Oliver’s chicken cacciatora

I used 8 chicken thighs with excess skin (not covering any flesh) snipped off and coated in flour seasoned with salt and browned in oil in a large frying pan. Cooked at 150C for 1.5 hours. I used 4 anchovy fillets plus a little anchovy paste. It turned out quite salty, so think will use either 4 fillets OR the paste next time, otherwise it was very good.

One time I made mussels and added salt to the onions when I fried them as I do in all other dishes. But mussels are salty anyway so the finished dish was almost inedible; NEVER ADD SALT. Also I didn’t cook the mussels enough so they were slimy and fell apart when eaten. Another time I cooked the mussels enough but added water to the wine. When the mussels were cooked I removed them and reduced the liquid but not enough. So the ‘sauce’ was too watery. It didn’t help that I didn’t add enough cream either.

Based on Felicity Cloake’s moules marinières but with the addition of garlic obviously. Also I didn’t put the butter in at the end but in the sauce.