Gooey, sweet-sour, silky-soft onion on a crisp puff pastry base topped with salty molten blue cheese, is a superb combination. Make these lovely tarts as a starter or light supper with salad. Highly recommended. Serves 4 Prep: 30 min Cook: 40 min 3 large onions 3 tbsp olive oil 1 tsp dark brown sugar ½…

Fishcakes are often made with leftover fish but these are made from scratch with fillets from a whole megrim sole defrosted from my freezer. Megrim is interchangeable with lemon sole and common in Cornish waters; in fact I’ve never seen it on the slab outside Cornwall but is worth discovering. Any soft, white fish fillets…

This is a favourite home alone supper saving the leftovers to eat cold the next day for lunch. Gressingham duck breasts cook sublimely well although shrink quite a lot in the cooking. The potatoes and duck are cooked separately but both are stirred into the peas to make a one-pot dish. Serves 2 Prep: 20…

It’s years since I’ve made this lovely way of cooking broad beans. I always bother to peel them – removing the thick, rubbery sheath that covers the bright green beans – but that’s a matter of taste. It’s a lovely accompaniment to simply cooked white fish or chicken but I like it piled over a…

Such a simple but wonderful taste of summer, the tomatoes lifted by salt, pepper, a hint of sugar (in my case), splash of best olive oil and shredded basil, the whole lot piled over garlic-rubbed, toast annointed with olive oil and eaten with burrata or mozzarella. Quite delicious. Doesn’t really need a recipe. Serves 2…

This velvety, dark green nectar is thick with spinach, the intense iron flavour softened by peas. It’s finished avgolemono-style with egg yolks and lemon, imparting a creamy richness to texture and flavour. For a dramatic finish, I’ve added a swirl of pureed roasted red pepper, a new favourite fridge food. It brings class to almost…

It’s taken me years to learn to love courgettes and now I can’t get enough of them. Mostly, I cook them quickly, usually fried or griddled to retain their juiciness and subtle flavour. This, though, is a favourite recipe when courgettes are glutting. It’s a Greek way of dealing with courgette gluts, cooking them, chopped,…

This recipe is for a lovely rich but light ragu freshened up with cherry tomatoes. I don’t know about you but I love ragu and often make it to stash in the freezer for no-cook nights. Here it’s served with crusty slabs of polenta and a generous dusting of Parmesan. Full instructions for the polenta…

There’s nothing like a splash of white wine, squeeze of lemon and fresh herbs to cheer up a chicken fricassee. This one gets rosemary and black olives to give it a South of France flavour but served over sloppy polenta laden with Parmesan and butter. The result is rich and luscious and very, very moreish….