Chocolate Cardamom Pie

 Valentine's Day today and though - yes! - I subscribe to the notion that every day should be a special day for you and your love, it's nice occasionally to add a little extra sparkle just because you can. The v best sparkle I produced this week was definitely this lightly spiced chocolate pie. It is elegantly simple and simply elegant - and thus, perfect.

Cardamom is an intriguing spice, relative to ginger and distantly also the banana, it is popular in a variety of cuisines. It has delicate flavours of citrus and smoke with sweet notes of eucalyptus in there as well. The Scandis love it in baking, indeed I was surprised to find it is the mystery delight in the fikka cinnamon buns, the Dutch add it generously to spekulaas biscuits and it adds richness to Turkish coffee. It's a key ingredient in Indian cooking, used in everything from curries to sweetmeats and chai.

Split green cardamom pod

It has a long history too as an aid to erotica. Mentioned in Tales of Arabian Nights as a popular ingredient of love potions, allegedly boosting sexual desire in both men and women, inducing a good mood all round. Enticing Herbs and Seductive Spices suggests Arabs add cardamom to beverages and drink the mixture as an aphrodisiac, They also sprinkle powdered cardamom, ginger and cinnamon over boiled onions and green peas to promote erotic vigour. In India, powdered cardamom boiled with milk is consumed with honey at night to prevent impotence and premature ejaculation. Also known as a cure for bad breath, kissing too is made more pleasurable...

So use it with abandon to spice this luscious pie and serve with a generous dollop of creme fraiche to the one(s) you love. You need to make this a few hours ahead as it needs time to set - something I see as a definite positive as there's no last minute panic. A couple of lessons learned I should share - when you've poured the chocolate into the cooked pie case put it into the fridge without covering it. I decided to cover it with cling film which promptly dropped into the dark liquid and messed the perfectly smooth finish. Also use a fine mesh strainer for the cocoa but get the lumps out before you hold it over the pie if you want a reasonable approximation of a light and even dusting.

Chocolate Cardamom Pie

25cm sweet pastry tart case, cooked - I used Paul Hollywood's recipe, highly recommend
10 green cardamom pods or 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
350ml double cream
200g dark chocolate, 80% cocoa solids or thereabouts, broken into smallish chunks
30g unsalted butter
Cocoa powder for dusting the finished tart

If using whole cardamom pods, split them open and drop the little black seeds into a pestle and mortar. Grind them to a fine powder.

Pour the cream into a heavy based pan, add the ground cardamom and bring to just below boiling point over a gentle heat. Take the cream off the heat and add the broken chocolate and the butter. Stir until everything is melted together and leave it to cool for about five minutes. Pour the chocolate cream into the pie case, put into the fridge and leave to set for a couple of hours.

Before serving lightly dust the top with some cocoa powder then serve with creme fraiche and perhaps a strong coffee.

This recipe is an adaptation of one from The flavour Thesaurus, a book I am currently reading with great pleasure.

Torta Pasqualina

Easter Egg Pie

Easter is all about celebrating spring and new life and the return of light and colour to the world after the bleakness and chill of a long dark winter. With four days off it's celebrated in a proper way, with time to make plans and do stuff and eat well. And eggs, of course. Easter is definitely about the eggs.

I had been vaguely thinking of roasting some lamb for the weekend, gently spiced perhaps with lots of roasted veg with plenty of meat leftover to add to butter bean mash and roasted peppers all the better to stuff wraps for easy eating. Not very eggy, tis true but definitely spring like. Then I read about this Italian Easter Pie and it stirred a vague memory of wanting to try it once and never getting round to it. I am a big fan of eggs whichever way you serve them and I was really taken with the idea of  the richish leafy cheese base studded with whole eggs before baking. I have signed up for a weekly veg box and this week there was spinach and spring onions amongst the treasure as well as radish and carrots for a crunchy salad. Perhaps the time had come.

In its original form it is a slightly complex construction with a lot of recipes assuming you will make the filo pastry. Seriously! They sell it ready made - rolled, boxed, frozen - in all good supermarkets and specialist food shops. For the true afficionado there should be 33 sheets of it, one for each year of Christ's life, plus a dozen eggs inserted, one for each of the apostles. I decided to simplify that bit of it too, but I definitely kept to the spirit of the pie and I'm glad to say it turned out beautifully.

In Italy it is made and served at the Easter Monday picnic - love the assumption that of course you will picnic on your day off. With all the eggs and greens and herby freshness this is a good dish for the whole of spring, I think, not just an Easter treat.

Torta Pasqualina

I used tarragon in the mix because I had some that needed using and it worked a treat though most recipes suggest marjoram and/or parsley,

25g dried mushrooms
1kg fresh spinach, big stalks discarded
50 butter
1 bunch spring onions, green and white parts chopped into small rings
1 tablespoon chopped tarragon - or marjoram or parsley
250g fresh ricotta
100g Parmesan, finely grated
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated
8 eggs
Generous quantities of salt and pepper
250g packet filo pastry
2 tablespoons olive oil

Soak the dried mushrooms in boiling water for 20 minutes or so until they have softened. Drain and discard the soaking water.

Wash the spinach in plenty of cold water numerous times until all the dirt is gone. Melt half the butter in a large pan and add the still wet spinach, cover with a lid and turn the heat down. After a couple of minutes give it a stir to help it wilt and collapse then drain in a colander and allow to cool. Working with one small handful at a time, squeeze the excess liquid from the spinach then chop roughly. Put all the chopped spinach into a big bowl.

Melt the rest of the butter in the pan and add the mushrooms, frying for a few minutes till they take on the richness of the butter. Allow to cool a bit then chop the mushrooms finely and add them to the chopped spinach along with the spring onions, tarragon, ricotta, two thirds of the grated Parmesan, the nutmeg and 2 eggs and mix the lot into a rich green creamy slurry. Season generously.

Grease a 30cm spring form cake tin with a little olive oil then start to layer with a couple of sheets of filo, brushing each sheet with olive oil as you go. After 4 layers of pastry spoon in the spinach mixture then make six deep indentations with the back of a spoon. Carefully crack an egg and drop it into the first hole without breaking the yolk then do it five more times with the rest of the eggs till all the indentations are filled. Sprinkle the rest of the Parmesan over the yolks.

Gently cover the pie with the next sheet of filo, brush it with oil and continue till all the pastry is used, brushing the top with a good quantity of oil so that the pie will crisp up while it cooks.

Heat the oven to 180C and cook the pie for about an hour, till the filling is richly fragrant and the pastry is golden. Take it out of the oven and put it onto a wire rack, then carefully undo the catch on the spring form and take the outer circle off. Let the pie cool a bit - or completely - and serve with salad.