Spicy Fried Okra

About a year ago, I read about a little bar not too far from Leeds train station, called Bundobust, which served small Indian nibbly dishes. As part of our ongoing, but interrupted, culinary-veggie tour of Yorkshire eateries, I went to check out the place with my friend Caroline. Though we did that awkward thing of one of us waiting inside the restaurant, the other one waiting outside, when we finally found each other, we found that Bundobust served up some pretty good stuff, from pots of creamy black lentil dhal and rice, to the more interesting bundo chaat, a combination of samosa pastry, chickpeas, potato and relish. But the star was their okra fries, thin and crispy, in a chickpea batter, dusted with salt and mango powder.

Grissini Torino, aka Breadsticks

You can keep Jamie or Nigella; Keith Floyd will always be my TV food hero. He’s downright bonkers and always just on the wrong side of tipsy; I watched an episode once where he was so drunk after cooking for a Rugby team that he slipped and dropped their entire meal on the way to the dinner table. Classic. Normally you can only catch snippets of his amazing programmes squeezed in between live slots on awful Saturday morning cookery shows. During a moment of sluggish TV watching I was therefore lucky enough to catch ten minutes of Floyd on Italy last week. In between complaining, cooking outside a grotty restaurant for a bunch of even grottier looking locals and catching nothing on a miserable fishing trip, the great man had time to whip out a huge newspaper-wrapped parcel of breadsticks and sing their praises. According to Floyd, Napoleon liked his “Grissini Torino” so much that he sent a man to Turin every week to pick up a batch, which he ate every morning before battle. They looked so good and sounded so crunchy that I immediately had to scout around to find an appropriate recipe. At last there was a chance to employ my Italian Level 2 Reading Skills! Italians across the net seem in agreement; the dough must be spiked with a gummy, moreish spoonful of malt extract.

Homemade Chips

Now I know that making chips isn’t exactly rocket science, but these were so good that me and Roger gobbled these beauties down in next to no time, so I sort of feel that it would be rude not to give them their own recipe. They are extremely simple to make, very sweet and caramelised. In addition, their makeshift aioli makes them irresistible. I love potatoes with their skins on, so you’ll get a few vitamins out of these. Plus, as they’re baked, they’re relatively low fat- but as I’m obsessed with garlic and mayonnaise, the aioli is pretty important for me.

Quick Chocolate Fudge

For YEARS I’ve been eyeing up a Nigella Lawson recipe for chocolate fudge.
But my dad, who loves the stuff, happens to hate any fudge that isn’t vanilla. Then Roger, my boyfriend hates nuts in things, which is something I’m beginning to think all guys hate…