What they did was shred and finely chop some lovely greens and chuck em in a big jar of olive oil. The ceramic jar would shield the oil from the sun and any staleness would be masked by the fragrant herbs. In return, the oil would keep the herbs from wilting down to nothing and losing all their flavour and aroma.

As you may have guessed, a jar like that would practically have been worth its weight in gold on a long ocean journey. Imagine having to eat mouldy bread or ship’s biscuits every single day without something nice to dip it into! Heck, you could even make a seaweed salad taste yummy with some good flavoured oil.

No wonder then that the jar found in this 2400-year-old shipwreck was almost empty. The amphora containing the salad dressing was found together with one holding some sort of Retsina. Alas, the bucket of seaweed that would have gone with all that was sadly lost — as was the recipe.

Note: scientists are reported to be extracting DNA from the jars’ contents. As soon as they come up with the full recipe of the dressing, we will let you know a.s.a.p.

Hat tip to earlpearl for the heads-up.

This recipe is so easy, you’re gonna slap yourself for not having tried it before. First of all, get 3 different types of melon. Best if they have different colours of course. The yellow Honeydew – for example — has green meat, the elongated Santa Claus has white meat and Canteloupe or Charentais melons have orange meat.

You can use half or even a quarter of each and cover the remaining bits with clingfilm, for later. Keep in the fridge in a closed bag or container. Anyway, cut the melons into bite-sized chunks and gently toss em into a nice bowl.

Next, shred a handful of thinly sliced smoked ham and carefully mix with the melon. Finally, add freshly ground black pepper to taste. That’s it. Nothing more to it but digging in.

Tip: make it half an hour before you’re gonna eat it, and chill the salad in the fridge. Have a glass of wine with it if you will.

Coat 8 small anglerfish fillets (50g or 2oz each) in vegetable oil. Heat a griddle pan and grill the fillets for one minute on both sides. For a pretty chequered effect: rotate the fish 90 degrees when halfway. By the way, any firm fish like regular monkfish would do, but anglerfish (or goosefish) is best.

Quarter 80g of mushrooms, peel and finely dice 2 shallots, chop 2 spring onions. Cook all this in a non-stick pan using a tiny bit of oil or butter until almost soft. Make it “al dente” just like a perfect pasta. Then take the pan off the heat and add 2 tbsp. of balsamic vinegar. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Remove the woody bits of 12 green asparagus and peel the stems if needed. Boil them in salted water until you can stick a fork in without much effort. In the mean time, wash a good amount of cos lettuce and arrange the leaves on the plates. Add some curly lettuce for a bit of punch. I’d suggest rocket, but I won’t

Toss the mushroom mix onto a plate so you can use the pan for the quail eggs. Again, use as little oil or butter as possible and fry 4 quail eggs until the white has set and the yolk is still golden and wobbly. Put the mushroom mix on top of the leaves and asparagus, then add 2 fillets of fish per person, and top it off with the fried egg. If you’re really hungry, you could add a strip of crispy bacon to boot.

Terrines can be made of salmon (which is nice) or – again – liver (which I don’t like at all) but on this occasion I’ve chosen chicken and eggs. Makes sense really, because we’re getting close to Easter at the moment. Mind you, this recipe requires no gelatine whatsoever.

Boil 3 eggs for up to 10 minutes, “scare” them in cold water so they are easier to peel. Keep them whole. In the mean time, peel and finely dice a small onion. Heat some oil and soften the onion for about 5 minutes without really browning it. Leave to cool. Coarsely chop about 3 sprigs of parsley (or some other subtle fresh herb) and remove the crust of 4 slices of white bread.

Pre-heat the oven to 185 degrees Celsius or a bit less if you’re using a fan oven. Use a blender to chop 150g of grilled ham and 600g of chicken breast, together with the onion, parsley and bread. Also add a teaspoon of thyme leaves, some salt and pepper and 2 more (raw) eggs. Blend until smooth.

Line a cake tin with greaseproof paper. Scoop a little more than half of the chicken mixture in. Place those three hardboiled eggs on top, then add the rest of the chicken. Carefully try and remove all the air bubbles. Smoothen the top and cover it up with more greaseproof paper so it won’t dry out.

Half-fill a baking tray with boiling water (from the kettle), place the cake tin in the centre and put the tray in the middle of the now hot oven. Bake the terrine for about 50 minutes. Leave to cool and chill for several hours in the fridge, so you can slice the terrine quite finely. Very nice when added to a salad of cucumber and garden cress and maybe some grated mild cheese. Experiment with shavings of truffle instead of cheese if you want to turn it into something posh again for the Easter lunch party…

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The (raw, defrosted) prawns need to be shelled, then slit down the back. You’ll need at least a dozen big prawns to satisfy two people, a bit less maybe if you’re on your own. Make sure you wash your hands, even if you are a bloke

Next, bung a little cup of sour cream or natural yogurt into a bowl and add some powdered spices. My suggestion: salt, cayenne, laos and garlic at the very least. Mix in the shelled prawns and leave for 20 minutes. Put it back into the fridge if you’re gonna leave it for longer.

While you’re waiting, put one or two rolls of bake-off bread in the oven to crisp up. Alternatively, you could make some toast the Italian way by slicing some bread, rubbing it with oil or butter and grilling that in a hot pan. Cut the bread into strips.

Now heat up a griddle pan with some oil and/or butter and fry the shrimp for about 6 minutes (depending on their size). Make sure you’ve shaken off the excess sour cream marinade and turn them over regularly. When ready, let them cool a bit in a nice little bowl.

Now add your strips of bread and a little handful of greens. The picture is showing some field lettuce and chives. Put the greens on top of the shrimp/prawns so it looks like there’s a lot of them. No need for dressing if you’ve left the shrimp a bit greasy.

Add some extra seasoning if needed, like paprika and rock salt and dip in. No need to use a fork eh…. After all, this is a proper blokes’ salad.

This recipe was inspired by the BBC cookery show Saturday Kitchen, but alas the online BBC recipe is not all that accurate. Furthermore, since we’re all pressed for time, the recipe needs a couple of shortcuts. The basic idea remains the same whichever variant you choose, though: raw onion, some greens, spices and chick pea batter.

I opted for an oriental variant of the original recipe. So instead of white ones I picked two red onions and sliced them quite finely into half rings. Then I ditched the spinach and went for a handful of fresh coriander. Word of warning: coriander has a peculiar soapy taste — don’t overdo it or it will overpower everything. Chop it quite finely.

Of course I couldn’t be bothered to roast my spices and ground them using a pestle and mortar. I’m sure like that it would taste even better, but instead I consulted my collection of readily-ground spice containers and added powdered laos, turmeric, coriander seeds, cayenne and some salt. A teaspoon each… mix well. You could deseed and finely chop in a little chili pepper as well, but I left that out. Keep in mind that it will not be cooked through, so some people will feel set on fire by the chili.

Making the batter is really simple. Sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of chick pea flour or gram flour over the other ingredients. Then add a splash of cold water and mix. You only need enough batter to glue the ingredients together, but you can add as much as you like. A bit more batter will make the ball meatier and leave the vegetable ingredients a bit more moist and tender. Less batter will add to the rustic crisp that looks so great on a plate. It depends on what you want to achieve of course.

Heat a deep pan half-filled with sunflower or groundnut oil to about 170 degrees Celsius. Better yet: use an electric deep fat fryer. Temperature setting slightly below what you’d use for chips. Take golfball-sized scoops of the onion/batter mixture, give them a little squeeze so they won’t fall apart, and gently lower them into the hot fat or oil. They’ll only take a couple of minutes to cook through. Carefully lift them out as soon as they’re golden brown and use kitchen paper to soak up the excess oil. Let them cool a bit if you’re using them to embellish a salad, or else the heat will wilt the leaves.

PS: bhajis are just begging to be experimented with. As I said, the onion base could be made with any type of onion. One could even use another type of vegetable that can be cut into thin strips and eaten half-cooked. The complementary greens – again – can be replaced with anything you like. Be it spinach, coriander, watercress, basil, sage or even nettles (!). The same goes for the spices. Just pick the right combo to match your salad or main course: classic, oriental, italian, fusion, cajun, the possibilities are endless.

Start with chopping some leftover chicken breast. Preferably some that has been roasted with some light sesame oil, but any chicken breast is fine. You could of course use the ready-to-eat smoked variant, or even the sliced chicken normally used for sandwiches.

Next, roughly chop a handful of peeled walnuts into chucks. Add to the chicken and mix in a good pinch of salt if the chicken isn’t heavily seasoned already.

Now open a can of mandarin wedges and drain well. Really, I can’t be bothered to peel, pip and skin proper mandarins – and neither can my mum. Add them to the bowl and stir them in, but try not to break them up too much. Then add a decent splash of mandarin liquor to boot.

The mix should go slightly soggy and you should be able to mould it into little heaps. Get some leaves out and make a nice base and heap the chicken on top. Decorate the rim with halved cherry tomatoes.

Or better yet: go for iceberg lettuce or cos lettuce and use the largest leaves to make individual beds of green, each with a decent spoonful of the filling on top. Leave the cherry tomatoes whole and let people eat with their hands. Very useful for parties…
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Sure, it can be done. But there’s a better way. For starters, get rid of the smooth knife and get a serrated one. The finer the jaggies, the better. In fact: why not get the cheese knife out?

Cut the tomato in half and then start slicing. I sometimes make a deep slit (almost but not quite all the way down) across first, just so I don’t have to cut the slices into smaller chunks later. But if you want nice, clean, thin slices, there’s no better way than to use the cheese knife, just use a slight sawing motion and slice away at the half-tomato.

If you’re having trouble cutting up the very last bit, you’ll need to think ahead. Decide on which part of the tomato you’re gonna slice last. It can be the very end of the tomato – or in fact the middle section. The latter option is shown in the picture below. Make a couple of slits where your last cuts are going to end up, but take care not to cut all the way down.

Next, turn the tomato so you can slice away at it some more, and leave the pre-cut slits for last. You’ll find that it won’t buckle and warp as much, in comparison to a “plain” tomato. Try and experiment to find out what you prefer: leave the middle bit or the end bit for last.

Happy chopping.

P.S.: you can finely slice and chop an onion in roughly the same way, although you’ll probably need a heavier knife for that.

It really couldn’t be simpler. Get a pack of smoked chicken breast. It’s readily available at good supermarkets these days. The thing should be “cooked”, so it can be eaten cold – straight from the pack. Cut it lengthwise if it’s a big one, then cut into thin slices. Add to that a small tin of pineapple chunks (um… remove the tin and the juice). Then add a couple of handfuls of field salad, washed and drained of course.

Top it all off with a good mustard & honey dressing. From a bottle indeed. Again, you could make your own but I like the Calvé one a lot.

That’s it. Doesn’t need any more. If you’re feeling nutty, add a good sprinkling of chopped cashew or roasted pine nuts but it’s perfectly good without.
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