TO DAISY,

ALEXANDRA AND MIA.

COVER

TITLE PAGE

DEDICATION

INTRODUCTION

SPRING

SUMMER

AUTUMN

WINTER

COOK’S NOTES

SUPPLIERS

LIST OF RECIPES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PICTURE SECTION

COPYRIGHT

ABOUT THE PUBLISHERS

INTRODUCTION

Taste has a memory – my first oyster sitting on a plush, wine-red bar stool in Wheelers restaurant on Old Compton Street in Soho; my brothers, sister and I all lined up along the bar and instructed to plop the silver quivering muscles into our young mouths by my mother. ‘Did you bite or swallow it whole?’ I can’t remember but I know the Tabasco helped, along with a squeeze of lemon juice, the lemon wrapped carefully in muslin to prevent the bitter seeds from affecting the flavour. I still prefer to eat oysters at a bar rather than at a table – I like the informality, even though at Wheelers the presentation was formal: monogrammed linen napkins and silver cutlery; the barman dressed in black tie; a vast, chilled silver bowl full of double cream to ladle into your coffee at the end of the meal. I am sure my passion for chilli and for double cream came from this early memory.

This book is inspired by memories, by cooking with my mother and by a love of simple fresh ingredients. Writing these recipes, Rose’s influence has been in every one and perhaps I have mentioned her too much, but then she taught me how to cook and that cooking is part of family life – a pleasure, not a chore, a way of living. The recipes themselves are either meals that I make on a regular basis for family or friends or a combination of my favourite ingredients as they come into season. There are few sauces in the book; instead of a Béarnaise I will use a squeeze of lemon or a glug of extra-virgin olive oil or perhaps a little chilli to finish off a dish. I love using anchovies and herbs to season: a piece of feta broken apart with a fork on a plate with a few slices of fresh chilli, a scattering of marjoram leaves and a slug of good olive oil is a vibrant alternative to marmalade on toast for breakfast. Rose gave me, my sister and brothers a sense that cooking needn’t be complicated and could be fun and deeply rewarding.

My brother, Ossie, recently called to tell me how he had cooked a wonderful meal on the far shore of the Falmouth Estuary in Cornwall with his friend Ab Rogers. They had picked up some live lobsters which they split in half and roasted over a hot stone fire they had made on the beach. My brother had brought with him a bottle of new season’s olive oil, a lemon, salt and pepper, one egg and a jam jar. He described how he cracked the yolk into the jam jar and made a fiery mayonnaise by adding the olive oil and lemon juice drip by drip, stirring with a spoon. I was impressed by his confidence in only bringing the one egg as I would have worried that the mayonnaise might split. He seemed unconcerned, only thrilled to have made something so simple and good. I took great vicarious pleasure in Ossie’s story as it was as much about the beach and the lobster, the sea and the hot stones as the memory of our mother and her influence on my brother that he had the nerve to bring just the one egg.

Even as children, and before Rose became professionally involved with cooking, she would get excited about food. The first morello cherries of spring would be de-stoned by us sitting around the table before being thrown into a large pan with sugar and boiled to a sweet and tart dark purple jam to spoon onto her crêpes with generous dollops of crème fraîche. There were no short cuts – no bought jams from the supermarkets – the making and the preparation of a meal was something that everyone would be involved in. An intuitive understanding and respect for ingredients as well as a curiosity about their potential made everything she cooked come alive. It was this approach to food that was exciting, as well as her gift for sharing with family, friends and later on at the River Café with not only the chefs but also the waiters, getting them involved with the prepping of the ingredients. It was the participation in the making of a meal that helped to give the restaurant an air of buzz and excitement.

Rose: inventive, creative and always taking advantage of where she was in order to break from her old life into a new unfolding interest. This ethos was in the front seat of the car every day when she picked us up from school and asked, ‘What would you like for supper?’ Not sausages, not spaghetti Bolognese (this was back in the 70s), it had to be more interesting than that – perhaps macaroni cheese with thin slices of blistering tomatoes, to cut through all that Cheddar. I liked this. I liked to talk and imagine how the ingredients swayed and got on together. This feeling of enjoyment and challenge has stayed with me when I think about what to cook for a family get-together or an unexpected occasion.

It was when the family moved to Italy that the garden and surrounding countryside became so important to what was cooked at meal times. I remember a delicious lunch we made one day when Sam Clark came to visit. Dandelion leaves were gathered along with wild thyme growing by the side of the track that went up the hill behind our house, walnuts were collected from the tree in the garden and lemons picked from drooping branches which hung over the wall that divided us from the road. We had gathered together three different fillings for the ravioli we then made for lunch. Each ravioli tasted very distinct from the other. The creamy ricotta, light and sweet with the slightly bitter earthy taste of the wilted dandelion leaves and the sharp fragrance from the thyme, the bright zest from the lemon in stark contrast to the bittersweet nuttiness of the wet walnuts – three ingredients which couldn’t be more alive with their contrasting differences sitting happily on the same plate.

The kind of dishes that I cook have, like the memory of the ravioli, been created in response to the ingredients that are in season at the time, what is available and how many people I am cooking for – is it a special occasion, is it a Sunday evening supper of carbonara before school the next day or is it a plate of mushrooms on toast on a bright autumnal morning after a walk foraging for porcini? The recipes are more ideas or ways of putting ingredients together, they are not technical or difficult; they are the result of my desire to cook delicious food simply. The perfect cucumber sandwich for me is made with white poppy seed bread with a good crust, smeared with unsalted butter and cucumber sliced just fine enough to retain some crunch, then seasoned with lots of salt and black pepper. The bread has to be just right, along with firm narrow cucumbers – the larger ones contain more seed and can be flabby. I like to keep the crusts on rather than cutting them off just as I like to peel away the skin of the cucumber in stripes so there is a balance in the different tastes and textures.

I am not a trained cook although I did work at the River Café in the 90s before deciding I wanted to learn about gardening and then got a job at Petersham Nurseries. One of the first projects I completed there with my friend and mentor Pip Morrison was to create a new kitchen garden to supply Gael and Francesco Boglione (the owners of Petersham House and the nursery) with fruit and vegetables for their house, as well as working with Skye Gyngell on growing varieties that were difficult or expensive to obtain for the nursery’s Michelin-starred restaurant. I grew what I wanted to eat and cook with: cannellini beans, different varieties of chard, courgettes, artichokes, tomatoes, beetroot, squash, peas and broad beans, kale, chicory and numerous varieties of salad and herbs. Any extra unwanted seedlings were potted into coir pots to be sold in the nursery, making it possible for everyone to buy, amongst other things, borlotti beans, a plant that we started off under glass as it needs a long growing season and which can be difficult to get going in the shorter summers here. I couldn’t understand why the ingredients I had been brought up with were so hard to get hold of. Chard is as easy to grow as cavolo nero, two of my favourite leafy greens, the chard lasting throughout the spring and summer while in the winter I can look forward to the curly dense leaves of cavolo nero. The moment I see it is ready I want to eat it with a little bird, the perfect frosty November supper, the bird roasted with some good wine and the cavolo braised in a little oil and garlic.

It is this feeling of excitement about ingredients that has stuck with me as well as the period of time we spent in Italy. We often had little money living there, but I remember driving to Viareggio on the coast from our house outside Lucca in the hills to meet guests (the cost of petrol to fill up the huge barge of a car), walking the passiagata in the evening, sipping prosecco in the bar and tasting a little of town life with the wind blowing in from the sea between gaps in a promenade of pristine Gucci and Prada shops. Most influential, though, are the memories of our ritual family breakfasts. Our Pavoni coffee machine which gave us an electric shock as we turned it on in the morning before we were fully awake, anchovies on toast, tomatoes, eggs with chillies, Lapsang Souchong tea with no milk, prosciutto with thick slices of juicy sweet melon – learning to love the taste of the prosciutto and eating the sweet fat with the fruit and it melting in your mouth (tearing the fat off the prosciutto was considered as bad as not eating your crusts). My approach to flavours and learning about the joy of cooking seasonally comes directly from Rose and our time in Italy, which has a huge impact on the way I cook now.

SKIP PHOTOGRAPHS
PICTURE SECTION

Rose cooking the pig for Christmas lunch 2007 with David, her husband, and my brother Dante in the courtyard of Cabalva farmhouse, Wales.

At Petersham, 2012.

Me making Barolo Bagna Cauda at home for friends, 2011.

Italy, 2005, family lunch.

Rose and David with some of her grandchildren, Tuscany, 2004.

Rose teaching Alex how to peel tomatoes, Italy, 2004.

Daisy, David, Rose and Alex – Rose loved to paint with her grandchildren on holiday – Tuscany 2006.

SPRING

Early spring is the season for young shoots, swelling buds and fresh new growth. At Petersham, the garden is waking up after the winter and despite the beds being given a heavy mulch of compost there are splatterings of green against the dark soil where the weeds have started growing, a sign that the ground is warming up and the days are getting longer. There is a brightness and a feeling of excitement and anticipation about what is to come.

In March, there is a distinct shift in what I want to cook and how I use ingredients. The first young artichoke buds are tender and sweet, delicious eaten raw with fiery new-season’s olive oil or the creamy pale shoots of forced sea kale in a salad with oranges, and are at their juiciest and best over winter and in early spring. Instead of stews and gratins which need longer cooking, I want to eat lighter meals – my griddle comes out from the cupboard so I can grill a piece of chicken or a fillet of wild salmon quickly, in contrast to the winter comfort of a slumbering roast lazily bubbling away in the oven while you go off on a walk.

Spring ingredients can have a relatively short season and so are valued all the more because of it. Sea kale in late February/March, rhubarb, the first early tomatoes of spring – ‘Marinda’ and ‘Camone’ with their red-and-green-flecked crunchy skins and amazing flavour: tart, acidic and not too sweet.

As spring gets going more and more ingredients become available, purple sprouting broccoli, spring greens, soft-leaf herbs, early spinach and chard, Jersey Royals, young baby onions and carrots, asparagus and one of my favourite ingredients of all – broad beans.

I love the first broad beans as they arrive in spring. The pods are bright green, young and fresh and have not swelled into the furry pods that contain the nuttier, more mature beans with a thick skin that you find later on in the season. In Italy we would pod the small beans, pour a small amount of good extra-virgin olive oil over them and add a few grindings of black pepper and some roughly broken pieces of pecorino stagionato, a fairly young sheep’s milk cheese that is fruity and tart.

Mostly I am excited by cooking with ingredients that should be eaten in spring when they are at their best and most delicious and I don’t want to miss out on them – the first early tomatoes which have a taste and texture that is so very different from summer varieties, which will go on through the summer and into the autumn months. I want to enjoy the tender buds of artichokes before they develop their chokes and become woody, just as I look forward to and want to taste the first apricots of spring with their dense jammy flesh and tart sweetness.

BROAD BEANS AND PEAS ON TOAST WITH PARMESAN, ROCKET AND A POACHED EGG

For this dish you ideally need the first of the new season’s broad beans. They are small and sweet and have the delicious broad bean flavour without being too starchy and dry.

FOR 4

750g fresh young broad beans in their pods

3 garlic cloves, peeled

1 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan cheese

2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

200g podded fresh peas (about 500g unpodded)

1 sprig of fresh mint, washed and dried

2 dried red chillies, crushed

4 slices of sourdough bread

4 good-quality fresh eggs

1 handful of rocket, washed and dried

sea salt and black pepper

Pod the broad beans and put in the pestle and mortar with two of the garlic cloves and pound to a rough paste. Add the Parmesan, then stir in the extra-virgin olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Put a pan of water on for the eggs and bring to a simmer. Preheat the grill or griddle. Blanch the peas in boiling water with the mint for a couple of minutes or until the water returns to the boil. Drain, then season with salt and pepper and a little chilli.

Grill the sourdough on both sides, then sweep the remaining garlic clove lightly over one side of each slice. Place a slice on each plate and spoon the broad bean mixture onto the bruschetta, keeping it light and lively.

Break the eggs into the simmering water and poach until the egg white is no longer clear and has solidified. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the eggs to kitchen paper and dab away any excess water. Place an egg on each bruschetta, tear the rocket leaves in half and place on top, then scatter the peas over.

PENNE WITH BRAISED ARTICHOKES AND PANCETTA

I will often have no idea what to cook for supper and no desire to shop at the supermarket. It is when I am feeling like this that I make a visit to my favourite greengrocers, on Turnham Green Terrace in Chiswick, London. Andrew, the owner, sources an incredible range of seasonal fruit and veg from English growers as well as from the Italian and French markets.

As I stand in his shop I will make a decision about what to cook for supper; in the summer it might be Scottish girolles (which will have just arrived from Scotland), fried in garlic with lemon and parsley with a poached egg on toast, or a fresh pasta sauce made with small and sweet ‘Datterini’ tomatoes. In the spring I’ll find a basket overflowing with the first of the season’s broad beans from Italy next to a pile of young artichokes displayed in bunches tied with string, the green buds blushed purple and sold with the leaves still attached to their stems.

It was the bundles of artichokes that caught my attention this spring. I knew I had a piece of pancetta in the fridge and the mint had started to shoot in the garden. The decision was made – a delicious artichoke pasta for supper and no need for any further shopping.

FOR 4

12 medium-sized artichokes (‘Violetto’ are perfect for this recipe)

500g penne rigate

olive oil

150g pancetta cubes, or smoky bacon rashers cut into mm slices

3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped

a few leaves of fresh mint and basil, washed, dried and roughly chopped

184ml double cream or crème fraîche

40–50g freshly grated Parmesan cheese

sea salt and black pepper

Put two large pans of water on to boil, each with a generous pinch of salt.

To prepare the artichokes, cut the end of the stem off, leaving 1cm still attached to the bud. Pull away the tough outer leaves until you reach the tender yellow ones. Peel the stalk and trim round the base of the heart. Slice off the top of the leaves just above the heart. Cut each artichoke in half and, if necessary, remove the choke, then cut lengthways through the stem into slices about 1cm thick. Drop the slices into one pan of boiling water and cook for 10 minutes until tender. Check the heart is cooked through by piercing up through the stem, there should be no resistance. Drain in a colander under cold running water to cool them off, then dab dry with kitchen paper.

Pour the pasta into the other pan of boiling water and cook until al dente (with a little bite) – about 10 minutes, or according to the instructions on the packet. While the pasta is cooking, prepare the sauce.

Heat a drizzle of olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pan, add the pancetta or bacon and cook until it is on the point of colouring. Add the garlic and toss it with the pancetta for a few minutes. Just before it starts to brown add the artichokes, mint and basil and simmer on a low heat for a minute or two, then add the cream or crème fraîche and season with salt and pepper.

When the pasta is ready, drain through a colander set over a bowl, then put back in the pan with a little of the water it was cooked in (1 tablespoon or so) and pour a little olive oil over it. Season well with salt and pepper. I use tongs to add the pasta to the sauce in the pan so that I can control how much pasta to add for the quantity of sauce, rather than chucking all the pasta in at once. Toss everything together and serve immediately with freshly grated Parmesan.

LAMB CUTLETS SCOTTADITO

Lamb cutlets beaten a little with a meat tenderiser are grilled briefly so that the flesh is juicy and pink and you can eat them with your hands (in Italian scottadito means ‘burned fingers’). This recipe reminds me of Rose, as I can picture her gently beating the chops for a Valentine meal of pink food. The starter was langoustines poached whole with a red chilli sauce.

FOR 4

12 best-end lamb cutlets (about 3 per person or 4 if they are very small), un-chined, fat removed from the bones

1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

2 lemons, cut into quarters

salt and black pepper

Place the lamb cutlets on a board and cover with a piece of greaseproof paper. Using a meat tenderiser mallet or the rounded end of a rolling pin, gently beat the lamb out until it is half its original thickness.

Heat the griddle pan until smoking hot. Season the cutlets with salt and pepper, then place on the smoking-hot grill for 1–2 minutes on each side, pressing them down as they cook. Drizzle with the extra-virgin olive oil, then serve straight away with lemon quarters.

This is delicious with a simple tomato salad in the summer or grilled radicchio in winter with some borlotti beans.

AN EARLY SPRING SALAD OF SEA KALE WITH VIOLA FLOWERS, ORANGE, PURSLANE AND MAYONNAISE

At this time of year, early spring bulbs have started to flower, along with the sweetly scented winter shrubs. Daphnes, viburnums and winter honeysuckle have a particularly intense smell. The beautiful copper-coloured limbs of the Magnolia × soulangeana are bearing buds waiting to open with the first flush of sunshine, but the herbs are still patchy, a little too early for flowering thyme and rosemary.

Heartsease viola flowers in March and is hardy to a point at a time of year when many of the flowering edible plants have not yet come out. Adding the tiny delicate flowers to this dish reminds me of the lightness of spring.

FOR 4

1 medium egg yolk

about 175ml extra-virgin olive oil

juice of 1 lemon

2 bundles of sea kale, stalk ends trimmed where they have been cut

1 or 2 small blood oranges or 1 large navel orange, peeled and pith removed, then cut crossways into 5mm-thick slices

about 12 viola flowers picked from the garden or a pot, stems removed

a few leaves of winter purslane or lamb’s lettuce

salt and black pepper

To make the mayonnaise, put the egg yolk into a pestle and mortar. (You can do this in the food processor or KitchenAid, but this is just the way we have made it in our family over the years, as it gives you more direct control and contact with the way the yolk is responding to the olive oil – how thick you want it and how much lemon to put in can be adjusted to taste in a more satisfying way.) Very slowly start adding the oil – it should be drops at the beginning not a continuous stream, stirring all the time. Once the egg yolk and oil have become one and there is no sign of separation – the mixture should start to feel gloopy and stiff – add a squeeze of lemon juice. Keep stirring and adding more olive oil until it becomes too thick and is clinging to the pestle, then add more lemon juice to loosen the mixture. Keep adding the oil until you have the right amount of mayonnaise. Season with salt and pepper and taste to see if it needs a little more lemon.

Put a pan of water on to boil with a pinch of salt. Add the sea kale to the boiling water and cook for 4–5 minutes or until just tender, then, using a slotted spoon, carefully transfer on to kitchen paper and dab off any excess water. Divide the kale between the plates. Arrange 3 or 4 orange slices here and there on the kale and add a generous blob of mayonnaise. Scatter the viola flowers and a few leaves of the purslane or lamb’s lettuce over the top, then add a very light drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.

LEMONY CHICKEN WITH FRESH CORIANDER

My sister Hester is a very organised person and over the years has kept notes of recipes from friends and family. This recipe is taken from the notes that she wrote while watching Rose (who had recently returned from Kerala) pounding and grinding the many spices that make the lemony chicken so fresh and vibrant. It became a regular supper in the house whenever we wanted something spicy and, as long as you get all the ingredients prepared first, it is fairly quick and easy to make.

There is a wonderfully pleasurable moment when you add the pounded spices to the fresh ginger and garlic in the hot oil – all the aromas are released and the whole kitchen fills with exotic smells.

SERVES 4

20g fresh root ginger, peeled and chopped into small chunks

3 garlic cloves, peeled

¼ tsp ground turmeric

2 tsp coriander seeds

2 tsp cumin seeds

¼ tsp cayenne pepper

1 medium-sized chicken, jointed into its various parts (the butcher will do this for you)

3 tbsp olive oil

juice of 1½ lemons

1 fresh green chilli, stalk removed, then finely chopped (deseed if you prefer it less hot)

1 small bunch of fresh coriander, leaves picked from their stems, washed, dried and finely chopped

sea salt and black pepper

Put the ginger into the food processor with 2–3 tablespoons of water and blend to a paste.

Put the garlic, turmeric, coriander and cumin seeds and cayenne pepper into a pestle and mortar and pound together.

Season the chicken pieces well all over with salt and pepper

Heat a drizzle of the olive oil in a shallow, heavy-based pan, add the chicken pieces and brown them on all sides – it may be easier to brown them in batches if your pan is too small to fit them in without overlapping. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the chicken to a bowl.

Put the garlic and spice mixture into the still-hot pan (you may need to add a little more oil) and stir to release their flavours. Add the ginger and chopped chilli and stir-fry for a minute or so. Add the chicken pieces and any juices that have been released, then add 8 tablespoons of water and the lemon juice. Stir, then turn up the heat and bring to a boil, cover with a tight-fitting lid and turn the heat right down to a gentle simmer. Cook for 15 minutes until the chicken is tender and cooked through. Remove the lid and scatter the chopped coriander over. Serve with spiced basmati rice (see here).

SPICED BASMATI RICE
FOR 4 (GENEROUSLY)

300g basmati rice

2 tbsp olive oil

1 small red onion, peeled and finely chopped

½ small fresh green chilli, cut in half lengthways, deseeded, stalk removed, then finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped

500ml chicken stock

sea salt

FOR THE GARAM MASALA

1 tbsp cardamom pods, husks removed – leaving 1 tsp cardamom seeds

½ cinnamon stick

1 tsp black cumin seeds

2 whole cloves

¼ whole nutmeg, grated on the zest part of the grater

½ tsp whole black peppercorns

Grind all the ingredients for the garam masala together in a pestle and mortar or coffee grinder.

Put the rice in a colander or sieve and wash under cold water until the water runs clear. Put the rice in a large bowl, cover with cold water and leave to soak for minutes, then leave to drain for 20 minutes or so.

Heat the olive oil in a heavy-based pan over a medium heat, add the onion and fry gently until light golden in colour. Add the chilli and garlic and cook for a further 2–3 minutes. Add the garam masala and cook for a further minute or so, then add the rice and stir together well, so that the rice is coated with the spices and oil. Add just enough chicken stock to cover the rice and season with a little salt, then cover with a lid and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and simmer over a very low heat for 5 minutes. Take off the heat and leave covered for 10 minutes – the steam will keep the rice nice and fluffy. Taste to check if the rice is ready – it should have a little bite.

GUINEA FOWL WITH PROSCIUTTO, MASCARPONE AND LEMON

Theo Randall, the head chef at the River Café for many wonderful years, taught me how, with just a few simple ingredients, to turn a dull breast of chicken into something more exciting to eat … a little lemon zest grated into creamy mascarpone with some finely chopped rosemary and then stuffed between the chicken’s flesh and skin, followed by – to add more flavour – a small slice from the end of the Parma ham (this is the bit where the flavour is intensified, where the fat is just as sweet as the meaty bits). I like to make it with guinea fowl, with its slightly gamey flavour.

FOR 4

150g mascarpone

1 sprig of fresh rosemary, leaves picked from their stems, washed, dried and finely chopped

1 small unwaxed lemon

4 guinea fowl breast supremes, skin on, or 4 chicken supremes with wing attached

4 slices of prosciutto

olive oil

a knob of butter

sea salt and black pepper

Preheat the oven to 210ºC (190ºC fan) Gas 6½ Put the mascarpone and chopped rosemary in a bowl. Grate the lemon on the zest part of the grater and add to the bowl. Season with salt and pepper and mix together.

Place each supreme on a board and push your fingers up between the skin and the flesh to make an opening. Reserve a generous spoonful of the mascarpone mixture for the sauce. Put a spoonful of the mixture between the skin and flesh, then insert a slice of prosciutto to lie flat against the skin (if the slice is too large, tear it in half). Season the breasts on the outside.

Use a small roasting tin or shallow, flameproof, ovenproof dish large enough to hold the supremes in one layer. Heat a drizzle of olive oil and the butter in the tin or dish and brown the breasts on both sides until golden. Place in the oven for 15 minutes until cooked. Transfer the breasts to a serving dish and keep warm. Add the reserved mascarpone to the hot pan with a squeeze of lemon – the mascarpone will melt and mingle with the lemon juice to make a delicious sauce to pour over the breasts. Serve straight away.

BROAD BEANS AND MINT
FOR 4

1kg broad beans in their pods

2 garlic cloves, peeled and crudely cut into slices

2–3 sprigs of fresh mint, washed and dried

extra-virgin olive oil

salt and black pepper

Bring a pan of water to a boil while you are podding the beans, then put the beans in. Cook for 3–4 minutes – the smaller and younger they are the less cooking is needed. Drain, then put in a bowl with the garlic and mint. Pour enough extra-virgin olive oil over to coat the beans, then season with salt and pepper. Let the hot beans take on the flavour of the garlicky, minty olive oil for 3 minutes or so, then remove the raw garlic pieces and the mint before serving.

BROAD-LEAVED ROCKET

Broad-leaved rocket is incredibly easy to grow as a cut-and-come-again salad leaf. It has a wonderful peppery flavour that goes so well with tomatoes, or if you need a leaf that ‘cuts’ into other flavours, or as an alternative to flat-leaf parsley. It is just so useful to have available on your windowsill or in the garden – you will always have some fresh green leaves to add to your meal without having to go and buy the commercially produced wild rocket, which tends to lack flavour.

Rocket will grow pretty much anywhere, in shade or sunlight. You can sprinkle a few seeds in pots that contain trees, shrubs or perennials, or on a bare patch of soil. It germinates in a few days and can be picked after a few weeks. The first growth is less peppery than the second, when the stems become thicker and the leaves a slightly darker green with a stronger flavour. March/April is a good time to sow seed – every twelve weeks or so will give a continuous crop. When the summer gets going the plants tend to bolt, producing small, delicate, white flowers, which can be used in salads. After this the plants will be too tired to produce anything more worth picking, by which time your new sowing will have got under way and should be ready for picking the first young leaves.

Rocket will self-seed if you leave the flowers on. Sow direct around mid-March as the ground starts to warm up.

COOKING WITH ROSE

My memories of cooking with Rose picture her slicing, prodding, mixing, tying, rolling, chopping – she loved her mezzaluna for chopping the herbs when she was making salsa verde. Kitchen equipment essentials were quite basic. Pasta was rolled out with a glass bottle if the rolling pin couldn’t be found. Mayonnaise was made in the pestle and mortar; pastry, cakes, eggs and cream were hand-whisked in a bowl. Meat was minced in a hand-operated meat grinder clamped to the side of the table.

Not having a food processor or KitchenAid made the preparation of food both social and instructive; friends would be given a board, a knife and a glass of wine with directions on how finely to chop the garlic or how to remove the sprouting, bitter green shoot in the winter cloves. Peppercorns were crushed in a crude wooden bowl with a large round stone just before cooking so that their oils remained fresh. Pressing ‘pulse’ on the processor seemed a cold and distant way to chop the civilising herbs … Rose’s hands were constantly moving like little birds – lots of contact with whatever ingredient was being prepared seemed to bring life into every aspect of the making of a meal. A good friend remarked, after Rose’s death, that she had taught him how to live.

Rose was an incredible teacher in that you came away from your experience of cooking with her and somehow life had changed. Her attention to the possibilities of the ingredients she used and the nature and character of the condition they were in would determine how she prepared and cooked them. She was also quite scary – if I questioned whether it was really necessary to peel the individual skins off every chickpea she had boiled (and a normal 500g packet is a lot of chickpeas), she would give me one of her intensely penetrating glares.

CAMONE TOMATO, COPPA DI PARMA AND RICOTTA SALAD

‘Camone’ tomatoes arrive at the beginning of spring, imported from Sicily. They are sold on the stem with medium-sized greeny-red fruits. They have a tangy quality that reflects the lack of sun that sweetens the tomatoes later in the season. I love the firm texture and taste of this tomato, which goes so well with the light and creamy ricotta and the deep earthy and sweet flavours of the coppa (the cured rolled shoulder of pig).

FOR 4

1 small bunch of fresh marjoram, leaves picked from their stems, washed and dried (about 3 tbsp of leaves)

extra-virgin olive oil

1 lemon

3–4 ‘Camone’ tomatoes (or ‘Marinda’, another early variety with a firm, slightly crunchy texture and fantastic flavour)

12 slices of coppa di Parma (cured pork shoulder)

150g buffalo ricotta

a few leaves of broad-leaved rocket or lamb’s lettuce, washed and dried

sea salt and black pepper

Make the salmoriglio (sauce) by crushing the marjoram leaves with a pinch of sea salt in the pestle and mortar until a rough paste is formed. Add 2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil and a squeeze of lemon and stir together.

Slice the tomatoes in half crossways (not through the stem) and then cut roughly into pieces so that you have odd shapes. Season with a little salt (remember that the salmoriglio has some in) and pepper and coat with a little extra-virgin olive oil.

Put a few pieces of tomato on to each plate, divide the coppa up and curl it through the tomatoes as if it were unfolding. Spoon teaspoons of the buffalo ricotta over the salad and add a few rocket or lamb’s lettuce leaves. Dribble the salmoriglio sparingly over the top.

RABBIT STEW

We had rabbits as pets when we were little. My brother Dante refused to let our mother put rabbit on the menu at the River Café for years and then one day it featured: the pet was on the plate.

Nothing makes me feel like spring is here more than broad beans. I love them with rabbit cooked with herbs, carrots and some white wine.

Farmed rabbit flesh is delicate and tender compared to wild rabbit, which tends to be tougher and has a stronger, gamier flavour.

FOR 4

1 whole rabbit, cut into its various parts, legs removed and saddle cut into similar-sized pieces (the butcher will do this)

20–30g unsalted butter

olive oil

4–6 spring carrots, washed, ends trimmed, chopped at an angle about cm thick

2 celery sticks, ends trimmed, cut into 1cm thick slices

2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped

4 slices of pancetta or good-quality smoked streaky bacon, cut into mm pieces

a few sprigs of fresh rosemary or thyme, washed and dried

500ml good-quality dry white wine

salt and black pepper

Use a heavy-based pan with a lid that is large enough to hold the rabbit and the juices. Season the rabbit well on all sides with salt and pepper.

Put the pan on the heat and add half the butter and a drizzle of olive oil. When the butter starts to sizzle, add the rabbit pieces and brown the meat on all sides, then remove them to a plate. You may not have room in the pan to brown all the rabbit in one go, in which case do a few pieces at a time.

Add the remaining butter to the pan with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and the carrots and celery. Let them sweat gently for 8–10 minutes until they become slightly soft on the outside. Add the garlic and pancetta and continue to cook over a medium heat until the pancetta is just about to start turning golden in colour, then add the rosemary or thyme sprigs. Put the rabbit pieces back in the pan with any juices that have been released and add the wine, which should come about two-thirds of the way up the pan. (The rabbit need not be totally submerged.) Let the wine come to a boil, then put the lid on and turn the heat down to a gentle simmer (or you could put it in the oven at 200ºC (180ºC fan) Gas 6). Cook for about hour, occasionally turning the rabbit pieces over to keep them moist. Serve with broad beans and mint (see here).

EARLY MARCH

This is a strange time of year for ingredients. It can be cold, windy and frosty with days that have buds on stems outlined by blue skies. Leafy vegetables that grow above ground and need frost to taste their best have been delicious; cavolo nero and the chicory family have kept a balance with all the autumn root vegetables. It is time for change, to lighten up even though the produce remains quite limited. The game season finished at the end of February and the spring lamb has yet to come in.

The forced shoots of rhubarb and sea kale are an early sign of spring and are eaten almost as a delicacy. For me, sea kale marks a transition from the winter months into early spring. By eating the early sprouting shoots it seems as if you are literally eating a mouthful of a season to come.

Thinking about what to cook in March is really about how to change the way I approach the ingredients I have been cooking with all winter. There are new arrivals in the form of early carrots and small baby turnips, which have a vibrancy to them that is incredibly refreshing after months of earthy flavours. Beetroots in the shops, or stored since the autumn, look tired and are soft to the touch, with slackened skin that needs removing before they are boiled or roasted. They look ugly too, their skins like overcoats that have spent too long in the trenches covering the wrong type of sweetness. Whereas in summer beetroots can be pulled from the ground, their skins, taut and full of flavour, are kept on and they are delicious roasted or boiled whole when they are still relatively small and young.

At this time of year I want to make light of the ingredients available; griddling a chicken breast or poaching a chicken with a few carrots, leeks and celery seems less hearty and comforting than making a stew of it, which is more suited to cold nights. Early soft-leaved herbs such as marjoram, mint and parsley add an enlivening quality that reminds me of spring and new growth.

FLATTENED CHICKEN WITH HERBS AND LEMON

Beating the chicken breasts between two pieces of greaseproof paper until they are about cm thick and have spread out makes them tender and quick to cook on a grill or griddle. It feels good not to be baking or roasting or stewing after the winter months.

I often cut up a whole chicken if I am not going to use the whole bird in one meal, and then marinate it in lemon and olive oil and whatever herb is around. In March it is usually an evergreen herb such as rosemary, thyme or bay. This is a delicious way of cooking the breasts, but you can also use the boned-out thighs.

In March I serve the chicken with purple sprouting broccoli, as it has just come into season and is at its best. Later on you could have it with some broad beans and peas, or in the summer with a simple tomato salad. At the Sticky Wicket, in Antigua, they griddle flattened chicken to make a delicious hot sandwich with tomato, salad leaves, sour cream and the local chilli sauce.

It is important to eat the chicken as soon as possible after it has come off the grill, when the flesh is still juicy and full of flavour.

FOR 4

4 boned chicken breasts, skin on with the wing bone still attached (chicken supremes) or 4 boned chicken thighs

juice of 1 lemon

a few sprigs of fresh thyme or rosemary, leaves picked from their stems, washed, dried and finely chopped (about 1 tbsp)

2 tbsp olive oil

2–3 medium-sized sweet potatoes, peeled, washed and sliced lengthways into quarters

3 garlic cloves, peeled and crudely smashed

3 or 4 stems of fresh thyme, leaves picked from their stems, washed and dried

1 dried red chilli, crushed

200g purple sprouting broccoli

100g sour cream

2 fresh red chillies, cut in half lengthways, deseeded, stalk removed, then finely chopped

a few sprigs of fresh marjoram, leaves picked from their stems, washed and dried

sea salt and black pepper

Place each piece of chicken between two sheets of greaseproof paper and gently beat the meat until it has spread out to about cm thick. Put the chicken on a plate and squeeze half the lemon juice over. Scatter the tablespoon of thyme or rosemary leaves over the chicken, season with pepper and a drizzle of olive oil and leave to marinate for at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 200ºC (180ºC fan) Gas 6. Put the sweet potato quarters into a bowl with the garlic, thyme leaves, a pinch of the dried chilli and enough olive oil to just coat the potatoes, then season with salt and pepper and toss together. Place in a baking dish and cook in the oven for 35–40 minutes, turning the sweet potatoes every now and again. They are ready when they offer no resistance to a knife tip and the outside is golden and slightly caramelised.

Put a pan of salted water on to boil for the broccoli. Prepare the broccoli by cutting off the thick stem at an angle, leaving 3–4cm still attached to the buds, then slice through the stem and buds lengthways. Leave any smaller, thinner stems intact, just remove the ends. The idea is that they should all cook at the same time and so should be of roughly the same thickness.

Salt the boiling water, then plunge the broccoli in and cook for 2–3 minutes until the stem is just tender when pierced with a knife. Drain in a colander, then return to the pan and pour a little olive oil over. Season with salt and pepper and keep it warm while you cook the chicken.

Heat the grill or griddle pan until smoking hot. Season the chicken with salt, place on the hot griddle or grill and leave to cook undisturbed for minutes or so, then turn and cook for a further 4–5 minutes until the flesh has cooked through. Remove from the heat, place on a board and leave to rest for a few minutes.

Slice the chicken at an angle into strips and serve with the sweet potato, broccoli and a spoonful of sour cream. We love chilli in our family, so I lightly scatter the chopped fresh chilli over the top with a few marjoram leaves and a squeeze of lemon. This makes all the difference.

BROAD BEAN SALAD

Young broad beans with their bright green pods are the first bean of spring. I know I will be cooking with them right through the summer, the beans swelling in size and fading in colour as the sun gets higher, the texture changing as the bean matures, becoming starchy and nuttier in flavour. But in late March, when they first appear (usually imported from Italy) with their tight young skins, small, young and fresh, they are sweet and crisp and provide relief after a winter of dried pulses.

FOR 4

750g fresh young broad beans in their pods, podded

1 tbsp olive oil

100g pancetta, cut into small cubes

1 garlic clove, peeled and sliced into slivers

2 dried red chillies, crushed

a few leaves of fresh mint, washed, dried and roughly chopped

3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

juice of ½ lemon

2 small round soft-leaf lettuce, leaves separated, washed and dried

200g feta cheese, roughly broken into pieces (barrel-aged feta is delicious if you can find it)

sea salt and black pepper

Blanch the broad beans in boiling, unsalted water for 3-4 minutes or until just cooked, depending on the size of the bean. Then drain.

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and add the pancetta. As it starts to colour, add the garlic slivers and the crushed chillies. When the garlic turns golden, add the broad beans and mint and toss all the ingredients together.

To make a dressing, combine the extra-virgin olive oil with the juice of half a lemon in a small bowl, then season with a small amount of salt (both the pancetta and feta are salty) and pepper.

Put the salad leaves in a bowl and toss with the dressing and the feta cheese, then spoon the broad beans and pancetta over the top.

ROSE’S ORIGINAL CRÊPE RECIPE THAT SHE BROUGHT BACK FROM PARIS IN THE ‘70S

Everyone has their own pancake recipe; this is the one we traditionally make in our family. Rose always made this mixture on Pancake Day or as a quick pudding after supper. The pancakes are very thin and exciting to cook, and are eaten the moment they come out of the pan.

A good fat and plump vanilla pod slit in half and put in a jar with caster sugar is one of the simplest ways of tasting the vanilla bean. A squeeze of lemon juice to melt the sugar brings the taste out even more. Delicious …

MAKES 10–12 PANCAKES

about 150g vanilla caster sugar (see above)

4 lemons, cut lengthways into quarters, as Rose always did

FOR THE PANCAKES/CRÊPES

225g plain flour

4 medium eggs

450ml milk

150g butter, melted

2 tbsp vanilla caster sugar

FOR FRYING

110g butter

Sift the flour into a bowl, make a well in the centre, and add the eggs, slowly stirring and combining, then pour in the milk in a continuous stream, stirring all the time to form a batter. Add the melted butter and caster sugar. Cover with cling film and leave in the fridge for minutes.

When you are ready to eat the crêpes, heat a non-stick frying pan with a knob of butter, then swirl it around the pan until it starts to bubble. Take a ladleful of the batter and pour it into the pan, tipping it so that the batter spreads out evenly over the bottom of the pan. When the sides of the pancake start to stiffen and curl at the edges, flip the pancake over and brown on the other side – for a couple of minutes. Adjust the heat if it is too hot. Serve directly onto a plate with a sprinkling of the vanilla sugar and a good squeeze of lemon juice. Roll up the pancake and eat hot.

NOTE: The first pancake is usually a bit of an experiment as to how much batter to put into the pan – this should be just enough to coat the bottom. How big your pan is will dictate how much batter to use. The first one is usually chucked in my house until I have got the measure of the batter and pan.

SPRING MINESTRONE

The ingredients in a minestrone can vary according to what is available and in season. During spring I like to include asparagus, peas, broad beans, chard or early spinach. I use tinned peeled plum tomatoes in this recipe, as the fresh early varieties such as ‘Camone’ or ‘Marinda’, which both have incredible flavour, are too acidic and have not yet formed enough of the sweetness that comes from ripening in the sun later on in the year.

I love all the different textures and shades of green in this soup and the broth is a gentle and sustaining background in which to poach the vegetables.

FOR 6

3 celery sticks, ends trimmed

4 carrots, washed or peeled, ends trimmed

500g peas in the pod, which yields about 200g fresh peas

1 bundle of fresh green English asparagus, about 350g, tough ends snapped off, washed

1.5 litres chicken stock

olive oil

a small knob of butter

1 medium-sized red onion, peeled and finely chopped

200g chard, leaves stripped from their stalks and washed, stalks crossways cut into 5mm slices (or spring greens or crinkled spinach, removed from the stem)

3 medium-sized Charlotte potatoes (or any waxy variety will do), peeled and cut into roughly 1.5cm pieces

3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped

1 × 400g tin of peeled plum tomatoes, drained of their juice

1 small bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley, washed and dried

4 slices of ciabatta bread

100g Parmesan cheese

extra-virgin olive oil

salt and black pepper

Slice each celery stick lengthways into 5mm-thick strips, then chop the strips across about mm thick. Do the same with the carrots, so that you end up with roughly the same size pieces as the celery. Pod the peas into a bowl. Slice the asparagus spears at an angle into pieces about 5mm thick.

Bring the chicken stock to a simmer.

Add a slug of olive oil and the butter to a heavy-based pan and, as the butter starts to sizzle, add the onion, celery, carrots, chard stalks and potatoes. Turn the heat to low to medium and let the vegetables sweat gently for about minutes. They should not brown, but just soften.

Add the garlic and let it soften, then add the tomatoes and cook for a few minutes until they start to fall apart. Add enough of the hot stock so that it comes about two-thirds up the pan and let it simmer very gently for minutes or so, stirring occasionally, to help break up the tomatoes.

Check the potatoes are just cooked but not overdone, then roughly shred the chard or spinach leaves and add them to the soup, along with the peas and asparagus, making sure there is enough stock to submerge them. Simmer for about 5 minutes until they are just tender, then season with salt and pepper.

Preheat the grill. Roughly chop the parsley and grill the ciabatta. Ladle the soup into the bowls and add a scattering of parsley and a grating of Parmesan. Finish with a little extra-virgin olive oil and serve with a piece of the grilled bread.

SEA BASS WITH PORCINI AND SPRING GREENS

Charles came home the other night with three sea bass fillets. We had with us David, my stepfather, and my little niece, Ella, for the night while her parents were producing a new brother for her. None of us really knew how the evening would turn out in terms of being called and asked to take Ella to the hospital or back to her house, so we decided to just play it by ear.

In my cupboard were some dried porcini and in my fridge a bag of spring greens. Cooking the porcini with the bass imbues the delicate flesh of the fish with the most wonderfully scented flavours. Spring greens prepared simply, just shredded across the leaves and stems then blanched for a few minutes, are the only vegetable you will need and are utterly delicious. The sea bass takes about 5 minutes to cook in the bag and the spring greens about minutes. This is an incredibly easy, quick and utterly delicious supper that is also very healthy.

FOR 4

10g good-quality dried porcini mushrooms

500g spring greens

olive oil

2 rose garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped

extra-virgin olive oil

4 sea bass fillets (preferably cut from a large wild fish … the fatter the better), or bream, halibut or brill fillets, each weighing 175–200g, pin-boned

1 lemon, cut crossways into thin slices

4 sprigs of fresh thyme, washed and dried

2 tbsp good-quality dry white wine

sea salt and black pepper

Place the porcini in a bowl and cover with 1½ cups of boiling water. Leave for 20 minutes in the boiling water, then strain the mushroom pieces into a bowl and retain the liquid.

Cut the stems off the spring greens at the base and then roughly shred the leaves into 3cm-wide strips. Wash under cold water.

Preheat the oven to 220ºC (200ºC fan) Gas 7. Put a pan of water on to boil for the spring greens.

Heat a swirl of olive oil in a small, heavy-based pan and, as it starts to get hot, add the garlic. Just before the garlic starts to brown, when it becomes sticky, add the porcini pieces. Toss them in the garlic and oil for a minute or so to release the flavours but don’t allow them to become crisp. Add 4–5 tablespoons of the mushroom juice and let it simmer, reduce and thicken a little for a minute. Remove from the heat.

To make the bags, cut four sheets of silver foil, each 36 × 30cm, and lay them out. Drizzle the extra-virgin olive oil lightly over the foil and season with salt and pepper. Lightly season the bass fillets and lay them, skin-side up, just off centre of the foil (as you are going to fold the foil over to make the envelope). Put a slice of lemon on each fillet, then add a small sprig of thyme and put a few pieces of the cooked dried porcini on top.

Fold the foil in half over the fish, then fold in the sides a couple of times to seal them, leaving the top open. Keep each parcel fairly flat but just tilt it slightly, then add ½ tablespoon of white wine and 1 tablespoon of the porcini juice to each bag. Fold the top opening over twice to seal the bag and to prevent any of the juices escaping. Place the bags flat on a baking tray (but don’t overlap them) and cook in the oven for 10 minutes. The bags will puff out and will be filled with air like plump pillows when they are ready.

While the bass is cooking, blanch the spring greens in the boiling, salted water for 4 minutes or so until tender. Drain and put back in the pan, then season with salt and pepper and a good drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil.

Carefully cut or tear the bags open at the top so that you can check that the fish is cooked and re-seal if necessary. Slide the fillets out onto the plates and carefully tip the juices out of the bags and over the fish. Serve with the spring greens.

SLOW-ROASTED SHOULDER OF LAMB WITH PEAS AND BROAD BEANS

The young new lamb is often quite pale in colour and needs less time to cook than mature lamb. I love using the shoulder joint, which is delicious roasted slowly on the bone; the fatty juices that are released keep the flesh tender and full of flavour.

New peas and broad beans, freshly podded, add a note of refreshing vibrancy. Podding the beans is a huge part of the enjoyment – sitting at a table with a glass of wine, easing the beans out of their pods is a pleasure in itself that does not compare to opening a bag of frozen broad beans with their dull grey skins, the beans all the same size, graded to within an inch of their lives.

FOR 4

1 shoulder of new season’s lamb (it should be quite small, about 2kg), or ½ shoulder of mature lamb

4–5 garlic cloves, peeled and cut into fine slivers

2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves picked from their stems, washed and dried

300ml red wine

1kg peas in the pod

1kg broad beans in the pod

about 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

1 sprig of fresh garden mint, washed and dried

salt and black pepper

Preheat the oven to 220ºC (200ºC fan) Gas 7. Using a small, sharp knife, make little slits about mm deep into the lamb shoulder, about 5cm apart. Put a sliver of garlic (reserving some for the peas and beans) and a couple of rosemary leaves into each slit and season well with salt and pepper. Put the rest of the garlic to one side. Put the lamb in a flameproof roasting tin, cover with foil and put in the oven for 40 minutes, then remove the foil, turn the oven down to 200ºC (180ºC fan) Gas 6 and cook for a further 2–3 hours, adding a slosh of wine every now and again. How long depends on the size of your shoulder, so check after hour of cooking. About minutes before you take the lamb out, pour a final generous glass of wine into the bottom of the roasting tin. Transfer the lamb to a warm dish, cover with a sheet of silver foil and let it rest for 20 minutes.

While the lamb is cooking, pod the peas and broad beans and put in separate bowls. Put a pan of water on to boil with a pinch of salt and blanch the peas for 5 minutes, then drain. Blanch the broad beans in a separate pan of boiling, unsalted water for 4–5 minutes, then drain.

Heat a good drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil in a pan and add the reserved garlic slivers. As they become sticky and start to colour, add the broad beans and peas and toss together, then season with salt and pepper. I add a whole sprig of fresh mint, which I remove when I am ready to serve, as it blackens with the heat from the beans and peas.

Skim off any fat from the juices in the roasting tin and add more wine, if needed. Put on the hob and let it bubble and reduce, then pour into a bowl or small pan to keep it hot.

Pull the meat away from the bone in pieces and serve with the peas and broad beans and the juices from the pan.

I serve this with piping-hot potato gratin, which is very simple and quick to make (see here).

POTATO GRATIN WITH PARMESAN
FOR 4

20g unsalted butter

300ml double cream

1kg waxy potatoes, peeled and cut lengthways into 3mm slices, then rinsed with cold water

2–3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped

60g freshly grated Parmesan cheese

olive oil

salt and black pepper

Preheat the oven to 200ºC (180ºC fan) Gas 7. Lightly butter an ovenproof dish.

Put the cream in a saucepan large enough to contain the potatoes and bring to a simmer. Add the potato slices and stir together with the cream. Add the garlic and season with salt and pepper. Cook for about minutes, then pour into the prepared dish, sprinkle the Parmesan over with a small drizzle of olive oil, cover with silver foil and place in the oven. Cook for minutes or so until the potatoes are cooked through, then remove the foil and return to the oven. Turn the oven up to 200ºC (200ºC fan) Gas and cook for a further 15–20 minutes until the top is bubbling and golden.

UGLY BISCUITS … BRUTTI MA BUONI; UGLY BUT GOOD

I love the simplicity of this recipe. These light, Mediterranean biscuits are perfect with an espresso after a meal or with a peaches and cream ice cream, or simply on their own as a sweet biscuit for the children. If you want to make half the quantity, just halve the ingredients.

FOR ABOUT 30 BISCUITS

4 medium egg whites

250g caster sugar that has been kept in a jar with a vanilla pod (or add ½ tsp vanilla extract)

300g skinned whole almonds, finely chopped (not to a powder) in a food processor or by hand in the pestle and mortar

Preheat the oven to 170ºC (150ºC fan) Gas 3. Whip the egg whites with a pinch of sugar until very stiff. Mix the almonds with the remaining sugar (and the vanilla extract, if using) and fold in the egg whites.

Grease a baking sheet (or use a non-stick baking tray liner), as they are quite sticky. Using a tablespoon, place little dollops about 3–4cm apart (they spread a little when cooking), onto the baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to firm up on the tray and dry out a little, then transfer to a wire rack to cool. They can keep for a while in a tin but are so good they will soon be devoured.

EDIBLE FLOWERS

One year at Petersham I decided to grow edible annual flowers between the usual flowers we grew for cutting – dahlias, zinnias, scabious, cosmos and sweet peas amongst others, none of which are edible but which were chosen for their cut-and-come-again abilities as well as for their ornamental virtues. I also planted endless roses, the petals and hips of which are edible. My boss at Petersham, Francesco, would walk past me and say, ‘Roses, more roses, I want the whole place filled with roses.’

For edible flowers, I sowed seeds of blue and white borage (which over the years has continued to self-sow), sweet rocket, nasturtiums, malope, calendula and violas, amongst others. My good friend Skye Gyngell loves to use flowers in her cooking and so the rocket was allowed to bolt and flower along with the coriander. Francesco thought this an example of sloppy gardening practice – which it is if you don’t want rocket or borage seeding itself all over the place.

Skye is naturally inquisitive in her approach to cooking and has an intuitive sense of flavours that go well together. Rose petals were stolen to use in salads for the Petersham café kitchen and the blossom from the rosemary bushes picked along with the usual squash and courgette flowers. I even tried to grow caper plants for their flowers and buds but without much success – they need a long, hot growing season. Perhaps some seed artfully dropped into the rough hogging that makes up the dusty floor in one of the glasshouses would succeed. It might be perfectly happy in a sunny, neglected spot; my stepfather, David, grows them in pots in his sun-filled flat very successfully. The plant sprawls away on the windowsill, producing a mass of dense green leaves with beautiful little buds and flowers.

RECIPE FOR A PLATE OF FRIED FLOWERS AND BUDS – ARTICHOKES, CAPERS AND BORAGE
FOR 4

4 whole artichokes (‘Violetto’ are a good variety for this)

1½ lemons

30g salted capers, rinsed, soaked in a bowl of water with a splash of red wine vinegar for minutes (or capers from a jar, rinsed and dried)

8 stems of borage with the flowers and leaves attached, washed and patted dry and the ends trimmed

150ml sunflower oil, for frying

2 tbsp plain flour (for dusting)

salt and black pepper

FOR THE BATTER

150g plain flour

3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

6–8 tbsp water

pinch of salt

3 medium egg whites

To make the batter, sift the flour into a bowl and make a well in the middle. Stir in the extra-virgin olive oil and add the water a little at a time, stirring to make a smooth, creamy consistency, then cover with cling film and put in the fridge for half an hour.

Meanwhile, prepare the artichokes. Cut the end off each stem, leaving 1cm still attached to the bud. Pull away the tough outer leaves until you reach the tender yellow ones. Slice the top of the leaves off just above the heart. Pull the leaves apart slightly to reveal the hairy choke, then remove the choke with a spoon. Peel the stalk and trim off the tough bits around the base of the heart. Cut the artichokes lengthways through the stem into quarters, then put in a bowl of water with half a lemon and its juice to prevent them discolouring. Once they are all prepared, remove them from the water and pat dry on kitchen paper.

Drain the salted capers, rinse again and dry on kitchen paper.

When you are ready with the artichokes, capers and borage, pour enough sunflower oil into a large, heavy-based pan so that the oil comes to about 1cm or so up the sides of the pan, then heat to about 180ºC.

Back to the batter. Whip the egg whites until they are soft but can stand alone. Fold the egg whites into the flour and olive oil and water mixture and season with salt and pepper.

Dust the artichokes with flour seasoned with salt and pepper and shake off any excess. Put them into the hot oil and fry for about 4 minutes, turning them, until they start to turn golden and crisp at the edges. Remove with a slotted spoon onto kitchen paper.

Holding the borage by the stalk, sweep the buds and leaves through the batter, tap off any excess batter against the side of the bowl and then carefully place in the hot oil. Fry for a minute or so until golden and crisp, then using tongs turn the borage over and fry until golden on the other side. Remove with a slotted spoon onto kitchen paper.

Put the capers in a clean, dry metal sieve (it is important not to let any water near the oil) and lower into the hot oil. Let them sizzle for 1 minute, then remove onto kitchen paper.

Cut the remaining lemon into quarters. Put all the ingredients on a plate, sprinkle some salt and pepper over the top and serve immediately with the lemon quarters.

PETERSHAM

When I arrived at Petersham, I wanted to grow vegetables and salads that were difficult to obtain here and for Skye to use in the restaurant and Gael (Francesco’s wife) to cook with in her kitchen. I wanted to pick the male flowers from the courgettes when they first opened up in the morning to take to the kitchen, and to choose at what stage of growth to harvest the courgettes for eating raw when they are still relatively small and firm and delicate in flavour, without too many seeds and flesh, or to leave them on the plant for longer and allow their skins to thicken and the flesh to swell. These I use for grilling, as the moisture evaporates over the heat and condenses the flavour in the skin.

Rocket, the commercial varieties of which are so bland, is a delicious and incredibly versatile leaf used as either a herb or salad. The broad-leaved varieties are hard to find and the tastiest mainly sold in Middle Eastern stores, tied in bundles. I scattered a packet of seeds in some of the herb pots in my garden the other day and three days later they have already germinated and are showing signs of growth. Perhaps that is due to the warm week we have had this March.

All the chards are easy to grow here, despite the fact they are sold as specialist produce, along with cavolo nero, the black kale from Tuscany. I sow broad beans, peas, French and runner beans and borlotti beans (which are expensive to buy, that is, if you can find them). Start the borlottis off under glass in March to give them the long growing season they need, then plant them out in May for a September crop.

The most challenging Italian ingredient I attempted to grow was radicchio ‘Rosso di Treviso Tardivo’. Tying up the summer and autumn growth of leaves to ‘blanch’ the inner hearts was my inexperienced way of trying to figure out how to grow this specialist plant. It was successful to a degree in that during the winter I dared to untie the plant and peep at the leaves within: there were, huddled in the dark heart, beautiful cold-white spines dividing the dark wine-red leaf, crisp and dense and beginning to fold like a death at the tips.

Tomatoes: last year we grew an avenue of them in terracotta pots, tying the stems to string attached to the roof of the glasshouse. Francesco had instructed me to fill the glasshouses with them, so we did. He also suggested I ask his housekeeper for any old linen sheets we could tear up and use to wrap around the supports for the tomatoes as they grew. I did ask but got one of those ‘you must be insane’ looks. Varieties we grew included ‘Tigerella’, little yellow plum, ‘Gardener’s Delight’, ‘Bull’s Heart’ (‘Cuore di Bue’), ‘Black Russian’ and ‘Costoluto Fiorentino’. I love tomatoes, missing their wonderful flavours and aroma in the winter months.

PENNE CARBONARA WITH ASPARAGUS

I often make this on a Sunday night when eggs can be particularly soothing and I want to cook something simple but delicious. You can replace the asparagus with either peas, broad beans or courgettes. This is one of my favourite ways of eating asparagus.

FOR 4

1 bundle of fresh green English asparagus, about 350g, tough ends snapped off, washed

150ml double cream or g crème fraîche

6 good-quality fresh medium eggs, separated

about 30g Parmesan cheese, grated, plus extra to serve

extra-virgin olive oil

200g smoked streaky bacon or pancetta, cut into small pieces about 5mm thick

1 smallish sprig of fresh rosemary, leaves stripped from their stems, washed, dried and finely chopped

2 small dried chillies (bird’s eye chillies are good)

2 fat garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped

500g penne rigate

salt and black pepper

Put a pan of water on to boil which is large enough for the penne to swell while cooking and salt the water.

Cut the asparagus at a sharp angle into slices about 5mm thick.

Put the cream or crème fraîche into a bowl, add the egg yolks and the Parmesan, then season with salt and pepper and stir to combine.

Heat a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil in a heavy-based pan. Add the bacon or pancetta with the rosemary and crush the dried chillies in with your fingers. Just before the bacon starts to turn golden, add the garlic. Remove from the heat if you are worried the bacon is going too far, it will continue to cook for a minute or so.

Put the asparagus in a colander or sieve and blanch in the boiling water until just tender – about 3 minutes, then remove and add to the bacon in the pan and stir to combine the flavours.

Put the penne into the boiling water and cook for 10 minutes until al dente (with a little bite). Add the pasta to the bacon and asparagus and toss together, then pour the egg and cream mixture into the pasta – do this off the heat or you will end up with scrambled eggs.

Serve onto warm plates with a grating of fresh Parmesan – the grater held from above and quite high, and using long strokes over the finer grate, will produce the perfect texture – you don’t want dust.

FERGUS AND THE TRIP TO THE ISLE OF BUTE

Whisky, pig’s head and langoustine are the words that come to mind from this trip. My old friend Fergus Henderson met me at Glasgow airport with his driver, sent by our lovely hosts to pick him up as the guest of honour at their annual Eat Bute festival on the Isle of Bute. I hadn’t seen Fergus for a long time, so it was a complete delight to find him waiting for me in his bright blue suit as I came out of arrivals.

We have shared a love of good simple cooking since our childhood days when Fergus and Annabelle, his sister, would invite us to stay in their parents’ house in Wiltshire. Elizabeth, Fergus’s mother, is an amazing cook. I was always keen to be offered some of Annabelle’s packed lunch at school (I particularly remember a delicious meatloaf), but it was their garden full of radishes and crunchy lettuce, new potatoes, leeks and carrots that has really stuck in my memory. It was the way of the house to cook the freshly picked ingredients simply, with just a little butter and then some dill for the carrots, or the potatoes just scrubbed of their dirt and put in a pan and cooked with a knob of butter; the softest lettuces were given a mustard dressing, and the cucumber was deseeded, salted and coated with a Dijon emulsion; then radishes, pepper hot and crunchy with salt, boiled ham with curly parsley sauce, some celery poached in stock – everything super fresh, bold, very English and courageous.

Brian, Fergus and Annabelle’s father, is one of the most stylish men I have ever met – hugely generous, wonderful company and with a great appetite for life. It was Brian who took me to Harry’s Bar in Venice when I was seventeen to experience my first Negroni, when he came out to visit Fergus, studying in Florence at the time (eating tripe from the stall in the old money market in his lunch breaks). Brian and Elizabeth taught us the enjoyment you could get from a meal and its many different stages. It was civilised without being formal – delicious wines and beautiful ingredients cooked simply, Marc de Borgogne to finish, often music and dancing to end the night – heady days …

On the ferry over to the Isle of Bute, Fergus went off and bought a couple of drams of whisky to warm us up while we sat on the deck, our weekend getting closer in the distance across the water. It was a joyful journey, sharing a whisky on the ferry over to a beautiful Scottish island with my old friend.

A festive dinner in honour of Fergus was held that evening, with various courses cooked by Skye Gyngell, Jeremy Lee and Rory O’Connell. Then, the following day at the festival, Fergus was giving a demonstration on cooking a whole pig’s head (which he does with such charm and simple instruction), and everyone was diving in at the end to tear off a piece. Huge plates of local poached langoustines were had for lunch afterwards with chilled wine, and then dinner and energetic reels to finish off the night.

LANGOUSTINES WITH MINER’S LETTUCE (WINTER PURSLANE), MAYONNAISE AND SWEET MARJORAM

Langoustines have the most delicious sweet flesh – pale pink and more delicate than that of their larger cousin, the lobster. I will always order them if I see them on a menu, as they can be difficult to find fresh in the shops.

The best, juiciest and plumpest langoustines tend to come from Scotland, where the waters are cold enough for them to thrive. These beautiful creatures are fished in relatively small boats off the Scottish coast from sustainable stocks with well-managed quotas. I am mentioning this since I would hate for them to become unavailable other than frozen, which is not the idea at all.

Fresh langoustines need to be cooked when they are alive (although you can put them to sleep first by keeping them in the coldest part of the fridge, covered with ice and sheets of damp newspaper, for a couple of hours prior to cooking). My favourite way of cooking them is to plunge them into boiling water and then serve simply with a bowl of mayonnaise to dip into.

FOR 4

1 very fresh best-quality large egg yolk

200–250ml extra-virgin olive oil

2 lemons

24 fat live langoustines, kept in the bottom of the fridge, covered with some damp newspaper until you are ready to cook

100g purslane or lamb’s lettuce

1 handful of fresh sweet marjoram leaves and buds picked from their stems, washed and dried

salt and black pepper

To make the mayonnaise, put the egg yolk in a pestle and mortar (see here) or mixer, then very slowly start adding the olive oil, drop by drop at first, stirring all the time until the mixture is thick, sticky and gloopy. (If it is thin and the oil has separated from the egg, it means it has split, in which case start again by putting another yolk into the bowl and then adding, drop by drop, the split mixture.) As the mixture starts to thicken, about 10 minutes, add a small squeeze of lemon juice to loosen it a bit, then continue to add the oil a little at a time, checking the mixture has not separated. When all the oil has been used, taste and add more lemon juice if required – the juice of a whole lemon should be enough. Season with salt and pepper and keep cool.

Plunge the langoustines into a pan of boiling, salted water and poach for 3 minutes, then remove, or drain, and leave to cool for a few minutes.

Put the purslane or lamb’s lettuce in a bowl and squeeze the juice of half a lemon over with a little extra-virgin olive oil and some salt and pepper.

Place each langoustine, belly-side up, on a chopping board. Using a sharp knife, slice the langoustine in half lengthways and remove the flesh. Distribute on the plates, gently scatter the dressed leaves here and there – but not too many as to overwhelm the flavour of the shellfish, then lightly spoon trailing pools of the mayonnaise over.

Very crudely chop the marjoram – just one or two chops will be fine – and scatter it over the top.

BRAISED SPINACH

There are many more different varieties of spinach available in the supermarkets and greengrocers now than before but they never seem to name them – the packaging just simply states the generic name. I find this annoying, as I have to spend time describing the variety I am after, but I love all spinach, with its iron-y taste and melting softness when cooked.

There is one variety that I particularly enjoy – it arrives in spring and is mainly imported from France or Italy. Unlike the usual spinach you see in the shops whose stems have been cut individually, this variety is sold with the cluster of stems attached together at the base of the plant where it has been cut from the root. The stems are fairly short, only 5–6cm, and are pink below a canopy of deeply crinkled, dark and dense leaves. It is the more robust texture and flavour that I love, compared with the larger-leaved varieties. I have tried to discover the name but no one could help.

If you manage to find this variety, keep all the stems attached when braising in the olive oil, as they are full of flavour and look lively on the plate.

FOR 4

750g spinach, washed and tough stems removed

extra-virgin olive oil

salt and black pepper

To wash the spinach very thoroughly, plunge it into a sink of cold water several times as sand and grit can often cling to the leaves and stems.

Heat a good drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil in a pan over a medium to high heat. Drop the spinach leaves into the pan and toss in the oil with a pair of tongs. Season with salt and pepper and mix together. As soon as the spinach has collapsed and is soft and glossy, serve straight onto the plates.

DEVILLED CRAB

This is a wonderful recipe for spring, when the baby onions are so sweet with pearly white bulbs that have not formed a paper skin. Rose fell in love with the cooking of Sri Lanka, bringing this dish back with her. She was very excited about it, the combination of fresh crab meat with hot chillies and finely ground spices, the crab still in the half shell, and needing to get your fingers dirty. Licking-your-lips good.

On family trips to Cornwall to stay with Su Rogers, in her house overlooking the Falmouth estuary, there is always an abundance of live crabs and this was often a way of cooking them – relaxed, with everyone going at it to get to the sweet, spiced flesh.

Fishmongers will often need some notice if you want to order live crabs, as they tend to cook them as soon as they come in.

FOR 4

2 medium-sized live crabs, weighing about 2kg, kept in the fridge with some damp newspaper on top so that they fall asleep before you boil them (see here)

1 tsp cumin seeds

40g fresh root ginger, peeled and cut into small pieces

4 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped

2 fresh green chillies, cut in half lengthways, deseeded (optional), stalk removed, then roughly cut into pieces

olive oil

8 spring onions, green ends cut and root end trimmed

1 lemon

1 smallish bunch of fresh coriander, leaves picked from their stems, washed and dried and chopped

salt and black pepper

Fill a large saucepan with enough cold water to submerge the crabs. Add tablespoon of salt and bring to the boil. Once the water is boiling, drop in the crabs and cook for minutes. Remove the crabs and leave to cool.

To prepare the crab once cool, place it on its back on a chopping board, then pull the legs and claws away from the main body and put to one side. To separate the main outer shell from the crab’s undercarriage, keep the crab on its back and remove the tail flap, then ease the top and bottom apart with your fingers (you might need to separate the meat from the shell first by inserting a blade between the two and twisting it to release). Discard the stomach sac, just behind the mouth, then remove the dead man’s fingers, which have a greyish gill-like texture to them. Scoop out the brown meat from the upper shell with the juices. Using a strong, sharp knife, cut the body section in half and with a skewer or crab pick, carefully remove the delicate white meat. Crack the claws with a hammer once in each of their different joints or sections.

Crush the cumin seeds in the pestle and mortar, then add the ginger, garlic and chillies and pound to a paste.

Heat a good drizzle of olive oil in a large pan, then add the paste from the pestle and mortar and the spring onions. Cook for a few minutes to allow the onions to soften, then add the brown crab meat and juices, the claws and legs and season with a squeeze of lemon and salt and pepper. Cook for a few minutes to heat it through, then add the white meat and chopped coriander and toss together.

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