my freezer is absolutely bursting at the moment so the main criteria for deciding what to cook is clearing space. the obvious starting point for this was a very plump 2.5kg chicken.

i always like to roast chickens so that i can make stock with the carcass but i’m not that keen on a traditional roast dinner. i usually get round this by ditching the roast potato option in favour of something like a pilaf but this time i took inspiration from a friend who mentioned “i did have a very nice meal which was roast chicken, which you then break up and separate as soon as it is out of the oven, and mix with tagliatelle, fresh rosemary and sultanas, making sure to include all the chicken skin and juices and just serve straight away like that. it was gorgeous.”

perfect, decision made. this dish was based on a nigella lawson recipe which i adapted given i didn’t have any tagliatelle or sultanas (the chicken was already in the oven by the time i worked out what i wanted to make with it!).

i used orechiette (i love the way juices get caught in this shape of pasta) and substituted cranberries for the sultanas. as there were only two of us i just carved a mix of breast and leg meat, complete with crispy skin, rather than break up the whole bird. i did use all the pan juices (having strained off the fat and added white wine to it) plus a tablespoon each of toasted pine nuts, soaked cranberries and fresh parsley plus a little less fresh rosemary. i also squeezed over a bit of lemon juice and added plenty of seasoning.

the resulting dish is packed with flavour and was perfect for a slightly damp evening which, sadly, had a  hint of autumn in the air.

david and i went for lunch last week, our third meal in a rural setting in as many weeks (the others being the michelin-starred sportsman and the dove, both in kent), and had a very delicious meal.

we got caught in traffic and were running late which meant we were ravenous by the time we sat down. the home-cooked bread was served with pork dripping infused with thyme and bay leaf. this was incredible – the dripping melted into the warm bread and provided an delicate savoury flavour.

i started with a deep fried, lightly-crumbed piece of black pudding which was served with gooseberry jelly, apple and watercress. the black pudding was superb – little nuggets of fat and a melt-in-the-mouth texture of earthy richness which contrasted well with the tartness of the apple and gooseberry.

david chose “a piece of cake” – a pork terrine which was topped with a rich duck liver parfait; a sliver of toast topped with thin slices of smoked duck breast; and a green bean salad. the combination of flavours and textures made the dish both delicious and interesting to eat.

this was followed by crispy old spot pork belly, sweet corn (a custard and an incredibly intensely flavoured puree), baby carrots and new potatoes for me. this dish made me so happy – everything was cooked perfectly and the flavours were bright and punchy which made every mouthful a real pleasure to eat.

david’s lamb dish was similarly superb – slow cooked shoulder of romney marsh lamb, lamb bacon (this was my favourite part of this dish and is apparently inspired by a meal at noma – the bacon comprises breast meat cooked at 63 degrees for 36 hours, resulting in a wonderful depth of flavour), peas and baby morels plus more dripping, this time flavoured with mint. as part of each of our three rural meals we ate lamb and this was the best of the bunch. my pork was also one of the best main courses we had eaten.

pudding followed – i clung to my memories of being hungry and ordered summer pudding with wild blackcurrants and fennel ice cream. this was another hit – served as a slice of “cake”, with layers of fruit between the berry-sodden bread, the cassis flavour was shining through, accentuated by some blackcurrant sherbet which was dusted around the plate and under the ice cream (a very subtle fennel flavour which was accentuated by thin strips of candied fennel). david’s soaked upside-down greengage cake was not as good but still delicious. i was less keen on the crème fraiche ice cream it was served with.

overall, a superb meal which, with a carafe of grecanico and aperitifs came to c£85. out of the three meals mentioned above, it was my favourite although the sportsman’s starters still stand out.

the curlew

junction road, bodiam, east sussex

t - 01580 861 394

when we moved into our house (two years ago, next month) one of the first plants i bought for the garden was lavender - i’ve always wanted a garden full of scented plants and it is an absolute favourite of mine.

i’ve used it for cooking with but only in sweet dishes, such as orange & lavender cantuccini, fruit brulee and lemon & lavender madeleines. this summer, for some reason, i got a bee in my bonnet about lavender and lamb, and this dish is the result.

i had bought a packet of the amazing smokey salt (a mix of guérande sea salt, lapsang souchong tea and lavender) from mountain farm and used this, and some freshly ground black pepper, as an initial rub for my lamb shoulder. i added extra flavour, once the meat had been browned, with a paste of dried lavender flowers (ground to a powder), lemon, thyme and honey. i then cooked the meat long and slow until it was meltingly tender.

the resulting lamb had a definite but delicate lavender flavour as part of its outer crust, which worked fabulously well and is a combination i will revisit, probably with some pomegranate thrown into the mix too. we ate this with a roasted tomato and fennel pilaf plus some courgettes with goats cheese and basil.

i picked up a great tip last week - if your end-of-season rhubarb is a bit green, add a handful of berries when you stew or roast it and you end up with a dish that is still a beautiful shade of pink. be careful not to add too many berries or you'll overwhelm the rhubarb flavour.

i roasted my rhubarb and berries with a splash or orange juice, grated ginger and a handful of demerara sugar.

i mentioned the linen shed in my last blog post. i just want to say again how much we enjoyed staying there. vickie and graham were incredibly welcoming and the setting is wonderful – the wealden times article is full of beautiful photos and tells you all you need to know about this unusual b&b.

i wanted to mention it again as i wanted to tell you about the breakfasts – pots of stewed rhubarb spiked with orange and ginger and topped with yoghurt, followed by a choice of cooked breakfast – between us, on the two mornings we were there, david and i had pancakes with bacon; roasted tomatoes with parma ham and basil oil; and potato rosti with a poached egg; plus toast and jams (the raspberry and lavender was particularly special). all eaten on the veranda overlooking their beautiful garden and under the supervision of their two cats, cecil and mr wilfred.

one of the nicest things about staying here was being able to talk food with vickie and it was thanks to her that we ate at the dove inn in dargate, a short drive from the linen shed.

i stopped writing restaurant reviews on here as it’s not something i particularly enjoy doing – i tend to only write about meals i’ve loved and there are only so many ways you can say that something is delicious! however, this may be changing as people keep asking me about new places to eat and the blog is a good way to avoid having to say the same thing too many times!

i doubt i’ll be documenting things in the great level of detail which some bloggers do – getting my camera out in a restaurant is only occasionally something i’m happy to do. however, at the sportsman last weekend i did exactly that, as a friend had asked for photos and, as we were sitting in a window booth i didn’t feel too self-conscious.

we first visited the sportsman in early 2007 and it has been on my list of places to return to ever since. an anniversary weekend was the impetus i needed to book and i’m really pleased we made it, despite the appalling kentish weather (think wet, very wet, and even wetter).

i adore this sorbet. i think it was the first recipe i made from the original moro cook book and it is one which i make regularly, not least due to the fact that you don’t really need to wait for the blood orange season (around february) to get a batch in the freezer.

the reason for not waiting is that tropicana’s sanguinello juice (sanguinello is one of the three types of blood orange which exist, the other two being moro – very appropriate – and tarocco) is just as good as fresh juice when it comes to making this sorbet. it’s also fabulously easy – just place the sorbet mix in the freezer and stir every half hour until it is slushy, to ensue that you get the right texture.

the blood orange combined with rosewater makes the sorbet taste wonderfully decadent while still being refreshing and light. i particularly like it with fresh raspberries.

my sage plant is going crazy at the moment. it's looking very beautiful - the leaves are variegated with green, white and purple patches - and i'd like to find some recipes to do it justice.

this butternut squash risotto with goats cheese was a good starting point but i need more ideas - can anyone recommend anything?

eta: this risotto was finished with browned butter which had sage leaves added to it, until they crisped up. very delicious and a trick worth remembering (to blog)!

this dish has been a long time coming. the starting point was an amazing beef rendang that i learnt to make at an eat drink talk malaysian cookery class with jennifer klinec (who has sadly hung up her teaching apron but her recipe and newsletter archive is still online) back in february.

i’ve had rendang before, and have even cooked and blogged it but nothing prepared me for the dish that i ate at the class - the complexity of flavours was amazing as was the richness of the dish. this was authentic malaysian cooking and blew my previous attempts out of the water. a selection of spices were toasted and ground before being used plus the use of fresh coconut milk were both factors in making this so delicious, as was the method which involves simmering away all the liquid of the coconut milk until the dish is left with a light coating of coconut oil which is used to give everything final frying to enrich and deepen all the flavours. needless to say, it’s very rich and filling.

at the class i chatted to jennifer about variations and we decided that while lamb would be good, an oxtail variation would be a better and more interesting way to revisit this dish. the only downside with using oxtail was that i had to add in an extra stage to making this dish – i cooked the meat on the bone which i then removed for the final stages. i also soaked up some of the extra fat released using a paper towel.

taking the meat off the bone made it very easy to eat and added to the experience as the meltingly tender pieces of oxtail were completely integrated with the rich spicy coconutty sauce of the rendang. we scooped it up with homemade roti (another jennifer special) and a crunchy salad of carrot, red onions (soaked in lime juice – which is discarded - to remove their potency), coriander and lime provided some much-needed freshness to the meal.

sadly i promised the leftovers to a friend, so was unable to indulge two days in a row. i now need to try the lamb version.

there are some recipes which i’ve been cooking “forever” and therefore always know where to start when i’m making them. other dishes, despite me making them regularly, just don’t seem to have that same instinctive nature to them. for me, moussaka fits into the latter category. i always link it to lamb mince, aubergine and a white sauce, but that’s it.

the good thing about this is that it means i drag out my cook books, look at recipes online and as a result, often learn something new. and i learnt quite  a lot from cooking this, using a tessa kiros recipe from the cypriot section of falling cloudberries.

first was that lamb is not the default choice of meat – she uses a mix of pork and beef. i stuck with the lamb but used her method of getting the meat sauce started by frying onion until golden and then adding garlic and chopped parsley which becomes aromatic and then you add the meat. the addition of a herb like parsley at this stage is not something i’m used to (although i do add chopped coriander stems at this stage in various dishes) and i was surprised at how the parsley flavour did not get lost and that the green fleck of the herb remained in the final sauce. the flavour was softer than if i’d added it at the end and that lack of fresh zinginess was exactly right for this dish, and is something i need to remember.

the other learning was not a new technique – it was about pre-cooking the aubergine and potato slices. tessa stipulates the need to shallow-fry both in olive oil. i stuck to my previously tried & tested healthier approach of roasting the oil-brushed slices of aubergine (c10 minutes at 180c) but did fry the potatoes, until cooked through and golden and crispy in places. as a result they were meltingly soft in the final dish which was just perfect.

in fact the whole thing was very close to perfection – the flavours melded wonderfully and the softly textured vegetables made it a wonderfully comforting dish. the one thing i will fiddle about with is the white sauce that tops everything off – a friend of mine swears by a souffléd sauce to crown her moussaka, which i really must try.