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Ina Garten's ricotta scrambled eggs rival Gordon Ramsay's crème fraîche method, creating a custardy texture with chives, Parmesan and red pepper flakes.

Whip winter squash puree into a creamy filling and pipe direct into the heart of a cracking seasonal pudding At this time of year, I aim to get as much pumpkin as I can into my meals, including desserts. If I’ve been organised, I’ll roast and puree some from scratch, but I seem always to have at least one tin of pumpkin puree to hand, which I can use quickly in anything from pumpkin pies to cookies and muffins. Here, it’s whipped into cream with some spices, then piped into crackly puffs of choux for a chic, autumnal dessert. Continue reading...

This dish of chicken in a lipsmacking citrus and oregano sauce has been handed down through many generations of Roman restaurateurs If you look through the window of Piatto Romano between 10am and midday, there will almost certainly be two, maybe three people at the round table trimming vegetables: chicory, artichokes, poppy greens, amaranth. After midday, the crates and trimmings will have been cleared away and the table will now be home to trays of bright-green boiled vegetables and, maybe, baked salt cod. By 12.30pm, everything will have been moved into the small kitchen in time for service, which starts at 12.45pm. When I first moved to Rome in 2005, Via Bodoni 62 was home to a restaurant called Da Rafaelle, which had white plastic chairs (inside as well) and served traditional Roman food with plenty of offal. We went to Da Rafaelle a few times before it closed in 2009. But, mostly, we went to La Torricella, which is on the other side of Testaccio and serves mainly fish. The owner is Augusto D’Alfonsi and, during lunch one day, he mentioned that he was taking over via Bodoni 62, and that his daughter Francesca would run it. They’d serve traditional Roman food with plenty of offal and it would be called Piatto Romano. This was 2011. My son was born later that year and my memories are not unpleasantly foggy; of the vegetable trolley in the corner, of chicken with red peppers and of Francesca and her father negotiating strongly. I also remember Francesca’s brother, Andrea, starting to be around more, before he eventually took over in late 2013. Continue reading...

Use over-ripe fruit to flesh out this loaf with chocolate, spelt and miso – truly top banana After nine years, I can’t believe I’ve never written a recipe for banana bread for this column, so it had better be a good one, especially after I picked up a huge bunch of brown bananas at the corner shop for next to nothing the other day. This is a vegan bread made with olive oil instead of butter and with the mashed bananas acting as a binder in place of eggs; I’ve also added some miso to boost the umami and overall satiety – the salt enhances the sugar, boosting the sweetness while rounding it off nicely. In the interest of biodiversity and flavour, I’ve used wholemeal spelt flour, but any will do. Continue reading...