Fried rice cakes with leeks and poached egg

We're in a post-Paris slump at the moment, trying to forget how gorgeous the croissants were, and how hot and sunny it was.

This revived our spirits no end. You'll need:

enough cooked rice for 2 (we use a mugful of dried rice, and 2 mugfuls of water)
1/2 teaspoon of saffron powder
50-60g grated cheese (mature cheddar is good, feta or parmesan would also be nice)
a couple of leeks, sliced
250ml stock
50ml cream
a pinch of dried tarragon
3 eggs

Dissolve the saffron powder in a tablespoon of water, then mix into the cooked rice. Add the cheese, some salt and some black pepper. Bind all this together with 1 of the eggs.

Meanwhile, fry the leeks in a little olive oil for a couple of minutes. Add the stock, cream, tarragon and more black pepper, and leave to simmer for 10-15 minutes, until the leeks are soft, and the sauce has reduced.

Heat a little olive oil in a non-stick pan, and sling in a couple of good spoonfuls of rice - flatten it down with a spatula. It should be about 1cm thick, and maybe about 5-7cm across (it really depends on the size of the spatula/fish slice you're using to move it around in the pan!). Fry for at least 5 minutes on each side, so the rice goes crispy and lightly browned.

Transfer to a warm place, while you cook the other cakes. Top with the leeks and sauce, and a poached egg (crack an egg into a pan of boiling water, and leave to cook for about 1 1/2 minutes - or until the egg white has stopped being wobbly!). A fried egg would also be good - as would some chorizo.

Fish, spinach and rice parcel

This is a bit like the koulibiac recipe I've done before - except with a bit more veg. The parcel sounds rather sinister, but is actually made with puff pastry. Hurrah!

You'll need:

trout - a couple of fillets
200g (ish) cooked rice
1/3 bag of fresh spinach, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
1 lemon, zested
salt and black pepper
250g block puff pastry

Stick the oven on at about 200 degrees C, and get out a large baking tray.

First of all, fry your onion in a little olive oil until it turns translucent. Chuck into a large bowl, and mix in the cooked rice. Add the spinach, and mix until everything has turned green.

Cover the trout with cold water, and bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 minutes or so until the fish is poached, and has turned pink throughout. Remove from the water, flake and add to the spinach/rice mix. Season everything with the lemon zest, and a good screw of salt and black pepper.

Roll out your puff pastry into a long rectangle, and then put carefully on your lined/greased oven tray. Place the fish/rice/spinach mix in a line down the middle of the pastry. It'll be quite a big, fat line - carefully ease the pastry up on both sides, and pinch together at the top (if it doesn't stick, use a little water to wet it).

Sling the whole parcel/roll into the oven, and bake for 25-30 minutes. It's really nice with a green salad, and a wedge or two of lemon.

Butternut squash stuffed with fragrant rice and feta

You're not a fan of butternut squash at the moment, so you had bolognese and rice for tea. It was the first time you really got the hang of the whole knife and fork thing (mainly because your Dad explained it to you in terms of Thunderbirds rockets).

This makes enough for 2. You'll need:

1 large butternut squash
cooked rice (I used about a mugful of dried rice)
half a pack of feta cheese, cubed
a large handful of fresh flatleaf parsley, chopped
a large handful of fresh coriander, chopped
lots of black pepper

Stick the oven on at about 180 degrees C. First of all, you need to sort out your butternut squash - halve it, and scoop out (and discard) all the seeds and stringy stuff. An ice-cream scoop is quite handy for doing this bit.

Then you'll need to hack out a bit of the flesh (again, the scoop is quite useful for this), to give you room to stuff in the rice. Don't discard this - roast it in the oven, and shove it in some soup.

Drizzle a little olive oil into your butternut squash halves, and stick in the oven to roast for about 30 minutes.

In the meantime, tip the cooked rice into a large bowl, add the parsley, coriander, feta and lots of black pepper and mix well. This is the stuffing that's going to go in your squash.

After it's had 30 minutes in the oven (and the flesh is nicely softened), bring it out and stuff it with the rice mixture. Put it back in the oven again for another 20-30 minutes, until the rice has heated through, and any bits of feta peeking out the top have browned.

Decant onto a plate, and eat. You could have it as it is, but I ended up making a tomato sauce to go with it:

You could eat this as it is, but I made a tomato sauce to go with it. You'll need:

half a tin of tomatoes
a slosh or two of olive oil
a tablespoon balsamic vingegar
black pepper
a few flakes of dried chilli

Chuck half a tin of chopped tomatoes into a frying pan with a splash of olive oil and a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar. Add a little black pepper and a few chilli flakes, and bring to the boil. Simmer for 10 minutes or so, until it's reduced.

'Whatever's left in the fridge' fried rice

Your Dad made this today, to cheer himself up after a day of hacking and coughing.

You'll need:

an onion, finely chopped (the rest of the ingredients may change, but this is one thing that you really have to have)
a couple of peppers, chopped (different colours are nice)
a couple of carrots, chopped into small pieces
whatever odds and ends of meat-based things you can find - today we had a couple of rashers of bacon, a little bit of yesterday's roast chicken, and a couple of inches of chorizo to play with
rice
soy sauce
black pepper
an egg
hot sauce/mayonnaise to serve

First of all, sort out your rice. Stick it in a pan, with double the amount of cold water, and leave for about 12-15 minutes until all the water's been absorbed. Test it and make sure it's cooked - you may need to add a little extra water and give it another couple of minutes. Drain into a colander, and then run it under the cold tap to stop it cooking any further.

Then put your bacon (chopped up small) and chorizo (ditto) in a frying pan (you shouldn't need any oil with these two), and fry for 3-4 minutes. Add the onion, peppers and carrot, and cook until they've softened (this might take a little while for the carrot). Add in your chicken, and swish about until it's heated up. Do the same thing for the rice - at this point, you may need to add a little extra oil if it starts to stick on the bottom of the pan.

Add a tablespoon or so of soy sauce to the mixture, and then crack in an egg. Swish it all about for a couple of minutes until the egg is cooked and distributed evenly throughout the rice.

Season with black pepper (and possibly a little salt). If you're making this in the summer, it'd probably look really nice with a little chopped parsely on the top.

I like mine with peas, but your Dad thinks they're the Devil's work and prefers the mayonnaise/hot sauce combo.

Fried rice with chorizo and prawns

We got back from Gran and Grandpa's in need of a little something for lunch after a weekend of travelling on steam trains. This seemed to fit the bill.

You'll need:

some leftover cooked rice (from Thursday's tilapia tea)
some chorizo (how much depends on how greedy you are, and how much you like chorizo - so in your case lots...), sliced
an onion, finely chopped
half a red pepper, chopped
a couple of carrots, sliced
a handful of prawns (if frozen, make sure they are defrosted)
a little sunflower oil
black pepper

Chuck the chorizo in a frying pan (you don't need to add any extra oil), and turn up the heat. Fry for a couple of minutes, then add the onion, and cook until it's translucent. Add the red pepper and carrots, and cook until they're softened - at this point chuck in the prawns and cook for a minute or two. Add the rice and swish everything about in the pan until the rice is reheated. If it starts to stick, you may need to add a little sunflower oil. Season with some black pepper.

You may also like to add a touch of chilli with some Encona or Tabasco. Your dad likes eating this with a little mayonnaise, and he often adds some soy sauce.