Making a good risotto is rather like riding a bicycle: It takes a little bit of practice to begin with, and a certain amount of concentration thereafter.

There’s some preparation to do first so take a good sized butternut squash and cut it into quarters, scoop out the seeds and pith, and cut grooves across and down each quarter (so that once cooked you can easily scoop out cubes of squash. Season with salt, peper, olive oil and a good sprinkling of sage, I also usually add 2 chopped cloves of garlic too. Now put in a hot over (190C) and cook for about 40 minutes. Whilst it’s cooking you can also dry fry some pine nuts to add at the last minute.

Once the squash is cooked, you can start on the risotto itself. If you want to add the pancetta, and maybe convince any carnivores that this is a “proper” dish, start off by frying the pancetta cubes – no need to add oil as they will release their own fat which will flavour the rest of the dish.

Once the pancetta has browned and crisped, add a large onion, finely chopped – i like to use white onions as they add a nice sweetness as they cook. Cook the onion until it turns translucent, and then a little longer, allowing it to absorb the flavouring from the pancetta. Whilst this is cooking, prepare some good vegetable stock, about 1 1/2 pints should do – once made, keep it hot but not boiling.

Once the onions have sweated nicely, pour in around half a pack of risotto rice – I use Arborio but any will do – for 2 people I do about 225g, but usually to leave some left overs for the next day when it still tastes great. Fry the rice with the onion and pancetta, it will begin to soak up whatever moisture is left, do this until the edges of the rice grains begin to turn translucent. Once this happens, turn the heat up high and pour in a good glug of vermouth, it will fizzle a bit, but you want to cook off the alcohol so that all the flavour is absorbed but any alcohol content has evaporated.

Once the vermouth evaporates begin to add the stock, a ladle at a time, each time letting it cook in, absorbed by the rice. Watch the rice absorb the stock and begin to swell up. This whole process will take about 20 by which time the rice will be al-dente (check this by trying a grain).

Now things start to come together quite quickly. Add the butternut squash which you will have scooped from its skin after it was cooked. Stir it through, trying not to break up the cubes too much. One good tip is to take half the squash and break it up with a fork, stirring it into the rice, and then adding the cubes afterwards and being much more gentle. Add the pine nuts too, and a large tablespoon of creme fraiche (or two, depending how creamy you like it). Season with salt and pepper to your taste, and grate in some parmesan cheese.

The creme fraiche can be used to loosen the risotto, so you should end up with a risotto that gives way under its own weight, not a clumpy stodge of rice that sits as a lump in the middle of the plate.

Serve hot, with a salad of rocket leaves, and a glass of white wine. Cheers!

The lamb:
3 x bone best end of lamb
sea salt for seasoning
corn oil

Seal the lamb by frying it over a high heat fat side down and allow the fat to colour and go golden. Turn the meat over and seal it quickly to keep the flavour in. Put the lamb in the oven at 220 C, fat side down, and cook for 10-15 minutes depending on the size. Take it out of the over and rest for at least 5 minutes, or half of the cooking time ideally. Once its rested the meat should be about 55 C on a meat probe and be pink and juicy inside.

Dauphinause potato:
3kg maris piper potato
500ml double cream
500ml milk
4 crushed cloves of garlic
salt and pepper to season

Slice the potatoes with a mandolin, and bring the cream and milk to the boil before adding the crushed garlic. Grease a suitable tray (a little Le Cruset dish did the trick for me – I made enough for a couple), and layer the potato slightly overlapping. Cover the first layer with the garlic cream, and add another layer. Season this with salt and pepper and continue adding alternate layers with cream and seasoning. Once finished, put some button on the top to melt and give colour to the dish.

Cook in the oven until golden and the potatoes are soft. A large dish will take 1 1/2 hours, and the smaller ones I did took about an hour.

Madeira sauce:
1 finely chopped shallot
100ml Madeira
300ml beef stock
30g butter

Sweat the shallots in butter and a pinch of salt until soft. Add the madeira and reduce until it has almost entirely disappeared. Now add the stock and reduce by two thirds. Continually reducing like this leaves just the flavour behind and creates a sauce rich and deep in flavour. Whisk in the remaining butter but do not let it boil. Season with a little salt a pepper to taste.

The finished dish, served wish fresh vegetables:

Rack of lamb, Dauphinoise potatoes, fresh vegetables and madeira sauce

I’d been reading a bit about mutton over the previous few days and was pleasantly surprised to spy some on the meat counter, next to some pork, leek and ginger sausages I just couldn’t resist (looking forward to them later this week). I picked up about 500g of mutton and headed onwards to decide what to do with it.

Trawling the web for ideas, I came across a recipe for Mutton Cawl (a kind of Welsh stew) from a mutton specialists. After a couple of tweaks simply down to what I had in the cupboard, I settled on the recipe below:

500g cubed mutton
200g smoked bacon lardons
2 onions coarsely chopped
4 carrots
2 parsnips
1 small swede
1 pint vegetable stock
12 peppercorns, 4 cloves, 1 bayleaf and 1 sprig of thyme
2 large potatoes peeled and cubed
4 Leeks sliced
Salt and pepper to season

Method.
1. Brown the meat well, in a large pan.
2. Pour off the excess fat, then add all the vegetables, except potatoes and leeks.
3. Add the stock, peppercorns, cloves, and bay leaf and simmer for about 3 hours (mine ended up being about 4 1/2 hours but if anything it made it even more tender)
4. Add the potatoes and leeks Bring back to the boil then simmer for another 30 mins.

I served it as below with think chunks of crusty bread, in deep bowls, and it tasted magnificent. The mutton just melted as you ate it, the long slow cooking rendering out all the fat and just leaving it tender and delicious.

Mutton cawl

For a first venture into mutton I was very pleased with the results, and will definitely be revisiting Wellington to buy some more and try a mutton curry next!

For this meal, I went for:

Pork Medallions – 2 per person (depending on size), fried in oil and butter for about 8 minutes, with 2 chopped leeks added right near the end. Can’t beat the flavour of pork and leek, and leeks cooked in butter are the best.

Mashed potato – (Maris piper potatoes, cream, butter, salt, pepper – the usual)

Cumberland sauce – Now the book said it was a cold sauce but I wanted to try it warm (impatient I know). After sweating a medium shallot and then reducing 4tbsp of red wine vinegar (down to about a third), I added 100ml beef stock, 50 ml port, 2 tbsp redcurrant jelly, 1tsp worcestershire sauce and the juice of an orange. Leaving it to simmer for 20 minutes and then seiving produced a great, dark, rich sauce with a nice kick to it.

The sauce went brilliantly with the pork medallions, and livened up the mash. I can see how it would work well with cold meats. It had a hint of heat from worcestershire sauce, and the richness of the port and redcurrant was great.

My first sauce was a great success and hopefully the first of many.

• Cooking: After a recent cookery course I’m embarking on a journey to learn as much as I can about cooking – the ingredients, the techniques, the recipes.
• Technology: I’ve had an interest in most forms of technology – anything that inspires the geeky side of me – for as long as I remember.
• E-learning: I work in the web and e-learning field, and as a consequence its a pretty big deal as far as I’m concerned. I’ll try and post any thoughts or challenges as I come across them.
• Sport: Love it.