La Recette du Jour

A versatile dish that’s a good way of using up a glut of tomatoes.

Recipe for Peperonata »

A Spanish tapas recipe which can also be scaled up to a main course.

Recipe for Pinchitos Morunos »

This recipe uses little round courgettes. If you can’t get them, the risotto will do equally well in peppers or onions — or indeed on its own, or as an accompaniment to something else.

Serves 4, or 8 as a starter.

Recipe for Courgettes stuffed with Ebly “risotto” »

As recorded in a Yorkshire kitchen. Photos taken in haste, they are too good to leave hanging around!

Recipe for Yorkshire Pudding »

This is loosely based on a recipe in an old Sainsbury’s magazine. It’s an unusual idea — a kind of cross between salad and gratin, pretty and refreshing — a good light summer lunch or starter. You may vary the ingredients depending on what you have.

Recipe for Warm broad bean and potato salad with cheese and prosciutto »

From Edouard de Pomiane via Elizabeth David, who says it ‘makes tomatoes taste startlingly unlike any other dish of cooked tomatoes’.

We had it as a starter but we reckoned it would be fab with some nice fillet steak - or with roast/grilled lamb.

Recipe for Tomates à la crème »

This is an absolutely classic French bistro dish. I still remember eating it in a little café in Violès after an arduous morning’s grape-picking.

Recipe for Salade aux lentilles du Puy »

The Polynesian national dish, as prepared on a Tahitian beach.

Note: when not on a beach in Tahiti it is much more practical to just buy coconut milk in a can or package. We found it was thicker than the fresh-off-the-tree variety so you could dilute it a bit with water.

Recipe for Poisson cru au lait de coco »

The Catalan national dish — “bread and tomatoes”, which I admit doesn’t sound very exciting. But with ripe tomatoes and good olive oil, it is delicious. A simple starter; or, in Catalonia, a breakfast dish.

Recipe for Pa amb tomaquet, or pan con tomate »

Serves 4 as a starter or 2 as a main course. Best with the large Spanish mussels — small moules de bouchot should not be wasted on this!

Recipe for Moules farcies au four »