A packet of red split lentils is useful for soups because it softens quickly, is receptive to all manner of seasonings and very filling. Here it’s chivvied up with garlic, chilli and cumin, a spicy, hauntingly aromatic big thick bowlful with orange Romano pepper and carrot. As so often the case, the soup begins with…

Chorizo, as followers of my recipes will know, is one of my standbys, a useful sausage to perk up all manner of things from scrambled egg to pizza. Here it brings its spicy, meatiness to a sausage-meagre stew that is thick with vegetables – onion, mushroom, carrot and tomato – and creamy white beans. The…

My old boss Tony Elliott likes to tease me about my predilection for chorizo so I’m thinking of him as I fry slivers cut from a whole sausage turning them into irresistible chips. They make a transforming garnish for this very simple store cupboard soup, just onion ad garlic softened in butter and vegetable oil…

Cauliflower makes wonderful soups and teaming it with lemon to enhance and subdue it’s brassica undertones works brilliantly. It’s an idea to play around with, adding cheese and liquidising it to make a Cauliflower Cheese soup, adding scraps of ham or stick with this combination. Like so many soups it begins with onion and garlic,…

This is a soup to make if you have cooked a ham joint and had the good sense to save the cooking water. Trimmings from the ham bolster the thick, chunky soup, loaded with carrot, leek and giant wholewheat cous cous to turn it into more of a meal. It’s the sort of soup I…

It’s a comforting thought to have a batch of ragu in fridge or freezer, ready to be whipped into so many different meals. With pasta, obviously, over baked potatoes, sandwiched by mash to make a superior Hachis Parmentier or topped with mash for a luxury cottage pie. It is ideal, too, for lasagne, inside a…

The last couple of times I’ve roasted partridge I’ve found it dull and tough, without the extreme, rich gaminess of grouse or young pheasant. This recipe, casseroling a brace and making a small amount of stock with the backbone and cooking it gently for a long time in the oven was a huge success. I…

The gift of a big phial of Iranian saffron had me itching to cook with it and this soup was my first foray. Saffron with mushroom isn’t an obvious choice but the bosky flavour of mushroom with gentle leek, a hint of chilli and lemon zest and juice, with cous cous to thicken is an…

Chunks of lamb shoulder simmering very gently in red wine with black olives and roasted red peppers simmered will fill your kitchen with enticing smells of the Mediterranean. Try this lovely stew with noodles or mashed potato, carrots and peas. Leftovers, if there are any, can be extended with extra stock to make a robustly…

This soup started with an impulse shop of two big fennel bulbs, a bulb of new season garlic and a couple of banana shallots. I imagined a pale soup flecked with crisp scraps of bacon but it changed course as the fennel shrunk, adding carrots, potatoes and spinach and finally, chopped tomato, ending up with…