Kitchen Memories

1 sprig of fresh rosemary, leaves picked from their stems, washed, dried and finely chopped

1 small unwaxed lemon

4 guinea fowl breast supremes, skin on, or 4 chicken supremes with wing attached

4 slices of prosciutto

olive oil

a knob of butter

sea salt and black pepper

Preheat the oven to 210ºC (190ºC fan) Gas 6½ Put the mascarpone and chopped rosemary in a bowl. Grate the lemon on the zest part of the grater and add to the bowl. Season with salt and pepper and mix together.

Place each supreme on a board and push your fingers up between the skin and the flesh to make an opening. Reserve a generous spoonful of the mascarpone mixture for the sauce. Put a spoonful of the mixture between the skin and flesh, then insert a slice of prosciutto to lie flat against the skin (if the slice is too large, tear it in half). Season the breasts on the outside.

Use a small roasting tin or shallow, flameproof, ovenproof dish large enough to hold the supremes in one layer. Heat a drizzle of olive oil and the butter in the tin or dish and brown the breasts on both sides until golden. Place in the oven for 15 minutes until cooked. Transfer the breasts to a serving dish and keep warm. Add the reserved mascarpone to the hot pan with a squeeze of lemon – the mascarpone will melt and mingle with the lemon juice to make a delicious sauce to pour over the breasts. Serve straight away.

BROAD BEANS AND MINT

FOR 4

1kg broad beans in their pods

2 garlic cloves, peeled and crudely cut into slices

2–3 sprigs of fresh mint, washed and dried

extra-virgin olive oil

salt and black pepper

Bring a pan of water to a boil while you are podding the beans, then put the beans in. Cook for 3–4 minutes – the smaller and younger they are the less cooking is needed. Drain, then put in a bowl with the garlic and mint. Pour enough extra-virgin olive oil over to coat the beans, then season with salt and pepper. Let the hot beans take on the flavour of the garlicky, minty olive oil for 3 minutes or so, then remove the raw garlic pieces and the mint before serving.

BROAD-LEAVED ROCKET

Broad-leaved rocket is incredibly easy to grow as a cut-and-come-again salad leaf. It has a wonderful peppery flavour that goes so well with tomatoes, or if you need a leaf that ‘cuts’ into other flavours, or as an alternative to flat-leaf parsley. It is just so useful to have available on your windowsill or in the garden – you will always have some fresh green leaves to add to your meal without having to go and buy the commercially produced wild rocket, which tends to lack flavour.

Rocket will grow pretty much anywhere, in shade or sunlight. You can sprinkle a few seeds in pots that contain trees, shrubs or perennials, or on a bare patch of soil. It germinates in a few days and can be picked after a few weeks. The first growth is less peppery than the second, when the stems become thicker and the leaves a slightly darker green with a stronger flavour. March/April is a good time to sow seed – every twelve weeks or so will give a continuous crop. When the summer gets going the plants tend to bolt, producing small, delicate, white flowers, which can be used in salads. After this the plants will be too tired to produce anything more worth picking, by which time your new sowing will have got under way and should be ready for picking the first young leaves.

Rocket will self-seed if you leave the flowers on. Sow direct around mid-March as the ground starts to warm up.

COOKING WITH ROSE

My memories of cooking with Rose picture her slicing, prodding, mixing, tying, rolling, chopping – she loved her mezzaluna for chopping the herbs when she was making salsa verde. Kitchen equipment essentials were quite basic. Pasta was rolled out with a glass bottle if the rolling pin couldn’t be found. Mayonnaise was made in the pestle and mortar; pastry, cakes, eggs and cream were hand-whisked in a bowl. Meat was minced in a hand-operated meat grinder clamped to the side of the table.

Not having a food processor or KitchenAid made the preparation of food both social and instructive; friends would be given a board, a knife and a glass of wine with directions on how finely to chop the garlic or how to remove the sprouting, bitter green shoot in the winter cloves. Peppercorns were crushed in a crude wooden bowl with a large round stone just before cooking so that their oils remained fresh. Pressing ‘pulse’ on the processor seemed a cold and distant way to chop the civilising herbs … Rose’s hands were constantly moving like little birds – lots of contact with whatever ingredient was being prepared seemed to bring life into every aspect of the making of a meal. A good friend remarked, after Rose’s death, that she had taught him how to live.

Rose was an incredible teacher in that you came away from your experience of cooking with her and somehow life had changed. Her attention to the possibilities of the ingredients she used and the nature and character of the condition they were in would determine how she prepared and cooked them. She was also quite scary – if I questioned whether it was really necessary to peel the individual skins off every chickpea she had boiled (and a normal 500g packet is a lot of chickpeas), she would give me one of her intensely penetrating glares.

CAMONE TOMATO, COPPA DI PARMA AND RICOTTA SALAD

‘Camone’ tomatoes arrive at the beginning of spring, imported from Sicily. They are sold on the stem with medium-sized greeny-red fruits. They have a tangy quality that reflects the lack of sun that sweetens the tomatoes later in the season. I love the firm texture and taste of this tomato, which goes so well with the light and creamy ricotta and the deep earthy and sweet flavours of the coppa (the cured rolled shoulder of pig).

FOR 4

1 small bunch of fresh marjoram, leaves picked from their stems, washed and dried (about 3 tbsp of leaves)

extra-virgin olive oil

1 lemon

3–4 ‘Camone’ tomatoes (or ‘Marinda’, another early variety with a firm, slightly crunchy texture and fantastic flavour)

12 slices of coppa di Parma (cured pork shoulder)

150g buffalo ricotta

a few leaves of broad-leaved rocket or lamb’s lettuce, washed and dried

sea salt and black pepper

Make the salmoriglio (sauce) by crushing the marjoram leaves with a pinch of sea salt in the pestle and mortar until a rough paste is formed. Add 2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil and a squeeze of lemon and stir together.

Slice the tomatoes in half crossways (not through the stem) and then cut roughly into pieces so that you have odd shapes. Season with a little salt (remember that the salmoriglio has some in) and pepper and coat with a little extra-virgin olive oil.

Put a few pieces of tomato on to each plate, divide the coppa up and curl it through the tomatoes as if it were unfolding. Spoon teaspoons of the buffalo ricotta over the salad and add a few rocket or lamb’s lettuce leaves. Dribble the salmoriglio sparingly over the top.

RABBIT STEW

We had rabbits as pets when we were little. My brother Dante refused to let our mother put rabbit on the menu at the River Café for years and then one day it featured: the pet was on the plate.

Nothing makes me feel like spring is here more than broad beans. I love them with rabbit cooked with herbs, carrots and some white wine.

Farmed rabbit flesh is delicate and tender compared to wild rabbit, which tends to be tougher and has a stronger, gamier flavour.

FOR 4

1 whole rabbit, cut into its various parts, legs removed and saddle cut into similar-sized pieces (the butcher will do this)

20–30g unsalted butter

olive oil

4–6 spring carrots, washed, ends trimmed, chopped at an angle about cm thick

2 celery sticks, ends trimmed, cut into 1cm thick slices