This week's recipe comes from Southern Italy, combining fresh tender artichokes with potatoes and optional slices of smoked ham.  In Italy it would be made with waxy potatoes sliced into thick wedges, but Kipfler potatoes work particularly well with this recipe.  Artichokes oxidise and turn an unpleasant black colour almost immediately they are cut, so it is essential to put them in a mixture of water and lemon juice prevent this.

This week's recipe comes from the Eastern Mediterranean, and is particularly popular in Turkey and Greece (where it is called Dolmades).  Dolmas are grape vine leaves stuffed with rice, herbs and sometimes ground lamb, but I prefer this vegetarian version.  They are usually made with dill as the principal herb, but parsley works just as well, especially for those who find the slightly aniseed flavour of dill a little over powering. 

This recipe dates from Northern Italy in the eighties and is a variation of a similar dish made with smoked salmon.   The twist is the addition of grated lemon zest and juice to give a zingy freshness to the dish.  Swapping the lemon for lime is a great alternative for a slightly more perfumed version.  It is important to add the lemon juice only at the very last minute otherwise it will start cooking the fish.

This week's recipe comes from the North African side of the Mediterranean, and is very popular in Morocco.  The original recipe is a method of slow cooking tough but flavoursome cuts of old cattle, combined with  juicy local dates and  typical north African spices over several hours. I use rump steak which is full of flavour but does not require a long cooking time to tenderise.

This week's recipe comes from Sicily, with the inclusion of pine nuts, raisins and saffron a direct reminder of Sicily's distant past when it was under Arab Moorish rule between 827 and 1091 CE. For many people cauliflower is a bland vegetable that is all too often cooked to death.  If it is roasted or added to a pasta sauce, its delicate flavour is quite delicious. 

This week's recipe comes from the eastern part of the Mediterranean, in Lebanon where  Samke Harra means spicy fish in Arabic.  This  dish  showcases fresh Mediterranean fish, tahini (sesame paste), garlic, lemon juice, coriander and pine nuts. Tahini is a staple in Eastern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine.  It is a thick, smooth paste made from ground sesame seeds., with  a rich, nutty flavour and creamy texture similar to peanut butter. 

This week's recipe comes from Normandy, where plenty of sustainable cod is fished.  Cod is not found  in the southern hemisphere, so a good substitute is any firm white fish such as Ling or Blue Eye Trevallya   It is a simple and elegant dish, requiring short preparation and even shorter cooking time.  The lemon emulsifies with the juices from the fish and the butter to form a delicious sauce not dissimilar to beurre blanc. 

This week's recipe is another perfect dish for fish on Friday. It is also one of the easiest and quickest dishes to make, especially if you are  using good quality fresh egg pasta, which is now easily available in most supermarkets.  Making your own pasta is not difficult, and if you feel up to the challenge, the recipe is here…

This week's recipe is perfect for fish on Friday, and is popular in both Italy and France - where it is usually cooked without the pancetta.  Sweet scallops have a great affinity with the smoky saltiness of thinly sliced pancetta (cured belly pork), particularly when  they are caramelised.  As always with scallops, it is important to sear them quickly so they are medium rare in the centre and retain their sweet juices.

This week's recipe comes from my travels to Istanbul earlier this year. In Turkish, Barbunya means Borlotti beans, and Pilaki means dishes cooked with olive oil, onion, garlic, potatoes, carrots and tomatoes. Borlotti beans (which are a very rich source of protein) are seasonal from late summer to mid autumn and very distinctive for their  cream pods with maroon splashes.  The beans themselves have the same colouring, but this disappears during cooking. 

This week's recipe originates in the northern Italian regions of Piemonte and Emila-Romagna, where butter is more prevalent than olive oil in the cooking.  It is very similar to the burnt butter and sage sauce used to dress home made gnocchi, and the additional of optional grated lemon zest adds additional flavour and freshness.   It was originally a cucina povera…

Interlude is the Michelin starred restaurant at Leonardslee House, a country house and estate just outside Horsham in West Sussex. The estate has a history going back several centuries, before being acquired by South African based entrepreneur Penny Streeter OBE in July 2017 and painstakingly restored prior to being opened to the public in 2019.  Today it hosts magnificent gardens and vines for the production of English sparkling wine as well as an award winning restaurant that gained its first Michelin star in 2025. 

My travels recently took me to Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland.   It is a magnificent city which is the inspiration behind so much in the Harry Potter books and well worth a visit. A famous (and unfairly maligned) Scottish dish is Haggis, a classic example of "nose to tail" cuisine made of oats, sheep's blood, and various sheep's offal including heart, lungs and liver, seasoned liberally with salt and pepper.

This week's recipe is very popular in central Italy. Eating offal was once common and although it has become a polarising topic, calves' liver is mild flavoured and absolutely delicious. It is essential to serve it rare because when overcooked, it becomes dense and unappetising. Liver is often served in French bistros with richly flavoured jus, but in Italy it is kept simple, either with the Venetian speciality of fried onions, or as in this central Italian recipe, with crisp fried sage In central Italy, serving grilled or pan fried meat with a wedge of lemon to squeeze the juice over the meat is common, and a good way to counter the richness of a cut such as calves' liver.

Nose to tail eating has become quite fashionable in recent years, but in countries like France and Italy people have always eaten every part of an animal, finding ways to bring flavour out of unpromising cuts such as offal, and wasting nothing. A good example is this week's recipe, which is a mainstay of good quality restaurants throughout France. Sweetbreads are the thymus gland or pancreas from a young calf, with a tender succulent texture and a delicious slightly gamey flavour.

This week's recipe comes from central Italy.   It combines delicious rabbit with the herbs that grow so abundantly in Umbria, Tuscany and Le Marche, fennel and rosemary which together with garlic also provide the flavour profile of porchetta.  Good quality rabbit is very popular in both France and Italy, and is readily available in all butcher's shops. It is not a difficult meat to joint (see the picture below) but it's easiest to ask the butcher to this for you.

This week's recipe is another French classic, essentially a Shepherd's Pie made with confit of duck.  In France it is normally made with just duck, but the addition of classic soffritto vegetable ingredients carrot, celery and onion elevates the dish and improves the flavour.   The dish is named after Antoine Parmentier, an 18th century apothecary who did much to promote the growing of potatoes as a means of combatting the regular cycles of famine then prevalent in France.

This week's recipe is popular across Andalusia and the Algarve in neighbouring Portugal, both of which claim it as their own. Rice is grown in both regions, a legacy of the former Moorish rulers of southern Iberia, who introduced rice cultivation in the 11th century. It is sometimes made with long grain rice, but short grain is much better, preferably from Spain or Portugal.

This is a classic French bistro recipe, enlivened by the addition of new season green asparagus spears.  It is one of the quickest and most simple dishes to prepare, but has a luxury feel to it.   If garden peas are in season they are wonderful, but by all means use frozen peas for an equally delicious result.   In a restaurant the hot peas would be puréed in a Tamis sieve to ensure silky smoothness, but in the home kitchen a blender will do just fine, resulting in a slightly more textured but equally delicious purée. 

This week's unlikely sounding recipe is not sweet and is sublimely delicious.  I'm not normally a fan of mixing fruit with savoury dishes, but was tempted to try this recipe after eating an extraordinary strawberry and raw prawn starter recently at Michelin starred Onice in Nice (see picture below).    Strawberry risotto is claimed variously to have been  invented in the seventies and eighties by more than one chef  in an attempt to introduce innovative  new dishes to the Italian culinary repertoire.

This week's recipe represents a more  innovative type of  Italian pasta cooking, using black garlic.  Black garlic, invented in Japan in 1999, is normal garlic that has been cooked at a constant 65 degrees celsius with high humidity for 30 days.  The Maillard reaction it undergoes with this slow and gentle cooking turns it into a sort of garlic confit, highlighting its natural sugars and resulting in a delicious and mellow flavour similar to aged balsamic vinegar. 

This is another recipe from Spain, marrying new season broad beans, spicy chorizo sausage, tomato and optional cumin to add a slightly Asian flavour.   Broad beans are a legume Some recipes call for shelling the broad beans, but this is not necessary if they are early in the season and relatively small.  I like to serve this as part of a Tapas style relaxed lunch or dinner, together with dishes such as…

This week’s recipe is another  "salé-sucré" (sweet and salty)  variation of the famous caramelised apple based Tarte Tatin.  It works best with large Ox Heart tomatoes because these are mostly flesh with very little seeds or liquid.   Normally the main ingredient of a Tarte Tatin, whether it be apples or a vegetable such as chicory, is caramelised on the stove top before the pastry is added and finished in  the oven. 

This week's recipe is a type of Tajine  from the North African side of the Mediterranean, and is very popular in Algeria.   In Algerian Arabic, "Batata"(بطاطا) means potato and "Koucha" (كوشة) means oven.   As is so often the case there are many variations of this dish, and this particular version is also a very delicious way to cook potatoes on their own leaving out the chicken.

This week's recipe's ingredients comes from Southern Spain where it is served in Tapas style restaurants. Tuna plays a huge role in the Mediterranean, particularly in Southern Spain and Southern Italy, both of which produce the best quality canned tuna in the world. Tuna is best eaten either raw or quickly seared and very rare, as it becomes tough and dense if cooked through.