Irish cocoa

A 'naughty but nice' alternative to an Irish coffee to treat yourself to on St Patrick’s Day!

Makes 1 mug

2 level tsp cocoa powder
4 tbsp Bailey’s or other Irish cream liqueur
1 tbsp Kahlua or other coffee liqueur (optional, but good)
about 200ml semi-skimmed milk

Put the cocoa powder in a mug. Add the Baileys and Kahlua, if using, and whisk with a small hot-chocolate whisk (or stir vigorously, if you haven't got one). Top up with milk and whisk. Microwave for one minute, whisk again then microwave for a further 20-30 seconds until hot. Stir and serve.

* You can obviously make this with hot milk but because of the amount of cold liquid already in the mug it won’t be quite hot enough so I find it easier to make it a microwave.

Summer berries and pink Champagne sabayon

As far as I’m concerned, summer is no time to be serving hefty puddings. Take advantage, instead, of the brief season when berries are at their ripest – but make them special by adding a layer of gently foaming sabayon made with ros Champagne (or sparkling wine). As you only need to use a small amount of fizz to make the sabayon, you can always serve the rest of the bottle as an aperitif . . .

(serves 4)

500g mixed ripe berries (choose from strawberries, raspberries, blueberries or blackberries)
a scant teaspoon of rosewater
a sprinkling of caster sugar, if needed
3 large egg yolks
45g caster sugar
60ml pink Champagne (preferably at room temperature)

Halve the strawberries, or cut them into quarters if they’re really big. Tip them and the other berries into a mixing bowl.Sprinkle the rosewater on the berries (and a sprinkling of caster sugar is they’re not fully ripe) and mix gently but thoroughly.Spoon the berries into 4 small bowls or glass tumblers (to my mind, the glasses are the prettiest option because you get the full effect of the sabayon layered on top of the berries).

Bring about three or four inches of water to a simmer in a saucepan. Place the egg yolks, sugar and Champagne in a heatproof bowl that will sit comfortably on the rim of the saucepan (make sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t come into contact with the simmering water). Whisk the mixture until it becomes thick and glossy, falling from the beater in a slow ribbon. Remove the bowl from the saucepan and carry on whisking until the mixture has cooled slightly (the sides of the bowl should no longer feel hot). Spoon gently over the berries and serve.

Wine suggestion:
The Champenois would, of course, suggest that you serve the rest of the bottle of ros Champagne but to my mind you need a bit more sweetness to complement the dessert. On the other hand, a full-on dessert wine would swamp the relatively delicate flavours of the berries and sabayon.

The ideal match would be a bottle of the gently ptillant Stella Bella Pink Muscat 2006 (£6.99, Oddbins and www.everywine.co.uk) – its rose-and-berries flavours would harmonise beautifully with those of the pudding. If you can’t get hold of a bottle, Arione’s Moscato Spumante (£4.49, Waitrose) would be my second choice – and not a poor second at that.

Terrine Beaujolais

My favourite cookery book so far this year is the delightfully idiosyncratic Pork & Sons by Stephane Reynaud (25 Phaidon) the grandson of a butcher and the owner of Village 9 Trois in Paris. It's an unabashed homage to all things porcine but written and illustrated with a great deal of humour. (Don't miss the butchery lesson on p. 44-45 which shows one pig marking out where to make the cuts, cosmetic surgery-style, on another.)

It's full of good simple recipes, some classic, some contemporary and all beautifully photographed. Even if you don't need it you'll have to buy it.

Terrine Beaujolais

PREPARATION TIME: 30 MINUTES
COOKING TIME: 2 HOURS
STANDING TIME: 3 HOURS, PLUS 48 HOURS

MAKES 1.5 kg ( 3 1/4 lb)

500 g (1 lb 2 oz) pig’s liver
80 g ( 3 oz) smoked bacon
130 g (45 oz) pork fat
250 g (9 oz) pork shoulder
250 g (9 oz) boneless pork blade
6 garlic cloves, chopped
2 onions, chopped
500 ml (18 fl oz) Beaujolais wine
50 ml (2 fl oz) cognac or brandy
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
100 g ( 35 oz) pig’s caul fat
salt and pepper

Mince all the meat with the coarse blade of a mincer or in a food processor and place in a bowl. Add the garlic, onions, wine, cognac or brandy and nutmeg, season with salt and pepper and mix well until thoroughly combined.

Fill a terrine with this mixture and cover with caul fat. Leave in the refrigerator for 3 hours.

Preheat the oven to 180°C ( 350°F/Gas Mark 4).

Place the terrine in a roasting tin. Add boiling water to the tin to come about halfway up the sides of the terrine. Bake for 2 hours, until the top is well browned.

Leave the terrine to stand for 48 hours before serving.

How to make the perfect Caipirinha

A smart new Brazilian restaurant and cocktail bar, Mocoto, has opened in Knightsbridge, so I thought I’d go down and check out their Caipirinhas, which is to Brazil what the Margarita is to Mexico. And one of my very favourite cocktails.

I got the barman, Hindaugas, (Lithunian not Brazilian!) to take me through how he made them. The ingredients are dead simple: cachaa (pronounced ka-sharsa) a rum-like spirit made from sugar cane, limes and caster sugar. Cachaa can be a bit rough but theirs was the much-hyped Sagatiba (pronounced sagga-cheeba, which apparently means ‘never-ending story’. Hmmm). The limes they use are also special, very juicy and much more fragrant than the ones you find in supermarkets. (It would be worth sourcing them from a specialist fruit and vegetable shop)

First he halved the lime and made several vertical incisions through the skin without cutting right through the lime. He put both halves in a tumbler and added 2 good teaspoons of sugar then pounded it with a muddler ‘Not too much otherwise you’ll get too much bitterness from the skin’. He filled the tumbler with cracked ice (‘not crushed ice which melts too quickly’), poured in 2 shots of cachaa and stirred.

The crucial tip though was not to drink the Caipirinha straight away but to let it rest, stirring it a couple of times to melt the sugar and let the spirit pick up the flavour of the lime. The last bit of the drink is the best’ said Hindaugas. (Personally I thought it was pretty good all the way through.)

You can drink Caipirinhas with the same sort of snacks you’d eat with a Margarita, Daquiri or a Mojito - salsa fresca and tortilla chips, guacamole and empanadas (of which there is a Brazilian version at Mocoto) but I enjoyed the Pasteles de Palmito, little deep-fried pastries stuffed with palm hearts and cheese.

There’s also a rather swanky restaurant downstairs. A bit corporate but the food is really good. We shared a terrific crab gratin served with hot chilli-flavoured oil and a wedge of lime and then each had one of Brazil’s famous seafood stews, a Moqueca and a Vatapa, both based on shellfish and coconut though the Vatapa also contains dried shrimp and peanuts. They were spicy but not hot and went stunningly well with an exotically floral Torrontes, from a producer called Colom in Salta. I’ve always been at a bit at a loss as to what to pair with Torrontes, which I confess is not one of my favourite wines, but this was a good example and a great match.