Smoked Eel Salad

Planning Monday night's dinner party has had me thinking about the more unusual salads I've made recently, and one that stands out is the smoked eel salad with roasted butternut, wild rocket, horseradish and pomegranate seeds. There's a wonderful fishmonger in Clapham South, and while I was very disappointed that he'd sold out of clams for the spaghetti vongole that I was planning on making that evening, he did suggest the smoked eel for my starter. The butternut was an interesting twist, and more included because a) not being widely eaten in the UK, I have an obsession with roast butternut and b) I had my heart set on including it in the meal somehow. Not that it didn't work well, I just think the combination of the peppery rocket with the rich, oily eel with the horseradish and crunchy pomegranate seeds can stand on their own.

More than just salad

I have a bit of a thing about salads. Maybe it was all those years being a vegetarian that did it for me.

I tasted the most gorgeous salad on Market Kitchen yesterday, which was part of a "Beetroot Masterclass". I know prior to tasting the salad, we were cracking jokes about the need for a beetroot masterclass, but in fact, I was completely impressed. I normally roast my beetroot, but steaming it just adds another dimension to the beets.

Jeremy Lee made a steamed beetroot salad with boiled egg, lambs lettuce, watercress and (made-from-scratch) salad cream. The combination was just incredible. The steamed beetroot was truly gorgeous - the colours on the plate were brilliant.

I made a lovely salad the other evening: Courgette ribbons, strawberries, crushed walnuts, goats cheese and fresh coriander. The flavours, textures and colours work really well together, and I love strawberries, goats cheese and coriander as a combination of flavours. I'm doing the courgette ribbons a lot lately as it's so easy and a perfect way to serve what could be an otherwise wintery vegetable in summer. It also brings a bit more depth to the salad.

I still have never managed to perfect the sublime carrot dressings that I had in New York a few years ago. I also had an amazing beetroot dressing (vegetable-based salad dressings must have been very on trend at the time) which I am definitely going to be trying out.

A day at Market Kitchen

I met Matthew Fort today, and I did develop a bit of a (non-sexual, of course) crush on him during Great British Menu. He is absolutely lovely, and incredibly funny. Tom Parker-Bowles is also rather lovely, and Jeremy Lee is very, very camp but a great chef. I was filming for Market Kitchen, and while that deserves a post all in its own, it did re-ignite the foodie fire in me.

I really enjoyed meeting Rose Grimond, who has given up acting and has started a business supplying food from the Orkney Islands (http://www.orkneyrose.com/). She sells her produce at Borough, and we got so deep into conversation about Borough, its alliance with the wonderful Boqueria market in Barcelona, that she almost missed her queue to answer Matthew Ford's question.

Such a lovely day out!

Herring cake - ingredients

There seems to be great interest in the Herring cake, and while Christian and John spent hours making it unfortunately most of it was thrown out at the end of the night. First you cut the crusts off some good quality white bread. Arrange on a tray/dish. Start layering on a good deal of mayonaise. Layer up, adding prawns, bread, maynaise. Leave to settle and for the mayonaise to soak into the bread. Then add smoked salmon, gerkins, sliced raddish and caviar. It wasn't particularly appitising, to be honest.

Herring Cake or 'Sill Tårt'

Apparently this cake is traditionally eaten at Swedish Midsummer.

Chocolate covered strawberries.

Use one slab of Green & Blacks Dark chocolate per punnet. Melt the chocolate in a bain marie. Coat the strawberries in chocolate, once cooled, put in the fridge to set.

Roasting peppers

There's nothing quite as sweet as your own roasted peppers.