Smart three-coursed ınner

Smoked mackerel pâté with cucumber

--Twice-cooked pork belly with cider sauce

Crackling potato cake

Burnt butter cabbage --

Tea & biscuits ice cream

To keep my costs down, I’ve followed the chef’s mantra of seasonal ingredients and minimum waste. I’ve made dressings out of trimmings, and purées out of the braising veg, then dressed it all up with restaurant-style presentation for a sense of occasion. If you want to brag about how cheap this meal is, that’s up to you – but I can guarantee no one will guess. Barney

starter Smoked mackerel pâté with cucumber £4.97

SERVES 6 PREP 30 mins plus chilling NO COOK

1 pack smoked mackerel (about 200g)

250g tub cream cheese

2 lemons, 1 zested, both juiced small pack dill, half roughly chopped, half fronds picked 1 cucumber

4 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to drizzle

1 Peel and flake the mackerel and tip into a small blender with the cream cheese, lemon zest and half the lemon juice, and pulse to make a pâté. Add the chopped dill and pulse again to mix.

2 Tip the mixture into a plastic piping bag or sandwich bag, cut o the end and pipe six thick cylinders of the pâté onto a baking tray and put in the freezer to harden for about 1 hr. 3 Remove a strip of peel from the cucumber – it’s easiest with a swivel peeler, but a normal one also works – then peel 12 neat ribbons o the cucumber. Do not throw away any of the seeds or the peelings. Dice any remaining flesh, cover and put in the fridge ready to use later. Use the neat ribbons to wrap around the pâté and put in the fridge. Can be made up to 1 day ahead.

4 Tip the cucumber peelings and seeds into a blender or smoothie maker with the rest of the lemon juice, the olive oil and some seasoning. Blitz to make a thick dressing, then chill. Can be made 1 day ahead and kept in the fridge.

5 To serve, pour a little dressing onto each plate, sit a cucumberwrapped pâté on top, neatly scatter the diced cucumber and dill fronds, and drizzle over more olive oil.

GOODTOKNOW omega-3 • 1 of 5-a-day • good for you • gluten free

PER SERVING 283 kcals • fat 26g • saturates 9g • carbs 2g • sugars 2g • ibre 1g • protein 10g • salt 0.9g

Crackling potato cake £1.99

SERVES 6 PREP 20 mins

COOK 1 hr 30 mins MORE EFFORT

1.2kg Maris Piper potatoes

50g butter, melted pork skin (from the pork belly, right)

1 Heat oven to 220C/200C fan/gas 8. Cut a circle of baking parchment to fit the base of a 20-23cm ovenproof frying pan. Using a mandolin or sharp knife, slice the potatoes as thinly as possible. Pour a little of the butter over the parchment on the base and neatly overlap slices of the potato on the first layer. Then pile on one-third of the remaining potatoes, season, drizzle with a little butter and repeat until all the potatoes are used.

2 Put the pork skin, skin-side up, on top of the potatoes and roast everything for 1 hr 30 mins until the crackling is crispy and the potatoes are really crisp and golden. Set the crackling aside, turn the potatoes out onto a tray or board and serve the crackling on top.

GOODTOKNOW gluten free

PER SERVING 429 kcals • fat 26g • saturates 11g • carbs 37g • sugars 2g • ibre 4g • protein 9g • salt 0.2g

Burnt butter cabbage 70p

SERVES 6 PREP 2 mins COOK 10 mins EASY V Remove the outer leaves of 1 pointed cabbage and cut it into six wedges. Heat 25g butter in a large frying pan until starting to brown, add the cabbage and cook until burnt on one side. Add more butter to the pan if you need to and use tongs to turn the cabbage and burn on the other side. Season with sea salt and serve.

GOODTOKNOW 1 of 5-a-day • gluten free

PER SERVING 69 kcals • fat 4g • saturates 2g • carbs 4g • sugars 4g • ibre 4g • protein 3g • salt 0.1g

Twice-cooked pork belly with cider sauce £11.63

SERVES 6 PREP 40 mins COOK 3 hrs MORE EFFORT G

2kg piece boneless and skinless pork belly (ask your butcher to keep the skin for the crackling potato cake, left) 2 tbsp fennel seeds

5 dried bay leaves

25g butter

2 onions, roughly chopped

3 carrots, roughly chopped 400ml cider

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 The day before you want to eat, lay the pork belly skinned-side down, season generously, scatter over the fennel seeds and crumble over 3 of the bay leaves. From the widest side, roll into a tight log and use some butcher’s string to tie at regular intervals. (You could take some fennel seeds and bay to your butcher and ask them to do it for you.)

2 Heat oven to 170C/150C fan/gas 31/ 2. Melt the butter in a large, shallow flameproof casserole dish or ovenproof sauté pan. Brown the pork all over (this will take a good 15 mins), then remove from the pan and add the vegetables and remaining bay leaves. Cook for about 10 mins until starting to colour. Nestle the pork among the veg. Pour over the cider and bring everything to a simmer, cover and cook in the oven for 2 hrs.

3 When the pork is ready, leave to cool a bit, then remove the pork from the braise and chill. Strain the sauce into a jug and chill. Fish out the bay leaves and blitz the veg to a purée in a food processor. Tip into a bowl and chill.

4 On the day, heat oven to 220C/ 200C fan/gas 8. Cut the pork into six rounds. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the pork, then put in the oven for 20 mins, turning halfway through, until crispy. Meanwhile, remove the solidified fat from the top of the braising juices, simmer until syrupy and reheat the purée. Serve everything in the middle of the table or smear some of the purée across plate, sit a piece of pork on top next to a burnt butter cabbage wedge, a piece of potato cake and some crackling (see left). Pour over some of the sauce and serve.

GOODTOKNOW 1 of 5-a-day • gluten free

PER SERVING 536 kcals • fat 37g • saturates 13g • carbs 9g • sugars 8g • ibre 3g • protein 37g • salt 0.4g