Wild Garlic Pesto

Literally, a paste, pesto is classically made up from basil, garlic and pine nuts, pounded into a paste.

Pesto can be made from all manner of herbs and nuts to provide a bountiful array of tastes; here, wild garlic and hazelnuts.

Someone has decimated my nearest resource of wild garlic. I'm not pointing a finger, but that patch was very close to a fine restaurant who seem to be making a big deal of the seasonality of wild garlic at the moment ... but I digress.

Reaching one of my other nearby patches, I collected up a little more than I usually do with the intention of making up batches that could be stored as pesto and garlic butter.

Keeping the concept local, I simply blended the wild garlic with hazelnuts, pouring in a little olive oil (perhaps rape seed oil would have been a more "local" thing to do, Yorkshire being the finest producer of rape seed oil, mechanically extracted) and souring with cider vinegar rather than lemon juice. Sea salt and black pepper to taste and you're done.

Bonus idea: Wild Garlic Butter. Simply blend some wild garlic and whip into butter. This can be frozen.

Courgette Fritters

... a spur of the moment starter.

With surplus courgette that would be leftover from the main course and a couple of egg whites sitting in the fridge, this little starter was whipped up in no time!

... from scratch, you'd need:

• Courgette - half a courgette works out well for two people, serving a couple of fritters each

• Onion, Garlic & Chilli - onion should be about half the volume of the courgette, the chilli de-seeded and thinly sliced and wild garlic work out really well if you can get hold of some

• Sea salt, black pepper and spices - coriander and cumin give this a warming Middle Eastern flavour

• Eggs - Use one or two whole eggs or just the whites if you've used the yolks for something else and are wondering what to do with the whites

• Starch - for binding; arrowroot, manioc, cassava, potato, whatever it is you use

• Fat - for shallow frying

Grate the courgette, slice up the onion and chilli. Mince the garlic. Mix together in a bowl.

Season.

Crack in an egg and mix with a fork. The egg should give the mix a sloppy feel. Add another egg if you don't think it's quite wet enough.

Spoon in the starch a little at a time and mix into the courgette. I use polvilho azedo (or, "sour starch"), the kind used for those Brazilian Cheese Puffs. You're looking for a loose mix, but don't sweat it if it looks too loose.

In a skillet, warm a generous amount of fat - goose fat, in my case. You can pour the fat into a ramekin for another use after cooking.

Using a spoon, drop in dollops of the courgette mix and cook through. They will self-level, so no need to press down or stress about rounding the shapes. Flip over a couple of times to ensure that the fritters are well cooked each side.

Serve up with a cooling bowl of yoghurt and lemon juice alongside. Don't do dairy? Squeeze some lemon juice over and enjoy.

Goan Seafood Curry

Last time I made this, it was a meal of freestyling, feeling my way as I went. Tonight, the same meal was put together with a sense of purpose, putting together something I might call a recipe. Yes, you read that right ... a recipe!

The chief reason that I do not post up in the traditional "Ingredients ... Method" manner is because I simply do not cook like that. Furthermore, I feel very strongly that primal eating should not be like that - it should be a case of taking what food we have and making the very best of that with what we have available rather than specifically buying in a bunch of ingredients to make up a meal verbatim, missing all the fun of impromptu cooking.

This very dish is put together in just that manner. In fact, all "curry" dishes are put together like that - start with the key ingredient and flavour it up with "store cupboard" ingredients.

Here, fish. Nothing Goan. North Atlantic Pollock.

So, the ingredients ...

• Seafood - the focus of the dish. Anything between half to a pound of seafood will do, any type, any origin, but make sure it is wild.

• Curry Paste - Make your own. Chop a large onion, some garlic, ginger, chillies, add cumin, coriander and turmeric at the least, fenugreek and asafoetida perfume things further. Black pepper and a little fish sauce for saltiness and more fishiness. Blend.

• Tomatoes - One or two will do. Any variety, but plum are probably best.

• Coconut Milk - one standard can. 400g, is it? Again, check the ingredients: coconut flesh and water will do just fine. If it's a little light, just beef it up with some dessicated coconut later on.

• Aromatics - Bay leaf and black mustard seeds.

• Boiled Egg - All meals are better with an egg, and this is perfect with a boiled egg over the top.

• Rice - White rice. If you don't do rice, cauliflower rice will do just fine or steamed greens would be gorgeous.

This will feed two.

... and the method:

Begin by preparing the fish. Gut, scale, fillet and skin ... or have your fishmonger do it for you. Pollock is a very cheap fish here in the UK, seen as a great alternative to cod and haddock, but does have a stronger structure perfect for curry. This pollock was fished from the North Atlantic.

Now, the tomatoes. Draw and X into the bottom of one or two tomatoes and immerse in boiling water for a minute. Remove and set aside to cool down.

Lower an egg into the water and boil it. 8-10 minutes for hard boiled.

Peel and chop an onion, a few cloves of garlic, some ginger, a few chillies and your spice blend: cumin, coriander and turmeric at the least, fenugreek and asafoetida also feature in mine, along with some cayenne pepper for a little more heat, black pepper and a good splash of fish sauce.

Blend the spice paste and fry off in some coconut oil in a skillet.

Drop in the fish, chopped into pieces along with some frozen prawns.

Open up a can of coconut milk. Something around 400ml will do fine. Pour it in and scatter in a tablespoon of dessicated coconut.

Push in a bay leaf and a tablespoon of black mustard seeds.

Let that simmer and reduce while you cook your rice, or steam your veggies, or whatever it is you're cooking to accompany. It will darken a touch as it reduces.

Ready to eat?

Serve up with the rice or veggies as a bed, spooning the curry over and chopped egg alongside. Garnish if you like - I did, with a few leaves of parsley.

Very good, indeed!

As I said above, this will feed two ... or one hungry Yorkshireman who, with a little self-restraint kept some back as leftovers for breakfast.

Combine the leftovers with some chopped lamb's liver and sliced mushrooms, stirring in a few peas if you like. Again, boiled egg alongside. Notice the double yolks? We've had loads of these recently - like two eggs for the price of one.

Goan Seafood & Liver Biryani.