The Guesscipe Book

Pumpkin and Goats Cheese Pasties

That wonderful time of year is upon us again! While the days might be getting shorter and colder, that’s no reason to despair. There’s a real joy to rediscovering those coats you haven’t seen in months, embracing scarves and beginning to smell the smoke of chimneys around once more. It’s also a time to enjoy…

Devonshire Squab Pie

English food has a certain reputation that I won’t get into right now, but suffice to say if you ask somebody to name traditional English dishes you’ll probably get the standard fish ‘n’ chips, roast dinner, maybe a cream tea…not a whole lot more. I’ve always found this to be a real shame, as there’s…

Bunless Big Macs

The Big Mac is possibly the best-known burger in the world. The signature combination of “two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun” has become brilliantly ubiquitous. Introduced in 1967, the burger utilises that “special sauce” – creamy, tangy and herby it has long been a sauce (ayyyy) of…

Peanut, Sweet Potato and Lime Soup

Peanuts are one of those brilliantly versatile ingredients which seems just as at home in a dessert as it does in a savoury dish. They’re salty, punchy and full of protein and oils making them a brilliant backbone for this soup. While the peanuts bring the flavour, the sweet potatoes offer a robust backing…

Honey and Whiskey Spiked Goats Cheese and Onion Tarts

There is something so beautiful about the marriage of goats cheese and onion that it isn’t a surprise that this gorgeous couple are so often paired together on starters and nibbles the world over. The sticky sweet jaminess of the caramelised onions, usually with a subtly acidic quality, blends incredibly with the creamy yet…

Chilli Chocolate Mousse

There is something truly phenomenal about a chocolate mousse – like a ganache that’s holding it’s breath, filled with air. The gentle crackle as the spoon pops the thousands of tiny bubble suspended beneath the surface is one of those delicate sounds that just brings pure joy. It derives, of course, from the whipped egg…

Cinnamon Roasted Pork with Parsnip Purée

Cinnamon is one of those spices which is grossly underused in savoury cooking – we all know the familiar taste of a posh Autumnal coffee with cinnamon spicing, or Christmas baked goods offering a warming feeling inside. This delightfully snappy bark often appears as part of a spice mixtures of food from the subcontinent too,…

Chilli, Lime and Feta Potato Salad

Potato Salads are a classic for a reason – the robust potato, a friend for all occasions, is the perfect vehicle for the creamy, slightly sour dressing that comes with a potato salad. There’s room for plenty of other vegetables in there – pickles, capers, sweetcorn, onions. The sauce can be adapted for greater decadence…

Buck’s Fizz (Mimosa) Cake

For a fair while in my adult life I wondered what these “mimosas” that I kept hearing about – usually in relation to American brunches – were. It was only a year or two ago that I discovered it was nothing more than ordinary Buck’s Fizz – the official drink of Christmas morning here in…

Rum Flambéed Pineapple with Berries and Ice Cream

There is such a joy to flambéing food – perhaps it appeals to that inner neanderthal in all of us that feels innately proud upon creation of fire. Perhaps it’s just because it feels cool holding a pan of flaming food. However, it must be remembered that it is so much more than just showiness,…