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  • This is one of my favourite recipes in the book, and I would be happy to eat it as a main dish, with salad leaves on the side.

  POTATOES, TOMATOES, HORSERADISH

  ‘Toast-rack’ potatoes, spicy tomato sauce.

  Serves 3

  potatoes, large 6

  olive oil 6 tablespoons

  tomatoes 800g

  garlic 6 cloves

  fresh horseradish, grated 6 tablespoons

  Set the oven at 200°C/Gas 6. Place the potatoes flat on a chopping board, then slice them at 0.5cm intervals, cutting almost through to the wood. It becomes immediately obvious why they are sometimes called toast-rack potatoes.

  Place the potatoes in a roasting tin, trickle with some of the olive oil and roast for about forty-five minutes till crisp and golden. Meanwhile put the tomatoes and unpeeled garlic cloves in a small roasting tin with the remaining olive oil, grind over a little salt and black pepper, then place in the oven. Roast the tomatoes for about thirty-five to forty minutes, until they are soft and lightly browned.

  Remove the tomatoes and garlic from the oven. Pop the garlic from its skin and add the flesh to the tomatoes. Crush the tomatoes and garlic with a fork, stirring in the fresh horseradish as you go. When the potatoes are crisp and golden, remove them from the oven and serve with spoonfuls of the crushed tomato.

  • Some people find it easier to ‘hasselback’ the potatoes by placing each one in the hollow of a wooden spoon and slicing downwards, thus avoiding cutting through to the chopping board. It’s a good trick.

  PUMPKIN, CHICKPEAS, ROSEMARY

  Roasted pumpkin. Smooth, silky mash.

  Serves 4

  pumpkin, skin on 1kg

  garlic 4 cloves

  rosemary 10 sprigs

  thyme 8 bushy sprigs

  a little olive oil

  butter 75g

  For the hummus:

  chickpeas 2 × 400g cans

  juice of a small lemon

  olive oil 150ml

  parsley leaves 10g

  pink peppercorns 2 teaspoons

  Set the oven at 200°C/Gas 6. Remove the seeds and fibres from the pumpkin, then cut the flesh into eight wedges. Lightly oil a baking tin (I like to cover mine with kitchen foil for easier cleaning) and lay the wedges down in a single layer. Tuck in the unpeeled garlic cloves. Season with salt, black pepper and the sprigs of herbs, then moisten with olive oil. Dot the butter in small lumps over the pumpkin and roast for forty-five minutes, until the squash is golden brown in colour and the texture is soft and fudgy.

  Drain the chickpeas and bring them to the boil in deep water. Turn the heat down a little and let them simmer for eight to ten minutes till thoroughly hot. Squeeze the roast garlic cloves out of their skins. Drain the chickpeas again, then tip them into the bowl of a food processor. Add the lemon juice and garlic and process, pouring in enough of the oil to produce a soft, spreadable cream.

  Chop the parsley and peppercorns together, then moisten with a tablespoon of olive oil. Spoon the hummus on to a serving dish, place the roasted pumpkin pieces on top, then scatter over the parsley and peppercorns and serve.

  • If you don’t have pink peppercorns (they are hardly a kitchen essential), then I can recommend those dark green bottled peppercorns instead. They have both warmth and piquancy and are useful as a seasoning for anything containing beans or cheese. The brine they come in is handy, too. Just a few drops will perk up a salad dressing or a vegetable or bean purée.

  PUMPKIN, COUSCOUS, DATE SYRUP

  Sweet, fudgy flesh. Tart, bright dressing.

  Serves 4

  pumpkin 1kg (unpeeled weight)

  olive oil 60ml

  za’atar 1 tablespoon

  dried chilli flakes 1 teaspoon

  couscous 65g

  coriander 20g

  parsley leaves 10g

  For the dressing:

  garlic 1 clove

  date syrup 4 teaspoons

  olive oil 5 tablespoons

  juice of half a lemon

  grain mustard 1 teaspoon

  Set the oven at 200°C/Gas 6. Peel the pumpkin, remove and discard the fibres and seeds, then cut the flesh into 2cm-thick slices. Place the slices on a baking sheet. Mix together the 60ml of olive oil, za’atar and chilli flakes, then spoon over the pumpkin. Bake for thirty-five to forty minutes till tender and translucent.

  Bring a kettle of water to the boil. Put the couscous in a heatproof bowl, pour over enough of the hot water to cover and set aside.

  Make the dressing: crush the garlic and mix with the date syrup, olive oil, lemon juice and grain mustard. Chop the coriander and the parsley.

  When the couscous has soaked up the water, separate the grains with a fork, then fold in the parsley and coriander and season with salt and pepper. Remove the pumpkin from the oven, place the couscous on a serving plate with the pumpkin, then trickle over the dressing.

  • Butternut squash is a handy year-round alternative to pumpkin and can be substituted here with ease. Butternut usually takes slightly less time than a variety such as Crown Prince, with its dense flesh. The trick as always with members of the squash family is to cook them until the golden interior is almost translucent and easily crushable with the back of a spoon.

  PUMPKIN, MUSTARD, CREAM

  Soft squash. The warmth of mustard.

  Serves 3

  pumpkin, skin on 2kg

  olive oil 4 tablespoons

  chicken or vegetable stock, hot, 1 litre

  double cream 200ml

  grain mustard 1 tablespoon

  smooth Dijon mustard 1 tablespoon

  Cut the pumpkin in half and each half into three large wedges. Remove and discard the seeds and fibres. Warm the olive oil in a large, deep-sided roasting tin over a moderate heat. Lightly brown both cut sides of each wedge of pumpkin, turning them over as each one colours using kitchen tongs.

  Set the oven at 200°C/Gas 6. Lay the wedges of pumpkin on their side then pour over the hot chicken or vegetable stock and seal the roasting tin with kitchen foil. Bake for forty-five minutes, then remove the foil, turn the pieces of pumpkin over and baste them thoroughly with the stock. Return to the oven and continue cooking for a further forty-five minutes. The pumpkin should be translucent, each slice heavy with stock.

  Carefully lift the pumpkin from the stock and set aside on a warm serving dish. Place the stock over a fierce heat and let it reduce to about 200ml. Pour in the cream, then stir in the two mustards, a little at a time, until you have a warmth you like. Season with salt and black pepper.

  Spoon the mustard sauce over the slices of pumpkin and serve.

  • You can cook any of the golden-fleshed autumn squashes in the style of fondant potatoes. That is, lightly browned in a little oil or butter, then baked in stock until they become saturated with the liquor, almost glowing. A texture so soft and giving as to be almost like sorbet. Such a recipe takes patience but little hands-on work.

  • You need to baste the squash with stock once or perhaps twice during its sojourn in the oven. Cooked in this way, pieces of pumpkin make a juicy side dish, but I enjoy them as a course in their own right, with the sauce above, where the cooking juices are bolstered with cream and mustard.

  SWEET POTATO, JALAPEÑOS, BEANS

  Sweet heat.

  Serves 2

  a large sweet potato

  radishes 4

  a jalapeño

  butter 50g

  black-eyed beans 1 × 400g can

  mozzarella 100g

  Set the oven at 200°C/Gas 6, pierce the skin of the sweet potato with a fork a few times, and bake it for about forty-five minutes to an hour till the inside is soft and melting.

  Slice the potato in half and scoop out the filling with a spoon, keeping the skin as intact as possible (it will be a little fragile), and mash with a fork. Cut the radishes into matchsticks. Thinly slice the jalapeño.

  Warm the butter in a large frying pan, add the jalapeño and fry fo
r two minutes, then tip in the drained beans. Stir in the mashed sweet potato, season and cook for three or four minutes. Tear the mozzarella into pieces and add to the sweet potato, then spoon back into the potato skins.

  Scatter the matchstick radishes over the top and serve.

  • You can use a floury maincrop potato instead should you wish, but the sweet potato seems to sit particularly happily with the beans and the coolness of the mozzarella.

  • Use whatever beans you have to hand. Haricot, cannellini and butter beans will all fit the bill.

  • The radishes add a pleasing crunch to each mouthful of soft potato and cheese. Use mooli if you prefer, or cool, crisp cucumber.

  SWEET POTATOES, TOMATOES

  Soft, spiced mash. Sharp, sweet, roast tomatoes.

  Serves 3–4

  sweet potatoes 850g

  cherry tomatoes on the vine 500g

  olive oil 8 tablespoons

  onions, medium 2

  garlic 2 medium cloves

  ground turmeric 2 level teaspoons

  yellow mustard seeds 3 teaspoons

  Set the oven at 200°C/Gas 6. Peel the sweet potatoes, cut them in half lengthways, then into thick chunks, as you might for boiling. Place in a steamer basket over a pot of boiling water, then cover with a tight lid and let them steam to tenderness – a matter of twenty minutes or so. Test them every five minutes with a skewer.

  Put the tomatoes in a shallow baking dish, tossing them with half the olive oil and grinding over just a little salt. Roast for about twenty minutes until their skins have blackened. While the sweet potatoes steam and the tomatoes roast, peel and thinly slice the onions, and cook them in the remaining olive oil in a shallow pan until they are soft and golden. Peel and thinly slice the garlic and stir it into the softening onions. When the onions and garlic are soft and golden, scoop them out into a small bowl.

  Drain the juices from the tomatoes into the pan used for the onions and place over a moderate heat. Stir in the turmeric, letting it sizzle for a moment, then add the mustard seeds and a little black pepper. As soon as the mustard seeds start to pop, remove from the heat. Mash the sweet potatoes with a potato masher, then stir in the turmeric, mustard seeds and cooking juices.

  Spoon the spiced sweet potato mash on to plates, then add the cooked onions and garlic and the roast tomatoes.

  • As the tomatoes roast, their juices will leak into the olive oil, forming a sweet-sharp base for the mustard seeds and turmeric. A handful of curry leaves, tossed in with the mustard seeds, wouldn’t go amiss. Let the leaves warm for a minute or two in the hot oil with the mustard seeds, just long enough to lightly infuse the dressing with their earthy warmth.

  My father’s generation wouldn’t have countenanced salad on a winter’s day. But our eating moves on. Winter leaves, particularly the chicories, come into their own in cold weather; apples and pears are at their juiciest on a crisp autumn day; nuts and mushrooms are some of the finest ingredients the season has to offer.

  On a golden autumn afternoon, I will make a salad of soft, freckled leaves of lettuce, with blackberries and blue cheese, and toss them in a dressing of cider vinegar and walnuts. As the nights draw in, mushrooms will be marinated with orange juice and sherry vinegar, then sprinkled with toasted hazelnuts and toasted white breadcrumbs. In deep midwinter, beetroots will be baked and eaten warm with white-tipped radishes, mint and segments of blood orange.

  I will not forgo my love of leaves, tufts of watercress and ice-crisp raw vegetables just because there’s a fire in the hearth. A plate of salad leaves is not just for summer. Whilst they are unlikely to form the main course, arrangements of raw vegetables sit comfortably aside a bowl of deep ochre soup and a lump of open-textured bread torn from a sourdough loaf.

  The trick is in the dressing. Walnut and sesame oils, pickling liquors and cider vinegars, toasted nuts, grain and smooth mustards all marry with the ingredients of the season – the russet-skinned apples, fat juicy pears, hot mustardy leaves and crunchy white celery.

  The fragile salad leaves of summer give way to shreds of red and white cabbage, onions fast-pickled in white wine vinegar, tight bulbs of chicory, thin slices of fennel (marinate them in lemon juice to soften their aniseed notes) and finely sliced raw kale. There is a robustness to a composition of winter vegetables that is very different to the immature and tender leaves of summer. Stems are thicker and more crunchy, leaves have more bite, flavours are more assertive.

  Serving food on a plate does give the ingredients a chance to shine, but I think we should avoid the temptation to tinker just to make something look attractive. By all means hand over a tempting-looking plate of food, but nothing good will come from plated arrangements. Letting food fall naturally into place will always look more appetising than food that has been ‘arranged’.

  APPLES, BLUE CHEESE, WALNUTS

  Crisp apples and toasted nuts. The colours of autumn.

  Serves 2

  For the dressing:

  blackberries 65g

  cider vinegar 4 tablespoons

  walnut oil 3 tablespoons

  olive oil 3 tablespoons

  walnut halves 75g

  a large apple

  blackberries 60g

  a winter lettuce such as Castelfranco

  blue cheese such as Shropshire Blue, Stilton or Stichelton 250g

  Make the dressing: put the blackberries, cider vinegar and the oils into a food processor and blend for a few seconds, then tip into a salad bowl.

  Toast the walnut halves in a dry pan till warm and fragrant, then add to the dressing. Quarter, core and slice the apple and gently toss with the walnuts, blackberries and dressing. Tear the lettuce into large pieces, teasing the heart leaves apart, then divide between two plates. Spoon the dressing over the leaves then crumble the cheese on top.

  • Instead of the lettuce, use finely shredded cabbage or sauerkraut. Blueberries can replace the blackberries and pear can be used instead of the apple.

  BEETROOT, BLOOD ORANGE, WATERCRESS

  Bright flavours for a cold day.

  Serves 2

  beetroot, small raw 400g

  olive oil 1 tablespoon

  radishes 8

  blood oranges 2

  watercress 100g

  mint leaves 10

  parsley leaves a handful

  pumpkin seeds 2 tablespoons

  For the dressing:

  blood orange juice 2 tablespoons

  sherry vinegar 2 tablespoons

  Set the oven at 200°C/Gas 6. Place a large piece of cooking foil in a roasting tin. Wash and trim the beetroot, taking care not to break their skins, and place them in the foil. Add the olive oil, 2 tablespoons of water and a grinding of salt and pepper, then scrunch the edges of the foil together to seal. Bake the beetroots for forty-five to sixty minutes till tender to the point of a knife, then remove and set aside.

  Slice the radishes in half and put them in a mixing bowl. Slice the peel from the oranges, taking care to keep any escaping juice, remove the skin from the segments, then add to the radishes. Peel the beetroot and cut each one in half, then into quarters, and add to the mixing bowl.

  Wash and trim the watercress. (I like to dunk it in a bowl of iced water for twenty minutes to crisp up.) Put the mint and parsley leaves into the orange and beetroot together with the trimmed watercress and pumpkin seeds.

  Make the dressing: put the blood orange juice in a small bowl, add the sherry vinegar, season with salt and pepper then pour over the salad and toss gently.

  MUSHROOMS, ORANGE, BREADCRUMBS

  Bosky flavours. Toasted crumbs.

  Serves 4

  juice of a blood orange

  juice of a lemon

  olive oil 4 tablespoons

  sherry vinegar 2 tablespoons

  chestnut mushrooms 250g

  black figs 8

  For the crumbs:

  hazelnuts, skinned 75g

  white bread 50g

  olive oil 4 tablespo
ons

  chopped parsley a handful

  oakleaf lettuce 1, small

  green olives, pitted 4 tablespoons

  Mix together the orange and lemon juices, olive oil and vinegar, then grind in a little salt and pepper. Thinly slice the mushrooms, put them into the marinade, then cover the bowl and set aside.

  Roughly chop the hazelnuts, then toast them in a dry, shallow pan. Set aside in a bowl. Process the bread to coarse crumbs. Warm the olive oil in the same pan over a moderate heat, then add the breadcrumbs and toss them gently in the hot oil till pale gold. Stir in the chopped parsley and toasted hazelnuts and set aside.

  Tear the lettuce into large pieces and divide between four plates or bowls, then add the marinated mushrooms, the toasted crumbs and lastly the figs, cut into quarters, and the olives, halved if you like.

  • Add other seeds and nuts to the crumbs as you wish. When the crumbs are frying, add pumpkin or sunflower seeds, a sprinkling of chia, a handful of golden sultanas or some flaked almonds.

  • Instead of the crumbs, use cooked couscous, quinoa or puffed rice.

  RED CABBAGE, CARROTS, SMOKED ALMONDS

  Crisp, crunchy, sour and smoky. A cabbage salad for a winter’s day.

  Serves 4

  a red onion

  malt vinegar 50ml

  cider vinegar 75ml

  yellow mustard seeds 1 teaspoon

  red cabbage 450g

  carrots 250g

  a pear

  smoked almonds a handful or two