A couple of months ago, I was back in my other favourite corner of the world, at my house in the lush, green Aveyron departement in France.

They had just as bad a winter as we had, but I’m told they’re now enjoying a good summer, which will be a relief for Didier, the farmer who lives one field away from us, and his cows, sheep and buffalo.

I can’t wait to get back there again – it’s a place of almost complete relaxation (the occasional hornet attack keeps one on one’s toes!) – and I especially look forward to plunging once more into the local cuisine.

The Aveyron, as I’ve written many times before, is the land of the cow, and all that suggests. Veal, beef, milk and cheese dominate, along with a deep love for good vegetables that many other departements don’t possess.

The varied soils, rich and volcanic in the north, sandy and fine further south towards the Languedoc, mean that the region produces everything from fine fat carrots to deep crimson plum tomatoes, and from vast sails of deep green Swiss chard to huge, crunchy magenta-hued radishes.

Our local vegetable ‘supermarket’, Veyre, is an amazing place, selling everything that’s bang in season either individually or by the case (for drastically-reduced prices).

Pushing one’s trolley round the aisles it’s hard to resist not going crazy, and grabbing almost everything. Fat Provencal aubergines, wide sweet baby onions from Corbieres, peppers from Corsica, cherries from Gascony; everything screams out to be taken home and dealt with.

It’s an idea I’ve toyed with bringing home, but my conclusion is that we’re just that little bit too far north to sustain enough varied seasonal produce – our summers just aren’t hot or long enough really. So, basket loaded with veggie goodness, I make my way to the supermarket, another treat.

I adore foreign supermarkets, be it Barbados or San Francisco, Vienna or Oslo. Always they’re similar to ours, but with their own idiosyncrasies.

Our local Leclerc, for instance, must be one of the only supermarkets where one can pop in and emerge with a cement mixer, a case of Chateau Margaux, a home cinema system and a whole foie gras. And get your hair cut on the way out.

There are several products that are unique to French supermarkets, and one of them caught my eye this time, a North African ingredient that I’ve wanted to play with for ages – warkha pastry. Warkha, also known as malsouqa or brik pastry, is very much like a samosa wrapper in texture, slightly springy but exceedingly thin, and deep-fries to a light crunchy crispness.

It’s preferable to filo pastry, in my opinion, as it’s a lot less fat-absorbent, and the result is a parcel of terrific texture, filled with almost anything you can imagine.

This recipe, then, uses this amazing pastry to make a delightful sweet-savoury appetiser, which combines the crunch of that warkha combined with a soft, yielding filling made of roasted and mashed sweet potato bound with nicely salted feta cheese and a few other tasty elements such as herbs and chili.

It’s definitely a recipe you can play around with, providing you keep the basics about the same. Try regular potato, or mashed pumpkin. Perhaps even beetroot with goat’s cheese? Don’t stop there; minced pork, chicken, or sweet prawns will all roll up with some binding agent and herbs or spices and yield terrific results.

You can find brik pastry in many delicatessens or online at www.frenchclick.co.uk

Aprons on.

For the Warkha Rolls:

4 large sweet potatoes

200g feta cheese, crumbled

2 tbsp maple syrup

2 bunches spring onions, trimmed and finely chopped

4 tbsp chopped flatleaf parsley

4 tbsp chopped coriander

1 tsp Cayenne pepper

1 tsp chili flakes

Maldon salt & freshly-ground black pepper

10 discs Brick/Warkha pastry or 20 large sheets filo pastry

1 egg, beaten

500ml sunflower or groundnut oil

For the sauce:

300ml sour cream

The juice and zest of 1 lemon

2 tbsp Extra-virgin olive oil

1 clove fresh garlic, minced

1 tsp finely chopped parsley

1 tsp finely chopped chives

1 tsp Maldon salt

Method:

Make the sauce first; whisk all the ingredients together in a bowl and chill. Heat the oven to 200�C / Gas 6.

Bake the sweet potatoes whole on a baking tray for 40-50 minutes, until they are very soft.

Remove and allow to cool a little. Cut in half, and carefully spoon out the flesh and place in a bowl. Allow it to cool completely.

Stir in the feta cheese, maple syrup, spring onions, fresh herbs, chili, the Cayenne pepper and about a teaspoon of salt.

Carefully remove a disc of pastry from its packet and cut in half and then in half again, so you have four quarters of a circle.

Take two such quarters, brush one lightly with egg and stack them neatly on top of each other.

With the pointed end facing away from you, place two tablespoonfuls of the sweet potato mix horizontally in a rectangular dollop 2cm from the edge nearest you.

Brush the remaining pastry with egg. Fold in the two corners at the sides, bring the bottom flap up and roll it tightly to get a neat cigar-shape with as little air inside as possible, and well-sealed at the top.

Lay on its seam on a clingfilm-lined plate, and refrigerate until you have used up all the pastry or filling, whichever comes soonest.

Pour enough oil into a medium saucepan to come about 4cm up the sides of the pan.

Place on medium heat for a few minutes, then fry the pastries in batches for about 3-4 minutes, turning regularly, until nice and golden.

Transfer to a plate lined with kitchen roll and keep warm until you’ve cooked them all. Serve hot with the sour cream sauce