Mini Yorkshire Puddings and Horseradish Sauce

Mini Yorkshire Puddings and Horseradish Sauce

In what seems like a past life, I once laboured under the title of restaurateur. With my business partner Richard, a former TV producer, we drifted into ownership of a pub-come-restaurant in East Anglia. On the day we purchased the building, the irksome truth was that...
Ribollita

Ribollita

“Soup is cuisine’s kindest course”. Virginia Woolf. Unlike Virginia, I have written elsewhere, and far less eloquently, on concerns borne out of an offhand relationship with soup. In a nutshell; I was a latecomer to broth making. An early aversion came in the form of...
Thyme, onion and Gruyère tart

Thyme, onion and Gruyère tart

“There is a charm in making a dish, to the unaccustomed cook, from the excitement of wondering what the result will be, and whether any flavour save that of onions will survive the competition in the mixture.” Annie Besant 1847 -1933 Although Heinz tinned...
Moussaka [Μουσακάς]

Moussaka [Μουσακάς]

“We do not sit at the table to eat… but to eat together” Plutarch, Greek philosopher. (46 AD – 119 AD) As we are living through an era plagued by travel uncertainty, with the welcome whiff of sea salt, scorching sand beneath the feet, scrubbed white dwellings...
Borshch [борщ]

Borshch [борщ]

I have a few colleagues who when pressed to provide a short list of culinary dislikes, blandly cite beetroot as one of their vegetable aversions (located somewhere between broad beans and parsnips on the unrefined straw polls I occasionally undertake down the pub)....