Chicken and cucumber salad with pul biber and tahini lime dressing

Anyone who is a fan of Sabrina Ghayour will be thrilled that there's a successor to her best-selling book Persiana. Actually there have been several but this one relates back directly with a collection of easy, but supremely tasty family-friendly recipes.

This is for anyone who loves a chicken salad which certainly includes me.

Sabrina writes: "Although I love salads, for me they need to have bags of flavour and tick many boxes. Fresh, zingy, crunchy, sometimes sweet and spicy – I always need a salad to be a filling meal in its own right.

This stunner using leftover chicken is a nod to chicken satay salads but using the Middle Eastern staples of tahini and cucumber, and we Persians have an unhealthy obsession with cucumber!

It really is refreshing and full of flavour – perfect for sharing, or not…

SERVES 2–4

1 large cucumber, peeled and cut into thin batons or strips using a vegetable peeler

2 cooked chicken breasts, shredded (or use chicken thigh or leg meat)

3 spring onions, thinly sliced diagonally from root to tip

1 teaspoon pul biber chilli flakes

handful of salted peanuts or cashew nuts

handful of fresh coriander leaves

Maldon sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper

For the dressing

1 heaped tablespoon tahini

juice of 1 lime

1 tablespoon light soy sauce

1 heaped teaspoon clear honey

Arrange the cucumber, chicken and spring onions on a large platter and season with a little salt and pepper.

Mix all the dressing ingredients together in a small bowl and drizzle over the salad.

Sprinkle with the pul biber, scatter over the nuts and coriander leaves and serve. This needs no accompaniment.

What to drink: I'd probably go for an off-dry white like a pinot gris or riesling with this. Or a viognier FB

Persiana Everyday by Sabrina Ghayour is published by Aster (£26). Photography by Kris Kirkham

How to cook grouse

You might be daunted at the idea of cooking grouse but it's a great treat for a small dinner party.

If you haven't cooked it before try this reassuringly simple recipe from chef Stephen Markwick with whom I collaborated on his book A Well-Run Kitchen

Roast grouse ‘traditional style’

Once the first grouse arrive this means my favourite time of year from a cooking point of view is just around the corner. I find it hard to decide whether grouse or mallard (for which there is a recipe in

A Very Honest Cook) is my favourite bird but there is undoubtedly something very special about grouse. We serve it 'traditional style' - on a croute spread with its own cooked liver, bread sauce, crab apple or redcurrant jelly, game chips and a little gravy and it is absolutely delicious.

For the restaurant we buy the grouse ‘long legged’ which means they are plucked but not drawn. This determines the gaminess of the bird as the flavour develops if the guts are left in. You might not want to do this and it is easy to buy the birds oven-ready but do have the liver too!

Serves 4:
Ingredients
4 grouse (1 per person) including their livers
4 sprigs thyme
75g (3oz) butter
6 rashers of streaky bacon (1.5 each)
50ml (2 fl oz) dry sherry
300ml (1/2 pint) well-flavoured meat or game stock
Salt and pepper

For the bread sauce:
425ml (3/4 pint) milk
half an onion, roughly chopped
4 cloves
1 bayleaf
110g (4oz) fresh breadcrumbs
50g (2oz) butter
1 tbsp double cream
salt, pepper and nutmeg

For the game chips:
3-4 good size Maris Piper potatoes
salt

To serve
1 bunch of watercress for garnish
4 slices of white bread for the croutes (remove the crusts and cut the bread into a square or circle)
Crab apple jelly or redcurrant jelly

Method
Like most roasts that come with their own special accompaniments the order you cook things is key. The grouse itself doesn’t take long so you can get ahead by making the bread sauce and game chips in advance (see below) and part-cooking any vegetables. (We like to serve it with red cabbage).

To cook the grouse preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas 6. Put a roasting tin in the oven to heat, ready to take the grouse. Season the birds well inside and out with salt and pepper and place a sprig of thyme and a knob of butter in the cavity of each bird.

I like to start cooking the grouse in a frying pan on top of the stove: heat the pan, add a tablespoon of oil and a good slice of butter. Brown well on all sides before turning the birds breast side upwards and covering them with the streaky bacon.

Smear some more butter over the bacon, place in the hot roasting tin and put the tin in the pre-heated oven. Cook for approximately 12-15 minutes basting with the butter at least twice during that time. (If you don’t want to brown the bird first you can just put it straight in the oven but allow another 10 minutes cooking time.)

Grouse should be served rare. You can tell whether they are cooked by presssing the breasts with your finger. They should be springy. If they’re too soft, cook for a couple of minutes more.

It is very important to rest the birds in a warm place for 10 minutes before serving as it lets the meat relax and the juices set.

While the grouse are resting deglaze the roasting tin with the sherry and good quality stock and reduce to a rich gravy.

Fry the croutes in the butter you used to roast the birds. The livers can be fried in this too. (In the restaurant I tend to do this in advance, having chopped the liver first, then I mix it with a little chicken liver pat because the flavour of grouse liver can be quite strong.)

To serve: Put the grouse back in the oven for a minute to warm up. Spread your croutes with the liver paste and put one on each plate. Sit the grouse on top. Garnish with lots of watercress and serve the other accompaniments in separate dishes.

Bread sauce
Heat the milk gently with the chopped onion, cloves, bay leaf, salt and pepper. Once it is at simmering point (but not boiling) take off the heat, cover with cling film and leave to stand for half to three quarters of an hour to infuse the flavours. Strain the milk into another pan, place it over a low heat and whisk in the breadcrumbs. Add the butter, check the seasoning and add a little grated nutmeg and a dash of cream.

Game chips
You might just prefer to buy good quality crisps but in the restaurant I make my own! You need a good chipping potato like Maris Piper. Peel them, slice thinly on a mandolin and rinse well in cold water. Dry with a tea towel before cooking in batches in hot oil (160°C-170°C). Move the crisps around constantly while you fry them. They should take 3-4 minutes. Once they’re golden lift them out with a slotted spoon, drain them on kitchen paper and sprinkle lightly with salt.

What to drink: Red burgundy is the traditional match for grouse but there are of course other options. See my latest thoughts here

Breadcrumbed Tomatoes Baked in Cream with Fried Chicken

There are so many recipes I want to make from Claire Thomson's brilliant new book Tomato but this decadent dish of breadcrumbed tomatoes baked in cream with fried chicken, as if you could make it any better, heads the list.

Claire writes "If you are going to go to the trouble of flouring, egging and breadcrumbing an ingredient – or pane, to use the French term – I feel that you might as well get your hands really dirty and process a whole lot.

In this case that means the tomatoes and the chicken, then going one step further and drenching the tomatoes in cream and mustard and baking them as a gratin until bubbling and blistering to serve alongside the fried chicken. A green salad, dressed simply, or some boiled green beans, might be a good serving suggestion.

SERVES 4

2 large, skinless chicken breasts, cut horizontally to about 2cm (3/4in) thick, or 4 boneless and skinless thighs

100ml (3½fl oz) double (heavy) cream

1 small garlic clove, finely chopped

3 thyme or rosemary sprigs, leaves picked and finely chopped

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

5 tablespoons plain (all-purpose) flour

300g (10½oz) panko breadcrumbs (or any other dried breadcrumbs)

3 eggs

500g (1lb 2oz) tomatoes, thickly sliced

6 tablespoons olive oil

30g (1oz) Parmesan, grated (shredded)

30g (1oz) butter

salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 lemon, cut into wedges, to serve

1. Using a meat mallet or rolling pin, flatten the chicken breasts out between 2 sheets of baking paper until they are an even 5mm (1/4in) thick. Put to one side.

2. Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/400°F/Gas 6.

3. In a bowl or jug mix, together the cream, garlic, herbs and mustard and season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Put to one side.

4. Tip the flour into a wide, shallow bowl and the breadcrumbs into another. In a third bowl, beat the eggs with 2 tablespoons of water.

5. Season the tomatoes with salt and pepper, then dredge them in the flour, tapping off any excess. Dip them into the egg and then coat them in the breadcrumbs and put to one side.

6. Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper, then dredge them in the flour, tapping off any excess. Dip the floured chicken pieces in the egg and then coat them with the breadcrumbs. Transfer the pieces to a plate and refrigerate until you’re ready to cook.

7. Heat half the oil in a large frying pan over a high heat. Working in batches, fry the tomatoes for 1–2 minutes on each side, until golden all over. Slide the fried tomatoes out into a baking dish and pour over the cream mixture. Sprinkle with the Parmesan and bake the tomatoes for about 10–15 minutes, until golden and bubbling. Remove from the oven and keep warm.

8. While the tomato gratin is baking, heat the remaining oil and half the butter in a large frying pan over a high heat. When the mixture begins to bubble and foam, add the coated chicken pieces and cook them over a high–moderate heat for about 3 minutes on each side, until crisp and golden and cooked through. Take care not to let the butter burn. If it starts to look like it might, add more to the pan, which should help prevent it turning completely. Remove the pan from the heat and drain thechicken pieces on kitchen paper.

9. Serve the chicken pieces whole, or cut in half or into thick strips, with the tomato gratin alongside and lemon wedges for squeezing over.

What to drink: I always llke a sparkling wine with fried chicken so I'd be tempted by a crémant or an English sparkling wine, maybe. But with those creamy tomatoes a lightly oaked chardonnay such as a Chablis would be good too. Or a Gavi di Gavi

Extracted from TOMATO by Claire Thomson (Quadrille, £22) Photography: Sam Folan. For a couple of Claire's other recipes see Rosemary and Chilli Panisse, and Quinoa fritters with green goddess sauce.

Gill Meller's raised pork, chicken and parsley pie

If you fancy a cooking project this weekend Gill Meller's raised pork, chicken and parsley pie from his new book Outside would be perfect.

Gill writes: There are two pleasures here. The first is pie making. The second, pie eating.

Pie making is the kind of cookery you settle into, like a good book, so give yourself time. Each stage of the recipe is a chapter, in a sense, and the finished pie, cooling on the sideboard, is the last page, the conclusion.

Eating the pie, particularly this pie, is equally enjoyable. You are like an architect at this point, stepping back and admiring your work, although in this case you get to eat your own building. A big pie like this needs to be made the day before your picnic – it gives everything time to cool and find its place.

SERVES 8

‘For the hot water crust pastry

200g (7oz) pork lard

500g (1lb 2oz) plain (all-purpose)

flour, plus extra for dusting

½ teaspoon sea salt

2 eggs

For the filling

1.5–2kg (3lb 5oz–4lb 8oz) organic

or free-range chicken, preferably with giblets

350g (12oz) fatty pork belly, cubed

200g (7oz) bacon lardons or chopped streaky bacon

a large handful of flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked and chopped

a handful of chives, finely sliced

1 teaspoon ground white pepper

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

a good pinch of grated nutmeg

1 teaspoon sea salt

You’ll need an 18–20cm diameter by 7–9cm (7–8in x 2¾–3½in) deep pie dish or cake tin.

To make the pastry, put the lard and 170ml (5½fl oz) of water into a pan and warm them over a low heat until the fat has melted and the mixture is warm – it doesn’t have to boil.

Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl, combine the flour with the salt. Crack one of the eggs into a bowl and beat it lightly.

Pour the lard and water mixture into the flour. Add the beaten egg and bring everything together to form a dough. Gather up the dough and place it on a work surface. Fold the pastry four or five times until smooth.

Allow the pastry to cool in the fridge. It’ll be much easier to work with if it’s not warm.

While the pastry is chilling, make the pie filling. Place the chicken on a board. Remove the giblets from the cavity.

Use a sharp knife to remove each leg from the bird. Divide the drumsticks from the thighs. Carefully remove the chicken breasts. Try not to leave any meat on the carcass. Remove the skin from the legs and breasts – you can save this and all the chicken bones for making a delicious stock.

Cut the leg and thigh meat away from the bones and place it in a bowl with the cubed fatty pork belly and the lardons or chopped bacon. Trim the chicken liver and heart and add this to the other meats.

Give everything a good mix, then put it through a mincer. Or, if you don’t have a mincer, chop the meat to a relatively fine consistency by hand. (This can take time but it’s worth the effort.) Place the minced chicken and pork back into a large bowl and add the parsley and chives, along with the ground white and black pepper, nutmeg and salt.

Cut the chicken breasts into 2–3cm (3⁄4–1.in) cubes and add this to the minced pork and chicken, too. Carefully turn the chunks of chicken through the minced pork, herbs and seasoning so everything’s really well mixed and evenly distributed. Cover and refrigerate until needed.

Heat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/350°F/Gas 4.

Set aside a quarter of the pastry for the pie lid. Form the remaining three-quarters into a round and, on a floured surface, roll it out into a circle, roughly 35cm (14in) in diameter. Lay the pastry in the pie dish, carefully bringing it up the sides and smoothing out any pleats (of which there will be many) as you go, to make the pie case. Leave a very slight overhang of pastry all round.

Fill the lined tin with the chicken and pork mixture, making sure you don’t leave any unfilled gaps. Don’t worry if it doesn’t come all the way to the top of the pie dish; it’s fine.

Roll out the smaller portion of pastry for the pie lid. It should have the same diameter as the pie dish itself.

Crack the remaining egg into a bowl and beat it to make a glaze. Use a pastry brush to brush the rim of the pastry with a little beaten egg. Carefully ease the lid into place and crimp the edges together in a tight, neat fashion. You’ll have to trim any overhanging edges back to the crimped seam at this point. Use the tip of a knife to make a small hole in the middle of the lid.

Set the pie in the middle of the oven and bake it for 20 minutes, then lower the oven setting to 160°C/140°C fan/315°F/Gas 2–3. Brush the top of the pie all over with beaten egg and return it to the oven for a further 1 hour 10 minutes, until the pastry is crisp and golden and the filling is cooked through. Remove the pie from the oven and allow it to cool, then refrigerate it for 6–8 hours or overnight before slicing and eating.

What to drink: I actually think a pale or golden ale or a medium dry cider would be perfect with this dish but if you fancy a glass of wine a light red like a Beaujolais would also work well.

Extracted from OUTSIDE: Recipes for a Wilder Way of Eating by Gill Meller (Quadrille, £30) Photography: Andrew Montgomery