STARTER

Winter root salad with a fiery peanut dressing

Serves 6

This recipe is dedicated to my friend Stevie P, who once made the most delicious green papaya salad that I had ever tasted when I went round to his boat which he moors on the Thames. The trick is to balance the flavours of the dressing - salty, sweet, sour, fiery; just keep testing as you make it and see how the tastes build up together to produce such a fantastic result. Note: If you have a vegetable mandolin grater, this salad will benefit enormously, just don't chop your fingers off.

Preparation time: 20-25 min

celeriac

2 carrots

1 large fennel bulb

1 pack of radish

2 parsnips

For the dressing

The juice of 3-4 limes (about 6 tbsp)

1 fat garlic clove, inner stalk removed

3-4 tbsp dark muscovado sugar, or better still, palm sugar

2-3 tbsp fish sauce

4 tbsp (about 40g) of roasted salted peanuts

1-2 Birdseye chillies, deseeded and diced (this dressing is hot!)

The roots from a bunch of coriander, or a handful of coriander leaves if you can't get the root

A handful of mint leaves

Peel the celeriac, carrots and parsnips and trim the outer leaves from the fennel. Top and tail the radish and reserve the tops for another supper (they are delicious sautéed in olive oil and munched on garlic toast for a cheap, healthy supper).

Finely slice all the vegetables with a very sharp knife or vegetable mandolin into strips, matchstick slithers or shavings. A variety of textures and shapes look fun, but the most important thing is to make sure that the pieces are very thin so you are not chomping through great thick chunks of vegetable but crunching delicately through mouthfuls of crisp pieces. Have a bowl of ice-cold water next to you, acidulated with the juice of half a lime, and slice the vegetables into the water as you go. This will keep the celeriac pearly-white and keep all the vegetables crisp until you want to use them so you can prepare them ahead.

To make the dressing, pound the peanuts as finely as you can in a heavy pestle and mortar. Add the garlic, sugar, coriander root and chillies until they turn into a paste, then add the fish sauce and lime juice. Mix thoroughly to combine.

Pile a handful of vegetable shavings on each plate, and then drizzle generously with the peanut sauce. Scatter liberally with roughly chopped mint and coriander. And there you will have a healthy, zesty, crunchy root salad packed full of vim and vigour, whetting the appetite for the next course.

MAIN COURSE

Miso Salmon (Up to 12 hours pre-soaking needed)

I love this marinade. I first had it on a piece of black cod at the hip Michelin- starred Japanese eatery Nobu many years ago and I was transfixed by the dark, treacly flavours of the fish. You don't need to spend a fortune to re-create this at home, and it's dead easy; just try to buy organic-farmed salmon, or, at the very least, Freedom-accredited farmed salmon, which doesn't impact negatively on the environment. In the summer you can go crazy and splash out on the wild stuff.

Preparation time: 5 min (but up to 12 hours of pre-soaking required)

Cooking time: 10 min

6 salmon fillets, about 120g each

For the marinade

160g white miso paste (found in the specialist section of most supermarkets)

130g demerara sugar

160ml sake (or, at a pinch 100ml of dry sherry)

In a bowl, whisk together all the ingredients for the miso marinade. Put the pieces of salmon in the marinade, preferably in the morning for that evening. Try not to leave the salmon in the marinade for longer than 12 hours though as the fish becomes hard from the salt in the miso. This is especially true if you are using wild salmon.

Before baking, take the fish out of the marinade and brush two baking sheets with a little vegetable oil.

Pre-heat the oven to 220C/400F/gas 6, with the baking sheets inside. Place the fillets skin side down on the hot trays. Bake for 6-8 minutes, or a little less if your fillets are thin. The flesh should still be a little pink in the middle. Remember that overcooking salmon ruins the gentle, soft flesh; it becomes tough and tasteless very quickly, so err on the side of caution - you can always put the fillets back in the oven for a minute if you think they need more time.

Serve this dish with winter greens (you can add your radish tops to them) and rice, and garnish with a generous sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds.

PUDDING

Orange cardamom jelly

This is a light and refreshing pudding that you can make the night before your party. It is glorious when blood oranges are in season in February and March, but in the meantime you can use the delicious oranges coming over from Spain and Morocco. If you want to push the boat out a bit, serve with lightly whipped double cream (it is delicious mixed with cardamom and a hint of sugar).

Prep time: 25 min

Setting time: 4 hours

Juice of 8-10 large oranges (about 75ml)

Zest and juice of 1 unwaxed lemon

3 tbsp caster sugar

8 bruised cardamom pods

6 tsps of gelatine/6 gelatine leaves

Segmented grapefruit, tangerine or orange to decorate

Peel a few strips of zest from the lemon, then squeeze the juice. Heat the orange juice, lemon juice, sugar, lemon zest and cardamom pods in a small saucepan, until almost boiling. Just before the juice begins to bubble, turn off the heat and cover with a lid. Leave for 20 minutes, allowing the flavour of the zest and cardamom pods to infuse into the juice.

I find gelatine leaves a lot easier to use in jelly making, but if you can't get hold of them follow the powdered gelatine instructions on the packet. For the gelatine leaves, soak them in cold water while the orange juice is marinating. When the juice is ready, lift the gelatine leaves out of the water, squeezing as much excess water out as possible.

Stir the leaves into the warm orange juice, making sure that they all dissolve. Strain the juice mix through a sieve to collect the cardamom pods and zest. Pour into a jelly mould or into individual glasses. Allow to cool, then cover and refrigerate for a few hours or until set. Serve with citrus segments and the cardamom cream.

Times Recommends

• Three recipes for Dover sole
• The perfect summer wine list
• Urban Farmer: courgette ideas