My Virgin Kitchen: Delicious recipes you can make every day

1. Make the horseradish sauce first so it can chill in the fridge. In a bowl combine the yoghurt, horseradish, lemon zest and juice plus a good pinch of salt and a grinding of pepper in a bowl. Mix until combined, taste and tweak until you’re happy, then keep in the fridge until you need it.

2. Now for the potatoes: push the grated potato through a colander to squeeze out as much liquid as you can. Tip from the colander on to sheets of kitchen paper and pat dry, then put into a bowl. Add the egg, flour and butter and stir well to completely coat. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Put some olive oil into a frying pan and warm over a medium heat. Using clean hands, shape some potato mixture into a typical burger-sized patty shape – you want to make them quite thin as they are not as delicate as you think. Put two or three into the pan and flatten slightly with a spatula to spread out. Cook for a couple of minutes until golden brown, then flip over and cook the other side. Remove and drain on kitchen paper while you repeat with the rest of the mixture, topping up the oil in the pan as needed.

4. Serve the rösti on a plate with a good dollop of the horseradish sauce on top, a strip of smoked salmon, a little grinding of black pepper and a few dill sprigs. Delicious.

VIRGIN TIP

It’s important to keep the rösti thin, otherwise the middle will still contain bits of uncooked potato.

SWEET POTATO & KALE HASH (#ulink_8e496433-6404-5f2a-8158-9de172f8ddfb)

I like recipes that provide maximum taste with minimum effort and this dish is that in a nutshell. It uses superfood sweet potato and turns it into a light hash with kale, shallots and cumin, all rounded off with a little hot sauce (add as much or as little as you like). I really think you’ll love this dish, especially when topped with a fried egg.

READY IN 20 MINUTES

MAKES 4

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into small chunks

3 tbsp olive oil

2 shallots, peeled and thinly sliced

4 handfuls of sweetcorn (frozen is fine)

2 tsp garlic granules

2 tsp cumin seeds

4 large handfuls of shredded kale, any thick stalks removed

4 eggs (optional)

2 avocados, sliced

1 lime, cut into wedges

1–2 dashes of hot sauce (optional)

salt and pepper

1. Fill a saucepan with water from a just-boiled kettle, add the sweet potato chunks and bring back to the boil. Simmer gently for around 7 minutes until softened, then drain and leave to steam dry.

2. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Tip the sweet potatoes into the hot pan with the shallots, sweetcorn, garlic granules, cumin seeds and kale. Toss to coat in the oil and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the veg is browned and toasty, about 10–15 minutes.

3. If you want to serve the hash with fried eggs, while the veg is cooking heat the remaining oil in another non-stick frying pan and fry the eggs until done the way you like them.

4. Tip the vegetables into four bowls and top each with a fried egg and some sliced avocado. Serve with lime wedges to squeeze over and a few dashes of hot sauce.

VIRGIN TIP

You can pad this out further by adding other vegetables – try some grated raw carrot for a different texture.

SESAME HALLOUMI BITES WITH SWEET PEPPER SAUCE (#ulink_644f2326-cbda-5841-8249-419fcafcf817)

Halloumi is such a versatile cheese and works with lots of different flavours. In this recipe cubes are coated in a layer of golden sesame seeds and fried, then served with a mild sweet pepper dip. A perfect starter – although you could also serve as a party snack.

READY IN 20 MINUTES

SERVES 4

100g sesame seeds

1 egg, beaten

25g plain flour

250g block halloumi cheese, cut into about 16 small squares

vegetable oil, for frying

pepper

FOR THE SWEET PEPPER SAUCE

1 large red pepper, deseeded and roughly chopped

3 garlic cloves, peeled

100g caster sugar

50ml distilled malt vinegar

1 tbsp cornflour, mixed to a paste with 2½ tbsp water

1. Start with the sweet pepper sauce. Put the red pepper, garlic, sugar and vinegar into a mini food processor with 180ml water. Whizz for 30 seconds or so to combine fully; it should look like a thin chilli sauce and the sugar should be fully dissolved.

2. Pour this mixture into a small saucepan, place over a low heat and bring to a simmer (this won’t take long due to the sugar content). Add the cornflour paste and stir through over a low simmer. After a few minutes, it should be noticeably thicker. Remove from the heat, pour into a jar to cool and set aside.

3. Put the sesame seeds, beaten egg and flour into separate, shallow bowls. Season the flour with a little freshly ground black pepper. Take a cube of halloumi and roll in the flour to coat, then dunk in the beaten egg. Next roll the egg-coated cube in the sesame seeds to fully coat it. You can always dunk again if you want a better coating. Repeat this step with the other cheese cubes and leave them to one side. Use one hand for the whole process – makes it a lot cleaner!

4. Pour enough vegetable oil into a small saucepan to come at least a third of the way up the sides and place over a medium-high heat. You want it hot enough that a small piece of bread sizzles when placed in the oil, but not so hot that it browns the cubes too quickly, so adjust the temperature as you go. Fry in small batches until golden brown, resting on kitchen paper as you remove them carefully from the oil.

5. Serve with cocktail sticks so you can dunk the bites in the sweet pepper dip.

VIRGIN TIP