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I adore recipes that make use of one cut of meat or a whole animal to create a complex dish, loaded with flavour.
Most pumpkin dishes involve scooping out the seeds, cutting off the skin, and chopping up the flesh before cooking.
Cobnuts have a fresher flavour than any other nut I know of and go very well with autumnal fruit and light cheeses.
I am sure that in the story of Adam and Eve, the forbidden fruit was a fig and not an apple, pear or anything else.
I have to admit that I can't take a whole fig and eat it on its own as I would a peach or mango. It's just too much.
Chana dal are skinless dried split chickpeas used in Indian cooking. They have a great texture and delicate flavour.
Sea spaghetti looks like dark fettuccine and has a similar texture - you can get it in health food stores or online.
Chermoula is a potent North African spice paste that is ideal for smearing on your favourite vegetables for roasting.
A well-made salad must have a certain uniformity; it should make perfect sense for those ingredients to share a bowl.
Date syrup is a natural sweetener that has wonderful richness and treacly depth; I drizzle it over semolina porridge.
In certain European cuisines, vegetables are cooked a long time. I take the term 'al dente' and use it for vegetables.
The smells of slow cooking spread around the house and impart a unique warmth matched only by the flavour of the food.
You can be vegetarian and eat fish. Its your choice, just say: I am what I am. There are no hardcore divisions anymore.
Rice and vermicelli is a common combination in Arab and Turkish cooking - it has a lighter texture than rice on its own.
Lebanese mezze, Cantonese dim sum and Basque pinchos have all evolved over years and are designed to make sense together.
You can be vegetarian and eat fish. It's your choice, just say: 'I am what I am.' There are no hardcore divisions anymore.
My all-time favourite classic use of ricotta is in gnudi: fluffy, cheesy dumplings of almost ethereal, feathery lightness.
The combination of lentils with rice or bulgur is the absolute height of Levantine comfort food. I could eat it every day.
The emotive power of hummus all over the Middle East cannot be overstated, being the focus of some serious tribal rivalries.
For people who think of chicken as the meat choice of those-who-don't-really-like-meat, brining a bird will be a revelation.
Vegetarian and frugal it may be, but the chickpea is one of the most versatile ingredients you could keep in your cupboards.
I have been cooking with preserved lemon for years, using it left, right and centre, but I am still far from reaching my limit.
On many occasions, an informal buffet and casual seating offer a little more intimacy than a loud gathering around a big table.
Verjuice may not be the easiest thing in the world to find, but you should be able to track some down in good delis and online.
Brunch, for me, is an extended breakfast that should be enjoyed whenever you have time properly to engage in cooking and eating.
Chipotles, which are dried jalapeno peppers, give out a terrific smoky flavour - they're warm, earthy and usually not too spicy.
Middle Eastern cuisine has the same depth of ingredients and processes as other cuisines. They just haven't had as much exposure.
I love the way soft white cheese such as ricotta or the creamier mascarpone reflect the milieu in which an animal has been raised.
Tossing doughnuts, fritters or fried dumplings in fennel sugar adds grown-up complexity without diminishing the indulgence factor.
Many ingredients are called 'earthy,' but none comes as close to fitting the bill as buckwheat. I'm mildly obsessed with the stuff.
Just-poached vegetables show off their natural attributes and taste fresh and light in a way you never get with roasting or frying.
Call me tacky, but I love the union of sweet and sour, even in some now-unloved Oriental dishes incorporating pineapple and ketchup.
A food processor, or even one of those small bowls that fit on a stick blender, is a real treasure. No, that's not an overstatement.
Just-poached vegetables show off their natural attributes, and taste fresh and light in a way you never get with roasting or frying.
Custard is controversial: what makes it a custard, how best to cook it and, crucially, is it to be eaten or put in a pie and thrown?
Too many books are full of recipes that aren't doable at home. They are purely aspirational. They are quite frightening, even for me.
If I must choose between healthy and tasty, I go for the second: having only one life to waste, it might as well be a pleasurable one.
Way back when I was a junior pastry chef, I'd bake loads of muffins every morning, as many as 120 or so, while operating on autopilot.
People don't know how good cauliflower is, because they always have this image of cauliflower cheese - awful, sticky, creamy and rich.
When I was a kid, there was always food to be had on the street in Jerusalem, but anything above a falafel stand was mediocre or worse.
Manouri is a Greek ewes' milk cheese that's light in colour and texture. It's fresh and milky, and goes well with other subtle flavours.
Small okra pods have a much more attractive texture than large ones, which, when cooked, can be gloopy, stringy and totally spoil a dish.
Most British cheeses are now vegetarian and are labelled accordingly. However, French and Italian manufacturers still tend to use rennet.
Dried porcini add a substantial, deep flavour to otherwise more neutral vegetables. I use them in risottos, mashed roots and winter soups.
Tahini is fantastically versatile, its deep, nutty flavour a harmonious match with roasted vegetables, grilled oily fish or barbecued meat.
Take your average couscous salad, and it's almost always a sloppy mush, no matter how much attention has gone into getting flavours in there.
Almost every culture has its own variation on chicken soup, and rightly so - it's one of the most gratifying dishes on the face of the Earth.
Most men say they can cook pasta, but I think you should find a little bit of an unusual angle on your pasta and make that your signature dish.
How can something that's 95% water be so divisive? Alone among vegetables, the poor, innocent stick of celery elicits the most vicious attacks.
When it comes to cooking pasta, the first essential is to make sure you have a big enough pot: it needs room to roll in the water while cooking.