Shellfish risotto

This relies on a good quality fish stock. We made ours using langoustine shells simmered with bay leaves, celery, peppercorns, onion and hot water for an hour or two.

Otherwise, see if you can buy fish stock from your local fishmongers.

We made our risotto in the usual way, flavouring it with a small onion, a clove of garlic and a couple of sliced portobello mushrooms as a token veg addition. We added lemon zest, lemon juice, scallops, tiger prawns and squid rings for the last 3-4 minutes of cooking, adjusting the seasoning as necessary.

Add some parsley towards the end as well if you like and serve with extra lemon wedges.

Spaghetti with squid

This is simple, quick and packed full of flavour. It relies heavily on chilli, garlic and parsley so use plenty!

We like to use squid ink spaghetti from Carluccios but use regular spaghetti if you can't get hold of any. Get your fishmonger to clean and prepare the squid for you in advance so that it is cleaned and cut into rings.

- Cook the spaghetti according to packet instructions
- In the meantime, fry a diced banana shallot (or small onion) in some olive oil. After a minute or two add a couple of chillies (we used birds eye chillies).
- Once the chillies and shallot have sizzled for a few minutes add 3 cloves of crushed garlic and the zest of one lemon (keep the lemon for later) and plenty of salt and black pepper.
- Chop the parsley stalks (retaining the leaves for later) and add these to the garlic and chillies. Also add the squid at this stage and cook on a high heat for a couple of minutes.
- Drain the cooked spaghetti retaining a little (1/3 of a cup) of the cooking water. Add the spaghetti and cooking liqour to the squid, adding the juice of the lemon and the chopped parsley. We also add a glug of extra virgin olive oil at this stage.
- Give everything a good stir, check the seasoning and eat immediately.

Lemon, chilli and garlic squid

Ross cooks the squid in the smoking hot griddle whilst I watch from a safe distance with a glass of wine.

Ingredients (serves 2):

2 large squid

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 chilli, finely chopped

the juice of 1/2 a lemon

a small handfull of chopped parsley

olive oil

salt and pepper

• Pour a good glug of olive oil into a large bowl, add the diced garlic and chilli.
• Clean the squid and cut the tubes in half length ways and then in half again. Score the squid tubes with a sharp knife. Cut the tentacles into bite sized pieces.
• Add the squid, parsley and lemon juice to the chilli, garlic and oil and then season. Leave to marinade for around 20 minutes.
• Heat a griddle pan till smoking. Add the squid pieces to the pan - if there's not enough room for it all you'll have to cook it in batches.
• Turn the squid after a minute and spoon over some of the marinade. Cook for another minute or two and then serve hot.