The Family Cook Book

One of our trips out for dinner whilst in Puglia was to the very lovely Masseria Garrappa . The owner could not have been nicer and the whole ambience and style of the place was absolutely delightful. If you're near Fasano I recommend a trip. We had very nice food and delicious wines. It was such a lovely change for somebody to say to me 'This is a lovely red wine but I hope you don't mind it is €30' (£23.60 to be precise!) 

we have just come back from a short holiday near Fasano in Puglia. We went with our dear friends Joel and Nushi and had a wonderful time. We ate out well but one of the great joys of the trip was the quality of the produce in the supermarket ... in particular on the fish counter which was quite simply spectacular.   The picture above was a particularly nice dinner of Orata (bream) mazzancolle (Shrimps) zucchini (courgettes) and patate (obvious). We roasted the potatoes and zucchini in the oven with some garlic, olive oil and dried oregano we found at the villa and then we barbecued the fish and dressed it with a little olive oil, salt, pepper and lemon juice. We sat outside under the vine covered pergola and washed it down with some local wines -  a Primitivo (or two!) and a fiano .... bloody delicious!

The weather has turned and the Big Green Egg is back in use. I'm quite proud of these recent results Pizza .. pretty damn crispy I think you'll agree and single rib of beef Tom Kerridge style .... look at that crispy fat. Heart attack alert!!

I saw this recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi on Saturday kitchen. As a lover of, the very unattractive but delicious to eat, celeriac, I had to give it a try.I made the celeriac and horseradish dressing but had it with roast beef but I bet the dish as a whole is also fabulous. The celeriac is an absolute walk in the park to make and is delicious. The centre is beautifully soft and the outside a bit sticky and 'gnarly' as Jamie would say. Ingredients For the baked celeriac with smoked trout 1 medium  celeriac , skin scrubbed but left on, cut in half lengthways 2 tbsp  olive oil 10g/¼oz  thyme  sprigs 80g/2¾oz  crème fraîche 20g/¾oz fresh  horseradish , peeled and finely grated (use  horseradish  cream as an alternative) 150g/5½oz  smoked trout  or salmon, sliced into 3cm/1¼in strips 2 tsp  lemon juice 2 tsps flaky sea salt and  black pepper For the salsa ·        20g/¾oz ...

We have just come back from Florence. As well as seeing more Renaissance paintings, churches and statuary than you can throw a stick at we also ate some great food.  Florence is famous for its Steaks, its tripe and its gelato. We only had tripe once and not very much of it but Martha and I had gelato every day; even if it was just a small scoop. I love, love, love gelato ... particularly Nocciola. Luckily there was a small but perfectly formed gelateria that had been recommended to us that was just a hop, a skip and a jump from our hotel. If you happen to find yourself in Florence in the Oltrarno area then give it a whirl .. it's called Gelateria della Passera . Other great recommendations from friends and family that we managed to visit were Quattro Leoni  - it was our first night so we were a bit shattered but we had lovely service from our Albanian, football loving host. The following night we visted the very, very, tiny but fantastically tasty and good valu...

This is one of our favourite standby recipes which is a bastardisation of a recipe from the River cafe Easy (silver) book, which uses Guinea fowl instead of chicken. I first blogged about it in 2008 but I thought it was worth posting again having  made it last week for the Lacosta massive who gave it a pretty universal thumbs up (they could have just been being polite of course!) Because it's a one tray bake it is very easy to make and prepare ahead, which makes it perfect for an easy lunch or dinner for a crowd.  It is also easy to double it up for a larger group but unless you have a humungous tray, and oven, then I would recommend going for two trays so that you can still arrange all the ingredients in one layer. If you don't you end up not only failing to brown the chicken very well but you also run the risk of poaching the chicken in the wine.  Ingredients - serves 4 8 pieces of chicken ( we use thighs or whole legs ) 5 garlic cloves 2 tablespoo...

If you're a serial offender in the cookery book purchase stakes (I declare right now that its more of an addiction than a hobby for me) you will, I'm sure, have many books that you have never cooked from ... or perhaps more tellingly only cooked from once. In my collection many of these are actually amongst the best looking books in my collection, I have dubbed them 'Lookery' books. They lure you in with fabulous design, often combined with a cover that not only looks good but feels so good you want to lay your face on it. In my collection many of them are from restaurants that I have enjoyed being to, loved the food and thought I must cook that at home. They are the culinary equivalent of ouzo and limoncello great when you're there not so great when you're back home ( actually limoncello isn't great anywhere) This weekend I tried the Slanted Door by Charles Phan. We went to the restaurant, which is in the old ferry building in San Francisco when we...