We have a strict family rule in this establishment, which I would recommend to all human groups everywhere: it rates alongside the great moral imperatives of philosophy such as Immanuel Kant's "Behave always so that you can will that the maxim of your action might become a universal law" and Billy Connelly's "Incoming traffic at a bar lavatory has absolute right-of-way". It is this:

THE PERSON WHO DOES THE COOKING DOES NOT WASH-UP

A consequence of this moral imperative is that the person who does the cooking is the person who wants to do the cooking and the person who washes up is the person who does not mind washing-up. These two attitudes of mind are seldom if ever found in the same individual. A further consequence is that the person who more or less always does the cooking (in the present example, me) inevitably becomes quite good at it, and has the opportunity to experiment and perfect their ideas and techniques. What follows is the result of many decades of patient devotion to the task of creating hopefully impressive meals from easily-obtainable supermarket ingredients with a minimum of preparation effort and a maximum of predictability of outcome. They are also flexible and forgiving recipes, where quantities and cooking-times are elastic in nature and more or less instinctive after a few tries.

Cooking is the domestic form of chemical engineering, and appreciation of a few basic scientific principles is extremely useful. For example: Many of the components that give flavor to food are volatile, they will vaporize and boil away if you simmer things for too long. This is why spices and subtle flavors like coriander and coconut are best added towards the end of the cooking. Another example: Organic substances such as pieces of meat tend to stick to hot metal surfaces such as the bottom of a wok or frying-pan, but not to other organic substances, even though these may be equally hot. Hence to prevent meat etc. from sticking to the wok, you first heat the metal surface to a high temperature and then add cooking-oil. This sticks to the metal and prevents anything else (i.e. the meat) from sticking when you're trying to fry it. Obvious yet frequently misunderstood. I would recommend a thorough grounding in physics, chemistry (both organic and inorganic) and the life-sciences for anybody who is going to be allowed near the food-preparation area. Put more simply, I don't like anybody else in the kitchen when I'm trying to cook.

In the event that you try out any of these recipes and you aren't satisfied with the results, send me an email and I will try to come up with some kind of excuse as to how the problem was your fault. And now for the bit that matters......

Here is a starter that almost everybody loves. Women will swoon and count their virtue a small price for an extra portion. Avocado Prawns

Curries are a great favorite. The ones here are almost totally inauthentic, so if someone says "I lived in India for forty years and I never came across anything remotely like this" you should find out what part of India the person lived in, think of the part most distant from there, and explain that that is where the dish comes from. Basic Curries

This is a more recent and I think more elegant curry of mine. It's highly adaptable and forgiving, but if you do it the way it's described here you can be confident of a pretty impressive result: How to Make a Great Lamb or Mutton Curry