Storecupboard standbys

The better stocked your kitchen, the easier and more pleasurable your cooking will be. These are the foods I like to keep on hand most of the time.

The essentials for me are a flavourless sunflower oil and a light olive oil for frying; an extra virgin rapeseed oil for frying and dressings; and a good, peppery extra virgin olive oil for finishing dishes.

Salt, pepper and spices

Fine-grained sea salt is indispensable and I’d never be without a flaky, crystalline sea salt either (Cornish or Maldon). A mill filled with black peppercorns for grinding is a must. I keep other spices but cumin, coriander, fennel and caraway seeds, cayenne pepper and smoked paprika are those I use most frequently. Dried chilli flakes and a good blended curry powder or paste are other key flavourings.

I use organic cider vinegar pretty much every day. I also like the rich apple balsamic made by Aspall’s, and a decent red wine vinegar is extremely useful.

Good old English mustard is all I really need, but I also keep a pot of Dijon and/or wholegrain mustard.

Capers, olives and anchovies

These salty flavouring ingredients are always to hand.

Tinned tomatoes

I favour whole rather than chopped tinned tomatoes. Bottled passata (sieved tomatoes) is equally useful.

I turn to this lovely, creamy stuff increasingly often for curries and soups.

I stock long pasta, such as spaghetti or linguine, and a few pasta shapes, such as penne and fusilli. And I am particularly fond of the small, rice-shaped risoni or orzo.

I prefer basmati or long-grain brown rice for simple side dishes, and arborio or carnaroli for risottos.

Pearled spelt or pearl barley

I use these grains in everything from soups and stews to salads.

You’ll find simply cooked Puy lentils in many recipes in this book; I couldn’t be without them. Dried split red lentils are also a favourite standby.

Chickpeas, cannellini beans, borlotti beans, kidney beans, lentils... you can base a meal around any of them.

Homemade stock is the ideal but I regularly use organic stock cubes too. My default choice is Kallo’s organic, yeast-free veg stock cubes.

I often use walnuts, pecans, cashews, pine nuts and almonds, as well as pumpkin, sunflower and sesame seeds.

Raisins, sultanas, prunes and unsulphured dried apricots are the ones I use most frequently.

Plain white and strong bread flours are everyday essentials. I like light brown flour for cakes.

Sugar and honey

I keep a fine golden caster sugar and a soft brown sugar to hand. Lovely, fragrant, runny honey is an essential too – I get mine from local beekeepers.

I like mine with roughly 70% cocoa solids – Green & Black’s and Montezuma’s organic chocolate are my two favourites.

Good-quality all-butter shortbread, digestives and gingernuts stand me in good stead for quick puddings and treats.

The Somerset cider brandy produced by Julian Temperley is my favourite.

LARDER, FRIDGE AND FREEZER

I’m a sourdough addict and we bake our own regularly. Nevertheless, I still always have some good bought bread stashed in the freezer – ready-sliced so I can take out just what I need.

Stock vegetables

No cook should ever be without a bag of onions, but I like to have carrots and celery too: these form a holy trinity for stocks, soups and stews.

Herbs and garlic

I try to never be without bay leaves, fresh thyme and garlic. Flat-leaf parsley is also a fairly constant presence in my garden, and kitchen.

Fresh red chillies

A medium-sized, medium-hot variety such as a red jalapeño or fresno is great for general use.

Unwaxed lemons and oranges

As a seasoning, I regard lemon juice as essential as salt and pepper. And, as I very often use the zest, I always buy unwaxed fruit. I also use a fair amount of fresh orange juice and zest in cooking.

I buy mostly unsalted butter – it has a higher burning point than salted butter so it’s good for gentle frying, and it gives the best flavour to cakes and puds.

Free-range, of course.

Double cream or crème fraîche

Greedy, but gloriously useful.

Plain wholemilk yoghurt

Less greedy and just as useful.

I make my own, but also keep a jar of good ready-made, free-range egg mayo, such as the one made by Riverford.

There are hundreds of great British cheeses and I enjoy cooking with many of them. However, if I had to pare it right down, I would always want a fairly mild, firm goat’s cheese for crumbling, a mature (but not too strong) Cheddar and a hard Parmesan-type cheese for grating – either a chunk of proper Parmigiano Reggiano or, my favourite alternative, a hard, matured goat’s cheese called Capriano. A good creamy blue, such as Dorset Blue Vinney or Cornish Blue, is pretty useful too.

Salted/cured pork

By which I mean any of the following: streaky bacon, pancetta, ham (cooked or air-dried) and spicy chorizo. They are some of the most useful ‘good things’ and ‘plus ones’.

Frozen puff pastry

I always go for an all-butter type; there are now organic ones too.

Frozen peas or petits pois

If you can’t get very fresh peas in the pod, then frozen can be a better choice – and of course they can be used all year round.

Frozen breadcrumbs

I often process semi-stale bread and discarded crusts into crumbs and freeze them in smallish portions.