You’re probably thinking of Italy about now. Maybe Greece, maybe France or Spain. But what about…Lebanon? Israel? Syria?

Like most people, I suspect, my concept of the “Mediterranean diet” has long been limited to a very specific part of the vast Mediterranean—namely, the arc from Spain in the west, up to Provence and the French Riviera, across Italy, and down the coast of Greece to Crete. But the Mediterranean encompasses so much more, everything from Morocco and Egypt in the south, to the Balkans, Turkey and the Levant in the east.

This latter region in the far eastern Mediterranean is the object my current culinary obsession, an obsession that can be traced back largely to one person: Yotam Ottolenghi. If you’re in the UK, you’ve probably heard of Mr. Ottolenghi; he’s had regular columns in the Guardian, he has cafés and best-selling cookbooks, and he’s even been on TV.

It was through the Guardian that I first found him and became intrigued. I gradually amassed a ragged, spattered collection of recipes ripped from the weekend magazine—recipes for multi-vegetable paella, saffron cauliflower, chermoula eggplant—recipes that looked as good as they sounded, and tasted as good as they looked. The intrigue turned to infatuation when Plenty came out, with its gorgeous cover photograph of pomegranate-strewn eggplants. And the full-blown obsession kicked in when I finally bought a copy of Plenty for myself and started cooking—and loving—every single recipe in it.

I can’t overstate how much Yotam Ottolenghi’s food has changed my palate, my cooking and my spice cabinet. I’ve become a real flavor junkie, throwing fresh herbs at things with abandon, roasting seeds and filling up little jars with spice mixes, keeping a steady supply of pomegranate molasses in my fridge. His salmon steaks with spicy tomato sauce have transformed how I think about caraway, his couscous with butternut squash prompted me to buy, use and actually enjoy eating tarragon, and the fact that we’ve got rows of fennel bulbs planted in our little garden out back is due in no small part to him, too.

Ottolenghi has also changed my culinary map of the world, revealing a spectrum of tastes and textures and colors that I hadn’t really experienced before, the tastes of Jerusalem, Beirut, Damascus. But where do you start if you want to dip your toes into the eastern Mediterranean?

I can’t claim to be any sort of expert as I’m just in the process of discovering these cuisines myself—but I think I’d start with sumac. It’s not a hugely aromatic spice in and of itself (at least, the stuff we get here in the supermarket isn’t), but the citrus zing and russet hue of the dried sumac berry lend a characteristic look and flavor to many dishes from this part of the world. It’s lovely as a garnish for a dish of hummus or yogurt or dusted over a crunchy Lebanese salad, and combined with coarse salt it makes a fabulous crust for roasted lamb or chicken. Use it wherever you want lemony tartness combined with a bit of texture.

Sumac really shines in combination with other herbs and spices, such as in the spice blend known as za’atar. Za’atar adds a crunchy kick to everything it touches. Different countries make different versions, but you can’t go wrong with a basic mix of toasted sesame seeds, thyme, oregano, sumac and a pinch of salt. Scatter it over dips and salads, serve it as a dip in its own right with pita bread and olive oil, mix it with feta cheese, moisten it with oil and brush it onto pizza dough before baking for a fancy flatbread, or just sprinkle it on crackers smeared with cream cheese for a quick snack.

For a nutty Egyptian spin on the spice blend, mix up a batch of dukkah. Dukkah, like za’atar, comes in many different guises, but you’re likely to find nuts, a variety of seeds and a bit more spiciness than you get with za’atar. Whatever blend you use, it will add amazing fragrance to all sorts of dishes. I first encountered dukkah in Sydney, where it was sprinkled over poached eggs and spinach for a savory breakfast, but it pairs beautifully with beans and chickpeas, salty cheese, rice and grains, roasted vegetables… To be honest, there isn’t much that couldn’t be improved with a dash of dukkah (or za’atar, for that matter).

Dried spices are great, but if Ottolenghi has taught me anything about kicking up the flavor quotient in food, it’s this: get jiggy with the fresh herbs. And I don’t just mean parsley (as wonderful as it is), I mean things like mint, cilantro/coriander, lemon thyme, fennel and dill.

Dill has probably been the biggest surprise for me; the herb I formerly associated solely with bland poached salmon and borscht turns out to have been living a wild life in the warm Mediterranean sun. Its sweet pungency perks up leafy and grainy salads alike, and it combines beautifully with other herbs like mint and parsley to add an elusive anise note to dishes. I enjoyed one of the more unexpected uses for dill the other night in the form of Ottolenghi’s barley and pomegranate salad. As I was making it, I couldn’t imagine how barley, celery, allspice, dill and pomegranate seeds could work together—but once I started eating it, I couldn’t stop. The leftover salad was as crunchy, chewy and scrumptious the next day as it had been the night before, so it’s definitely one for a picnic.

Speaking of pomegranate, here’s a hot tip: If you want to instantly make any dish you cook look like a meal fit for a sultan, sprinkle pomegranate seeds over it. With their ruby-red sparkle and juicy crunch, pomegranate seeds are the ultimate in culinary bling. I think Yotam Ottolenghi can take a lot of the credit for popularizing pomegranate in the UK, and I would like to thank him profusely for it—particularly since it means I can buy ready-to-eat packs of fresh pomegranate seeds instead of having to tackle the formidable fruit myself (hey, we all have our culinary breaking points). In the summer, I sprinkle pomegranate seeds over bowls of mango, crunchy granola and yogurt for breakfast; in the winter, the seeds glitter amongst cubes of golden roasted butternut squash. And year round, you can’t help but feel happy when you see pomegranate on the plate. I have a lot of sympathy for poor Persephone—it’s awfully hard to resist the pomegranate’s gem-like allure.

If you want to take pomegranate to the next level, seek out—or make—some pomegranate molasses. This sweet-tart syrup is another ingredient you can easily slip into your everyday cooking for a fresh twist on familiar foods. It makes a great base for marinades (lamb, chicken and pork all love pomegranate), salad dressings or even cocktails. It’s also wonderful in stewed vegetable dishes like sweet and sour eggplant, tomatoes and chickpeas, which makes a fantastic summer supper when paired with quinoa or bulgur and a leafy, lemony salad (maybe sprinkled with sumac—or za’atar—or indeed pomegranate seeds).

Beyond that, I would highly encourage you to seek out some Ottolenghi recipes if you haven’t already. They’ve opened a door onto a whole new world of food for me—a world of bright flavors, bold colors, intoxicating aromas and flat-out foodie excitement—and they might just do the same for you.

But where do you turn when you want something more than a sirloin but less than a full-on standing rib roast? Something that’s marbled with delicious fat but doesn’t have to be cooked for hours? Something that can be served as easily for a fast mid-week dinner as it could for a lavish dinner party?

You turn to the côte de bœuf.

A côte de bœuf (also known as a cowboy steak) is basically a thick, bone-in rib steak. I’ve become obsessed with the côte de bœuf; no other piece of beef seems to cut it anymore. I dream about it, my mouth waters just thinking about it. The obsession began last year at the Anchor & Hope in London, where Jeremy and I shared a slow-cooked rib that was crusty and salty on the outside, silky and rare on the inside, and so fabulously moreish that we polished off every last scrap of the massive thing even though I knew I’d have meat sweats for the rest of the night.

Since then, we’ve bought many bone-in rib steaks to cook at home, and whether we’ve seared them quickly on a hot grill or cooked them long and slow in the oven (or both), they’ve never failed to deliver the beefy goods. If you get the right rib, the meat will have all the tenderness of prime rib, all the gutsiness of a T-bone, all the elegance of a Chateaubriand, and all the awesomeness of all the most awesome steaks you’ve ever had.

Getting the right rib isn’t hard, but it helps to know a bit of bovine anatomy and butcher’s terminology. The anatomy bit is easy: a cow has 13 ribs, and ribs 6-12 are usually what you would use for a rib roast. The ribs closer to the shoulder (the “large end” in the US or “forerib” in the UK) are bigger, fattier and somewhat less tender than the ribs closer to the rump (the “small end” in the US or “wing rib” in the UK). The forerib also happens to be extremely flavorful and about half the price of the wing rib, so we usually get a forerib (if you’re in the States, just look for a bone-in ribeye and you’ll be fine). One thick-cut rib (about 1 kg or 2 lbs) will feed two generously, often with enough leftovers to make an outstanding sandwich the next day.

To get the best out of a beautiful piece of meat like this, you don’t need to do a whole lot to it. Just take it out of the fridge about an hour before you plan to cook it so that it comes to room temperature, and give it a very generous seasoning with coarse salt and cracked black pepper. If you want to get fancy, you could rub the rib down with garlic and rosemary smashed to a silky paste with olive oil, but there’s no need to go beyond that. Full-on marinades like the rosemary marinade for steak are just gilding the lily; you buy a beef rib for the taste of beef, not the taste of marinade.

As for the cooking itself, you want high heat followed by low heat for a crusty outside and evenly cooked inside. In our house, this means firing up the BBQ—summer or winter, rain or shine—and searing the rib over a high flame for 5 minutes on each side, then moving it to a preheated oven (95C/200F) for around 35 minutes or until a meat thermometer reads 130-135F/55C for medium-rare. You could cook the rib entirely on the grill by starting it on the direct heat and then moving it to indirect heat until it’s done, or you could skip the BBQ entirely and sear the steak in a heavy skillet before moving it to the oven. Either way, let the steak rest for a good ten minutes after it’s finished cooking, then cut it into not-too-thin slices and present it on a big platter, swimming in all its lovely juices.

Those ample juices mean you probably won’t be needing sauces or condiments, but there’s nothing wrong with putting a dollop of horseradish, mustard or chimichurri/salsa verde on the side of your plate to swish your steak around in. A simple herb butter can add extra punch at the table as well: mash 1 clove of garlic with a big pinch of sea salt, add some chopped herbs (thyme, rosemary and parsley are great) and combine this with just enough softened butter to hold it together. If you do this in advance, you can shape the butter into a log and refrigerate until needed. If you don’t do it advance, it will taste just as delicious as it melts over your perfectly seasoned, perfectly cooked, perfectly delicious rib of beef.

Meat heaven.

This dish started life as a Delia Smith recipe, and it hasn’t strayed too terribly far from its origins. It’s just that as I cooked it for the first time—following Delia’s recipe to the letter—I found myself wondering “Why?” a whole lot. Why not cook the chorizo first and then take advantage of the flavorful fat to cook the chicken? Why use sun-dried tomato paste and sun-dried tomatoes? Why not reduce the wine, and actually, why use wine at all instead of sherry, which would add a richer, “meatier” flavor? And finally: why use regular paprika instead of smoked?

I couldn’t come up with any plausible answers to these questions, so as I’ve made and re-made this one-pot meal over the past year, I’ve adapted it to fit my tastes and my cooking style. I think the version I’ve come up with is not only (ahem) tastier and more straightforward to cook, it’s also just different enough from Delia’s to warrant its own entry here. So without further ado: Chicken Basque a la Delia a la Jessica.

For two individuals endowed with very hearty appetites, you’ll need:

• olive oil
• a good handful of sliced Spanish chorizo
• 2 chicken legs or 4 chicken thighs (with skin and bone, please)
• 1 sliced red pepper
• 1 sliced onion
• 1 large clove of garlic, chopped
• a handful of sliced sun-dried tomatoes
• a handful of black olives
• 1/2 tablespoon tomato paste/puree
• 3/4 cup mixed brown and white basmati rice*
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 85 ml dry sherry (a bit less than half a cup - I like amontillado or oloroso sherry)
• 1 teaspoon fresh chopped thyme
• 1 cup/140 ml chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 orange cut into wedges

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.

Heat a splash of olive oil over medium heat in a heavy, lidded casserole pot that you can put in the oven. Saute the chorizo until it starts to brown and release its fatty juices. Take out the chorizo and set it aside, then season your chicken with salt and pepper and brown it in the chorizo fat for a few minutes on each side. Take the chicken out and set it aside too.

Nudge the heat up to medium-high and toss the sliced pepper and onion into the casserole. Fry the veggies for about 5 to 10 minutes until they’re really fragrant and starting to get brown. Add the garlic, then the sun-dried tomatoes, olives and tomato paste and stir this around for a minute or two.

Tip in the rice and smoked paprika. Stir the rice to coat it with the spices and oil, then douse it with the sherry and reduce the liquid for a few minutes. Finally, add the thyme, the reserved chorizo and the stock and bring the liquid to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper if necessary, then turn off the heat.

Nestle the chicken and orange wedges into the rice and veggies and give the exposed chicken skin another sprinkling of salt and pepper. Put the cover on the casserole, put the casserole in the oven, and sit down with a nice glass of white wine.

After about 35 minutes, check to see if your rice is tender. If it isn’t, let it cook for a while longer, covered. If it is, you can take the lid off the casserole and cook everything uncovered for a few minutes to brown up the chicken.

Serve the chicken alongside the rice and the soft cooked orange wedges. This is a true one-pot meal, but if you don’t mind dirtying up a few more dishes, the chicken and rice goes really well with a big green salad dressed with an orange/sherry vinaigrette.

* Delia inexplicably says to measure the rice in a glass measuring jug. If you want to do that, measure out 4 fluid ounces or about 110 ml; if you’ve got American measuring cups, you’ll need 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup. I like a mix of brown and white basmati, but you can use all brown or all white as you like—just remember that you may need to adjust the cooking time and amount of liquid depending on what you use.

I’ve made this bread several times, and there’s no doubt that you get a great texture without the hassle of kneading. But most of the bread I make winds up as breakfast toast, and I don’t always want a sour bread with my jam first thing in the morning. And what’s more, I’m not always foresighted enough to start making bread the day before I want to eat it.

In light of this, I assumed my breadmaking options were limited to either traditional recipes which call for a strenuous knead to develop a good chewy texture, or fast no-knead recipes (like the one I discussed on this site several years ago) which result in a bread which is tasty but also heavy and crumbly.

As it turns out, there is another way: a not-quite-no-knead bread which gives you all the luscious chew of the slow-rise bread, but without the slow rise (and the yeasty sourness that comes with it). This interesting method comes from Dan Lepard by way of Felicity Cloake, and it entails neither kneading for a long time nor not kneading at all (say that fast 5 times), but rather kneading for just a few seconds at three 10-minute intervals before letting the dough rise for an hour. Surprisingly, this gives you a great crumb without all the elbow grease.

As for the kneading itself, I’ve been a fan of the Richard Bertinet technique ever since receiving a copy of his beautiful book Crust for my birthday last year. Instead of pushing and pulling the dough this way and that, Bertinet kind of slaps it around on the counter; it’s easier to watch him doing it than to describe it, so check out this video on the Gourmet website (he starts kneading about a minute in). This is a great way of working with dough which is too soft to knead—in other words, just the kind of dough you want for really tender, crusty bread.

Now, there’s no denying it: even with the slap method, handling wet, sticky dough is a messy undertaking for the novice baker and one of which, honestly, I’m none too fond (I have a compulsive distaste for foodstuffs clinging to my fingers—just ask my parents about my childhood taco-eating issues).

But the bread I’ve made using super-soft dough has turned out so consistently excellent that I’m willing to put up with a few globs of dough sticking to me in the process. And I’ll let you in on a secret: when I made my most recent loaf, I didn’t even take the dough out of the bowl for its short kneading sequences, I just folded it over on itself several times in the bowl using my dough scraper, and I can’t say I noticed a difference in the final product.

What really does seem to make a difference is the method of baking. This is where I come full circle and return to the original no-knead recipe and its covered pot. Professional bakers often use steam-injected ovens which, for science-y reasons, lead to a well-risen loaf and a great crust. It’s almost impossible to recreate such steamy conditions in your average home oven, but by baking your dough in a sealed pot (cast iron, enamel, ceramic), you trap the steam which would otherwise evaporate—and you end up with a perfectly round, perfectly browned bread. Perfect!

For one lovely loaf, you’ll need:

• 2 cups wholemeal flour and 1 cup plain white flour (450g/1lb total)*
• 2 teaspoons fast-acting/instant yeast
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon honey
• about 400ml/1.5 cups warm water

Combine the flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Dissolve the honey in the warm water and pour the liquid into the dry ingredients. Stir everything together well, then cover the bowl and let the dough sit for 10 minutes (this will give the flour some time to absorb the water).

Uncover the dough and either tip it onto a lightly floured surface to slap/knead it for about 10 seconds, or knead it in the bowl for the same amount of time. Then let the dough sit in the covered bowl for another 10 minutes, knead again for 10 seconds, cover again for 10 minutes, and knead a final time for 10 seconds before letting the dough rest for 15 minutes, covered. Finally, shape your dough into a ball as best you can on a lightly floured surface, then plop it into a clean, oiled bowl, cover it and let it sit in a warm place for about an hour.**

When the dough has risen, put your covered pot*** in the oven and preheat the oven to 220C/425F. In the meantime, punch down your dough, shape it into a ball as much as you can and return it to the bowl, covered. Let it sit there while the oven heats for about half an hour, then take the pot out of the oven, dump your dough into it (it doesn’t matter if it’s a bit messy), cover the pot and get it back into the oven.

Bake the bread in the covered pot for 30 minutes, then remove the cover and bake for another 20 minutes or so, until the loaf is well browned and sounds hollow when you tap on it (you can also stick an instant-read thermometer into the bread to make sure it’s reached about 95C/200F in the middle). Take the bread out of the pot and let it cool completely on a wire rack. Don’t cut into it until it’s properly cooled or else you’ll get a gummy crumb—and nobody wants a gummy crumb.

Then take a good bread knife, crunch through that delectable crust to the springy, chewy bread inside, and enjoy your amazing homemade bread for days to come.

Notes:

*You can adjust the proportion of wholemeal and white flour as you like, but I’ve found this ratio to be reliable for a brown bread that isn’t like a brick. You can also add grains or seeds during the kneading stage for extra crunch in the finished product (I’ve used millet in some of the loaves you see here, which adds a great texture).

**If you really prefer 10 minutes of solid kneading to half an hour of intermittent dough slapping, then by all means give the dough a single good knead before letting it rise—the Bread Police won’t come after you. The same applies to adding more flour if your dough is really really too wet to handle; it’s best if you don’t keep throwing more flour into the mix, but sometimes these things just have to be done.

***I use a 20 cm cast iron enameled Le Creuset casserole which works great even though it’s about half the size of the pot suggested in the original no-knead bread recipe. Whatever pot you use, make sure all parts of it (handles included) can withstand high temperatures.

Enter the mighty marrow, the missing link between the vegetables of summer and the vegetables of fall. With the looks of an overgrown zucchini but some of the texture of a wintery squash, marrows neatly bridge the gap between the seasons.

Though marrows can be prepared in pretty much all the ways you might prepare zucchini or other summer squash, their size and shape make them ideal for stuffing and baking. Consequently, stuffed marrow recipes are a dime a dozen. Most of them, however, seem to revolve around sausage, breadcrumbs, cheese and/or tomato sauce. Goodness knows I’m not one to spurn any of those ingredients, but if summer is still clinging on by the tips of its fingers, you may want a lighter, more exotic treatment for your marrow; save the sausage and cheese for cold October nights.

My vegetarian take on the stuffed marrow has an eastern Mediterranean feel to it. In place of ground meat, it features fragrant basmati rice studded with raisins, olives and mushrooms, along with flaked almonds for crunch. Add a dollop of thick yogurt (maybe with some lemon juice and olive oil swirled through it), and you’ll have everything you need to see you through a cool late-summer evening.

For 2 to 4 people (depending on what else you serve with it), you’ll need:

• one medium marrow, 800-900 grams (1 1/2 to 2 pounds)
• extra virgin olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1-2 cloves garlic, chopped
• a few handfuls of sliced mushrooms
• about 1 cup cooked basmati rice
• a handful of raisins
• a handful of green olives
• a handful of toasted flaked almonds (or pine nuts)
• Greek yogurt to serve

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.

Cut the marrow in half lengthwise and scoop out and discard the cottony, seedy middle bit. Scrape out most of the marrow flesh and set it aside, leaving about half a centimeter’s worth in the skin for stability.

Pre-bake the empty marrow shells for about 10 minutes, cut side down, on a baking tray greased with olive oil. When the ten minutes are up, take the marrow shells out of the oven, turn them over, sprinkle some salt and pepper into them and set them aside. Don’t turn off the oven though!

In a wide frying pan, heat a generous glug of olive oil over medium heat. Toss in the ground coriander and cumin and fry the spices for a minute until they’re fragrant, then add the onion with a pinch of salt and saute it for about five minutes. Stir in the garlic, turn the heat up and throw in the marrow flesh and sliced mushrooms with another sprinkling of salt and some pepper. Cook all of this, stirring frequently, for another five minutes or so, until most of the mushroom and marrow juices have cooked off.

Turn off the heat and mix the rice, raisins, olives and almonds into the vegetables in the frying pan. Check the seasoning, then spoon the filling into the marrow shells. Drizzle over a little more olive oil, then bake the filled marrow for 10 to 15 minutes, until the marrow shell is tender and the rice filling is just starting to get crispy on top.

Serve the stuffed marrow along with creamy Greek yogurt and a zingy salad or two.

Nduja is famed not just for its unusual consistency, but for its searing heat. In its native Calabria, it’s often just spread on bread and eaten as is, a fiery snack to be washed down with a tough red wine. But as the Calabrian woman who sold it to me said, nduja is also a great addition to sauces and stews, adding a spicy, porky base note which perfectly complements tomato-based dishes in particular.

Broccoli and red chili is a classic Italian combination, so for this pasta dish I paired some hot nduja with bitter purple sprouting broccoli, both of which contrast nicely with the sweet pop of cherry tomatoes. Strong greens like kale would work well here, too, or for a gentler flavor you could use regular broccoli instead. The sauce (such as it is) comes together in the time it takes to cook the pasta, making it ideal for whenever when you need a fast weekday meal or a piquant late-night pick-me-up.

For two people, you’ll need:

• 250g/8oz short pasta like penne, fusilli, campanelle
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 medium red onion, chopped
• a few handfuls of broccoli (or other greens), very roughly chopped
• 1 large clove garlic, sliced thin
• a few handfuls of cherry tomatoes, cut in half
• a tablespoon or more of nduja
• pecorino or parmesan cheese

Cook the pasta in the usual way, as they say (i.e., boiling water, salt).

As the pasta is cooking, heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat and saute the onion for a few minutes until it starts to soften. Toss the chopped broccoli into the pan and cook it for about 5 minutes until it begins to get tender (purple sprouting broccoli will take longer than regular broccoli—you can add a splash of wine or water to help it along).

Add the garlic and tomatoes and let the tomatoes cook down for a few minutes, then drop a tablespoon or more of nduja into the pan. As you stir the nduja into the other ingredients, it will disintegrate in the heat, leaving behind an unctuous spiciness. Season the sauce to taste with salt and pepper, then stir in the cooked pasta and loosen the sauce with some of the pasta water if necessary.

Serve the pasta with a dusting of salty pecorino or parmesan cheese and a gutsy red wine.

N.B. Incidentally, I’ve since used nduja on a pizza with roasted red peppers and it was fabulous. Dot teaspoonfuls of nduja over the top of the pizza before you cook it and they’ll turn into crispy little bundles of spicy goodness in the oven. Buonissimo!

With this in mind, I tread lightly into the BBQ arena. I make no claims to being a barbecue authority, I will not voice an opinion on whether the thin, vinegary sauces of eastern North Carolina trump the thick, sweet sauces of Kansas City, and I do not possess the secret to perfect pulled pork, beef brisket or sticky spare ribs (not yet, anyway).

What I do have, however, is a family barbecue sauce recipe passed down from my granddad in Florida which can add authentic Barbecue Belt flair to your outdoor (or indoor!) cooking endeavors. After a fair bit of research, I’ve determined that my granddad’s sauce is closest to the Western North Carolina style: it is tomato-based, tangy and spicy, with more of an edge than the heavier, stickier sauces which are typically sold in stores these days. It is pleasantly but not overpoweringly smoky, and it has a kick that will set your tongue tingling without completely searing your taste buds.

In keeping with southern barbecue tradition, this sauce begs to be slathered over pork ribs or used for chopped pork BBQ, but it’s a treat on chicken as well—oh, and it makes an addictively tasty hot dip for cocktail sausages if you happen to be throwing a soiree.

For a big ol’ batch of sauce, just mix together:

• 1 cup + 6 tablespoons ketchup (about 320 ml)
• 4 tablespoons yellow mustard
• 4 tablespoons white vinegar
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 4 teaspoons hickory smoked salt
• 24 grinds of black pepper
• 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon datil (hot pepper) sauce

So, a word about some of those ingredients. Most of them are pretty straightforward; I use Heinz ketchup, French’s mustard, Kikkoman soy sauce, and cider or white wine vinegar (though I think malt vinegar would be nice as well). I also use plain white sugar, though you could try brown sugar for a change of pace.

The smoky and spicy aspects of the sauce are a bit trickier. My family has always used Spice Islands Old Hickory Smoked Salt, which is very dark, very smoky and very finely ground. But even in the States, this salt is only available online now, and I’ve never seen anything like it in the UK. Luckily, there are other smoked salt options out there. I’ve been using the Oak Smoked Sea Salt from Besmoke, which works fine, and Maldon does smoked sea salt flakes as well. Bear in mind, though, that some salts are saltier than others (really!), and some smoked salts will be smokier than others, so you’ll probably have to do some trial-and-error testing to find the right proportions of salt and smoke for your taste.

As for the hot sauce, only one kind flies in my family, and that’s my granddad’s datil pepper sauce. But since even I don’t have access to an endless supply of that, I’ve had to make do with store-bought sauces. Datil peppers are like a sweeter, marginally milder version of a habanero, so if you can’t find datil sauce, try a habanero sauce instead (I recommend the El Yucateco XXXtra Hot Sauce, which is widely available online). Look for a sauce that’s spicy but not too vinegary, something that will add both heat and flavor.

Most of all, remember that there’s no right or wrong when it comes to barbecue sauce, despite what the barbecue zealots may tell you. Hot and tart, sweet and mild, smoky and rich—barbecue sauce is whatever you want it to be, and that’s the beauty of it.

But sometimes you stare into the freezer and the only thing staring back at you are some chicken breasts, and then…well, you gotta do what you gotta do, and what you gotta do is marinate them.

I should qualify that: you don’t “gotta” marinate them. You could stuff them with goat’s cheese, wrap them in parma ham, drizzle them with olive oil and bake them, and trust me, they’ll turn out fabulous. However, if you want something slightly more towards the not-going-to-give-you-a-heart-attack end of the scale - but which still tastes great - then a marinade is the way to go.

Marinades infuse meat with flavor, make it more tender and keep it moist. This particular marinade has a Spanish flair, with pungent smoked paprika and a dash of sherry vinegar for tenderization and tanginess. To guarantee that the chicken stays juicy during cooking, it’s nestled into a bed of fresh tomatoes and roasted red peppers which soften into a kind of sauce for added texture and taste on the plate.

For two people, you’ll need roughly:

• 1 crushed garlic clove
• a generous pinch of sea salt
• a few grinds of black pepper
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme leaves
• 1 teaspoon sherry vinegar

• 2 chicken breasts with the skin on*

• a few handfuls of cherry tomatoes, cut in half
• a few handfuls of roasted red peppers (from a jar is fine)
• salt and pepper
• a sprinkling of fresh thyme
• extra virgin olive oil

Mix the first seven ingredients in a glass or plastic dish, then add the chicken breasts and coat them really well with the marinade. Cover the dish and let it sit in the fridge for an hour or two.

When you’re ready to cook, preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Scatter the tomatoes and peppers in the bottom of a baking dish large enough to hold the chicken, sprinkle over some salt, pepper and more fresh thyme, then take the chicken breasts from the marinade bowl and snuggle them into the vegetables, making sure the skin isn’t covered. Give the exposed skin a good seasoning with salt and pepper as well, then drizzle a smidgen of olive oil over the whole lot and get it into the oven.

In 25-35 minutes, the vegetables should be soft and sizzling and you should have chicken which is crispy on top and cooked through but juicy inside (I cook chicken breast to an internal temperature of 160F/71C). Serve the chicken with the saucy peppers and tomatoes, a side of rice or new potatoes, and a big green salad.

*Note: I really, REALLY recommend buying chicken breasts with the skin on. Crispy chicken skin is one of the world’s greatest culinary pleasures, and the number of calories you’ll save by eating skinless chicken breasts can’t possibly make up for the amount of flavor you’ll lose. Even if you cook the chicken with the skin on and then take it off before eating, you’ll have eked more flavor out of the meat than if you’d started skinless to begin with—and flavor is what it’s all about.

The second thing I’ve always taken for granted is that zucchini is delicious. Zucchini has always been one of my favorite vegetables, and I attribute this primarily to the fact that, in my family, we ate zucchini in one way and one way only: bathed in garlicky olive oil and dusted extravagantly with parmesan cheese.

Only now do I realize that this was perhaps somewhat unusual. It appears many people I know were forced to choke down blandly steamed or (gasp!) boiled courgette, and an equal number of people associate zucchini with student-cafeteria-style vegetarian mush.

The poor zucchini clearly falls into the same camp as the leek: a wonderful vegetable in its own right, but one which is often misused or relegated to playing a bit part in dishes which don’t gain anything from it. Zucchini is delicate and watery, so it needs minimal processing and a careful choice of complementary flavors in order for it to shine.

That’s not to say it can’t stand up to herbs, spices, vinegar or even chilies. These ingredients just need to be used judiciously to bring out the best in this squash. Also, unless you’re trying to pad out your meal, I don’t see the point of throwing chopped up zucchini into a generic stew or, god forbid, a bowl of chili. It will probably go squidgy, it will probably not taste of anything, and it will probably not make zucchini-haters change their mind about this wonderful summer vegetable.

But maybe my family’s simple sautéed zucchini recipe will.

For two people (you can easily scale this up, and the amounts aren’t critical anyway), you’ll need:

• a few tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil
• a few small garlic cloves, left whole (or larger ones cut in half)
• a few medium zucchini, sliced very thinly (it’s easiest with a mandoline, but a knife works too)
• a pinch of flaky sea salt
• grated parmesan cheese

Heat the olive oil and garlic cloves in a large frying pan over medium heat for several minutes until the garlic becomes fragrant; it shouldn’t sizzle or turn brown, it should just start to smell really good. Add the sliced zucchini and the salt, and stir the zucchini to coat it in the olive oil.

The zucchini I ate as a kid was stewed in the olive oil until it was disintegratingly tender, but these days I sauté it more lightly for a shorter period of time. If you want the stewed option, cook the zucchini over the medium heat, stirring occasionally, until it’s very soft and mellow. If you want the zucchini to hold its shape and some of its bite, let it cook for only 10 minutes or so, stirring occasionally, until it’s just starting to go translucent (you can bump up the heat if you need to, but you don’t want to brown the zucchini, you just want to soften it).

When the zucchini is cooked to your liking, serve it alongside some juicy lamb chops, a golden roast chicken or an assortment of other Mediterranean veggies, and top it with lots of freshly grated parmesan. Oh, and you can pick out the whole garlic if you like, but you’ll be missing out on a tasty treat.

However, some recipes are simply too good and too deserving of greater exposure to not write about, and one of those is the recipe for grilled flank steak with rosemary from Bon Appétit magazine in 1995.

My parents have used this marinade recipe for years, and their London broil (incidentally, that Wikipedia picture is their London broil) cooked outside on the barbecue to juicy, chargrilled perfection is probably the meal Jeremy and I request most often when we visit them. Here in Brighton, we don’t (yet) have a grill and don’t have ready access to flank steak either, so I use the marinade on regular steaks which I sear quickly in a griddle pan.

I think one secret to this recipe is the honey which, when it hits the hot grill, adds a fantastic caramelized depth to the already flavor-packed marinade. Combined with soy sauce, rosemary, pepper and garlic, you wind up with an umami-tastic taste which is sweet, savory, pungent and utterly addictive. I mean, just try to stop eating this steak once you’ve started.

To make enough marinade for a couple of good-sized steaks with plenty left over for drizzling and dipping, you’ll need:

• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 2 large garlic cloves, minced
• 1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
• 1 tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
• 2 steaks (rump steak, sirloin, rib steak - anything you like)

Mix the marinade ingredients together in a glass or plastic dish, add the steaks and coat them well, then cover them and let them marinate for a few hours.

When you’re ready to cook the steaks, take them out of the marinade and brush off some of the garlic and rosemary so it doesn’t burn in the pan. Sear the steaks in a hot griddle pan or frying pan until they’re rare to medium rare, then remove them from the pan and let them sit a few minutes.

You can either serve the steaks in one piece or slice them thinly across the grain like you would with a flank steak. And if you want to use the leftover marinade as a sauce, bring it to a boil and simmer it for a few minutes. It’ll be super-concentrated and just right for drizzling over the cooked steak to add an extra flavor punch.

Note: The original marinade recipe calls for salt in addition to the soy sauce which I (and most of the reviewers on Epicurious) find a bit excessive. If you’re that way inclined, you could throw a pinch of salt into the marinade—just be aware that smaller steaks will absorb more of the marinade than a big slab of flank steak, and if you boil down the marinade afterwards, it’s going to be really salty. But hey, taste is a matter of taste, if you know what I mean.