Wash the salsify thoroughly, then peel and place in a bowl of cold water with a couple of slices of lemon. Once all the salsify are peeled, rinse well and place in a pan of cold water. Lightly salt the water, bring to the boil and simmer until the salsify is tender (anywhere between 15 and 25 minutes), having a care not to overcook, lifting more slender salsify from the pan to allow any larger ones to cook fully. When all are done, let cool on a tray. SALSIFY APPEARS AS WINTER’S GRIP TIGHTENS. It’s a vegetable that has an elegant and delicate flavour at odds with its appearance – a dark, earthy root, long and slender, enclosed in a covering of bark echoing the barren, bleak silhouettes of trees in the thrall of winter. It looks as though it’d be more at home in an apothecary’s storeroom. But a scrape of the peeler reveals a surprising whiteness that will discolour swiftly after being pared. Plunge it into a bowl of water with a couple of slices of lemon to prevent that happening, but beware, too much lemon and the delicate, elusive flavour of salsify will disappear. Autumn. Everything within the autumn larder, I adore. From wild plums, to game, mushrooms, grapes, truffle, et al.

Beloved London chef and restaurateur Jeremy Lee will release a debut cookbook on 1 September, built on the effortless simplicity and commitment to homespun decadence that defines his Soho restaurant, Quo Vadis. I love a cookbook that teaches me new techniques. Simple ones, preferably. I found just this in the chapter on chard. Coincidentally, I had returned home earlier in the day with a glorious bunch of rainbow chard. I usually cook it like spinach and was surprised to find that Lee had done so too until being put right by an Italian friend who told him that ‘chard is best when cooked to look good and ancient’. I pondered on that sentence for a while, wondering what it meant. Then I tried it. It felt counterintuitive, cooking the leaves beyond the wilted stage. I was concerned they may taste like old tea leaves after simmering for 20 minutes, but I put my trust in Lee. I need not have worried. A short while later I had a pan full of well-cooked chard which was silky with a light bitter flavour and yet a touch of sweetness too. I set about preparing Lee’s chard, caper and lemon salad. Here, the cooked chard is combined with the peel of a boiled lemon, capers, cider vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. A gorgeous salad – greens, with a pop of citrus and another of salty caper. Well balanced and healthy too. You can find the recipe below.When the tarts were assembled, Mum would set to with whichever fruit was to bake within or spoon upon it – apricots or greengages, plums, prunes or apples or, a great favourite then and now, a pear and almond tart studded with shards of crystallised stem ginger. This abiding quest to discover the finest and most delicious food has stayed with Jeremy. He still hunts in outdoor markets, food shops and uncovers little known growers and producers for ingredients that give his cooking such character and distinction. His dedicated pursuit of fresh local foods, in particular for vegetables, fruit and herbs is legendary and in his book he includes details of his favourite suppliers, even inspiring readers with space or a garden to grow some of his chosen plants.

Cover the dish and bake in the hot oven until done, say 15-20 minutes. Remove from the oven and keep warm. Any residual juices left in the dish can be added to the sauce. Donald Sloan, Chair of the Oxford Cultural Collective, chooses a few dishes he has often enjoyed in Quo Vadis, which he will now be preparing at home. For his spirit boundless spirit alone, Lee should be classified as a national treasure. Likewise, this book is one to treasure. Jeremy Lee, British celebrity chef and chef proprietor of Quo Vadis, is one of Britain’s most loved chefs. The voice of a thespian, the heart of a lion, a warmth that fills the room and generosity that knows no bounds. Famed for his peerless smoked eel sandwiches, golden crusted pies, pitch perfect martinis and exceptional puddings, lavishly adorned with the holy trinity of ice cream, cream and custard. Jeremy is quite the distinguished figure. I also felt good about the fact that I was keeping myself and the children nourished. We seemed to connect more deeply over meals than we had before. My teenage daughter and I have always shared a love of eggs, but in the past we tended to eat them for lunch in limited ways (boiled, scrambled, shakshuka). Together, we branched out, taking it in turns to cook them and discovering new methods for making an omelette especially tender and delicious. (When you are making a basic omelette and want an instant fix to improve the texture, add a dab of dijon mustard. Dijon is both an acid and an emulsifier and these two things together do transformative things.)

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It also came very naturally because somehow I was so fortunate to dodge the ferocious bullet of working in restaurants where you were constantly pummelled. I somehow always worked in kitchens where we were encouraged to read cookbooks and we read them like thrillers. So much of that lodged in my subconscious like that. I want to be somehow charmed by a recipe. A few rules, well, musings really, on the business of choosing, preparing and cooking beetroot. There are so many varieties of beetroot in gorgeous pinks, purples and a gold, a particular variety I love called Flaming Badger. The cook can indulge in all manner of variations with different varieties and colours. I like the small new season’s tender beetroots both steamed and baked in foil, or, if there is time to soak, in a diable. Steaming beetroot results in a delicately cooked vegetable, while roasting beetroot in foil or a diable results in a rich intensity. Ensuring the beetroots are of a similar size and shape and regardless of which method of cooking chosen, beetroots take roughly the same time to cook. Larger beetroots, later in the season, are best boiled until tender.

Serves 4-6, depending on what else you are having with it (it’s a good idea to double it and make two) Jeremy turned Quo Vadis into a must-visit restaurant, with everyone from foodies to celebrities wanting to experience the clean, simple, flavourful food that celebrated the seasons. Over the years he has developed close relationships with suppliers, meaning he has access to the very best produce. ‘Keeping an eye on your supply chain is a full-time job, so we tend to look to a very good greengrocer who knows where to get things like the best lemons from Sicily,’ he explains. ‘But closer to home it’s easier to talk to people – we know we want crabs from Dorset, smoked herring from the east coast and razor clams from Orkney. The fishermen are great and a focus on vegetables is the next huge revolution in cooking. Foraging is great but oh boy do you need to know your stuff, and I think if you’re going to charge a spectacular amount of money for a leaf on the plate you better make sure it’s brilliant.’ Now for the salad. You need two medium-sized saucepans. Boil the kettle. Put the potatoes into one of the saucepans, add boiling water and a teaspoon of salt and boil for 10-15 minutes, or until tender. Drain in a sieve or a colander. Meanwhile, boil the kettle again. In the second pan, boil the green beans with a pinch of salt. They may take 4 minutes or they may take 8. It hugely depends on how fine they are. You want them properly tender, not squeaky (or at least, that’s how I like them). When they are done, remove them from the pan with a spider strainer or slotted spoon and put them into a big salad bowl. Add the eggs to the pan and boil for 8-9 minutes until hard boiled but still with a tiny bit of squidge in the yolk. Plunge into cold water and peel. After working for a few years in a Scottish country house hotel, Jeremy made the move down to London and landed a job at one of the most exciting restaurants of the 1980s. ‘Terence Conran was starting to take his restaurant business very seriously and had the brilliant idea to choose Simon Hopkinson as his head chef and partner at Bibendum, a restaurant on Fulham Road housed inside the old Michelin UK headquarters,’ explains Jeremy. ‘Cooking with Simon was a revelation; at the time, everyone was beginning to understand produce and we saw the birth of British cooking. After that I got to cook with Alistair Little, who worked in a very different style in a very different kitchen. He’s been a great friend ever since.’

As anyone who has seen him laugh and charm his way through the room at Quo Vadis would expect, Lee is as generous in prose as he is when talking about the book, heaping praise on the close team who helped bring it all together. Lee and friends shot the photographs for the book at his home, for a true reflection of his cooking – the chocolate tart is a little spilled, the pastry a little blond, the plates and cookware his own. “It’s all very real,” he says. “We’re keen on that.” I want to encourage someone that they can go into the kitchen and not be punished with an arduous process, but think they can go in and in half an hour make something absolutely delicious— scrambled eggs on toast, even better if you have anchovies and capers. It seems almost redundant to point it out, so obvious is it, but I’ll say it anyway: Cooking by Jeremy Lee is the cookbook of the year. If you know anyone at all who loves spending time in the kitchen, buy them this book. Tumble the salad leaves onto a handsome dish, lay on the beetroot, then cut the eggs in half and place them among the beetroot. Spoon the mustard cream wildly over the salad. Strew with the chives and parsley and grate the horseradish vigorously over the whole salad. Scatter over a few drops of olive oil and serve.