The boys for head off a long walk to Porthleven while I begin to prepare a couple of things to eat…

Take the best quality beef fillet you are prepared to afford – I usually go for the tail end of the fillet as it’s easier to cut into slices. You need about an inch of fillet for each person as a starter. Now take a mixture of herbs and spices and pound them together with a pestle and mortar until they have the texture of ground black pepper (not too fine). I usually use coriander seed, cumin (a must), oregano, salt, pepper, thyme and fennel. Now roll the fillet in the mix until it’s completely coated and set aside until about 10 minutes before you want to eat.

At this time, sear the fillet in a hot frying pan (with olive oil) for about one minute on each side – so about 4-5 mins in total. The beef should be a lovely caramelised colour. Now leave it to rest for about 5 mins.

To serve – take your plates and pour (not drizzle please) a little olive oil on the bottom of each plate. Then cut the fillet into slices as thinly as you can (but don’t get anal about it) with a very sharp knife. Lay the slices on the plates, hopefully covering the bottom of each plate and then take a bag of wild rocket and cover the beef with it. Finally use a potato peeler to shave parmesan over the rocket and finish with a good splash of lemon juice and more olive oil. Serve with really good stonebaked crusty bread…

Followed by Chicken Casserole with Sweet Potato Mustard Mash

As always, you can pretty much wing this as long as you get a few basics straight –

For four people, start with a whole chicken (you can use pieces if you like but it seems odd when you can get all you need from a whole chicken with a tiny bit of effort and you get a carcass as a bonus to make decent stock with). Remove the breasts, and legs, then separate the thigh from the rest of the leg and chop off the horrible knobbly ankle bit at the end of the drumstick. Then cut the breasts in half – so now you should have eight portions of chicken. These now need frying (off?) in a frying pan until brown all over. When you’re done you can put them aside.

Now take some veg – I used half a celery, a large onion, a handful of sweet baby carrots, and a red pepper – chop them roughly and fry gently in your casserole dish with butter and olive oil. Next fry a pan full of mushrooms in butter with salt and pepper and add to the casserole.

Pour in the majority of a bottle of white wine or Marsala, two tablespoons of grainy mustard, a tablespoon of dried (or a handful of fresh) tarragon. Mix it up, season with salt and pepper and place the chicken pieces on top. The liquid should just about reach halfway up the chicken pieces.