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Serves 4 as a starter

This delicious recipe is from Jane Clarke’s ‘Nourish‘

200g smoked mackerel fillets (without pepper), skins removed
200g Ricotta cheese
a squeeze of fresh lemon juice
2 tbsp Greek yogurt
ground black pepper

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Add all the ingredients to a food processor or blender, season with ground black pepper and whiz together until smooth.
Spread the pâté on toast or flatbreads or use in sandwiches. For sandwich rolls, spread over fresh, soft, good-quality white or wholemeal bread, crusts removed, then roll up. Cut across the roll into slices.

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This delicious recipe is from Jane Clarke’s ‘Nourish‘:

Serves 4

50g sultanas
50g dried unsulphured apricots, finely chopped
25g currants
25g dried figs, stalks removed and finely chopped
1 tbsp pure fruit apple and pear spread
2 tbsp fresh orange juice
2 tbsp dried coconut shavings (optional)
4 cooking apples
custard, natural yogurt or ice cream, to serve

Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan oven) mark 4. Make the filling by putting all the ingredients, except the apples, in a bowl. Mix together, then leave for 20 minutes to allow the flavours to blend.

Core the apples, then cut them in half crossways. Put on a baking sheet, skin-side down. Stuff the mixture into the middle of the apples. The filling will also spread over the top.

Cover with foil and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 25–30 minutes, until the apple is soft. Serve with custard, natural yogurt or ice cream.

The apples are also delicious cold and make a tasty breakfast dish.

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This delicious recipe is from Jane Clarke’s ‘Nourish‘ and features in the section ‘In your prime…’

Serves 4

2 garlic cloves
2 litres (31⁄2 pints) vegetable stock
4 lemon grass stalks, bashed
5cm (2in) fresh root ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
8 lime leaves, crushed or whole
the juice of 2 limes
2 large flat mushrooms, cut into thick slices
2 handfuls of frozen peas
2 handfuls of frozen broad beans
2 small hot chillies, deseeded and thinly sliced
a pinch of golden caster sugar
20 mint leaves
a large handful of coriander leaves

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Smash the garlic to a pulp and simmer it with the stock, the lemon grass, ginger and the lime leaves for 7 minutes. Add the lime juice, mushrooms, peas, broad beans and chillies. After 2 minutes remove the lemon grass and lime leaves, and season with a pinch of sugar. Add the mint and coriander leaves.

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Start the year with some delicious and healthy comfort food. This recipe comes Jane Clarke’s new book “Nourish“.

Serves 4
450g roasted chicken
200g canned chickpeas (drained and rinsed)
1 small onion, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
2 tsp finely chopped fresh sage
175g wholemeal breadcrumbs
1 egg, beaten
salt and ground black pepper

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Put the chicken, chickpeas, onion and garlic in a food processor or mincer and mince to combine. Alternatively, chop finely and mash together with a fork, or put the ingredients in a clean plastic bag, tie the end, then put on a hard surface and hit with a rolling pin until mashed together.

Put the mixture in a bowl, add the sage, 50g (2oz) of the breadcrumbs and enough of the egg to bind the mince without it becoming too sloppy. Season to taste.

Spread the remaining breadcrumbs on a large baking sheet and, taking a handful of mixture at a time, form a ball, then roll in the breadcrumbs until completely coated. Grill until the coating turns golden brown. Serve immediately.

Try replacing the chickpeas with broad beans or canned beans such as haricot, butter or borlotti. The burgers can also be made with other roasted meats such as ham, roast pork or beef.

They are delicious served with roasted vegetables or served with cripsy jacket potato skins. Of course as the perfect comfort food, simply op them in-between slices of warmed fresh bread. You could even serve them as part of an antipasti platter with charcuterie, mozzarella, salads and fresh bread.

You can freeze these delicious burgers as long as the meat hasn’t been previously frozen.

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I have to admit I’m a bit of a barbeque aficionado, loving tucking into the smoky flavours of fresh sardines, small fluffy jacket potatoes cooked in the embers, biting into a juicy burger, the pickles and sorts of lovely big salads, but I ONLY love them when the raw ingredients are good and well cooked-I just can’t bring myself to eat a bright pink on the inside and burnt on the outside cheap sausage-I’d rather starve.

The second stipulation I have is that the weather has to be most definitely warm enough not to have to be sheltering from the cold Northerly winds-I just can’t see the point of eating outside and shivering!

There has however been much in the press over the last few years which has pointed to the health dangers of barbequing but to put these scary headlines into some form of perspective, as with all areas of cooking, it depends first on the quality of your raw ingredients, second on how you cook them and finally, on what you serve them with.

The first thing to make your barbeque tick all the right boxes is to, especially with meat, choose good quality lean meat – if you’re wanting a sausage or burger you need to ensure that the sausages contain at least 75% meat.

The brands with lower meat content may be cheaper, but they frequently contain not only inferior quality meat, but also much higher levels of fat, which can be either saturated fat or, even worse (for our hearts, etc.), hydrogenated fat, both of which increase the incidence of heart disease because they raise our levels of what’s known as bad LDL cholesterol, which can block our arteries causing heart attacks and strokes.

Ready-made burgers can be rather high in salt as well as in fat, so I would ideally make my own, using 5% lean minced beef mixed with chopped onion, spices, herbs etc. If this isn’t an option, go for bought ones which are at most 10% fat – like the sausages, they will be more expensive, but well worth it, taste- and health-wise.

Have fewer and better-quality ingredients on your barbecue and fill your guests up with crusty wholemeal buns and salads to make the meat go further.

Some people worry about the direct effect of the flame or heat on red meat, increasing the risk of potential carcinogens – the things that increase our risk of developing cancers, especially those of the bowel and breast. But in this country, where we don’t live on barbecued food all year round, I don’t think it’s worth worrying about, as long as we make sure that the rest of our meal and diet is rich in strong anti-cancer nutrients such as vegetables and fruits to balance things out.

One of the big problems some people have with, or should I say after, a barbecue is food poisoning, as in this country we don’t seem to be very good about storing food in chilled boxes, covering up foods once they’re cooked (unlike more outdoor-living countries such as Australia, where I have had some of the best barbied food ever).

You need to ensure that meat is well cooked if you are giving it to little children, as the biggest food-poisoning risk to kids’ health comes from undercooked meat (E.coli and salmonella just love it). So make sure the coals are properly hot before you start cooking – they should be glowing, with a powdery grey surface (this usually takes a good half-hour after lighting, so don’t leave lighting it till the last minute and think you can speed-cook, because you’ll only burn the outside of the food and leave the inside raw).

Turn the food regularly and move it around to make sure it cooks evenly – it should be cooked through and piping hot. With healthy, strong adults, you could take a risk and eat undercooked beef, but definitely not chicken, pork or any other meat.

Salmonella, E.coli and Clostridium perfringens all love barbecued food that is left sitting in a warm sun both before and after it’s cooked – other bacteria like Listeria and Bacillus cereus love warm salads made with rice that’s been cooked then left in a warm place for a few hours. So keep food in a fridge or coolbox for as long as possible, and tuck into the food as soon as it comes off the barbie.

Finally, watch out if you add salty sweet sauces such as chutneys and serve mayonnaise-rich salads, as these could all send your calorie, salt, sugar, additive and preservative readings right up – just stick to a squirt rather than lashings of ketchup.

Quick recipe: My Ultimate Burger

Per person

1 thick, good-quality lean beef burger, 5% or maximum 10% fat
1 round wholemeal or granary roll
1 heaped teaspoon mayonnaise
a handful of rocket leaves
1/3 of a ripe avocado
a few slices of cucumber or gherkin
a few slices of deep red flavoursome tomato
freshly ground black pepper
mustard or tomato ketchup

Either barbecue the beef burger, or grill it on a raised grill until dark brown on the outside and fully cooked throughout – I love burgers a little pink inside, but if I’m making them for my daughter, Maya, I make sure they’re well cooked.

Drain well on kitchen towel to remove excess fat. Cut the roll in half, spread one side with the mayonnaise, and then simply add the remaining ingredients. Finish with a few twists of freshly ground black pepper, maybe a little mustard if you like, or some tomato ketchup, then squash everything together and bite.

We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the  nucleus of bees to place in our hive-it seems as if the cool weather to date has put everything back, which includes bee keeping.

Not only have I decided to set up a hive in our garden this year because I think  that having kept bees in Norfolk for a few years, bee keeping  is incredibly rewarding and fascinating for Maya to be part of, but also I have to admit that cool thick Greek-style yoghurt drizzled with a spoonful of runny honey is a comfort food for me, but I have to watch it as it is becoming a little addictive, in the nicest possible way, a small bowl just isn’t enough.

But if you’re not lucky enough to be able to start up your own honey making venture, there are lots of different varieties to choose from in the shops, be this your local deli, home delivery company, village shop or large supermarket-the varieties seem to have exploded, or I also suspect that honey makers have also realised that consumers want to know more about what type of flowers the bees have been feeding on, the words runny and set don’t seem enough-many of us like to know whether it’s lavender, thyme, heather, orange blossom because it definitely helps us when we decide what to do with it.

Not only do the flavours, consistency of them vary, but also their colour which when it comes to one of my must have’s in the cupboard, the Manuka honey, it can be unbelievably, non-honey like, dark-almost Molasses looking.  The reason why I always have Manuka honey in is that this pure honey from new Zealand and Australia, seems to have what’s known as some of the most powerful antibacterial effects, so I think one of the best ways to treat colds, coughs, is to take a teaspoon of Manuka honey, twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening.  You need to have it cool, and don’t add it to hot water because this kills of the helpful antibiotic qualities of the honey-if you want to have the traditional honey and lemon soothing drink, it’s still fine to have the Manuka honey in it, but then have your cool honey dose on top of it.

Whilst I am a fan of Manuka honey for it’s healing properties, I find the taste too strong for other things like making cakes, or just having on warm toast, so this is where the other honeys come in.  I try to buy British when it’s available( being careful to check the labels as the country of origin can be hard to see at times) as the Bee keepers and honey sellers need every bit of help they can get to ride what has been a very bumpy road over the last few years in the Bee world-be this with the rise in viruses and mites, or other environmental antagonists which have all had fairly catastrophic effects on the bee population.

On the nutritional front many people, especially parents are slightly seduced by the notion that honey is good sugar, and therefore fine and better for their kids to eat.  Whilst I do think honey can be healthy (apart from for under one year olds, as sometimes honey can cause infant botulism, a form of food poisoning) it contains trace amounts of vitamins and minerals, and because it has a higher water content than sugar, it has slightly less calories-299/100g, compared with 394 for other classic white and brown sugars, neither the presence of trace nutrients and it’s slightly less calories should detract from the fact that too much honey can still have just as detrimental effects on your child’s teeth, especially because it’s sticky and can hang around in their mouth for longer than crystal sugar.

Too much honey may also make energy levels shoot up very quickly and hence crash down afterwards, can be just as fattening as any other sort of more refined sugar. So as delicious as this sweet yummy stuff is, either on it’s own or within in a pudding, watch that you’re not overly indulging your taste buds.

Honey Ice Cream

Serves 4–6

1 Egg
4 Egg Yolks
100g Runny Honey
200ml Whipping Cream
100ml Greek Style Natural Yoghurt

Break the egg into a bowl and add the egg yolks and honey. Set the bowl over a saucepan of boiling water and beat until the mixture becomes thick and pale. In a separate bowl, beat the cream until stiff and fold it, along with the yoghurt into the egg mixture. Pour into your ice cream maker and follow the instructions until frozen.

Asparagus is so delicious, it’s very easy to cook and to make a simple, delicious meal. All you need to do is trim off the woody ends – some people say you should take the spears individually and gently bend the tops over until they snap – and use them in salads. With older asparagus the best thing may be to throw the tougher ends away, but I tend to save them for adding chopped to a pasta dish or a soup, taking advantage of their distinctive taste more than their looks.

Steam the plump green spears and drizzle them with some olive oil and lemon juice, or make some homemade mayonnaise to dunk them into – a few dark green spears can make a simple supper or light starter. As well as the oil and the creamy homemade mayonnaise complementing the crisp spears, slightly soft-boiled eggs and shavings of Parmesan cheese turn them into a delicious indulgent-tasting salad, into which I’ve thrown some chopped fresh dill – I’m somewhat obsessed with this fresh herb at the moment, but you could equally add fresh parsley, or coriander, for a herbal zing.

Many recipes for asparagus and egg salad partner it with small pieces of pancetta, but I find that this can be a little too greasy (and would by the way take the fat level of the salad pretty high), so I prefer to get the smoky meat flavours from thin slices of San Daniele ham (from which I trim any excess visible fat). If you can, buy wafer-thin pieces of this Italian ham and then it will melt in your mouth. English roast ham can work well too – everything fresh asparagus needs to make it into a delicious lunch or supper.

I think one trick with asparagus is, the same as with all vegetables, not to overcook it, as then it turns mushy –it’s best to undercook it if anything, so that you have some crunch when you bite into it. And of course, nutritionally, the less you cook it the fewer vitamins and minerals you will lose; this is especially the case with the water-soluble vitamins such as vitamin C, so you’re best to steam or chargrill your asparagus to maximize how much vitamin C you have left when you bite into the spears.

Nutritionally asparagus is rich in fibre , especially a soluble fibre called inulin, which is what we call a prebiotic – a type of fibre that encourages the body to grow good bacteria such as acidophilus and bifidus, which may have benefits for reducing heart disease and certain cancers as well as help relieve IBS symptoms. Asparagus also contains Vitamin C, a little iron, a small amount of vitamin E and some B vitamins.

But back to eating the delicious stuff-a good asparagus based nibble can be simply popped together by wrapping the lightly cooked spears in wafer-thin slices of ham or smoked fish, or mashing them with some ripe avocado and lemon juice and serving them rather like guacamole – although I would only tend to do this when I’ve picked up a few cheaper bunches, which you may be lucky enough to do at a roadside or market stall, or when I have some cooked spears left over from a meal, as it’s a pity not to take advantage of asparagus’s attractive fronds.

Asparagus Salad with San Daniele Ham and Soft-Boiled Egg

This salad is also delicious if you use roast chicken instead of the ham, or different young raw vegetables, such as baby carrots, fresh crisp fennel (sliced), ripe tomatoes, rocket or radishes – it’s an all-round delicious salad that works throughout the spring and summer, depending on what you have around.

Serves 4

500g asparagus
300g broad beans
4 large eggs
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
1 x 300g bag of watercress
8 slices of San Daniele ham

In a large pan of slightly salted boiling water, cook the asparagus for a couple of minutes before adding the broad beans. Let them simmer for a further couple of minutes until both beans and asparagus are tender but not mushy – you want them still to have a bit of bite, otherwise the salad can taste a little mushy. Drain them well and put to one side. Some people like to remove the skins from the broad beans, and this is a fun thing to do with little ones, as they literally squeeze them slightly and out pops the dark green bean, but if the beans are very fresh and young it’s fine to eat them as they are, with their skins on.

Next bring a large pan of boiling water to the boil for poaching the eggs. People poach eggs in different ways, but I tend to crack the egg into a teacup and gently tip it into the water. Do the same with the remaining eggs, then simmer them all very gently for 1 minute. Turn off the heat, cover the pan and leave them to sit for 5 minutes, until the eggs are just set. Meanwhile, make your dressing by mixing together the oil, lemon juice, mustard and dill.

Put the watercress, asparagus and broad beans into a bowl and mix lightly with the dressing. Season with plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Serve the salad on a large platter or 4 individual plates, top with the eggs and slices of ham, and tuck in.

I’ve had a week of so many patients asking me for a good breakfast to have at this time of the year when their bodies aren’t wanting porridge or anything too heavy on the starch – so I thought I’d let you know what I’m doing at the moment.

I’m lucky enough to still have apples left from the my enormous old apple trees having laid them down to store last Autumn, but it’s just as easy to make this with tart apples such as bramleys or to use pears or other fruits such as plums and rhubarb – or a combination is wonderful too. I simply peel and core a batch of apples – usually about 8 apples at a time, as I’d much rather cook a lot once a week and then be able to dip into the pot in the fridge without much effort.

Slice them into quarters and pop them into a large saucepan and add a little water before putting them on the cooker to boil and then simmer with a lid on for about 15 minutes. When you lift the lid you’ll find that the apple has collapsed into a pulp, but just let this cool with the lid on as this is what you want.

This is a delicious base apple compote which you can either eat cold from the fridge or heated up to make a hot apple breakfast which I love to serve with a couple of dollops of Greek style natural yoghurt and top it with some toasted nuts. You can also add other fruits such as raspberries or blackberries, which I have frozen at the moment – so I grab a handful in the morning pop into my bowl with the apple and then heat up in the microwave for a couple of minutes – delicious!

Nutritionally although cooked fruits contain less vitamin C than raw fruits they still contain a little, so it’s still great to eat them as they also contain fibre which is great for your gut. Apples specifically contain a type of fibre called pectin which is particularly settling for a gut which tends to be a little on the irritated side – so this scrumptious apple pot could just be the perfect start to your day.

This week at Natoora, we have a fantastic offer on golden delicious apples! Get shopping today at www.natoora.co.uk…

Jane Clarke is one of the UK’s must trusted nutritionalists. She not only knows what’s good for you, but as a trained Cordon Bleu Chef, know’s how to make it taste fantastic. Her belief is grounded in the simple statement that “food nourishes your life, not just your body”. This week, find out her views on the greatest of spring meats – lamb…

“One of the easiest and yet most delicious meals to throw together when you have meat-loving friends round is lamb chops; if you can get them as a small rack, they look impressive (with or without the little white curly hats) – small enough to satisfy, but not over fancy and they’re very easy to cook. And nothing could be simpler or more delicious to serve with them than new potatoes and a big serving bowl of steamed greens-drizzle over some extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle with plenty of freshly ground black pepper, throw in some very finely chopped mint, add a squeeze of fresh lemon juice to bring out the flavours, and lightly mix together.

Or you could give your lamb meal a North African theme by serving the chops (or any other cut of lamb) with couscous, maybe flavoured with lots of chopped herbs such as parsley, coriander and the classic served-with-lamb herb, mint.

Lamb, like most meat, needs a little fat on it to help give it flavour, but because like any other animal fat it’s high in saturated fat, a little balancing is necessary. It’s important to avoid animal fat in the rest of your meal, so skip butter on the vegetables and go for a dash of virgin olive oil instead.  I wouldn’t overpower vegetables or your meat with buttery sauces either, otherwise you will find that your lamb meal contains a lot of animal fat, which can increase the amount of bad LDL cholesterol in your blood.

Without sacrificing anything in flavour, this can all be avoided if you cook your lamb chops on a raised grill, so that the excess fat runs off. If it’s a leg of lamb you’re wanting to tuck into, drain the juices off from the bottom of the pan, allow to cool, and then, using either a spoon or one of the fancy but oh-so-useful brushes or pipettes that you can buy in cooking shops, remove the excess fat before using the juices in the gravy.

Nutritionally, lamb is a great source of protein, which is needed to build, repair and maintain body tissues, organs and cells in all parts of the body. Mineral-wise, although it contains less than beef, lamb is still a good source of iron a mineral needed for healthy blood, and for brain development in babies and important for many functions in the body including growth, sperm production,  our sense of taste and smell, maintaining a strong immune system and wound healing – so lamb is deliciously good news all round.”

Keep up to date with Jane Clarke at www.janeclarke.com where you’ll find tips on healthy eating and a weekly diary. If your mouth is watering at the thought of tender, succulent (and nutritious) lamb, click here to view our selection!