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This thick, tasty chowder is easy to prepare, and works well with fresh or frozen fish.

Smoked cod or haddock can be used, or any other smoked white fish (but not an oily fish like mackeral or kippers).

Don't season the soup until the end, smoked fish is sometimes salty, so the soup might need less salt than usual.

This recipe for hamburgers is very simple. There is no need to add egg to bind the mix, or herbs and spices.

The only additional ingredient, apart from seasoning, is a small amount of finely chopped onion. This helps the flavour and texture, and keeps the meat moist.

You can form the burgers by hand, but I find a burger press very useful. They can be purchased very cheaply, and consist of two round plastic moulds which you push together by hand to squeeze the meat into shape. They make burgers which have a more even thickness and tend to be less likely to fall apart during cooking.

Shortcrust pastry is used in many pies and flans. Pastry uses half fat to flour, so it is very easy to adapt this recipe to any required amount.

Pastry should be light, crisp and melt in the mouth. To achieve this, you need to mix the flour and butter thoroughly, but without melting the butter. In good pastry, the grains of the flour fry in the butter as it cooks. If the butter melts during mixing, it is absorbed by the flour and you end up with cardboard pastry.

Chilli is the classic Mexican dish (or more accurately TexMex, since an authentic Mexican recipe would use cubed pork rather than minced beef).

You can use ready made chilli powder, to replace the chillies, cumin, cinnamon and oregano. Fresh chillies taste better, and give you more control over the heat of the dish.