Any short, curly or chunky pasta would work well for this recipe but I particularly like fusilli. It will spring like a bouncy coil as it boils and will trap prawns and peas in a lemony, cheesy béchamel sauce. This is a lovely mix of textures and flavours and a useful rustle-from-fridge-and-freezer sort of supper….

The creamy mild flavour of Dijon mustard goes deliciously well with smoked haddock and gives a mild background tang to this lovely soufflé. Dusting the inside of the deep, straight-sided dish with finely grated Parmesan creates a thin, golden cheesy shell for the soufflé and this crusty carapace is always the favourite mouthful. It’s not…

Little children don’t like green bits in their food and rarely care for sauces with mustard or hard-boiled egg. Many don’t like prawns or mushrooms. Or the strong flavour of smoked haddock. All these ingredients often find their way into my fish pies but this one is plain and simple, just carefully boned white fish,…

The colour of this soup is so dramatic it’s almost worth making it just for its looks. The texture, too, is beguiling. Fluffy, yet creamy, light and easy to digest, satisfying too, as if glides over your tongue leaving a delicious trail of sweet sour beetroot. The sourness comes from cooking apples and fresh lime…

I love mint and it always gives me a frisson of pleasure when I see the first leaves curling out of my enduring mint patch. I picked enough of the pink-flushed early little leaves to make salsa verde and they sang through assertive flat leaf parsley, anchovy, capers and garlic, in this versatile mayo-style dark…