THE SUN-SOAKED PLATE...Mediterranean recipes for family and friends

AFTER THE FOAM HAS GONE I am amazed how many young chefs come into this business without knowing the very basics of cooking. I watched Andreas, the head chef at Fosh Food, make a perfect Veloute the other day and he was complaining about just the same thing. You see, once upon a time, you had to know how to make a good Béchamel sauce before going on to master your Velouté. It was one of those benchmark recipes of all good cooks and the base of countless other classic sauces such as Nantua, Soubise and Mornay. These day’s, most young chefs are more concerned about how much lecithin they have to put in their sauces to make their foam stand up for half an hour and a good Roux has practically become obsolete. This is a real shame as a well-made béchamel sauce is truly delicious, and for any home cook, it opens up an endless stream of classic dishes from Gratins, croquettes to lasagnes. The secret to a well made béchamel is to make your milk as flavoursome as possible. If you infuse your on...

Perfect Pasta There may be no other food in the world as ubiquitous, versatile, and well loved as pasta. A basic, healthy food made from simple, everyday components it is capable of standing alone or taking on a wealth of other flavours. For centuries, pasta has been a staple part of the diet of numerous cultures throughout the world. Some people are unnecessarily intimidated by making fresh pasta, but with the aid of a pasta machine, pasta making is literally child’s play and the end results can be very rewarding. All you need is patience, care and quality ingredients and there’s no going back once you’ve made your own homemade pasta. Pasta is simply the Italian word for dough.   The actual dough is a very simple mixture of flour, salt, eggs and olive oil. The best flour to use is semolina flour: a hard, very fine wheat flour. In Italy, flour is classified either as 1, 0, or 00, and refers to how finely ground the flour is and how much of the bran and germ have been remov...

HOG IT! Pork is, perhaps, the supreme winter meat and has some wonderful cuts for stuffing and roasting. The tender fillets and loins, prized for their white, succulent meat, are perfect for pan frying or grilling and it also has some excellent, flavoursome odds and ends in the shape of trotters, knuckles and cheeks for braising and rich stews. Ribs are a relatively cheap cut of pork as they contain a smaller ratio of meat to bone. The discarded bones from chops are sold as spare ribs - pieces that have some meat, but not enough to be classed as proper chops. These can be marinated and grilled or barbecued. Ribs are also cut and sold in the same way as chops, with quite a large amount of meat still on the bone. The rib joint of pork contains more meat and can be treated like the rack of lamb as a piece that's ideal for open roasting or glazing and can be carved easily between the ribs so long as the chine bone is removed. Gone are the day’s when pork was considered a rather...