Recipe collections

Roast sirloin of beef cooked at low temperature produces as fantastic result as sous-vide cooking. The caveat: abandon all hope if you don’t own a digital probe of some kind.

Roast venison haunch with chocolate sauce: this recipe is for the most tender, juicy and succulent meat served with the perfect accompaniment, chocolate sauce.

Roast wild mallard duck, easy to cook, tender and full of flavour. Female specimen are plumper but if in doubt, salt the mallard in advance to tenderise it.

Chunks of beetroot roasted with honey, thyme, tarragon and balsamic vinegar. This is really gorgeous – beetroot baked long, loooong, you might even consider biscuit beetroot: cooked twice.

Whole lemon sole roasted on a bed of lemon slices, the easiest way to cook the fish. Cook it for just about 20 minutes if it's not too large as lemon sole tends to get mushy if overcooked.

Roasted root vegetables with spiced bulgur wheat are a vibrant winter dish. It’s the classic roast vegetable medley with a summery vibe.

Roasted sweet potatoes with chorizo and bacon are the perfect blend of sweet, salty and spicy.

Roasted Mediterranean vegetable mix with a topping of crumbled feta and toasted pine nuts. It’s vegetarian, it’s wholesome and it’s healthy.

Roast chicken rôtisserie style, with potatoes cooking beneath, the best outside a French village market. The ultimate salivating lunchtime temptation. Such a match made in heaven: chickens browning and crisping evenly and the spuds underneath, basting in the glorious fat, shaken about every now and then.

Salmon, broccoli and courgette baked with creme fraiche, mustard and dill. One pot wonder – courgettes and broccoli will do for veg, and if you really need a filler, return those spuds into the equation. Tasty. Very tasty.

Salmon and potato bake with creamy topping on the salmon and a pinch of crisp Parmesan on the potatoes – it’s a healthy and easy fish tray bake. As suited for a weeknight as for a special occasion.

Salmon fillet cooked with oyster sauce and a touch of brown sugar is a perfect umami storm. Salmon gently simmered in the sweet and salty sauce with spring onions and crushed garlic is ready in 10 minutes.

Salmon fillets with blue cheese topping baked in foil parcels aka en papillote. Yes, salmon goes very well with blue cheese, whether it's Stilton, Gorgonzola or Danish blue cheese.

Baked salmon fillets in maple syrup, soya sauce and garlic marinade. Salmon is pretty versatile and can happily take various treatments – see my recipes for steamed salmon and baked with potatoes. With all the cooking techniques I find the timing is the trick.

Salt and pepper halibut, seared in a flash. Halibut used to be my all time favourite fish. But now it's apparently overfished, not sustainable and it just makes you feel plain bad eating it. So it's a rare treat for me. But I've noticed it doesn't taste as lovely as it used to. So I've figured - cook it as quick as I can...

Sausage, pear and root vegetable tray bake with chestnut mushrooms and rosemary is an easy one pan dish that hits the comfort spot.

Scallops and asparagus stir fry. Use frozen queen scallops for this dish, they will come into their own anyway against the background of perfectly cooked aubergines and asparagus.

Scallops thermidor, fat little molluscs baked in creamy fragrant Thermidor sauce on a bed of spelt and pancetta. Who needs lobster?

Scaloppine al vino bianco, veal escalope in white wine sauce is fit for the smartest dinner party. It’s the dish that illustrates the expression ‘easy fine cooking’!

Sea bass fillets baked in a creamy spinach sauce, delicious and ready in 15 minutes. This method keeps the fish succulent and flaky even if you use defrosted fillets.

Fresh mackerel fillets stuffed with samphire, anchovy and breadcrumb mix, grilled and served with parsley butter. Try Tom Kerridge's fantastic recipe for seaside stuffed mackerel.

Takeaway-style sesame noodles with spring onions and beans, served with chopped peanuts and cucumbers. These are plain, vegetarian, sesame flavoured, takeaway-style noodles with peanuts, cucumber and beans.

Salmon shakshuka: spicy tomato and pepper base with chunks of fresh salmon poached in the sauce. Swap the eggs for salmon and serve shakshuka for dinner!

Best red wine braised short ribs of beef with plum sauce, sweet and tender, called Obama’s short ribs, after the dish served to Barack Obama in a Harlem restaurant.

Sicilian-style pizza cooked in a pan, with thicker, airy base and topping of caramelised onions and tomato sauce. Traditionally square, but a square pan is hard to come by!

Simple and perfect grilled salmon fillet seasoned only with salt and olive oil. Keep the skin on and grill it for five minutes on each side - that's the whole secret.

Sizzling beef in black bean sauce: a spicy oriental stir-fry with tender beef strips and mixed vegetables. The Chinese have some truly weird and wonderful names for dishes.

Pan fried skate wing fillet with caper butter and crispy garlic. Skate or ray wings can be cooked as they are but much nicer filleted – and it’s really easy to do.

Slow cooked lamb neck fillet, oven braised with onions, peppers, pear and raisins. Lamb with Middle Eastern style flavours in a one-pot dish.

Perfect oven baked haddock fillet with saffron sauce, roasted at a very low temperature. That really is the best fish you’ll have ever eaten!

Slow roasted salmon with easy dill sauce. It’s flavoursome – at low temperature just a little salt and olive oil is sufficient to enhance the salmoney taste. It can be served hot, warm or cold and the bed of aromatics.

Slow roasted lamb shoulder with anchovies and truffle oil cooked in low oven for four hours. That’s going to be crispy skin and pull-away meat.

Smoked fish and rice salad bowl with Arbroath smokie and Vietnamese dressing. Arbroath smokie is a whole small haddock fish, dry salted in tubs and smoked over smoking pits.

Roasted turnips with flaky smoked fish, olives and capers make an exciting salad. Turnips deserve better: full of fibre and over four times less calorific than potatoes.

Salad of smoked mackerel, avocado, cucumber and celeriac; tasty and super-healthy. Tonnes of omega 3 from the mackerel - and it's mighty tasty!

Spanakopita, Greek spinach pie wrapped in filo pastry. Pies are a whole skills set; unless you call meat covered with puff pastry a pie (don’t). Pie needs a bottom as well as the hat and they both should be crusty, not soggy.

Spelt risotto with pearled spelt grain and dried porcini mushrooms is a gorgeous vegetarian dish: wholesome, flavoursome and effortless.

Spelt and marinated courgette salad, with pine nuts and creamy blue cheese dressing. Much easier to cook than rice, more nutritious than pasta, spelt is the future of salads!

Spiced monkfish tail chunks in lightly curried sauce is a dish ready in 5 minutes. Don't forget to sprinkle monkfish chunks with salt for at least half an hour, to draw moisture out.

Spiced roasted cauliflower with togarashi seasoning and cinnamon. Melted butter, a grating of Parmesan and it's a vert tasty side or lunch dish.

Fiery bacon, spiced but still cool cucumber and mild new potatoes in a warm salad. The bacon and cucumber salad on its own will make a great spicy snack or starter - I’ve thrown new potatoes in to a/ dampen the fire a bit and b/ make it into a main course.

Spicy, cheesy lentils bake, a superior vegetarian dish put together in 15 minutes. Baked cheesy lentils inspired by NY Times Cooking.

Spicy chicken wings marinated overnight in buttermilk and hot sauce, with extra spicy oil brushed on before cooking. Oven, grill or barbecue – they will be excellent every time!

Spicy seared bavette steak, seasoned with a dry rub of chilli flakes, oregano, garlic and a secret umami agent: dried mushroom powder.

Spinach and blue cheese pancakes aka crêpes. European pancakes are thin and - you guessed it - flat as a pancake. The savoury pancake filling is easy and makes a gorgeous dinner not just dessert.

Oven baked spinach and mozzarella balls, coated in breadcrumbs. Healthy baked spinach and cheese balls go well with a steak as a side dish but also delicious as an appetizer.

Spinach and ricotta lasagne with cooked cream instead of bechamel. Lasagne is the best pasta. It took me a while to work out that ‘lasagne’ is actually used in the same grammatical fashion as ‘tagliatelle’ or spaghetti’ – it means the type of pasta in the plural.

Spinach and cheese bake, a healthy casserole served as a side dish or for brunch. Cheese is able to cover a multitude of sins. There aren’t many dishes that can’t be improved by throwing some cheese at them.