Bury black pudding hash with peppers and apple vinaigrette

I've never really understood why some people get so squeamish about black pudding. I know, I know - it's blood, back fat and barley - but surely that's no more upsetting than the gubbins that goes into a standard sausage? Dr W encourages me to mention a chitterling and tripe-tastic andouillette he ate in Paris once, which, he claims, "tasted of bums". Black pudding is infinitely nicer.

My suspicion is that people recalling cut lips imagine black puddings to taste bloody and metallic. These flavours are absent from a black pudding, which is actually deeply savoury, delicately spiced (especially if you get your mitts on a particularly good one, like these from Bury in Lancashire), and, cooked properly, has a wonderful texture: crisp, sticky and crumbling all at once.

The Bury black pudding is, for my tastes, the most reliable and delicious you'll find in the UK, and many butchers and supermarkets all over the country carry them - you can also order them online from the makers. (At a supermarket, you're more likely to find one on the deli counter than the butchery counter.) They're seriously, seriously good; porky, plump and gorgeously spiced. The recipe is a secret, but apparently there's pennyroyal, fennel and all kinds of other good stuff in there. Do try to go out of your way to find a couple for this recipe.

To serve four, you'll need:

2-3 Bury black puddings
4 large potatoes (I used Kestrel)
3 large banana shallots
4 piquillo peppers
3 tablespoons bacon fat (use good lard if you can't find any and do some exercise tomorrow)
1 sweet apple
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
5 tablespoons walnut oil
5 tablespoons grapeseed oil
1 teaspoon lemon thyme leaves, picked from stems
1 teaspoon honey
A few handfuls salad leaves
Salt and pepper

Chop the potatoes without peeling them into 1½ cm dice, and slice the shallots into rounds. Fry over a medium flame in a large pan using tablespoons of the bacon fat, turning frequently, until golden (about 20-25 minutes). Ten minutes or so before the potatoes are ready, fry the peeled, halved black puddings in the remaining bacon fat for five minute on each side.

While the potatoes and black pudding are cooking, put the peppers under the grill, turning every few minutes, until the skins are blackened. Put them straight into an airtight plastic box and seal with the lid while you prepare the other ingredients. The steam from the peppers will help to release the skins. Peel the peppers after five minutes in the box, discarding the skins and reserving any juices. Halve them and slice into strips.

Chop the apple into small dice and make up the vinaigrette with the vinegar, honey, walnut and grape oils and any juices from the peppers, with a small pinch of salt. Stir through the apple and thyme and set aside.

When you are ready to put the dish together, stir the peppers into the hot potatoes. Now, normally I abhor the chi-chi "towers of things on a plate" thing, but this is a recipe it suits well. So get out a large pastry cutter to use as a template, and pile the potato mixture onto a plate. Use a sharp knife on a chopping board to dice the black pudding roughly and heap it on top of the potatoes. Top with a handful of salad and spoon the apple dressing over the top. Serve immediately.

Steak with sweet pepper salsa

I love the silky, slippery texture of a roasted, peeled sweet pepper. Removing the seeds and skins is a job I relish - a cleaned pepper is velvety-smooth between the fingers, and once it gets to your mouth, that texture combined with the pepper's natural sweetness makes for an experience far more sensuous than supper should be.

This is a good way to get out of a steak rut (you know the rut I mean - it's the one with the chips and Hollandaise). I've served my steak, rested for a few minutes to allow the meat to soften up and release its juices, over a plateful of undressed pea tops, which you should be able to find in some supermarkets at this time of year. The meat juices and the salsa will dribble into the salad, like a particularly stupendous dressing. I served this with some buttered rice cooked in chicken stock - good, crusty bread will also be good (and this mixture of pea tops, salsa and steak will make a world-beating sandwich).

To serve two, you'll need:

2 steaks of your choice - I used sirloins
5 sweet peppers - I used 2 pointy piquillo peppers and 3 bell peppers. Try to vary the colours, but don't use any green ones; they won't be sweet enough.
12 cherry tomatoes
½ red onion
1 large handful (25g) parsley
1 heaped teaspoon cumin seeds
1½ tablespoons balsamic vinegar
5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 pack pea tops, or another sweet, tender leaf
Salt and pepper

Take the steaks out of the fridge before you start and pop them to one side while you deal with the salsa, so they're at room temperature when you come to cook them.

Rub the whole peppers with a couple of drops of olive oil and arrange in a baking tray. Cook at 180° C (350° F) for 20 minutes, until the skin is browned and blistering, and use tongs to put them in airtight freezer bags. Seal the bags and set aside while you prepare the other ingredients - this will give the steam rising from the flesh of the peppers time to loosen the skin, which will make peeling them much easier when they are cool.

Dice the onion and quarter the tomatoes. Put them in a mixing bowl and stir in the finely-chopped parsley. Toast the cumin seeds in a dry frying pan for a couple of minutes until they are giving up their aroma (be careful not to over-toast and burn them), and stir them into the bowl.

Use your fingers to peel the skins from the roast peppers, and remove their seeds. Discard the seeds and skins, chop the flesh of the peppers into chunks about the size of the pieces of tomato, and add them to the salsa. Pour the oil and vinegar over the other ingredients, stir well and set aside for the flavours to meld while you prepare the steaks.

To cook the steaks, rub them on both sides with salt and pepper, and grill or saute (I chucked mine on the barbecue) for a few minutes on each side until medium rare. Remove to a plate and rest for five minutes to allow the tissues of the meat to relax. Slice on the diagonal and lay the warm steak on a bed of pea tops. Taste the salsa for seasoning, add salt and pepper to taste, then spoon a generous helping on top of the steak. Serve with sunshine and a cold drink.

Basque chicken

I seem to get through an awful lot of bell peppers at this time of year, when sunshine is a dim and distant memory. This dish is a rich and glossy version of the traditional Poulet Basquaise, where the sweetness of the peppers works deliciously against tiny pieces of salt pork and the savoury chicken.

I got hold of a strip of salt pork from the Polish deli in Newmarket. (Just off Fred Archer Way, by the short-stay carpark on Wellington St.) A lot of towns, especially here in East Anglia, now have Polish stores selling some really fantastic preserved meats like smoked sausages and fat salt pork. I've also been using our local one to stock up on soused herrings, some great pickles and the holy grail - cartons of cherry juice. If you have a Polish shop near you, go in at the weekend and have a rummage; you'll find some really interesting ingredients and, if you're lucky, will discover a new addiction to that cherry juice.

Salt pork is much fattier than English bacon, and it's not smoked. Stock up if you find some; it keeps for months in the fridge. There should be more fat in a slice than meat. Here, I've rendered it down into crisp little nuggets, and have used the rich rendered fat to brown the chicken and soften the vegetables in this dish. If you can't find salt pork where you are, fatty pancetta or even fatty bacon lardons will do the job nicely. To serve four, you'll need:

100g salt pork
4 large chicken breasts
½ teaspoon caster sugar
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons paprika
1 teaspoon fennel
3 bayleaves
1 teaspoon dried pimento chillies
2 red peppers
2 green peppers
1 yellow pepper
4 cloves garlic
1 banana shallot
1 medium onion
4 stalks celery
2 glasses wine
2 glasses chicken stock
500g passata
1 tablespoon tomato purée
2 tablespoons crème fraîche
Salt and pepper
Parsley to garnish

Slice the peppers into strips, and put them aside in a bowl. Put the diced shallot and onion and diced celery in another bowl with the crushed garlic. Rub the chicken breasts with the sugar, salt and pepper.

Cut the salt pork into small dice (about half a centimetre) and put in a large, heavy-based casserole dish. Cook over a low to medium heat, stirring occasionally, until all the fat has rendered out and the dice of pork are tiny and golden. Turn the heat up to medium-high and brown the whole chicken breasts on all sides in the fat. When they are golden all over, remove them to a plate with a slotted spoon. Turn the heat back down to medium-low.

Add the paprika, bay leaves, crushed chillies and fennel seeds to the pan with the shallots, onion, celery and garlic. Sauté in the remaining fat (adding a little olive oil if you think it's necessary) for about five minutes, until the vegetables are soft. Add the peppers to the pan and cook for another five minutes, keeping everything on the move, then return the chicken to the pan along with any juices, stirring well so the paprika mixture coats everything.

Add the wine to the dish, and let it bubble up to a simmer. Pour in the stock and passata and stir a tablespoon of concentrated tomato purée through the mixture. Put the lid on and simmer for 30-40 minutes. Stir through the crème fraîche just before serving, and garnish with parsley.

I served this with sautéed potatoes. It's also great with buttered rice and a salad.

Roasted butternut squash and red pepper soup with garlic parmesan croutons

Just in time for you to buy the ingredients before Halloween, here's a seasonal soup. (When I mentioned to Dr W that I was making a Halloween soup, his response was: "Ooh. Will it have blood and pus?" Sorry, love. It's only got squash and peppers.)

The pumpkins you buy for carving don't have the sweet, chestnutty character of many of the smaller squashes, so they're better kept for carving and putting on the windowledge. A pumpkin-type soup is better made with something like a butternut squash instead, which has a great flavour and texture, and can be a bit easier to handle than some of the rounder squashes. In this recipe, the vegetables that make up the soup are all roasted. The squash will caramelise nuttily, the peppers become sweet and silky...and surely, there can't be anything nicer than a roast onion? I've topped the lot off with some gorgeously savoury, crispy garlic and parmesan croutons. Halloween heaven.

To serve 4, you'll need:

Soup
1 large butternut squash
5 large red peppers
5 small onions
1 litre stock (I used some home-made chicken stock)
1 tablespoon paprika
½ teaspoon ground coriander
Juice of 1 lime
20g butter
Olive oil to drizzle
Salt and pepper
Fresh coriander to garnish

Croutons
½ loaf white bread (unsliced)
4 grated cloves garlic
1 handful grated parmesan
4 tablespoons olive oil

Preheat the oven to 180°C (340°F). Peel the butternut squash and cut it into chunks about an inch square. Arrange them on a baking tray and drizzle generously with olive oil. Peel and quarter the onions, and put them on another baking tray, cut side up. Dot with the butter and drizzle with a little more olive oil, then sprinkle with salt.

Put the squash and onions in the oven, and roast for 40 minutes, basting once. When the 40 minutes are up, put the peppers (on another baking tray, and rubbed gently with olive oil) in the oven, baste the squash and onions once more, and continue to roast everything for a further 20 minutes. The butternut squash should be soft and turning a sticky, caramel-brown at the edges, the onions should be browning nicely, and the peppers should be wrinkly. Set the squash and onions aside, and put the peppers in a plastic freezer bag. Seal and leave until the peppers have cooled. The steam coming off the peppers will loosen the skin and make them easy to peel - once cooled, you can slip the skins off.

Saute the paprika and coriander in a tablespoon of olive oil in a large saucepan for one minute, then add the squash, onions and peeled peppers to the pan. Saute gently, stirring, for five minutes, then pour over the stock, and bring to a simmer for five minutes. Puree the soup in a food processor (you'll need to do this in batches) and push the resulting puree through a seive, back into the large pan. Add the lime juice, which will push the flavour of the peppers to the fore, taste for seasoning and leave the soup to one side while you make the croutons.

To make the croutons, preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Cut the crusts off the half loaf and discard. Chop the white part of the loaf into cubes about 2cm on each side (a large-ish crouton is nice here, the outside turning crisp and the inside retaining a bit of squashiness). Arrange the croutons on a baking sheet. Grate the garlic into the olive oil, mix well and drizzle over the croutons. Toss them well in the oil so every side is covered with the garlicky mixture, then sprinkle over the parmesan and toss again. Bake in the hot oven for ten minutes until golden, but start checking after eight minutes - these are quite easy to burn.

Warm the soup through, sprinkle with croutons and garnish with a bit of fresh coriander.

Padron peppers - Spanish roulette

One of the things I love about tapas is that they're often so easy to prepare. Slice a chorizo, pour over red wine, stick in pan, reduce, eat. Slice some manchego and quince cheese. Eat. Place olives in small bowl. Eat. Put prawns in dish with olive oil, garlic and chillies. Make hot. Eat. Procure a ham. Slice. Eat.

Given that tapas are there primarily as a salty accompaniment to your drink, these simple, clear flavours make a lot of sense. The quality of raw ingredients in preparations like this becomes all-important, and often the best of those raw ingredients are the seasonal ones. Enter the Padron pepper.

These little green jewels are a deliciously sweet, fresh-tasting pepper which comes ready in the summer. They are, for the most part, delightfully mild - but one in every ten or so has a strong chilli kick. There is nothing better than a dish that engages your sense of danger. The Spanish have a saying: Pimiento de Padrón, pequeño pero matón. Translated very approximately, this means: "Padron pepper - teensy-weensy thug".

To serve two as a nibble with drinks or as a starter, you'll need:

150-200g Padron peppers (see below for suppliers)
5 tablespoons olive oil
A generous sprinkling of sea salt

Heat the olive oil in a large pan to a medium temperature, and drop the peppers in. Stir the peppers in the oil for about four minutes, until their skins are blistering. Remove the peppers to bowls with a slotted spoon, sprinkle over plenty of salt, and serve piping hot. To eat, hold the peppers by the stem and bite off the whole fruit. Keep a glass of something cold to hand in case you get one of the very spicy ones.

It's worth getting your hands on some Padron peppers at this time of year, when they are at their very best. I've seen them in Waitrose, but if you don't have a local branch you can also order them online in the UK at Little Green Men, where they have some great chilli products.

Sweet pepper salad

I've given quantities here for four diners, but you should be aware that this is one of those things that people will ask for seconds and thirds of, so cook a generous amount. This is a lovely sunshine-filled salad, assertively flavoured with garlic, fresh lemon juice, sweetly salty anchovies, and good olive oil.

The peppers are grilled and peeled before the salad is assembled. This makes them much more digestible (many people's stomachs are bothered by the indigestible skins of peppers in quantity), and gives them a wonderfully satiny texture. Allow your peppers to macerate in the fridge overnight (or preferably for two or three days), and you'll find that all the flavours in the dish meld sweetly into a gorgeous golden, silky whole.

To serve four, you'll need:

6 peppers - use a mix of red, yellow and orange
½ a lemon
4 anchovies in oil
3 cloves garlic
8 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper

Start by cutting each pepper into three or four segments (you'll be able to see the pepper's ribs - just cut along these). Discard the stalk and seeds, and lay the segments out, skin side up, on the grill tray.

Grill the peppers until the skins are brown and blistering. Put all the segments into a plastic freezer bag and knot the top, then leave the bag alone for about twenty minutes. The peppers will steam gently inside the bag, loosening their skins. When the peppers are cool, unseal the bag and start to peel the skins off. You'll find they come away easily. Do this over a bowl to catch any drips of sweet juice.

Cut the peeled segments of pepper into slim strips and put them in the bowl with the juice. Add the garlic, crushed or grated, the chopped anchovies, the lemon juice and the olive oil. Mix well, cover and refrigerate. The peppers will get better and better as they macerate, so feel free to leave them for up to three days - just remove them from the fridge a couple of hours before serving so they can come up to a toothsome room temperature.