This lovely salad is simple to prepare, looks extremely pretty and is delicious and surprising to eat. Whole or halved larger mushrooms are poached in an aromatic, chilli-flecked vinaigrette, cooled then stirred with diced tomato and flat leaf parsley. It is very good spooned over garlicky bruschetta or eaten in shallow bowls with spoon and…

This looks stunning, a mass of lightly cooked slices of large, ripe tomatoes arranged concentrically like a French apple tart. They lie on a soft bed of gently stewed onion piquantly seasoned with salty anchovy in a pastry case made with crushed walnuts, rapeseed oil and spelt or plain flour. The dough ends up a…

If you are lucky enough to have some decent tomatoes, a big, blousy buffalo mozzarella and avocado that is fully ripe but not squishy, that is the time to make this classic dish. I’m making it a lot at the moment and it was very popular for lockdown lunches, interspersed, while the season lasts, with…

     With lamb kebabs I aim for crusty edges, leaving the inside pink and moist. I love them (and chicken kebabs) with hummus and usually make my own because I like it garlicky and mealy. It takes minutes using tinned chickpeas and a food processor but there are some decent ready-made versions. Asparagus would be…

Ah, the joy of leftovers. Here’s a brilliant example. I always make too much tzatziki, the garlicky Greek yoghurt and cucumber take on Indian raita. I make it chunky and leftovers proved to be the perfect dressing for spare boiled potatoes. They weren’t any old potatoes, to coin an old M&S ad-line, but Jersey Royals….

I love roast chicken and really enjoy the aftermath, by which I mean the leftovers. I usually turn them into a gratin, salad or stewy dish like this. Here choice pieces are stirred into a quickly made fresh tomato sauce seasoned with orange zest. The zest has an extraordinarily pronounced affect on the sauce and…

This sounds a lot more complicated than it is. All you need is a couple of fillets of carefully boned smoked mackerel, a jar of creamed horseradish, a chunk of cucumber and a crisp lettuce heart. The vinaigrette is a thin creamy mix of mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, honey, lemon juice and olive oil. With hot…

This pretty salad is a combination of two favourites; egg mayonnaise and leek vinaigrette. The dressing is  made by beating Dijon mustard, lemon juice and olive oil into mayo, so it’s thick but thinner than straight mayo. The leeks are sliced into bite-size pennies and steamed then piled with sliced eggs, the dressing spooned over…

It was a Marigolds and hoover day yesterday and late in the morning my thoughts turned to lunch. I’d just heard Anna Jones (whose inspiring book The Modern Cook’s Year is on my desk) talking on Woman’s Hour about lockdown lunches and the difficulty they presented, so when a quick riffle in the fridge veg…

Petits pois a la Francais with new potatoes and succulent morsels of chicken inspired this one pot supper. It’s blessedly undemanding to make but for the dish to work as it should, you will need free-range chicken thigh fillets, Jersey Royal or other new or waxy potatoes, diced pancetta and a large heavy-based, lidded frying…