Saturday Kitchen’s Gurdeep Loyal: 'My three recipes that will help you amplify your cooking'

“One of the leitmotifs of my cooking is fennel seeds – a signature ingredient used in both Punjabi and Italian cuisines – in almost everything. I adore the punchy lemony-anise hit they bring to any dish, sweet and savoury,” says chef and food writer Gurdeep Loyal.

“For this reason my usually sparse refrigerator is rarely without Italian fennel sausages – grilled whole to a blackened char for the ultimate sarnies, or split open to sizzle in a pan for dreamy fennel sausage ragus.

“The spicy-savouriness of gochujang is the perfect note to add to this aniseedy chord, amped up further by the taste-magnifying effects of vodka. With flavours this loud, only very gigantic pasta – like satisfyingly huge paccheri – will do. The bigger the better!”

Ingredients (Serves 2-3): 2tbsp olive oil; 1 large red onion, finely chopped; 2tsp fennel seeds, crushed; 350g fennel sausages, cases removed; 2tbsp gochujang; 200g Tenderstem broccoli, ends trimmed; 2tbsp tomato purée (paste); 4tbsp vodka; 3tbsp balsamic vinegar; 1tbsp caster (superfine) sugar; 200g baby plum tomatoes, halved; 125g soured cream; 200g paccheri or rigatoni; Fine sea salt. For the pangrattato topping: 35g butter; 2 garlic cloves, crushed to a paste; 2tsp herbes de Provence; 50g panko breadcrumbs; 2tbsp finely grated Parmesan.

Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan, then gently fry the onion with a pinch of salt over a medium heat for 4 minutes. Next add the fennel seeds and sausage meat, and cook for 5 minutes until the meat starts to take on a little colour. Stir in the gochujang and cook for another minute.

Next, add the broccoli and 1¼ teaspoons of salt, cooking for 4 minutes until tender. Now stir in the tomato purée, vodka, balsamic vinegar and sugar, combining well.

Add the plum tomatoes, cover with a lid and cook over a medium heat for 5–6 minutes until they start to collapse into the sauce. Finally, stir through the soured cream, and cook over a low heat for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat, cover and leave for 30 minutes to let the flavours develop.

Meanwhile, make a crunchy pangrattato topping. Melt the butter in a frying pan, then add the garlic and dried herbs and fry for 1 minute. Add the breadcrumbs and Parmesan, and cook over a medium–high heat for 5 minutes until toasty and golden. Transfer to a bowl and leave to cool completely and crisp up further.

Cook the pasta in a large pan of well-salted boiling water following the packet instructions. Drain, reserving a little of the pasta water.

Reheat the sausage sauce over a low heat, adding a little of the cooking water if needed, then stir through the pasta. Serve in large bowls with a very generous sprinkling of the crunchy pangrattato on top.

Chipotle hoisin chicken wings

Native to Mexico, chipotle chillies are actually just very ripe, dark red jalapeños that have been smoke-dried until black,” says chef and food writer Gurdeep Loyal. “To make chipotle paste, these medium–hot chillies are blended with onions, garlic, vinegar, tomato concentrate, salt and spices like cumin and smoked paprika.

“As Mae West famously said: ‘Too much of a good thing can be wonderful’. This applies to many facets in life, including flavour, and – in my opinion – there’s nothing more thrilling than pairing two extremely delicious, loud and out-there flavours. Sweet, sticky hoisin and smoky dark chipotle are ingredients that I especially love to intermingle. Together, they are the perfect adornment for crispy- skinned chicken wings. Just wonderful!”

Ingredients (Makes 14 wings): 6tbsp baking powder; 1tsp Chinese five spice; 2tbsp fine polenta (cornmeal), ground to a powder; 1tbsp onion powder; 14 chicken wings, skin on (about 1.25kg); 6tbsp hoisin sauce; 3tbsp chipotle paste; 3 fat garlic cloves, crushed to a paste; 3tbsp apple cider vinegar.

Preheat the oven to 180°C fan/200°C/400°F/Gas mark 6.

Prepare a coating by whisking together the baking powder, Chinese five spice, ground polenta and onion powder in a bowl.

Pat dry each of the chicken wings using paper towels so that no moisture remains on the skin. Dredge in the coating, ensuring that they are covered all over and in the crevices. Place on two baking sheets, spaced well apart, and bake for 40–45 minutes until crispy.

Meanwhile, prepare a glaze by whisking together the hoisin sauce, chipotle paste, garlic and vinegar in a bowl.

Remove the cooked wings from the oven, brush liberally with the glaze, then bake for a final 3 minutes. Serve hot from the oven, brushing with more glaze if you like.

Treacle, mocha and blonde chocolate brownies

“The distinction between cookies and brownies is often blurred, with soft, melt-in the-middle cookies – and light, fluffy, cakey-at-the-edges brownies having become equally popular. The morphing of the two is a culinary travesty: cookies should revel in crunchy-crinkly chewiness, whereas brownies should be unapologetically dense!” says chef and food writer Gurdeep Loyal.

“I want a brownie with a texture so rich it’s like biting into a cold block of butter, with obscenely concentrated cocoa that coats the mouth with its cloying fudginess. These intensely gooey, chocolatey and treacly brownies do all of these things – with the flavour enhancing magic of bitter espresso amplifying the effect.”

Ingredients (Makes 16): Olive oil, for brushing; 5 large eggs; 200g caster sugar; 250g dark chocolate (at least 60% cocoa), snapped into pieces; 225g butter; 2 heaped tbsp instant espresso powder; 65g cocoa powder; 125g black treacle; 125g blonde or white chocolate; 75ml soured cream; 150g plain flour; ¼tsp bicarbonate of soda; 1tsp fine sea salt.

Preheat the oven to 175°C fan/195°C/385°F/Gas mark 5½. Brush a deep-sided 23cm (9in) baking tin with olive oil, then line with baking paper.

In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat together four of the eggs and the sugar for 5–6 minutes until the mixture has doubled in volume.

Put the dark chocolate, butter and instant espresso powder in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water to melt together, stirring to combine. Remove the bowl from the pan, then stir through the cocoa powder and treacle. Leave to cool for 2 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt the blonde chocolate in another heatproof bowl over the same pan of hot water. Remove the bowl from the heat then stir through the soured cream. Cool for 2 minutes, then crack in the remaining egg, whisking thoroughly. Set aside.

Slowly pour the dark chocolate-butter into the stand mixer bowl, gently folding it by hand into the whisked eggs using a spatula to retain as much air as possible.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Add a quarter of the dry ingredients to the batter, folding it through fully, then add the rest, a quarter at a time.

Pour half of the batter into the lined tin, drizzle over half the blonde chocolate cream and swirl with a cocktail stick. Then pour in the rest of the batter, drizzle with the remaining blonde chocolate cream, again swirling into a nice pattern.

Place the tin on top of a baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes until cakey on the rim and puffed up in the middle. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin to room temperature. Then chill for at least 12 hours, allowing it to turn from molten-gooey to fudgy. Slice into 16 squares and enjoy!