Home-made taramasalata with boiled eggs and black olives

Starter: Serves 4

I am of an age that pre-dates ready-to-dip, plastic pots of pink taramasalata; those that are now so readily available in almost every grocers, supermarket and the tiniest corner shop possible -- from Land's End to John o'Groats. So ubiquitous have these become, that you will most often find such a thing stacked tight up against the milk, the butter and the processed cheese. However, to call it taramasalata is, shall we say, a silly thing.

The recipe that follows, purists might say, is also a silly thing. They would possibly argue with me that a true "tarama" is made from the salted roe of a (dull-flavoured) Mediterranean fish: a type of grey mullet. Certainly, it would not have been fashioned from the crimson-hued lobes of smoked cod's roe that we used to make our paste. But we liked the result. Maybe it turned out a little bit pink, but surely it was never in a million years, the "strawberry angel delight" pink that you see now?

1/2 small onion, peeled and chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped
juice of 1 lemon
200g freshly smoked cod's roe, skinned
2 heaped tbsp fresh white breadcrumbs
freshly ground white pepper
150-200ml olive oil
a little salt, if necessary
2 hard-boiled eggs, shelled and halved
black olives
toast or pitta bread

Place the onion, garlic and lemon juice in a food processor and purée to a paste. Tip this paste into a sieve -- suspended over a bowl -- and vigorously press out the juices using the back of a small ladle. Discard the vegetable solids, rinse out the processor bowl and return to it the extracted juices. Introduce the cod's roe, breadcrumbs and pepper, and pulse-purée to a rough paste. Once mixed, and with the motor running moderately, begin to introduce half of the olive oil in a thin stream until the mixture has visibly thickened. Have a little taste and then choose to decide how much more oil you wish to add. The more oil you use, the thicker and more mayonnaise-like, smooth and bland the taramasalata will become -- only you can decide. Decorate with the eggs and olives and get toasting ...