Sorry about the basic recipe title but ‘conchiglioni rigati stuffed with sprouts, greens and ricotta in a three-cheese sauce’ just seemed ridiculous, and my brain is on holiday until January 2nd.

I made this with the aim of using up all the Christmas cheese. Just when I thought we were finished I found a whole wedge of Colston Bassett, a substantial nub of Cheddar and a hefty slice of Mrs Kirkham’s lurking, so I’ve combined them with two more types of cheese to make this gigantic pasta bake. Believe it or not, we still have cheese leftover.

I had to use some finely sliced Brussels sprouts because this has been the year of #sproutcontent, particularly on my Instagram feed, and I’m chuffed that so many of you have made my sprout kimchi recipe. I combined them with cavolo nero, spinach and ricotta and stuffed the mixture into shells which were baked in the sauce, with more cheese on top for luck.

This was impossible to resist hot and bubbling from the oven, despite the fact that rich food fatigue is definitely setting in. To that end, make sure to eat it with a sharply dressed salad which will counterpoint some of the richness.*

*help you eat more pasta bake.

Super Cheesy Stuffed Pasta Shells Recipe

Approx 30 large pasta shells (conchiglioni rigati)
150g sprouts, finely sliced
7 large cloves garlic, crushed
200g spinach
200g cavolo nero, leaves stripped from stalks
500g ricotta
Butter, for cooking
A few pieces of blue cheese, such as Colston Bassett or Stichelton
Parmesan, for grating on top

For the bechamel

1 litre milk (I used semi-skimmed)
1 onion, peeled and quartered
2 bay leaves
10 peppercorns
70g plain flour
100g butter
100g blue cheese such as Colston Basset or Stichelton, crumbled
100g cheddar, grated

Heat the milk gently with the onion, bay leaves and peppercorns – stirring – until it begins to simmer, then turn off, cover and set aside for 20 minutes or so.

In the meantime, wash the spinach and cavolo nero and place in a saucepan. Put a lid on and gently heat until wilted. Drain, then run under cold water until cool. Place in a clean tea towel and squeeze out as much water as possible. Chop finely.

Heat a knob of butter in a pan and gently cook the sprouts and garlic until softened and smelling great. Combine with the spinach and cavolo nero. Add the ricotta and mix well. Season with salt and set aside.

Cook the pasta shells in boiling salted water until just half cooked (they will continue cooking in the oven later). Run under cold water to cool them down. Stuff each with some of the greens and ricotta mixture. Set aside in a bowl.

To finish the bechamel, strain the milk and add back to the pan. Add the flour and butter and heat on a medium heat, whisking all the time until nice and thick. Melt in the cheese and taste – add salt if necessary. Cover and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Cover the base of a large ovenproof dish with the bechamel. Arrange the pasta shapes on top, stuffing side up. Crumble the remaining blue cheese on top and cover with grated Parmesan. Bake for 20-25 minutes until bubbling and beginning to golden. Finish under the grill for 5 minutes to brown the top (watch carefully!).

Serve with a sharp green salad.

This the second of two recipes I’ve developed for a paid partnership with Parmigiano Reggiano. 

‘Have you ever made gnudi before?’ D dared to joke when I suggested this recipe. He’s referring to the time I made hundreds of them for a supper club and by the time I’d done a couple of practice runs and the actual event (220 required) I’d really had enough. The upshot is that I’m really good at making gnudi though, so you can now reap the benefits.

I served them with crab and pickled wild garlic buds but this time kept things more classic in an effort to show off the Parmigiano Reggiano. Now, let me tell you what I have learnt about gnudi. Firstly, there’s a lot of talk on the internet about how difficult they are to make. They are not. Second, you don’t need to leave them for days in the fridge to form a skin around the outside – a few hours will do just fine; basically, you can leave them in the fridge for anything between three hours and three days. After that, they tend to go a bit tough. Finally, it’s true that using expensive ricotta will save you time and taste better but it’s rubbish that the gnudi simply won’t work with supermarket ricotta (but you will need to strain it overnight). I made these gnudi with supermarket ricotta and frankly it makes a nice blank canvas at which to throw huge flavours.

One of those is the Parmigiano Reggiano, which you know is going to be excellent because its manufacture is governed by a strict set of rules, right down to the diet of the cows whose milk it’s made from. The rules specify that 50% of the cows’ diet must consist of ‘forage’ grown on the dairy farm and 75% of it must be local. It’s the forage that determines the positive bacterial flora, establishing a link with the land and therefore the cheese’s PDO status. The milk is raw when it’s used to make the cheese, and it’s combined with just natural calf rennet and salt. Rules like this please me greatly. See also: Neapolitan pizza and Parma ham.

What doesn’t please me is ‘rules’ people post on the internet which are simply incorrect. I urge you to try making gnudi then, particularly if you’ve been intimidated by them, as I once was! They’re incredible: fluffy cheese balls which are served with a sauce made entirely from butter. If that doesn’t get you excited then you’re on the wrong website.

Parmigiano Reggiano, Ricotta and Spinach Gnudi with Anchovy-Garlic Butter Recipe

Makes approx 28

300g ricotta
300g spinach
100g Parmigiano Reggiano, grated finely
3 egg yolks
40g plain flour
Coarse semolina, for coating and storing

8 anchovy fillets
4 cloves garlic (or more! Up to you)
100g butter
A squeeze of lemon juice

For the crumbs

200g stale sourdough (a day or two old, not rock hard)
3 tablespoons oil from a jar of anchovies

Place the ricotta into a brand new jay cloth or piece of muslin and tie it up at the top with string. Suspend this over a bowl in the fridge and leave overnight.

The next day, wash the spinach and put it in a saucepan with water still on the leaves. Gently wilt over medium heat with the lid on, stirring halfway through. Spread out to cool and then squeeze out as much water as possible. I find this is easiest using a clean cloth to squeeze it.

Chop the spinach finely and mix it with the strained ricotta, Parmigiano Reggiano, egg yolks, flour, and some salt. Roll into balls a bit smaller than a ping pong ball.

Make a bed of semolina on a plate and roll each ball in it. When all the gnudi are coated, pour more semolina on top and put them in the fridge, uncovered for at least 3 hours and up to 3 days.

Make the crumbs by blitzing the sourdough in a blender and frying in the anchovy oil until crisp. Drain on kitchen paper.

Make the sauce by melting the butter and gently melting the garlic and anchovies into it. Squeeze in some lemon juice to taste.

To cook the gnudi bring a pan of water to the boil and gently lower them in. They’ll take just a couple of minutes to cook and are ready when they float to the top. Pop them into the pan with the butter to take on a little colour and serve, scattered with the crumbs.

The origin of börek is uncertain but here’s an undisputed fact: I am unable to walk past the Turkish food centre in Camberwell without going inside, buying a dirty little spinach and cheese börek and stuffing it into my face so fast all that can be seen to the keenest of peepers is my greasy hands and lots of little flakes of pastry, gently floating to the ground.

I call those börek dirty because they really are the scrag end of the spectrum. You can taste the margarine. I mean, I’m still going to eat them but you get what I’m saying. They are made in a factory (I’m guessing) with less than excellent ingredients and I’m ok with that.

When I was asked to write a börek recipe for Great British Chefs, however, I saw it as my chance to make amends with the world of Turkish pastries and I think I’ve done that rather nicely. Say so myself. Cavolo nero is a brilliant substitute for spinach with its iron-rich flavour and in fact, I think it’s a better choice, particularly now it’s cold and ‘orrible and we need fortifying in every way possible. A woman cannot live on Chocolate Orange alone.

Cavolo Nero and Feta Cheese Börek Recipe

This recipe first appeared on Great British Chefs

300g cavolo nero, (weight with stalks, which yielded 150g without stalks)
8 sheets yufka pastry, or filo pastry
200g feta, or Sütdiyarı Picnic Börek Cheese if you can find it (or another white Turkish cheese)
100g butter, melted
1 egg, and 1 egg yolk, beaten lightly with a fork

Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4

Strip the cavolo nero leaves from the stalks (the stalks can be saved for other dishes, and are particularly good finely chopped and added to fried rice), blanch them for 1 minute in boiling water, then drain.

Dry the leaves thoroughly by pressing them between two clean tea towels and placing something heavy (like a wooden chopping board) on top for a few minutes. Chop the leaves finely and mix with the cheese and a small pinch of salt (if using feta, skip the salt).

Take a sheet of yufka, place on a clean work surface and brush with melted butter. Lay another on top. Then, on one side of the pastry, brush a little more melted butter and lay a fresh sheet of yufka on top, so that it overlaps slightly with the two sheets already there (the idea is to make one long strip of yufka). In the end you will have four pieces of double layered yufka, overlapping in a line.

On the bottom edge of the yufka, begin to lay out your filling in a long snake, continuing right to the other end of the pastry.

Then, carefully roll the pastry up and around the filling until you have one long snake of pastry filled with the cavolo nero and cheese. The snake can then be curled around and placed on a baking tray. Don’t worry if your tin isn’t the right size or shape.

Brush the borek with the egg and cook for 25–30 minutes or until golden brown.

I have a lot of love for unfashionable foods. There’s a Delia Smith rice salad recipe from the ’90’s, for example, that I adore; it includes tinned tuna, diced red peppers and an actual vinaigrette dressing on the rice. I know. Prawn cocktail is another excellent example, as are steak slice, cod in parsley sauce or corned beef and pickle sandwiches.

I feel like gigantic stuffed pasta is going the way of rice salad. These pasta shells are something I remember seeing often on US blogs around 10 years ago, and this recipe does feel very American somehow. The fact that it’s slightly dated just makes me love it more.

I wrote recently that spinach is one of my favourite vegetables and my mate texted me all like, ‘f*cking SPINACH?!’ and I said yeah.. before I realised that it’s only one of my favourite vegetables when it’s mixed with either white cheese in a pie/borek or with copious amounts of ricotta for pasta. And here we are.

The stuffed shells are sitting in a rich and sweet but actually quite basic bitch tomato sauce that’s really easy to make, and I ramped up the excitement a little bit by adding an anchovy crumb on top. More carbs = more fun.

Conchiglioni Rigati Stuffed with Spinach and Ricotta Recipe

200g conchiglioni rigati (you’ll need around 20 shells but cook a few extra in case they break)
600g spinach, washed
250g ricotta (get the best quality you can find)
225g sourdough breadcrumbs
50g tin anchovies in oil
Zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
1 onion, finely chopped
8 cloves garlic, crushed or finely chopped
1 large glass red wine
3 tins chopped tomatoes (again, quality matters here)

Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a saucepan and soften the onion gently without colouring for around 10 minutes. Add the wine and let it be absorbed, stirring it to prevent sticking. Add the garlic and let it cook, stirring, for a minute or so.

Pour in the tomatoes, add some salt and pepper then put the lid on and cook for 45 minutes covered. Take the lid off and reduce by 1/4.

Make the anchovy crumb by melting the anchovies in their oil in a frying pan. Add the crumbs and fry, stirring, until crisp but not too golden (they will carry on toasting in the oven).

Cook the pasta shells until they are halfway cooked – they still need to be quite hard as they’re going to carry on cooking in the oven. Drain and run them under cold water to cool them down.

Put the washed spinach into a pan over a low heat with a lid on and let it wilt down (you’ll probably need to do this in two batches). Run it under cold water to cool it down, then squeeze out as much of the liquid as you can, using your hands. Roughly chop the spinach then mix it with the ricotta and lemon zest, plus some salt and pepper.

Preheat the oven to 180C.

When the tomato sauce is ready, add it to a large dish or roasting tray. Stuff the spinach mixture into the pasta shells and place them on top. Top with the crumb. Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden.

 

Over the years I have become very interested in the food of Iran, then Georgia, and now Afghanistan. The cuisines all make use of ingredients I am very fond of, such as yoghurt, meats like lamb, fruits such as dates and pomegranate, vegetables such as spinach.

A browse around the bookshelves of Iranian shop/deli Persepolis recently turned up Noshe Djan, an Afghan cook book by a woman called Helen Saberi. Helen has written a cook book of the kind I have increasingly come to love; she married an Afghan man and spent a significant amount of time living in Afghanistan absorbing the culture and cooking the food. She has lived the life of an Afghan and she provides a heartwarming introduction to the Afghani meal time; the book is the kind one can read like a novel. It is genuine, accessible and utterly fascinating.

The first recipe I’ve cooked is the amusingly titled ‘sabzi pilau’ or ‘zamarud’, meaning emerald. I say amusing as every recipe like this, which suggests the main ingredient is a vegetable (in this case spinach), then goes on to specify ‘700g of lamb’ or, often, chicken.

It was bloody delicious, although it did take a few hours to cook. Worth waiting for, but anyone who is making this might want to consider doing it on a weekend. Or perhaps you’re smart enough to just read the recipe properly in the first place, unlike me. We ate at 12.30 am. The spice mix makes this interesting – char masala. It is equal parts cinnamon, cloves, cumin and black cardamom. In other spice mixes the stronger flavours like cloves are generally used in smaller quantities, but not here. I also loved the liberal use of black cardamom which I don’t often see; one of my favourite spices, like giant smoky black raisins.

The final pilau was comforting, with the feel of a biryani. I served it with garlic yoghurt (made by blanching some peeled garlic cloves then mixing with lightly whipped, seasoned yoghurt) and an aubergine pickle, which is also worth mentioning. Small aubergines are slit, and then a whole garlic clove placed in each one; when pinched together they look like mussels. The pickling liquid is simple – white vinegar, sugar and green chillies, nigella seeds and fenugreek, the flavour of the latter being particularly suited to aubergines. It has a sort of intriguing musty flavour which contrasts the acidity. The pickled green chillies are obviously a mega bonus too.

Afghan Zamarud

(from Noshe Djan by Helen Saberi)

This recipe serves 4, although if you have other dishes too it could easily serve 6-8. I’d recommend eating it with yoghurt on the side. The lamb can be substituted for a whole chicken, jointed.

450g long grain white rice (basmati preferably)
110ml veg oil
2 medium regular onions, diced
700-900g lamb on the bone, diced (I only used 500g diced lamb shoulder, which was enough. I can imagine goat would also work well)
225ml water
2 teaspoons char masala (to make char masala take equal quantities of cumin seeds, cloves, cinnamon stick and the seeds from inside black cardamom pods and grind them in a spice grinder or pestle and mortar)
450g spinach
110g leeks
2 teaspoons ground coriander (Helen also gives an alternative of dried dill)
1.5 litres water
2 hot green chillies
Salt and pepper

Rinse the rice a few times until the water runs clear and then soak it in fresh water for at least half an hour.

Heat 75ml oil in a pan and fry the onions in it, stirring frequently until soft and golden. Trim excess fat from the lamb pieces, then add it to the pan and continue frying until the meat is well browned. Add the 225ml water, 1 teaspoon of the char masala and salt and lots of black pepper. Bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer and cook until the meat is tender. This takes a couple of hours, FYI, depending obviously on the size of the lamb dice. It’s nice to have big chunks but if you want it to cook faster, cut it smaller.

Prep the spinach by cutting off any large stalks and washing really thoroughly, then chop roughly.

Heat the remaining oil in a large pan and fry the leeks in it, until they are soft and nearly brown. Add the spinach and continue to fry, stirring all the time. When it starts to wilt down and reduce in size, turn the heat down, cover the pan and cook gently until the spinach is completely wilted down and cooked. Add the ground coriander (or dried dill) and some salt and pepper. Cover and cook gently until all the water is evaporated and the spinach soft.

Preheat the oven to 150C/200F/Gas 2

Bring the 1.5 litres of water to the boil and add a teaspoon of salt. Drain the rice from the soaking water and add to the boiling water. Cook for 2-3 minutes, then drain and add to a casserole dish with a tight lid. Add the spinach and meat along with approx 175ml of the juices and the other teaspoon of char masala. Mix this together gently but thoroughly. Put the green chillies on top of the rice. Cover the dish and put it in the oven for about 45 minutes.

After this time, remove the chillies from the top of the rice. Serve the dish on a large platter. As I said, I like it with yoghurt, which I mixed with crushed garlic that had been blanched in boiling water for a few minutes. Garnish the dish with the chillies.

Aubergine Pickle

(from Noshe Djan by Helen Saberi)

This works best with baby aubergines. Helen says that if you can’t get them you can use regular aubergines too, diced. In that case just chuck the garlic cloves in to simmer with the diced aubergine.

450g baby aubergines
110g garlic (basically a garlic clove for every baby aubergine)
1 heaped teaspoon turmeric
2-3 oz fresh green chillies (about 8)
1 tablespoon nigella seeds
1 tablespoon fenugreek seeds
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon dried mint
1/2 teaspoon sugar
500ml vinegar
150ml boiled water

Slit the baby aubergines lengthways to the stalk, but don’t separate them. Put one peeled garlic clove inside each as per the picture above.

Fill a saucepan with water and bring it to the boil. Add the aubergines. The water should cover them. They will bob up to the top during cooking, when you will need to push them down again. Inevitably some of the garlic cloves will pop out – don’t worry about it, you can fish them out afterwards.

Simmer gently for five minutes then remove the garlic and aubergines with a slotted spoon. Keep the cooking water. Once they are cool enough to handle, put a layer of aubergines and garlic in a large jar, followed by a layer of chillies and repeat until both are all used up.

Mix together the vinegar, sugar, salt, fenugreek, dried mint and nigella seeds plus 150ml of the cooking water. Pour over the aubergines. Seal with a lid.

I ate mine after about 3 days and they were lovely. Helen doesn’t specify how long they should be left before eating.

You can make pkhali with any vegetables really, and the Georgians also commonly use beets, which make a lovely colour contrast against the spinach if you’re planning your own supra.

This mixture improves the longer you leave it in the fridge and I’d say it will keep for up to a week.

Georgian Spinach Pkhali

(adapted from Saveur)

600g spinach (the proper, big ballsy stuff; I’m done with baby spinach)
180g shelled walnuts
1 generous handful coriander leaves
1 generous handful tarragon leaves
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon ground fenugreek (I crushed the seeds in a pestle and mortar)
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
3 spring onions
1 heaped teaspoon chilli flakes (I used Turkish)
1 pomegranate, for garnish

Chop the stalks off the spinach and then wash the leaves really well. Chuck it into a large pan while it is still wet, put a lid on and set it over a low heat. Let it slowly wilt down, stirring every now and then, until it is all wilted. Allow it to cool completely (the easiest way to do this is to spread it out on a plate). When cool, squeeze out as much water from the spinach as possible. You will be amazed at the amount of water that has come out and by how much the spinach is now reduced in size.

 

Pound the walnuts in a pestle and mortar until they are more or less all crushed to a powder (a few chunks here and there are fine). Mix the walnuts with the spinach and all the other ingredients, plus plenty of salt (more than you think necessary) and pepper.

Mix really well, cover and refrigerate overnight. The next day, shape into balls about the size of a golf ball and make a small indent in the top of each one with your fingertip. Place a pomegranate seed in each. Serve with bread or toast for spreading. Ideally khachapuri.

Tagines have always been something I’ve viewed as having great potential to be really tasty, but I’ve never eaten a good one. What I imagined in my head to be a thick, rich, aromatic stew with complex flavours always arrived as a thin, watery bowlful bearing way too much dried fruit.

Because I am a spoiled and lucky girl, I received a magnificent tagine for Chrimbo; a chance to turn things around and make the tadge I’ve always wanted, Peckham style.

The tagine is heated on a little metal thing that looks like a ping pong bat with dimples in it, which helps to distribute the heat evenly across the base. It’s important that the tagine is heated slowly, otherwise it will crack and spoil all your fun before you’ve started.

The base was thickly covered with a bed of onions, the idea being that they would cook down, becoming silken and lush and absorbent of everything above. This being Peckham (bruv), the meat had to be goat, which is very easy to come by here. Its ballsy mutton like flavor is perfect (you could obviously substitute mutton if you can find goat) and it loves long cooking to become properly tender. For veg, some of those little white baby aubergines, which also need a good simmering into submission (they remain stubbornly bitter otherwise) and some small turnips, diced.

For the fruit, which for me is potentially the making but most commonly the breaking of a good tagine, I bought dried fruits from Persepolis, ending up with a kind of Moroccan/Persian hybrid recipe. There are many similarities between the cuisines. In went a dried lime, which the Iranians add mostly to stews where they bob about, gradually releasing a flavor which is like a lime essential oil, emerging at the end shriveled and spent. Apricots went in too, but not those horrible overly sweet and sulphurous supermarket ones but fragrant perfumed Persian fruits. A few scarlet barberries flecked the top, adding sourness, like tart cranberries.

For heat, I couldn’t help whacking a scotch bonnet in. I’m sorry. If I didn’t I’d be betraying Peckham. It was left whole though and just pierced, to contain heat but leach flavour. Having impulse bought a bag of African hot peppers, a couple of those went into a spice paste with loads of garlic, two types of paprika and a shed load of ras el hanout. It could have blown our heads off but didn’t; a bit on the hot side for a tagine, but with an enjoyable slow build.

After three hours of simmering and steaming what emerged was the tadge I’d always wanted; deep and complex, sweet then spicy then sour, lips were sticky from slow cooked onions and goat fat. A scattering of mint and spring onion freshened things up at the end.

This is, as you would imagine, even better the next day and again the day after that. I served it with flat bread and Sally Butcher’s Borani-ye Esfanaj (spinach with yoghurt – from Persia in Peckham), which is one of my favourite yoghurty arrangements of all time.

Peckham Goat Tagine

(serves 6)

500g diced goat meat (or mutton)
4 small turnips, peeled and cut to the same size as the aubergines
6 small white aubergines, halved
3 onions, sliced
1 scotch bonnet chilli, left whole but pierced
250ml water
1 dried lime
5 dried apricots
1 scant tablespoon barberries
Mint leaves, finely sliced
1 spring onion, finely sliced

For the paste

5 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon salt
2 African hot pepper dried chillies (optional)
2 tablespoons ras el hanout
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 teaspoon smoked paprika (smoky paps)
1 tablespoon water

Ideally I would have marinated the goat overnight in the paste then added it straight to the tagine without browning. I didn’t because I wasn’t organised enough so I’ve set out the method below as I cooked it.

Start by heating the tagine slowly. Add some olive oil, the onions and scotch bonnet chilli. Let the onions cook down gently while you brown the meat.

Cover a plate with flour and season it with salt and pepper. Dust each cube of the goat meat in it. Heat a frying pan and add some oil. Brown the meat on all sides. This will need to be done in several batches. Add this to the tagine, followed by all the other ingredients, including the paste. Season with salt and pepper and cook on a lowish heat for three hours, stirring every now and then after the first hour or so. After two hours, I’d advise you pick out the scotch bonnet chilli, because it’s only a matter of time before it bursts and you get a lot more heat than you bargained for.

Scatter over the mint and spring onion and serve with plenty of flat bread for dipping.

Now I know you’re all thinking about diets, detox and exercise. So am I. Let me lead you astray for a moment though as I reminisce about this baked gnocchi I made for my boyfriend’s birthday. We’d started with a venison carpaccio to keep space inside for this baked behemoth – home made gnocchi crisped on top and creamy down under, oozing wads of Gorgonzola.

I’d not made gnocchi at home before and I was startled at the difference; they were very light compared to shop-bought. I was careful not to add too much flour to the mixture because that makes them tough, apparently. Then again, too much potato and they may fall apart during cooking. Many recipes stated so many different ratios of potato to flour that in the end I threw up my arms, huffed and stomped. Then I remembered that bible of Italian cooking, The Silver Spoon. Their recipe suggested 1kg  potato to 200g  flour which of course worked an absolute treat.

Baking gnocchi is a bit like frying or baking pasta, adding another texture on top. I used a creamy rather than piccante Gorgonzola as I wanted it nice and gooey; the cheese basically forms the sauce along with a splash of double cream for good measure. The spinach worked well although you could use chard, cavolo nero or other greens instead. A sharp, lemon dressed salad on the side will balance the richness. In your face, detox!

Baked Gnocchi with Gorgonzola and Spinach

1kg potatoes
200g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
1 egg, lightly beaten
Salt

Steam the potatoes for about 25 minutes, or until tender. Mash with a potato ricer or beat with an electric whisk (as I did) until perfectly smooth. Stir in the flour, egg and a pinch of salt and knead to a soft, elastic dough. Shape the dough into long sausages about 1.5cm in diameter. Cut into 2cm lengths. Press each gnocchi with a fork or the underside of a grater and set aside on a tea towel dusted with flour in a single layer.

Bring a large pan of lightly salted water to the boil and cook the gnocchi, a few at a time, until they rise to the top. Remove them and drain.

For the sauce

Gorgonzola (as much as you dare, I wasn’t really in a measuring mood. Probably used about 250g).
Double cream (again, wasn’t measuring. Look, there’s no way this can go wrong so don’t worry too much about quantities. Probably about 100ml).
Spinach, 200g (ha! I knew that one)
A little Parmesan for the top
White pepper, black pepper and salt

Preheat your oven to 180C

Wash your spinach and then, without drying it, put it into a saucepan on a low heat. Put a lid on. Let it wilt then drain it well and squeeze to rid it of some moisture (if you use more cabbage-like greens such as chard or cavolo nero you’ll need to cook them in boiling water). Put your cooked gnocchi into a baking dish, break up your cheese and spread it about; do the same with the spinach then pour over your cream. Season with white pepper, salt and black pepper. I think the two types of pepper makes a difference but you could leave one out. Grate over a little Parmesan and bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown and bubbling.

You can’t say you haven’t thought about it these past few days. A few spots of drizzle and it’s pie o’clock.

One thing I didn’t expect to find myself making though was a vegetarian pie. It’s inspired by the Italian Easter pie, torta pasqualina and the filling is a deeply savoury mixture of roasted artichokes, crème fraiche, eggs, cheese and spinach. I just can’t get enough spinach into my body at the moment and it’s so darn cheap in Peckham; 3 or 4 huge bunches for just 1 of your shiny quids – that’s about 400g  of spinach once you’ve trimmed the stalks and it’s ready to use. I cast my eye over the sorry looking shelves in Tesco Express yesterday for comparison – £1.40 for 260g of baby leaves in an inflated plastic bag. What a rip. It’s baby spinach yes, but I prefer the mature, ballsy stuff to be honest.

 

One thing that doesn’t come cheap however, is a decent egg. I used Clarence Court eggs for The Big Lunch and I’ve developed a bit of a habit; Cotswold Legbars are my favourite ‘old breed’ with their rough textured, pastel-blue shells and rich amber yolks. This recipe uses a lot: 6 in the filling mix, 4 on top. They set the filling as well as enrich it though, so you can cut a slice without everything oozing out. I wanted the mixture to be quite coarse but absent mindedly puréed the lot. It didn’t matter, the result was a pleasant light texture.

So it’s not a traditional torta, but it is a very tasty variation. Usually, the pie contains ricotta but I used crème fraiche and a bit of grated cheddar because well, that’s what I had. It’s amazing really, just how satisfying this pie is. I lay in bed one night and seriously considered getting up in the wee hours for a nibble.

The olive oil pastry is rolled out very thin and arranged in layers – traditionally 33, to represent the number of years that Christ supposedly lived. There was no way I was doing that many layers (coming from a woman who skins chickpeas) and anyway, I can’t imagine it being particularly pleasant to eat. I managed 5 or 6, and felt rather chuffed about it, particularly because they were clearly distinguishable in the cooked pie. My recipe uses 8 tablespoons of olive oil, which I’m not sure is much in the way of fat in pastry-land, and yet it’s very silky. A keeper.

We ate indecently large wedges with a simple tomato and onion salad; perfectly ripe fruits layered with red and spring onions, drizzled with good balsamic and olive oil, salted and peppered. I never thought it possible, but this pie was every bit as satisfying as a meaty version.

Torta Pasqualina

(to make a more classic torta, substitute the crème fraiche and cheddar cheese with ricotta and some Parmesan if you have it).

This fills a 23cm spring form cake tin.

800g spinach (this is the equivalent of 6 large bunches bought in the mighty Peckham)
200g crème fraiche
A large handful of large cheddar cheese
1 massive onion, chopped fairly small
2 fat cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 large handful (about 30g) flat leaf parsley
250g roasted artichokes from a jar
10 eggs

For the pastry

660g plain (all purpose) flour
8 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons salt
1 egg, for glazing
About 230ml cold water

First, make the pastry. Combine the flour, oil and salt in large bowl. Gradually add the water and mix to form a dough that is fairly stiff. Turn it out out onto lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 15 minutes then transfer to a bowl, cover and leave it for 30 minutes in the fridge.

Allow the spinach to wilt down in a dry pan then allow to cool and squeeze out as much water as you can. Soften the chopped onion gently in a tablespoon of olive oil for about 10 minutes, then add the finely chopped garlic and artichokes for a few minutes longer, stirring regularly. Combine this mixture with the parsley, creme fraiche, cheese and 6 of the eggs. You can do this in a blender but do remember to pulse not blend! Season heavily with salt and pepper.

Preheat the oven to 220C

Brush the tin with olive oil and divide the dough into 10 pieces. Roll each piece out very thinly on a lightly floured surface so that they are large enough to fit the pan. I used 6 layers on the bottom and 4 on top and brushed each layer with olive oil before adding the next. Add your filling, then make 4 indentations in the top and crack in the other 4 eggs. If you feel there is too much white you can get rid of some by letting some run off as if you were separating the egg.

Add your pastry layers to the top then crimp the sides and brush the whole pie with beaten egg. Bake the pie for 45 minutes to 1 hour. It should be golden brown all over.