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It’s really not that hard If you have scales and a timer. However, this simple technique is easily destroyed by the insatiable curiosity some people have, so the recipe is a little longer than usual. Pay particular attention to the steps in bold.

STAGE ONE: Preparation

• Measure your rice. 80g per person is good.
• Wash your rice in a sieve until the water runs clear, to remove all the starches.
• Put it in the pot.
• Add 1.75x as much cold water by weight, or 1.5x by volume.

STAGE TWO: Cook

• Put a lid on the pot.
• DO NOT TAKE THE LID OFF AGAIN.
• Bring it to the boil and then simmer for however long the packet says.
  Long grain = 10 minutes, basmati = 12 minutes, brown rice = 20+.
• DO NOT TOUCH THE POT.
• Once the time is up, LET IT STAND FOR 5 MINUTES
• LEAVE THE LID ON.
• LET IT STAND.
• Then serve.

Whenever there’s an offer on the premium chocolates I tend to stock up. Lately I’ve been eating my chocolate quite slowly and have built up a little cache as a result. So what do you do when there’s yet another offer at the supermarket?

You make chocolate desserts, of course.

As it’s summer, the first dessert you ought to make is ice cream. It’s simple to make if you’ve got an ice cream maker, otherwise it can be a bit of a faff to freeze slightly, blend, freeze, blend, freeze… the manual process makes it a special occasion piece, the ice cream maker enables it to be a regular occurrence.

Churn, baby, churn

This recipe from Olive magazine gives you a rich, bitter chocolate-lover’s ice cream. I prefer to substitute half the cocoa for an equivalent amount of 70% dark chocolate - not a large difference, but I prefer it.

This article appeals to the coffee snob in me, and might go some way to explaining why you might love coffee but hate espresso.

I had no idea that anyone could contemplate using as much as 20 grams of it for a double, let alone a single - ugh! At least now I know how some places manage to make such syrupy drinks. And these are the same places that will give you weak tea, when they’re doing the coffee equivalent of stuffing four teabags into a mug.

Crazy world.

Ooh, you know you want some. My first encounter with asparagus was at an Italian restaurant in a risotto - it was pretty damned delicious. Besides which, there are few vegetables with that unique, inviting look, much less any that retain that look post-cooking.

(photo by itsjustanalias)

Tonight I am going to try it with tomato salsa and mild, crumbly cheese. I’m personally substituting the suggested cheese for Caerphilly; one day I’ll have the budget to let me mimic the foodies’ experiences, but knowing cheaper and more readily available substitutes to the niche ingredients is very useful for a budding cook.

Also on the menu: diced tuna lightly rubbed with Cajun spices (Bart’s make a nice mix). Clearly I’m making up for our grill pan’s months of disuse.

A rich, tasty and easy-to-prepare dessert - all it requires is patience

Serves 2-3, depending on how greedy you feel

Ingredients:

• 100g good-quality dark chocolate (for eating, not baking)
• 150ml carton of double cream
• 1 medium egg yolk
• A splash of milk
• A pinch of salt
• 2 drops vanilla extract
• 2-3 ramekins to store/serve

Break the chocolate into small pieces into a pyrex bowl. Heat the cream in a saucepan on a moderate heat; when it reaches boiling point, pour the cream into the bowl to melt the chocolate.

Separate the egg yolk from the white. Keep the white for another day - they freeze well, and there are an awful lot of things you can bake with them.

Beat the yolk in a separate bowl/mug, then add to the chocolate/cream mixture along with a splash of milk to loosen the whole thing. Add a pinch of salt and a couple of drops of vanilla extract. Stir well, making sure all the lumps melt away into homogeneous, chocolatey goodness.

The consistency of the mixture should be dense but pourable due to the warmth. Which is perfect, because now you’re going to pour it into the ramekins. Cover the ramekins with clingfilm to keep smells out and put them into the fridge to chill for 4-6 hours.

I suggest you take them out of the fridge for half an hour before you eat them. There’s nothing wrong with eating them straight from the fridge, but I reckon you experience more of the bitter cacao deliciousness when they are a little warmer.

I had a few leftovers that needed using up - most importantly, the remnants of my homemade salsa after my housemates attacked it with their army of tortilla chips. Fortunately for me, I have a well-stocked food cupboard at my disposal.

Ingredients

• 130g mixed beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 heaped tsp Cajun seasoning (I use Bart)
• 100g tomato salsa
• a little bit of green pepper
• 20g cheese, grated
• 1 large wrap - a brand like Discovery works well
• 1 leaf of a large lettuce
• a little soured cream

Throw the beans in a saucepan pan together with the oil. Mix the Cajun seasoning into the beans and heat gently for 5 minutes.

Add the pepper and the salsa. I turned the heat up a little since my salsa just came out of the fridge. Sometimes you feel impatient, and that’s okay in its place, where you can afford to do it. (i.e. right here.) Anyway, heat through - probably another 5-7 minutes.

While you wait for that, grate the cheese and tear up the lettuce into itty bits. Have the decency not to use iceberg - that stuff is barely acceptable in a cold salad, let alone any place where warmth is involved. But if, say, your partner or housemates buy it, use it anyway and remember to scold them thoroughly afterwards for having such a mundane taste in vegetables.

Seriously. Iceberg lettuce is as pointless as a vacuum cleaner in space. It sucks hard yet achieves nothing. Feel free to take that analogy to the bank, by the way.

Er, where was I? Ah yes. Now you’ve cut up your cheese and lettuce into small pieces, it’s time to dispose of the evidence. But first, zap the wrap in the microwave for 10 seconds - no point having a warm filling if its container is going to cool it down before you even manage to get halfway through.

Cover the wrap with lettuce, spoon the bean salsa on top in a wide line, sprinkle the cheese over the mixture, and finally pour soured cream on top.

Folding wraps is the only hard part in this entire exercise. One careless move and you could get a creamy hand, except in this instance it’s socially acceptable to lick it off. And now you have that on your mind, happy eating! Tee hee!

Postscript: It might pay to mash the beans a little. Ersatz refried beans, if you will. I might try it with proper ones someday.

Chinese New Year was yesterday, for those keeping track - it was rather unfortunate that Singles Awareness Day overshadowed it, but that’s what you get when you have competing calendars.

I was left to fend for myself tonight, so I decided to go along with the season and cook one of my favourites - sweet and sour stir fry. I’d much rather make my own sauces than go for a jar. This is trivial if you’re making some pasta thing, where a bought tomato sauce is little more than a minor convenience, but complex sauces are unsurprisingly more involved.

However, I found one that is quite tasty and isn’t too demanding on your store cupboard. Rice vinegar would be better, but I tried it with white wine vinegar and results were definitely acceptable. A sprinkle of crushed chilli gives a delicious kick to it, but be sparing.