Celeriac and Parsnip Boulangère
Spiced Pumpkin Fritters
Quince, Rosemary and Honey Trifle
Mince Pie Puddings with Brandy Cream
Boxing Day Bubble and Squeak Pie
Crackling’d Slow-cooked Pork Shoulder with Baked Apple Sauce
Ham, Membrillo and Gruyère Bakes
8 Weekend Dining
Cured Salmon with Buttermilk, Bergamot and Kohlrabi
Asparagus with Brown Butter Hollandaise, Hazelnut Crumb and Poached Egg
Spice-roasted Quail with Freekeh, Pistachio and Lime Pickle
Confit Duck Ravioli with Cucumber and a Peanut, Sesame and Chilli Dressing
Lemon Sole with Brown Crab, Aioli and Samphire
Whole Roast Monkfish Tail with Mushrooms and Thyme
Parmesan, Oregano and Onion Baked Pumpkin
Aromatic Aubergine with Cashew and Turmeric Sauce
Rack of Lamb with Lamb and Harissa Ragu and Courgette
Lamb Hotpot
’Nduja-stuffed Pork with Smoked Bacon and Red Wine Sauce
Port-braised Feather Blade Steaks with Potato, Onion and Horseradish Gratin
Tarts
Milk Chocolate, Raspberry and Thyme Tart
Fig and Hazelnut Tarts with Smoky Crème Fraîche
Burnt Honey Parfait with White Chocolate and Apricot
Pear and Star Anise Tarte Tatin with Buttermilk Ice Cream
LIST OF SEARCHABLE TERMS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Introduction
Everyday cookery should be just that: something that is achievable on a daily basis and fits in with the busy lives we all lead. This book of recipes for great home cookery will enable anyone to create something delicious and exciting for the whole family, for every occasion.
Each chapter has earned its place in this book and came to mind when I started thinking about how I live my life and how I view food when I’m not being a chef and am in my kitchen at home. It’s about my life outside my work, but the inspiration still comes from being a chef – the two are intertwined. This book is divided into eight chapters, which, from my perspective, cover all the different demands and challenges of everyday cookery and provide a resource for absolutely anyone to create something wonderful in their kitchen. I wanted to explore everything from easy weeknight dinners to ideas for what to eat on holidays, and anything in between.
Home cookery is, and always will be, a way of creating many positive connections through food; from knowing what is in the food on your plate, to minimising what you waste and to the sense of enjoyment gained by knowing that you’ve created something delicious with your own hands.
In the autumn of 2017 I acquired a property in East Sussex called Melfort House, which has given us an opportunity to spend quality time together as a family all year round, away from the hustle and bustle of London. One of the big pluses for me was the farm and arable land that came with the house: there was an overgrown and unused kitchen garden, a small orchard, some beehives and huge potential for more in terms of what they could produce.
For me, 2018 was a year of discovery. What would grow? Where, and how? What would the yield be? After a huge clearout and clean up, small green shoots were celebrated with a sense of anticipation of what they would grow into. Even though I’ve been a chef for more than 30 years, this has been the one part of the process I hadn’t yet experienced; the growing and harvesting of the produce.
I feel like a child again when I’m there, and the kitchen garden, the bees, the orchard, the apples, the pears … they all inspire me as a chef. We transported numerous boxes of freshly harvested fruit and vegetables, as well as honey from the beehives, in the back of the car into central London, to the chefs in my kitchens. Their excitement was a joy to see. The logistical challenge of growing, harvesting and then getting produce from Sussex to London was a little trial and error, and we learned a lot in the first year. I’m currently creating a pond at the back of the house, around which we’re growing herbs and wild flowers to use in the restaurant. But I have even bigger plans, so watch this space!
I have therefore dedicated a whole chapter to celebrating my first year at Melfort – ‘My Garden Patch’. While you may not have your own garden patch, you can source some great produce from farmers’ markets, community gardens, and even your local supermarket. Or sign up for online vegetable boxes. We sometimes forget to celebrate the humble vegetable, instead spending time sourcing and investing in a great joint of beef or other meat. I implore you to put the same effort into sourcing good-quality garden produce and use this chapter to inspire you. My kids now know the difference in taste between tomatoes grown under the sun, harvested within their rightful season, and the tomatoes from the supermarket – they’re chalk and cheese! But what I’ve also taught them is how to take those everyday tomatoes we all buy and improve their flavour if we need to.
What you will also see scattered throughout the book is a focus on honey as a fantastic ingredient, used in many different ways. Having comb honey from our own bees at Melfort has made me think about this ingredient in a completely different way and about the flowers (in particular the lavender and roses) they pollinate – all of which flavour our honey. This ingredient that I have always taken for granted as a cook suddenly has magical implications now that I’ve witnessed its making.
Running a restaurant kitchen from a young age instilled in me an awareness of waste and resourcefulness; of not wanting to needlessly discard a single thing. The cost of food, how you prepare it and how you eventually sell it, can make or break a restaurant business. The notion of throwing something in the bin that could still be used is sacrilege to me. So, for me, this principle should also be applied at home. After Marcus at Home and New Classics I wanted to write a book that celebrated home cookery and seasonal produce, which would also be a practical guide to creating delicious meals from ingredients that may not have been completely used up, or might otherwise typically be destined for the bin.
We are bombarded with a constant stream of news about environmental issues. The sheer amount of
