Serves 4

Ingredients

• 250g peeled Norwegian Prawns
• 8 King Prawns
• 8 sticks celery
• 1 large leek
• 2 tablespoons Tomato Purée
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 tablespoon Schwarz Thai Curry spices
• 4 tablespoons Olive oil
• Juice of ½ a lemon
• 2 glasses dry white wine
• ½ glass Pastis
• 200g Fettucine
• 25g butter
• 1 tablespoon freshly chopped Parsley
• Salt & Pepper

Method

1. Thaw the peeled prawns and drain well.
2. Thaw the King Prawns, remove the tails and add to the peeled prawns, but retain the shells.
3. Finely chop half the celery and the leek, crush the garlic.
4. Take a small heavy casserole and heat 2 tablespoons olive oil. Put all of the prawn shells in and fry for a couple of minutes, stirring constantly; then add the celery, leek and garlic and gently sweat for 3 or 4 minutes.
5. Add the tomato purée and the white wine and leave to simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the liquid has been reduced to about ¼ of its original quantity.
6. While this is happening, take another casserole, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and gently fry the remaining sticks of celery, cut into two lengthways and into approximately 1” pieces. This only takes a couple of minutes.
7. Add the curry spices, the juice of ½ a lemon and the Pastis.
8. Sieve the contents of the other pan into the second pan, extracting all the liquid possible, using the back of a wooden spoon.
9. Throw away the solids remaining in the sieve.
10. Pour the peeled prawns into the mixture, season with freshly ground black pepper.
11. Put a saucepan of water on to boil for your Fettucine and cook as soon as the water comes to a rolling boil, adding salt to taste.
12. When the pasta is nearly ready, put the saucepan of prawns on the stove and reheat thoroughly for no more than 2 to 3 minutes, or the prawns will toughen.
13. Drain the pasta, put it back into the dish in which it was cooked, adding the butter at this stage.
14. Pour the prawn mixture over the pasta, mix well and sprinkle the parsley on top.
15. Serve with freshly grated Parmesan and a nice glass of chilled Quincy!

This was Winston Churchill’s favourite recipe. It is actually a French recipe and is called Crème Marie-Louise.

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 6oz dark chocolate
• 5 eggs
• 1 small coffee cup of very strong sweet black coffee
• 1oz Caster Sugar
• 5 fl oz double or whipping cream

Method

1. Take a pyrex (or similar) dish and a saucepan in which the dish can sit without its bottom touching the water.
2. Fill the saucepan with enough water so that you can boil the water to melt the chocolate in the dish.
3. Pour the cup of strong coffee (good instant will do) into the bowl, add the chocolate and heat until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth.
4. Remove from the saucepan.
5. Separate the egg yolks from the whites and beat them.
6. Whisk the yolks into the chocolate mixture. Leave to cool to room temperature.
7. Meanwhile, whisk the egg whites and sugar until firm.
8. Whisk a third of this into the chocolate, gently folding in the rest.
9. Whisk the cream until light and airy and also fold this in to your mixture (you can omit the cream if you’re watching the calories).
10. For individual mousses, pour into ramekins or tall stemmed glasses. For a single mousse pour into a suitable dish.
11. Place in the fridge for at least an hour or so until well set.
12. Remove from the fridge 20 minutes or so before serving, to give the chocolate a chance to soften a little.
13. Decorate with chocolate leaves or curls (see separate recipes) if required, and serve with a light biscuit such as an Amaretti.

Serves 4

Ingredients

• Either 4 ripe beef tomatoes or 12 smaller tomatoes
• 250g fresh white crabmeat
• 4 or 5 tablespoons good mustardy mayonnaise
• 24 capers
• 1 handful of chopped parsley
• salt and pepper

Method

1. Cut of the tops of the tomatoes, and a thin slice off the bottom so that the tomato stands on a plate.
2. Empty the tomatoes of seeds with a teaspoon.
3. Mix the crabmeat, mayonnaise, capers, parsley and seasoning.
4. Fill each tomato with the mixture.
5. Chill briefly and serve with crusty bread and butter.

What can we say – just delicious!

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients

• 2 oz dark chocolate
• 2 fl oz milk
• 5 fl oz double cream
• ½ a vanilla pod
• 1 whole egg and 3 egg yolks
• 3 oz caster sugar

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 170 °C, 325 °F, Gas 3.
2. Put the chocolate, milk, vanilla pod (split lengthways) and cream into a heavy based saucepan.
3. Bring to the boil.
4. Meanwhile, in a bowl, cream the egg, egg yolks and sugar together, using a wooden spoon.
5. Pour in the melted chocolate mixture and blend.
6. Strain into a jug removing the vanilla pod. Pour the mixture into oven-proof ramekins.
7. Place them in an oven dish and pour in hot water to within ½ inch of the tops of the dishes.
8. Bake for about 30 minutes until the mixture is set like a custard.
9. Remove the ramekins from the dish and allow to cool.
10. Decorate with white chocolate curls or serve with some cream.

Serves as many as you can make!

Ingredients

• Leaves
• Chocolate

Method

1. Go into the garden and find some pretty leaves. Rose leaves are good, as they have nice veins and are shiny.
2. Wipe clean and allow to dry.
3. Melt the chocolate in a bain marie, or in a dish over (but not in) some boiling water.
4. Remove from the heat.
5. Using the underside of the leaf, because they are better veined, paint the chocolate on to the leaf with a small paintbrush.
6. Allow to set, then peel the leaf away from the chocolate.

For adding that professional touch to your dessert. Serves as many as you like!

Ingredients

• A bar of good quality chocolate. Make sure it is cool or this gets very messy!

Method

1. Simply run a vegetable peeler down the side of the chocolate as if you were trying to peel it, and you have your chocolate curls!