I love chicken stews and this is a very fine one made with plump chicken thighs, a mound of chestnut mushrooms, finely chopped rosemary and bay, onion and garlic, everything simmered away in white wine and stock in the oven. I served it with roast parsnips cooked at the same time, revitalized leftover mash (the…

I’m forever experimenting with ways to ring the changes with moules mariniere and this is the latest. Inspiration was needed because this particular net of mussels weighed 800g rather than the usual 1 kilo and had a high proportion had broken shells. Why not, I thought, add the other half of a big jar of…

This is a blessedly easy soup to make, just cut big slices of butternut squash and arrange them on a sheet of oiled foil with halved unpeeled onion and garlic. Onion and garlic have their skin discarded, then everything is liquidized with hot stock for several minutes to breakdown the squash skin. I passed mine…