x For Freezer x

I have completely bastardised lamb rendang, and man, did it work. I use 75% less red meat than the traditional recipe and lob in lots of aubergine and gojis. Goji berries look like teensy chillies in the rendang and will scare the bejaysus out of your housemates. Small pleasures in tough times.

These teensy gnarled berries hide most of their beauty. Gram for gram, one serving of goji berries can deliver more vitamin C than those egotistical oranges. Gojis are a good plant source of iron and protein too. As a tonic, they’ve been central to Tibetan and Chinese medicine for over a thousand years. This berry’s immune-boosting reputation might stem from its specific polysaccharide permutation, just like mushrooms. Polysaccharides apparently work by influencing our immune response by stimulating certain ‘fighter’ cells. Fancy shmancy. But science is rarely that simple. Perhaps its impressive stash of antioxidants is responsible for all the hype? Nutritional yah-yah aside, I love their flavour in this dish. That’s good enough reason for me!

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Serves 8 with rice

2 brown onions, chopped

5 tablespoons extra virgin coconut oil or ghee

600g lamb chunks, preferably shoulder

6 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 fresh chilli, deseeded and chopped

2 stalks of lemongrass, white part only, finely chopped

2 fingers of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped

2 tablespoons black or yellow mustard seeds

1 tablespoon coriander seeds

2 teaspoons ground turmeric (or grated fresh root)

A good few turns of the salt and pepper mill

1 x 400ml tin full-fat coconut milk

Generous handful of dried goji berries

4 large aubergines

Fresh coriander, to garnish

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Start by sweating the onions on a gentle heat with 1 tablespoon of the coconut oil or ghee until glassy (5–10 minutes). Add the lamb, garlic, chilli, lemongrass, ginger, spices and a few twists from the salt and pepper mill. No need to brown the lamb first. Whack up the heat for a few minutes to briefly sizzle and colour everything, then pour in the coconut milk and turn down to a putt-putter. I use the lowest setting on my cooker. It needs 2–3 hours over a low-medium heat on the hob with a lid securely fastened. Any higher and the lamb will toughen. Taste after 2 hours and see if the lamb has collapsed enough or needs longer in the pot. It should be juicy and flavoursome, not tough. Give it more time if required.

Remove the lid for the final 20–30 minutes of cooking and parachute the goji berries into the mix. This will add sweetness and nutrition while concentrating the flavours. Rendang is best when it’s strong and punchy rather than soupy or saucy.

About the same time as you are adding the gojis, fire up your oven to 220C and slice the aubergines into thick discs, then into quarters. Divide between two roasting trays. Service each tray with the remaining coconut oil or ghee and roast in the oven for 30 minutes, until soft and caramelised.

Once the aubergines are roasted, stir them through the rendang, tickle with fresh coriander leaves. Sticky black rice is a fabulous accompaniment if you want the rendang to stretch to eight mouths. We also love chickpea poppadoms and pickled red onion on the side.

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I’m freezing all my dressings now in an easy ice cube tray (see image below), making cabin fever practically enjoyable. Instead of lolloping to the shops with disproportionate urgency and an over-zealous face mask (I own a balaclava), now I just grab a frozen dressing and leave it to defrost within minutes.

These little flavour grenades are perfect on top of plain soups, rice, fish, toast, waffles, eggs, roasted veg or despondent-looking salads. No mess. No washing up. Just yumdingers in an ice cube, and less reason to go outside and shop.

All 4 recipes come from the Freezer Dressings chapter in Clever Batch cookbook, which I’m not supposed to be sharing with you for copyright reasons. But my publisher (hi Gill!) will understand I’m sure, given the current state of chasis we find ourselves in, and the drive to stay at home and out of the neighbourhood stores.

No freezer? No problem. They’ll store beautifully for up to two weeks in a fridge. Some light relief for the cabin fever.

Nori Paste

Ocean vegetables are the biggest thing since Ron Burgundy’s sideburns. Calling them ocean veg is, of course, Oprah-fied. Here in Ireland we call them seaweed (but I’m with Oprah on this one – ocean veg sounds like a sultry Billie Eilish song rather than a slimy sea weed).

Nori, and its brothers and sisters in the world of ocean veg, can deliver a cargo of calcium for strong bones. Go nori! Not worried about your bones? You should be, especially if you’re female. One in four Irish women will suffer an osteoporotic fracture in their lifetime. That number jumps to one in every two women over fifty. Jeesh.

10 sheets of nori (an ocean veg, and a sort of sushi paper)

1-2 tablespoons maple syrup

1–2 tablespoons brown rice vinegar (or a squirt of lemon in a pinch)

1 tablespoon soya sauce

Up to 150ml water

Using a scissors, roughly chomp the nori sheets into bite-sized pieces. Migrate to a saucepan and add maple syrup, some brown rice vinegar and the soya sauce. If you are coeliac, you can find wheat-free soya sauce, called tamari. Leave everything to chillax for 20 minutes.

Add the water and cook on a gentle heat. Remove from the heat after 10 minutes or when the nori collapses into a paste.

Store in an airtight jar once cooled and keep for up to seven days in the fridge. Indecently tasty stuff.

Chimichurri

In truth, a forgotten dishcloth would taste good in chimichurri. Serve with fried eggs, falafel, meat, fish, hummus, roasted veg. Anything, actually.

1 red onion, finely diced

4 garlic cloves, crushed

1 fresh green chilli, deseeded and diced (optional)

2 bunches of fresh parsley, roughly chopped

125ml extra virgin olive oil

1 lemon, juiced

4 tablespoons sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar

2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh oregano or thyme

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I prefer stirring all the ingredients together. You can, of course, use a food processor to break it all up and marry the flavours, but the end result looks different – greener and thicker than if you were to stir the listed ingredients separately.

Mizzle over plain veg or excite an unsuspecting bowl of rice.

Harissa Butter

One blast of this butter will have you trotting like a fiery showhorse. There is electrifying happiness to be found inside cayenne pepper. It’s not simply the heat hot-wiring your dimples. It is, in fact, the active compounds within the pepper that tickle our feel-good endorphins (essential fodder for cabin fever, noh?)

Special Agent Capsaicin is responsible for this biochemical effect. Surprisingly, capsaicin’s real prowess does not lie within its antioxidant taekwondo moves. Capsaicin is a brilliant agitator. As we freak out to cope with the blaze of a hot chilli, for example, our body releases an armada of natural painkillers in direct response to the capsaicin content. These endorphins canter through our bloodstream like nectar in our veins. Is it any wonder why a Friday night Thai curry is so damn popular?

1 tablespoon coriander seeds

1 tablespoon cumin seeds

1 tablespoon caraway seeds

1 garlic clove, peeled

6 tablespoons butter or ghee, softened

1 tablespoon ground paprika

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Squeeze of lemon

Pinch of fine sea salt

Pinch of chipotle chilli or cayenne pepper or chilli powder

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Fire up a frying pan and dry-toast the coriander, cumin and caraway seeds until your nostrils start to party. Stir continuously with a wooden spoon to avoid scorching.

Transfer to a pestle and mortar or a coffee grinder and pulverise to a powder. Now beat in the remaining ingredients.

Spoon into a silicone ice cube tray, freeze until firm and pop into a marked freezer bag. It’s a thing of beauty.

When the mood beckons, pop a frozen cube of harissa butter on top of toast with eggs or you can snazzjazzle a boring soup.

White Miso and Garlic Butter

Hot melted butter, smashed garlic and a few teaspoons of sweet white miso paste will transform any tired vegetable into a sultan of seduction. Hell, even a tired flip-flop would taste damn good with this!

3 tablespoons ghee or butter

1 tablespoon white miso paste

1 garlic clove, crushed

Gently warm your ghee or butter until it’s runny. Whisk in your miso paste and crushed garlic. Mizzle over veg or crisp Cos leaves.

Sending love and hope to you all. This week has been explosively confusing yet clear and cogent. My brain and heart feel overwhelmed.

During stressful times, my body always yearns to cook and nourish. There is magic in the kitchen. The familiar scents wafting through our home; the singsong of spices morphing into an opera; the alchemy of turning raw ingredients into belly-bombing deliciousness.

May you find comfort too.

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Enough for 10

450g smoked tofu or good-quality cooking chorizo such as Gubbeen

Splash of extra virgin olive oil

300g sliced leeks

2 large white onions, diced

1-2 tablespoons chopped garlic

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

6 red peppers (use jarred if cocooning from CoVid!)

2 x 400g tins of chickpeas (reserve some of the liquid from the tins)

2 x 680g jars of passata tomato sauce

60g fresh flat-leaf parsley, stalks and leaves chopped (optional)

A few twists of the salt and pepper mill

Squeeze of lemon

Natural yogurt or cultured cream, to serve

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1. If you’re using fresh red peppers, start by firing up your oven to 220C.

2. Slice your cooking chorizo into bite-sized rounds (not too thin, but not too chunky either). If you’re using smoked tofu, add it alongside the chickpeas at a later stage.

3. Using the largest heavy-based pot you have, warm it over a medium heat, then add the chorizo and colour it all over (chorizo can burn very quickly, so keep a watchful eye). You’ll need to do this in two batches to stop the pan from overcrowding and stewing the meat. Depending on your pan, you may benefit from a lick of olive oil to help the process along. The natural fat melting away from the chorizo is usually enough. Once coloured, set the chorizo aside on a large plate.

4. Using the same heavy-based pot, sauté the leeks in the residual fat (no leeks? No problem. Use extra onion). Give these 10 minutes. Once the leeks are soft, tip them onto the resting plate of chorizo and leave aside.

5. Now add the onions and cumin to the heavy-based pot. You may or may not need another lick of olive oil. Sauté until soft (another 10 minutes). Stir through your garlic 2 minutes before the end of the cooking time. Garlic cooks swiftly compared to onions.

6. While the vegetables sweat in the pan, cut your peppers into strips. Tumble with a splash of olive oil and roast on a large baking tray (or two medium trays) in your preheated oven for 20–25 minutes. You’re looking for the peppers to be slightly charred at the sides (use jarred red peppers if avoiding shops right now – these have the benefit of already bring cooked!).

7. As soon as your onions are done, parachute in your tinned chickpeas along with a bit of the liquid from the tin, the medley of cooked chorizo/tofu and veg, your roasted (or jarred) peppers, both jars of passata and the freshly chopped parsley. If you’re using smoked tofu sausage in place of chorizo, add it now. Cook over a low to medium heat for 30 minutes so that the flavours fraternise.

8. Taste, season and lift with lemon. Allow to cool fully before storing in individual portions designated for the freezer. We love serving ours with a blob of yogurt and some crusty bread on the side. A poached egg is also ace with fried sourdough crumbs or simple boiled potatoes.