Jalfrizza

Many years ago, a friend told me that you could make quick, tasty pizzas using naan bread as a base. And it's a tip which has served me well over the years - just spread with tomato paste, herbs, cheese, and whatever stuff you have lying around, and shove into the oven.

But today, I'm taking this concept a step further. Taking inspiration from this long-standing nugget of wisdom, I have created a brand new "recipe" - the Jalfrezi Pizza. To make a Jalfrizza, if you will need:

• Large garlic naan
• Chicken tikka jalfrezi (takeaway is perfect)
• Onion bhaji
• Paneer
• Tomato puree
• Coriander (optional)

To make the sauce for the pizza, separate out all the sauce you can from the curry, and mix with tomato puree. Then spread liberally over the bread.

Add a layer of paneer onto the pizza, then top with the pieces of meat, vegetables, and chilli from the jalfrezi. Finish with chunks of onion bhaji, and if you're feeling elaborate, some fresh coriander.

Put it in the oven at a pretty hot temperature for a few minutes - as a rough guide, at 220 for 10 minutes, it comes out a bit burned. Enjoy with a nice cold bottle of IPA (Indian Pizza Ale).

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Juicy Lucy Burger

The "Juicy Lucy" is a burger with cheese stuffed inside of it, instead of placed on the top like a regular cheeseburger. An American invention (naturally), the result is a huge slab of a burger, packed with hot molten cheese. Guaranteed to cause a mess, and quite possibly scold the roof of your mouth.

So far so good. But this wasn't enough for me, I wanted my own unique twist, something that would really pack a flavour. I considered a few different options, until I settled on a sort of "Tex-Mex" theme... hot chili tomato sauce on one side of the burger, and guacamole on the other.

I made the spicy sauce by frying chopped onion and chili, adding black pepper and cumin, then chucking in some tomato puree, ketchup, Tabasco, and chopped coriander.

The burger was made by sandwiching a big lump of cheese (Cheddar and Gouda) in between two large burgers, and pressing the edges together while it cooked. I squashed the whole thing down as much as possible, but it was still a gargantuan burger. I actually had to put it in the oven to make sure it was cooked through.

This monstrosity - placed between a toasted bun with generous dollops of guacamole and the spicy tomato stuff - is a whole meal in itself. No chips or onion rings necessary, just a comfy chair and a nice cold beer.

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Celebrations Pie

Our corner of South London has it's very own baking club, known as Band Of Bakers. My wife has been a proud member since its inception, and often brings home all manner of tasty cakes and breads. They seem to take it all pretty seriously, and they even had a brief flirtation with fame, when teak-faced housewives' favourite Paul Hollywood visited them for one of his TV shows. Now, baking isn't really one of my strengths, but stuffing my face with cake certainly is - so I finally managed to gatecrash one of their meets last week. The only catch was that I had to bring something with me.

As this was to be their first anniversary, the theme was 'celebration'. I anticipated multi-tiered cakes, opera cakes, croquembouche, and all manner of extravagant creations. But I had a rather different interpretation of "celebration". Hence, the Celebrations Pie was born. A chocolate covered tart, consisting of three sections inspired by Mars, Snickers, and Bounty bars.

I started by making the pastry base - I'm no baker, so rolling out some shop bought sweet pastry into a tin is about as technical as I get. The packet promised "perfect pastry every time", which seemed optimistic, but it turned out about as well as I could hope for.

I then made the first filling - "Bounty" - by mixing dessicated coconut, condensed milk, and icing sugar. No cooking necessary, but it did need to be chilled in the fridge to solidify.

When it came to creating the malty "Mars" filling, I found plenty of recipes online for making fluffy nougat. But they were all way too technical, involving sugar thermometers, "hard ball stage", and all sorts of nonsense. My own version consisted of melted chocolate, half a jar of marshmallow fluff, and a couple of teaspoons of Horlicks.

I also used the marshmallow fluff for the Snickers filling, this time mixing it with melted white chocolate and roasted peanuts. I didn't think of it as cheating - just common sense.

Obviously the Mars and Snickers sections needed a caramel topping. I made this by taking another can of condensed milk with some glucose syrup and golden syrup, and sticking it in the microwave for a few minutes. Finally I topped the whole lot with melted milk chocolate, and it was ready to go.

So, how did the celebrations pie go down at the baking club birthday party? As predicted, there was a plethora of impressive cakes on display, and mine did look a bit sad in comparison. One person even mumbled "urgh, I'm not eating that", which I found pretty funny. But actually most people were very positive and encouraging, and generally kind towards the special kid in the class.

In fact, my creation was (almost) all gone at the end of the night -  but I did manage to rescue a slice of "Mars" to take home. I was fairly happy with it, but if I were to be critical, the Mars filling needed a stronger malty flavour, and the Snickers needed more peanuts - and maybe even a pinch of salt.

I went home happy, with a belly full of cake and booze, and a big box full of amazing cake. And if they'll have me back again, I may just have a few more tricks up my sleeve...


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Cheesesteak

It's not a cheese steak. It's a cheesesteak. Just one word. Don't ask me why, I guess Americans struggle a little bit with their spelling. I've never actually had a proper cheesesteak, but next time I'm in America, it's right at the top of my list. But in the meantime, here's my effort.

For the best combination of flavour and tenderness, there's only one type of steak to use, and that's ribeye. I sliced it thinly by partially freezing it, and then cutting it diagonally with a sharp knife. Then quickly fried the slices for around 3 minutes.

I piled up the steak inside a large sub roll, put some slices of cheese on the top, and microwaved it for 20 seconds to melt the cheese. A little mustard, a little mayo, and you have a breakfast lunch fit for champions.

A damn expensive sandwich... but worth every penny.

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Chicken Fried Steak

The year was 1999. It was the first time I'd ever been to America, and the destination was Texas.

One of the first things that struck me - other than the heat - was the variety of food I saw on offer. All kinds of things that were alien to me, including various sorts of Mexican food, barbecue, cheesesteak, chicken & biscuits, and something called "chicken fried steak". At which I immediately (and quite involuntarily) shouted "WHATTHEHELLISCHICKENFRIEDSTEAK?!"

So... what the hell is it? First of all, it contains no chicken. Rather, it is a steak fried in a spiced coating, similar in preparation to southern fried chicken. Usually you'd use a cheaper cut of beef like skirt or flank, but I had a piece of sirloin, which did the job just fine. I started by trimming the tough bits of fat and sinew, then bashing it mercilessly with the back of a knife to tenderise it and flatten it out. The dish just wouldn't work properly with a firm piece of meat.

For the coating, I used a mixture of flour, cornflour, salt, pepper, and plenty of cayenne pepper. I dipped the steak into the seasoned flour, then into a mixture of beaten egg and milk. I then dipped it into the flour again.

I then fried it - in quite a lot of oil - over a medium heat for four minutes on each side. The steak has to be cooked through, you really don't want any blood running out of the steak and into the coating. If you will only eat your steak bloody, this dish is basically not for you. The steak should come out with a nice crispy crust. I should point out that in Texas you can see this dish either deep fried or pan fried, but honestly I don't think there's any point deep-frying a flat piece of steak.

Now it was time to make the "gravy" - this is really an integral part of the dish. It's important to keep all the gunk and oil from the pan, as well as any remaining flour, because you need this for the sauce. I removed about half of the oil from the pan, but kept as much of the brown residue in there that I could. I added the seasoned flour left over from the coating, and whisked it in along with some chicken stock and some sour cream

You have to be quick with the gravy, as the steak should be eaten as soon as possible.

You'd usually eat this with mash, but I went for fried potatoes (or "home fries" as they tend to be called in the US of A). Now, tell me this doesn't look good. Go on, I dare you!

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The Bosna

We've all been there. You emerge from a bar or club in the small hours of the morning. You've had quite a lot to drink. You need food... not only to cure the munchies, but also in the desperate hope that it will soak up some of the alcohol, ultimately easing the inevitable hangover.

Usually you would go in search of a kebab, burger, or a bag of chips. But if you're in Salzburg, only one thing will hit the spot - a bosna.

The bosna is a bratwurst sausage in a bread roll, topped with a spicy sauce and curry powder. It is a relative of the currywurst, but personally I've never been a huge fan of this breadless cousin. For me, the bosna wins hands down.

I made my sauce from a mixture of mayo, mustard, ketchup, curry sauce, and curry powder.

I fried a bratwurst, and an onion. I lightly toasted a large hot dog roll under the grill.

I assembled the sandwich, and topped with fried onions, more curry powder, and salt & pepper.

This tasted very authentic - really close to some of the filthy fodder I've eaten in Austria. The only thing that let it down is the sausage (bought from Sainsburys). The texture was too smooth, almost like a bockwurst or frankfurter. It should be more coarse and meaty - I actually think a traditional english pork sausage would be a better match.

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