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Roast leg of lamb on the bone, cooked medium, pinkish in the middle and with a crispy skin, is the perfect Easter Sunday lunch. Half a leg for four, whole leg for a crowd, just adjust the cooking time per pound of weight.
Roasted grapes go marvellously with cheese, chicken and even pasta. Their flavour intensifies and a drop of balsamic and a flake of salt complements it magically.
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 seed and nut mix, a perfect topping for salads. Salty and crunchy clusters of seeds and nuts are the best addition of fibre and essential nutrients to your diet.
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.
Ropa vieja, stewed and shredded Cuban beef, braised with peppers, onions and tomatoes to a melting pulled beef tenderness, as tasty as it is colourful.
Cheat's sourdough, with yeast but fermenting over 24 hours, with added rosemary and seeds. The taste beats no knead. The texture is fantastic every time. If you have a clay cloche or a cast iron casserole – a no brainer and will come out crusty as anything.
Chocolate sable biscuits with raw cocoa nibs and sea salt flakes. Meltingly tender biscuits with wonderfully crunchy cocoa nibs – these are grown-up chocolate chip cookies.
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...
Salt baked celeriac, sweet and earthy and a Michelin grade impressive centrepiece dish. Salt crust made from flavoured salt and flour, you crack it open like an enormous soft boiled egg. Or a pathologist opening the skull.
The easiest salted caramel ice cream: three ingredients, no churning. Delicious salted caramel ice cream made with Carnation tinned condensed milk caramel.
Homemade spiced sauerkraut, dead easy, can be made in small quantities. I should be talking all about raw and fermented so I’m side-tracking. Recipes abound, everyone is fermenting like crazy and the reports of all those good bacteria doing wonders to our guts are making poor old sauerkraut blush.
Sausage, pear and root vegetable tray bake with chestnut mushrooms and rosemary is an easy one pan dish that hits the comfort spot.
Savour the flavour of sautéed chard! Discover a tantalizing recipe that brings out the best of this versatile leafy green. It’s not all about spinach or kale, you know.
Scallop ceviche with citrus juice and fresh plums. Contrary to what you might think, a dish of raw fish is actually a pretty common thing.
Pan fried scallops with pancetta and spiced Napa cabbage. This dish has all my favourite tastes combined: it’s salty and sweet and spicy and sour.
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.
Sedgemoor Easter biscuits, aka Somerset biscuits are traditional English Easter treats originating from West Country. Lightly spiced, studded with currants, with simple vanilla icing, they are a welcome variety amongst all the chocolate eggs!
Crunchy seed crackers made with a mix of 7 seeds; gluten free and keto-friendly if you skip millet grain. Great as a snack, broken over a salad for a topping or served on a cheese board.
Seeded light rye bread with linseed, sunflower and pumpkin. This mixed rye and wheat loaf is leavened with yeast and tastes a little like a blonde pumpernickel. It's easy to bake and best sliced a day after baking.
Seeded oatcakes with poppy and sesame seeds; naturally gluten free, wholesome and gut-friendly. Oatmeal, boiling water and a little butter – takes you back to making mud cakes!
Semolina porridge not just for babies, with dried cranberries and a sprinkling of cinnamon, naturally sweet or with honey, it makes a nice change from oatmeal. Who said it was only fit for babies?
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.
Sesame roasted broccoli with a hint of sweetness from maple syrup, soused in olive and sesame oil, ready in 20 minutes. Broccoli like you’ve never tasted before!
Shaved raw asparagus salad with fresh dill, crunchy seeds and wonderful, creamy dressing is like eating spring thinly sliced into ribbons. Asparagus eaten raw is delicious!
Shaved Brussels sprout salad with toasted walnuts and Manchego cheese; the sprouts are raw, the walnuts are toasted and the cheese is mashed into a dressing. Feed it to a sworn Brussels hater and see what happens.
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 pistachio cookies, Italian macarons made with ground pistachios. These are delicious, meltingly soft pistachio cookies made from just three base ingredients.
Silver Palate chocolate cake, a decadent and super moist cake with dark chocolate frosting. NY Times Cooking recipe adapted from The Silver Palate Cookbook.
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.
Slow cooked lamb neck fillet, oven braised with onions, peppers, pear and raisins. Lamb with Middle Eastern style flavours in a one-pot dish.
Slow roasted strawberries become jammy but not too sickly, coated in luscious syrup, and they have a multitude of uses in desserts, cakes and afternoon tea confections.
Chinese smashed cucumber salad with chilli, garlic and sesame oil. Cucumbers, the skinniest member of the gourd family of portly melons, squashes, pumpkins and marrows is technically not a vegetable but fruit.
A simple and exquisite starter made with fresh melon and smoked salmon, with a drizzle of balsamic and a sprinkling of fresh mint. Gorgeous! Even if salmon is not home cured.
Snickerdoodles, butter cookies with cinnamon coating. Make them with kids so they roll the dough balls in sugared cinnamon like dung beetles. Also tempting to add choc chips – but then you’d turn the funky snickerdoodles into plain old choc chip cookies which would be a shame.
Soft white, floury old-fashioned baps. The best vehicle for an old-fashioned bacon butty and perfect housing for burgers as well – I’m telling you, stuff the little sesame buns.
Sourdough no knead white bread on starter made with pineapple juice. Very tasty bread – next time I’ll add some wholemeal or even whole grain flours for a sharper taste.
Spelt risotto with pearled spelt grain and dried porcini mushrooms is a gorgeous vegetarian dish: wholesome, flavoursome and effortless.
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.
Baked pears with blue cheese, a great starter, dessert or a side dish. These roasted pears are spiced with cinnamon and topped with melting Stilton blue cheese.