Dear LPG readers,     

If there was ever a recipe that I thought I could get perfectly right the first time, it had to be this one. After nearly five years of having a monthly culinary go at producing something topical for LPG, my cooking skills have not improved much. Still, I have learnt a little about choosing a recipe that I am relatively unlikely to ruin (although some might argue with that self-assessment of my cooking prowess).

All the professional television cooks say that simple cooking is the secret to getting things right, and I could not have chosen anything simpler than this month’s offering. 

There were only seven ingredients, including the accompaniment to the ensemble, and I have used every one of them before. I did not need to get anything from the internet or one of those specialist shops (unless you count the fishmonger I visited), yet I found myself missing one piece of equipment on the day. 

I don’t possess a fish basket, which was recommended for grilling fish, so I decided to substitute the grilling of the fish with air frying it with the rack in that appliance. Please don’t ask about the state I got into trying to create a rice ball, but after deciding to wash all the starch off my hands, I learned a valuable secret.  Making rice into balls is much easier with wet hands.  

The meal was very nice, and if you ignore the fact that the fish was air-fried rather than grilled, my taste testers on the day told me that I did pretty well.  But the fact that I did not use a grill on the day means that my dish was not authentic. 

In the hope that I can do better next month, I have opted for the national dish of Norway, called fårikål.  While the pronunciation of this word by your average English speaker required my learning with the help of Google (►►►),,  I live in hope that this is a recipe that I genuinely cannot get wrong!

CB, Lewisham.

CB shares what she has learned about preparing Norway’s national dish…

(►►►)   (►►►)     (►►►)

(►►►)     (►►►)    (►►►)     (►►►)