Food

The warmer weather is not the only indicator of spring. For me, the sign that spring is here is the appearance of certain vegetables. Broad beans represent the season perfectly, and always find a place on the menu when they’re available.

A guide to the season’s top wines, from the experts at Cutler & Co, Supernormal, Cumulus Inc, Cumulus Up, the Builders Arms Hotel and Meatsmith.

To anyone who will listen, I am often heard banging on about the importance of mastering basic techniques. Often we will come across a recipe that will interest us but may be scant on instructions, or even a picture of something delicious on a picture-only social media site. It is here that the understanding of basic techniques enables us to apply our knowledge of these techniques and cook something beautiful without too much stress.

A key flavour that makes a kebab a kebab is the coals it is cooked on. The wood infuses the meat with its greatest character. The concept of dicing the meat into two-centimetre cubes means there is more surface to take on the flavour of the coals and also of the marinade.

Cotechino is not hard to make, if you have a mincer and a sausage filler and a good butcher. This sausage requires a much larger casing than you would use for your humble snag, but is an easy one to master if you’re a beginner. Having said that, there are still plenty of good Italian butchers around who sell a damn fine cotechino.

What brought me to cook this for the page was stumbling across these perfect little cauliflowers in the local vegetable shop. These, roasted with a knob of butter and a good pinch of salt, were quite possibly the nicest thing I’ve eaten this winter.

Here we have one of my very favourite pairings: caramelised onion and Gruyere, bound together with mashed potato, lovingly rolled into the classic cylinder shape, gently egged and breadcrumbed, and then fried until they are just right.

In essence, pilaf is rice that is cooked in a broth. Many rice-producing countries have their own version of this. The name is borrowed from the Turkish pilav. Served straight from the pot to the table, the pilaf can be quite a dramatic ritual.

Blood orange season encourages me to make a fool. Fools are synonymous with the English summer, but the lush creamy texture has a comfort factor that is right at home in any season. Here, I have paired it with a Madeira cake, another plain English classic.

What makes the live scallop quite spectacular is not just the sweetness and freshness of the flavour but also the firm texture. When we clean the scallops we release the muscle and remove the lid, leaving the muscle and entrails intact. The muscle is what we know as the scallop – the white parcel in the middle of the shell.