Prepared dinner for a favourite person. Scallops baked with nduja (a soft spicy sausage from Calabria, similar to Chorizo), green salsa, and pork crackling. Spatchcock roast garlic and thyme chicken with bitter leaf and radish vinaigrette salad (I use white balsamic and parmesan in my vinaigrette), calcots and romesco. To finish: rum and raisin ice cream with biscotti and edible gold 👩🏾‍🍳

Putting together a menu is a labour of love for me. I am passionate about ingredients and only get the best from the top sources – including these massive Scottish scallops from my favourite fishmonger, and managed to find Calçots, a Catalan delicacy (a cross between a spring onion and a leek – they have a short season and are hard to get hold of) usually served with romesco – a sauce of blended peppers, almonds, and olive oil. I cooked the calcots in the traditional Catalan method by blackening them, then wrapping them in newspaper so they steam inside. You then pull out the interior which is silky soft and pile onto the bright orange romesco sauce (which I made myself of course – I’m no amateur!)

I don’t really bake – I have this theory that if a woman can cook she should never have to clean or bake (a very personal theory based on the fact that I don’t enjoy cleaning or baking 🤣). Anyway I had the simple idea of rum and raisin ice cream, so had raisins soaking in 3 rums (Zacapa XO – my favourite rum which is made in Guatemala and aged between 10 and 25 years in cognac barrels, the Kraken – a Caribbean spiced rum, and Boukman – a dry Haitan rum) with vanilla and candied ginger for 10 days, and spooned this mixture over some Haagen Dazs (or however you spell it) vanilla ice cream.

There were after dinner chocolates but I ate them all whilst I was cooking because I was stressed 😂

I never cook from recipes – I prefer doing everything by eye and create my own menus. I somehow managed to have everything come out perfectly timed and cooked (if I do say so myself! 😇)

B xx❤️