I am once again engrossed in Mexican cookery books, as I plan new dishes for the spring/ summer menu at my London restaurant Wahaca. So the main Pantry Girl dish this week, and one of the other two recipes that you can make using leftovers, and my shopping list have a distinctly Mexican feel. The lovely thing about reading Mexican cookery books is that the recipes are all attached so firmly to people and the places where they grew up. The country’s food is intensely regional, so it is impossible to separate a plate of food from its region.

Pipian, also known as mole verde, which is the basis of two of my recipes this week, is one of a range of sauces that originates from the central valley of Mexico, in the state of Oaxaca. Mole (pronounced molay), is the Mexican word for a sauce made largely from chillies, often with nuts, fruit and spices. Guacamole is such a sauce, made from avocados, or aguacates as they are called in Spanish.

Pipian is by far the simplest of moles and, unlike some of the more complicated versions, is made with ingredients that are relatively easy to get hold of in the UK. The two main ingredients are omega-rich pumpkin seeds (did you know that the pumpkin originates in Mexico?) and tomatillos, a fruit of the nightshade family that looks like a green tomato.

Five years ago it was virtually impossible to buy tomatillos in the UK but now they are grown fresh in the summer by English farmers on the south coast (Peppers by Post does mail order from Dorset; visit www.peppersbypost.biz).

If you can’t find them though, never fear. I just substitute normal tomatoes, some lime juice for the citrus tang, and cucumber for that je ne sais quoi. Apart from that, all you need for my main recipe is some fresh mint and coriander and a large free-range chicken.

You will find a chicken goes a long way in this recipe, thanks to the rich pesto-like character of ground pumpkin seeds that makes people feel full very quickly.

Shopping List

1 free-range chicken
8 large tomatoes (or tomatillos)
1 cucumber
5 limes
1 large bunch of mint
1 large bunch of coriander
1kg purple sprouting broccoli
450g Charlotte potatoes
150g feta cheese Lemon

If you don’t have them already

Onions, garlic Peppercorns, bay leaves Parmesan cheese Extra-virgin olive oil Dried chillies (preferably jalapeño) Anchovies in olive oil Walnuts

Star buy Pumpkin seeds

Store cupboard buy Fusilli or pasta shells, brown basmati rice

1. Pipian chicken

Equipment needed

1 medium saucepan, 1 roasting tin, 1 food or stick blender, 1 large frying-pan.

Prep time: 25 minutes; cooking time: 35 minutes.

Serves 6

Cut the chicken into six pieces and put in a saucepan with a quartered onion, 5 peppercorns, 2 bay leaves and a teaspoon of salt. Cover with water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove the breasts (to keep them tender), simmer the rest for another 8 minutes, return the breasts to the pan and set aside to cool in the stock.

Cut the 8 tomatoes in half and put them in a roasting tin with 4 peeled garlic cloves and 2 large, peeled and quartered onions. Sprinkle with olive oil and roast in a hot oven (200C/390F) for 25 minutes. Toast 200g pumpkin seeds in a dry frying-pan over a medium heat for a few minutes until they start cracking and popping. Blend the coriander, mint leaves, cucumber, pumpkin seeds, the roasted vegetables, 4 chillies and the juice of 4 limes until you have a rough paste. Add 400ml of the cooking liquid from the chicken, blend again and season with salt and pepper and more lime juice if you need it. At this stage, set aside half the pipian to use with recipe No 3 (right).

Put some basmati rice on to cook. Heat 2-4 tablespoons of olive oil in the large frying-pan and add the remaining pipian. Cook gently for 10 minutes. Tear the chicken meat from the bones, add to the sauce, heat through and serve with the rice.

To make an easy chicken stock, you can add the bones to the remaining chicken cooking liquor, boil up with whatever leftover herbs you have, and a couple of sticks of celery if you have them, and an onion and carrot.

Nutritionist’s verdict

These dishes contain a wide variety of supernutrients, from the lycopene in the tomatoes (good for men’s prostates) to the sulforaphane in broccoli, believed to boost detoxing liver enzymes. But be wary of the calorie load of the fusilli.

2. Fusilli with anchovies, walnuts and broccoli

Toast 100g chopped walnuts in a dry frying-pan. Melt 50g anchovies in 60ml extra-virgin olive oil over a low heat. Cut 500g of broccoli into florets and the stem into small slices. Cook 350g fusilli pasta until al dente. Steam the broccoli over the pasta for the last 5 minutes of cooking. Add the broccoli and walnuts to the anchovies and cook for a further minute or two. Toss the pasta in the sauce. If the dish needs it, moisten with a little cooking liquid or stock from the first recipe. Serve with freshly grated Parmesan and a squeeze of lemon.

3. Broccoli and potatoes with pipian

Separate the stalks of the broccoli from the leaves and florets. Steam the stalks with quartered Charlotte potatoes for about 9 minutes or until al dente. The bite is vital to this dish, so try not to overcook the veg. A few minutes before the potatoes are done, add the florets and leaves. Heat 2-4 tablespoons of olive oil in the large frying-pan and add the pipian reserved from the first recipe. Cook gently for 10 minutes, stirring thoroughly. Pour the pipian over the veg and eat as is, sprinkled with crumbled feta, or put under a hot grill for a few minutes to bubble up and brown. Raid the store cupboard: look up Thomasina’s previous shopping lists and recipes at timesonline.co.uk/realfood

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