Recipes from a Wine Merchant’s Kitchen
A tale of 250 of my family’s favourite meals.
I have been cooking for over 40 years, for my wife initially and then, one by one, for my children. It was, and still remains, a pleasure and privilege to feed my family each day. What I have never categorised is the collection of recipes that would serve to illustrate the many thousands of meals I have cooked for them and their friends. Now was the opportunity and imperative to do so.
Recipes
Curried Parsnip Soup
“Words are but wind that do from men proceed; None but Chameleons on bare Air can feed; Great men large hopeful promises may utter; Fine words did never Fish nor Parsnips butter”. Epigrammes (1651) - John Taylor. During his 1993 speech to the Conservative conference,...
Langoustine and Clotted Cream Quiche
“I’ve never heard anyone say a bad word about Bill Baker, although he may not be his doctor’s idea of a model patient, Bill is one of the very few wine merchants who embraces what he eats as enthusiastically as what he drinks”. From Vintner’s Tales. 1991 Jancis...
Fig Conserve
Our previous house is a short walk from our present cottage and although we moved home six years ago, we failed to leave the village (Our efforts to obtain telephone quotes from removal companies proved unexpectedly interesting given that the postal district we were...
Tomato Tonnato
“The tomato imparts its delicious taste, at the same time acid and slightly sweet, to so many sauces and dishes that it can fairly be classed among the best of condiments. Happy are those who understand how to use it judiciously” Ernest Verdier from Dissertations...
Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage
I escaped cabbage as often as I could when young. At lunchtime - obstinately called dinnertime at grammar school - the bouquet of vegetal flatulence would emanate from our canteen with the same familiarity as the precursory dinner bell. Our squadron of dinner ladies,...
![Fridge Cake [Tiffin]](http://keithreeves.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/IMG_1927-400x250.jpg)
Fridge Cake [Tiffin]
“Tiffin, the midday meal, was a welcome break in the long Indian day; the pause for sustenance and prelude to a siesta…Tiffin was a domestic meal, a chance for husbands and wives to eat together, if they wished. Children were seldom present at the table, taking their...
Simple Indian Fish Curry
When the day finds you pushing a rock uphill, Sisyphus-like, motivation has dropped to a low ebb and one is markedly hungry, simplicity alongside familiarity can sometimes be the culinary saviour in the kitchen. Such is this dish, that once made, will automatically...
Curry Puffs
"When people enter the kitchen, they often drag their childhood in with them". From Home Cooking (1998) Laurie Colwin. Back in the early eighties, paying the rent any way I could with a specialist skill set barely warranting a c/v, I garnered some freelance income by...
Lancashire Hotpot
Contrary to some popular beliefs, making a stew is rarely a success when the cook applies instinct alone, and if you weren’t lucky enough to have the nearby knee of a Lancashire mother to learn at, finding a robust recipe for such country cooking is essential. One...
Potted Shrimp
“The great British skill of potting meat and fish seems to have been for the most part forgotten by most of today’s chefs. Well made potted foods are national dishes of which we should be justly proud.” Fine English Cookery (1973) Michael Smith Potted fish, originally...
Pear Chutney
Stars align and events coincide. More often than not, it happens when you’re looking the other way. I was recently re-reading the late Laurie Colwin’s delightfully witty More Home Cooking (1993) and in the chapter In Praise of Pears she cites a delicious Pear Chutney,...
Cheese Soufflé
We keep a few chickens, and give or take their seasonal mood swings; we get a lot of fine eggs. And for me there can be no argument about what constitutes a fine egg. When you nurture free-range chickens that eat all manner of bugs, worms and vegetation during their...
![Grilled Chicken [Gai Yang]](http://keithreeves.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/authentic-thai-recipes-1-X3-400x250.jpg)
Grilled Chicken [Gai Yang]
In a media-dominated culinary world where speed and convenience outweigh depth and tradition, Thai cooking is often seen at odds with our modern kitchen vocabulary. One of the world’s greatest cuisines; it requires care, time and attention in order to respect...
![Tuscan Biscotti [Cantucci di Prato]](http://keithreeves.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Cantucci-Cookies-veryEATalian-4-400x250.jpg)
Tuscan Biscotti [Cantucci di Prato]
“I have come to believe that anyone who walks into a kitchen should know how to make biscuits. Biscuits are the utility infielder of the culinary world. They can be plain, spicy, savoury or sweet. You can eat them hot or cold, and furthermore, they closely resemble...
![Pears in White Wine [Pere al Vino Bianco]](http://keithreeves.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/IMG_1761-400x250.jpg)
Pears in White Wine [Pere al Vino Bianco]
When we moved to our present cottage, hidden in one of Norfolk’s isolated villages, we were told by long standing residents that the impenetrable jungle alongside our new retreat was known, euphemistically, as the ‘orchard’. As we couldn’t see into the garden, let...
![Zucchini Soup [Soupe aux Courgettes]](http://keithreeves.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/IMG_0404-400x250.jpg)
Zucchini Soup [Soupe aux Courgettes]
“A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.” Abraham Maslow. Some are born with a desire for soup others have soup thrust upon them. I got hit on the second wave. As a schoolboy soup didn’t figure prominently in my life. School dinners were...
Potato Focaccia
“It was only in the 1990’s that those soupy dragons, the Delias, the Nigellas and the Jamies, burst through the double doors of their steamy lairs to become not simply local heroes of the urban middle class, but tabloid bestriding ogres of popular culture. I think it...
![Arnhem Biscuits [Arnhemse Meisjes]](http://keithreeves.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/IMG_1720-400x250.jpg)
Arnhem Biscuits [Arnhemse Meisjes]
Roald Dahl died in the winter of 1990. During the last year of his life he worked with his wife Felicity, known always as Liccy, in writing a family cookbook. This is a book that charts the comings and goings of family and friends, a variety of their cooks, shopping...