I have written two methods for cooking the rhubarb in this recipe, if you have the sous-vide tools, then give this recipe a go (see Chef’s Notes); it works for me every time, but if not, then the conventional method is just as good. The results are slightly different because with the conventional method the rhubarb may lose a bit of its shape if the heat is too fierce, but just use your commonsense with this one – I have given timings, but please keep a close eye on it. I am looking for a result of a cooked but almost candied rhubarb rather than a purée.

I have also used fresh sourdough breadcrumbs for these puddings. You could use normal wholewheat bread instead, but the sourdough gives these puddings their amazing light texture and wonderful nutty taste. Don’t be fooled by the title either, because these puddings are deliciously light and not heavy as one might expect.

Every week we have a different pheasant dish on the menu to offer variety, and to be honest, we simply do not get bored of being creative and coming up with something new each week. I will eventually get the recipe for Ross’s Pheasant Kiev one day and share it with you – it’s delicious!

This dish is what we call a team effort dish – nearly every member in the kitchen has contributed an idea or two to the creation of this dish. Maria sparked the whole idea by requesting us to do a slow-cooked pheasant dish and the rest all fell into place as the dish evolved. The pheasant and prune sausages are inspired by the delicious partridge and prune sausages that we make for the game tasting plate, and David the Village Veg man with his pink fir potatoes just had to feature too.

These birds are so pretty and they are always sold in pairs. Part of the reason for me embarking on the ventures of the British Larder in 2009 was because I think that chefs are privileged to see beautiful food produce in its raw state – sometimes it’s almost a sorry feeling that pretty-looking food should be peeled, plucked and chopped into smaller pieces. My passion for photography has always inspired me to portray the beauty I see in food, weather it’s raw or cooked.

We receive most of our game in the feather and fur; it’s a gory, messy yet satisfying job to pluck and skin it all… however Paul is the fastest pheasant plucker in our midst and Sorin is the skinner amongst us. Receiving the birds in feather is great; it put the skill back into our kitchen which is superb because we felt as chefs, we had lost the skill slightly. Our butchery skills are ropey and rusty but we are all working at it, honing and mastering the old skills. They say practice makes perfect – we certainly hope so! The worst part is to actually get rid of the feathers… they go absolutely everywhere, it’s a good thing that we are in the country!

The combination of the pink fir potatoes, celeriac and pearl barley is not coincidental - the earthy taste of these three ingredients, along with the pheasant, makes it a truly inspirational seasonal gem. When we construct dishes we encourage excitement for the palate and eye; the food must not only look pretty but with various textures it’s about making it interesting and exciting. Both Ross and I get bored of food easily and when we sit down to a meal we are looking for a dish that will keep our attention till the very last mouthful. This dish is undeniably one of those.

That is exactly what I have done with this age old dish of moussaka. I was brought up in a country with a healthy Greek community so moussaka was a well known dish on our dinner table. The interesting thing is that we never used to make our moussaka with potatoes. Recently I was challenged to make a moussaka at work and a lengthy debate ensued as to whether it contains potatoes or not.

Well after the debate none of us were any the wiser so I was intrigued to do some research  to determine the origins of moussaka  and to simply answer the potato question.

I discovered that moussaka was first made in North Africa and used to be heavily scented with rich spices such as cumin, nutmeg and cinnamon and no it did not contain potatoes nor the well known yoghurt sauce. It soon spread to Greece and the Greeks took this dish on as one of their national dishes but added their own stamp on this age old recipe. The Greeks added potatoes, toned down the fragrant spices and they also added the yoghurt egg sauce, this became the established way of making moussaka. The outcome is that no one was right or wrong about the potato debate.

What it did highlight to me was that food is incredibly subjective and that we all like to add our own mark on something we enjoy making.

I have twisted this recipe in so many ways and it takes hours to prepare so I have  used some rather fancy modern cooking techniques. For the moussaka I  confit the shoulder of lamb in duck fat for 3 hours and then added the cooked flaked meat to a rich tomato sauce. I added a slow cooked lamb cutlet, semi-dried tomatoes and a mild harissa sauce to reconnect this dish with it’s original North African roots.

It’s a pretty dainty and small dish and it was designed  to go onto these stunning French plates that I bought from Liberty. I love the character of the plates, they are paper thin, unique but unbelievably beautiful.

All in all I think that this dish and my take on this kitchen classic works pretty well and brings a splash of brightness into the dark and dreary winters days.

My cookbook favourites seem to change every 6 months and  appear to follow the seasons. One of my seasonal favourites is ‘Saha’ by Greg and Lucy Malouf. Not only do I love the stories but the photography is so beautiful that it transports me to that magical world of mystery, spice and romance. There are four books in this range and they all have the same magical effect, however I do not necessarily follow the recipes but I draw inspiration from them. They seem to make me feel a bit warmer and more content every time I need inspiration, almost like a safety blanket.

This duck, onion and date pastilla recipe is 100% inspired by Greg and Lucy Malouf. About 3 months ago Mr.P brought me  two very old and beaten up wooden bowls that he found at a Middle Eastern furniture store. At first I loved the look of them but they felt really sticky, as if they have been around for sometime without a wash or a dust, so I was not incredibly thrilled to make use of them. I soaked and scrubbed them but it seemed as if the dirt would cling on forever, but along with Greg and Lucy they inspired me to develop this absolutely delicious recipe.

These pastillas take you on a taste adventure but surprisingly they are not spicy at all. However the mixture of savory with  the sweetness of the medoul dates and the incredible moreish-ness of the confit duck wrapped in crispy filo pastry laced with wild sumac,creates a Middle East illusion. The white onion and tamarind chutney is a master piece of a recipe in it’s own rights, who would have thought that the humble onion could make this outrageously delicious chutney?

I have a special affection for dates as you most probably would have noticed that I  use  these in a few of my recipes. When I spent time in Israel,about 16 years ago, working at a field school in Gidron, near Hatzeva, I remember the journey to Eilat. The road was long, dusty, dry and hot but most of all I remembered the incredible medoul date plantations that seemed to stretch for miles. The trees were incredibly green and stood tall in the desert, I used to wonder how they survived as nothing else seemed to withstand the desert conditions, still mind boggling.

This recipe took my spirit to the warmer climates, not only did it encourage me to cook and warm up but it took my taste buds on a wonderful taste adventure. I froze half of the pastillas before baking them for a “rainy day” and the rest made a delicious supper. These pastillas will make the perfect partner for a party and a glass of Martini!

Well our adventures included lots of food, eating and meeting with some wonderful people in the food business.

We had a spectacular lunch at the Ledbury and were inspired by the way chef Brett Graham made humble vegetables look amazing and almost gave them a new lease of life. One of the vegetables that he used, the humble leek, stayed in my mind and I was tempted to recreate Brett’s flame grilled leeks at home. I did not  flame grill the leeks but griddled them on a very hot griddle pan which gave my leeks almost the same flavour of the flames. The earthiness of the leeks is a great pairing with the earthiness of the pickled mushrooms, curly kale and the pheasant breast. It reminded me how much I have grown to love winter and the wealth of seasonal bounty on offer, who said that winter food should be brown and dull?

On the last day of our relaxing week and foodie adventures, we met the wonderful and talented Laura Santtini. Laura launched a fantastic range of spice rubs and salts in Selfridges earlier this year named Easy Tasty Magic™.

Laura has stolen my heart with this range, I was inspired to cook with it and was overwhelmed with the magic it brings to my seasonal winters ingredients. It added a touch of class and glamour to my cooking. Laura reminded me of myself and how we are both madly in love with food, cooking and our careers, the only obvious difference is that Laura has, unlike me, retained a beautiful slim figure where as my career neatly caresses my waistline.

I have chosen to use two of Laura’s Easy Tasty Magic™products in this recipe, the Carnal Sin and the Salt of The Earth. I love the vibrant pinky reds that the Carnal Sin offers, I have not only chosen it for the colour but I also love the rose petals, pink peppercorns, beetroot and sumac that Laura used in this blend. Sumac has a citrusy taste and cuts through the richness of the pheasant, the beetroot compliments the earthiness and the pink peppercorns adds a touch of mystery, perfect choice! The Salt of The Earth includes flower petals and lemon peel which works it’s magic on my pickled mushrooms and griddled leeks.

This slow cooked pheasant breast with griddled leeks and pickled mushroom dish is very pretty and fragrant and it would bring a touch of sparkle to a dull and dreary day. Perfect for a lunch, main course or serve smaller portions as a starter.

I had heaps of fun at first  thinking about it and then secondly creating it, even though it took me three days to prepare and get my ideas and ingredients in order but I was pretty pleased with the end result. I still cannot make my mind up if this should be a starter or a main course, there are lots going on but it is still incredibly light.

The aspect I’m the most pleased with is the quail sausage but there are in total 6 different parts or sub recipes to create this one dish so it’s definitely not for the faint hearted. If you  have a go at this dish and only recreate a few of the parts then I will be pretty pleased.

My hero ingredient is the pear and after all it was the pear that lead me to this classic combination. I was reading up about pears and found an article that Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall had written in which he had bad mouthed this combination, so I thought why not take on the challenge.

As I feel strongly about British produce and try to inspire and encourage cooks to use the produce when in season I make it my business to find out more about the source. Brogdale Farm, which is owned by the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is home to the National Fruit Collection, which includes over 3500 named Pear, Apple, Plum, Cherry, Bush Fruit, Vine and Cob Nut cultivars. To visit the site is a humbling experience and the work that they do is incredibly important to Britain as they are working to protect and prevent old varieties from dying out. This should ensure the future heritage  of the humble pear.

This dish is one of four recipes using British Pears as the chosen seasonal ingredient for an article published in the Caterer and Hotelkeeper Magazine on the 16th October 2009.

• Camomile-Smoked Pear Pastilles
• Schezuan Pear Broth with Mackerel Dumplings
• Tamarind Pears with Creamed Tapioca and Toffee Pear Lollipops

If I can make one comment or perhaps a request to his publishers, I would have loved it if the book had at least 10 attached permanent book markers. The reason is I do not read this book as you would nomally by starting  on page one and continuing to the last page. I pick a subject, lets say pork buns, read the chapter, put the book down, go back, re-read a few paragraphs again and then set off to the kitchen to cook from the book. After all it’s a cook book and I like to have a few chapters on the go simultaneously. I was reading the egg  and the pork bun chapters at around the same time and therefore need a few resident book markers so I can flick backwards and forward. I know I’m weird…BUT it works for me.

David Chang not only made me laugh but also transported me back to memory lane to when I was a chef working in restaurants. He achieved this as well as being a very good business adviser all in one book. I think his ability to take humble food and make it interesting by breaking the monotonous mould and perceived stigma  has enabled him to  turn his business into the big success it is today. He tells the story in the most honest way and it is remarkable that he had a near failure but then managed to salvage  the business by shelving what he thought was a great idea and change his vision and direction to make his business work financially. I commend him for all of those things, he’s inspired me to seriously think about my future.

The book is full of gritty words just as cookery  was finally shaking off the stigma that chefs are uneducated creatures and can only communicate by f-ing and blinding in the kitchen. I think I can forgive Chang for his  choice of  crude words as he’s a great cook that truly understands food.

I also think that David Chang has put the cat amongst the pigeons with his fantastic restaurant group, lets face it a chain of restaurants are normally pretty restricted and nothing more than average. Not Momofuku, this restaurant chain is the one that everyone talks about. They do not need white pressed table cloths with waiters that have swallowed broomsticks or even fancy glassware, no it’s simple and humble and serves honest good and ground breaking food. His name is on every chef’s lips. I first heard about David Chang from Sat Bains and honestly did not know who he was talking about but he rated this chef highly. Then when Mr.P went to El Bulli and saw that Ferran Adria was reading the book we thought we better wake up, buy the book and read it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

When the book arrived we both could not contain ourselves and fought over who was going to open the box and then once inside….we were both disappointed…looked at it, paged through and then went ohh what’s the fuss about?? However I did not give up and a few days later I picked it up and started reading the book as described above, then it all started to  make sense and I really got into the whole vibe! Now the saying  “do not judge a book by it’s cover” seriously made sense to me!

After reading the pork bun chapter a couple of times and re-visiting a few of the paragraphs, we set to work to make these famous pork buns that everyone allegedly was talking about. Unlike Chang I made my own steamed buns from beginning to end and even cooked the pork sous-vide,which is not Chang’s method of  oven cooking the pork belly. David stated that he bought in the steamed pork buns in when he first opened up but there is nothing wrong with this as his kitchen was too small. But this is a leaf I’m seriously taking out of Chang’s book; that he was not going to jeopardize the success of the business due to wanting to make everything himself. He resorted to purchase a perfectly good product made by someone else, there is a real trust between him and his suppliers. All these pieces makes this brilliant puzzle even more interesting, I bet now that they have moved to a larger premises he would be making his own steamed buns…..perhaps….or perhaps not.

I had to adapt the recipe slightly as I’m in the UK and our flour reacts slightly differently, I had to add a bit more water and I used fresh yeast. It’s a lengthy process as you make the dough, leave it to prove for about 1 and half hour, knock it back, shape the balls, prove the balls for 30 minutes, shape the buns, prove them for 30 minutes and then finally steam them for 10 minutes. I’m so pleased that I persisted and made them as they are outstandingly delicious and light as a feather!

We even made the quick salted pickles from the book, I think next time I’m going to try one of the three other pickle methods, how great is this three different methods! Outrageous!

This is not generally the kind of thing we would have made, certainly not Mr.P but after stuffing his face with 7 pork buns in a row (felt sick as a consequence!) he agreed that this one was a winner! We will be making these buns in the future at every cocktail event, they are a stunning party piece!

James and I started talking about cooking the pork belly under pressure and he told me that he  cooked it a few weeks ago at 62°C but it was not very good as the fat remained chewy and fairly unpleasant. I have found that if you cook dense and complex meats such as pork belly, shoulder of lamb or if you cook meat on the bone such as chicken legs the temperature must be above 80°C to ensure a tender result. If you cook more tender proteins and cuts such as fillet of beef or cannon of lamb off the bone then 57°C is absolutely ideal.

We  love pork belly and it’s not difficult to cook it in the oven as per my pot roast belly of pork recipe however cooking the belly for 9 hours at 83°C breaks down all the fat and it becomes a melt in the mouth experience. Every person that I have asked to taste this pork belly are always lost for words, it makes me smile as that is the ultimate praise a chef could ask for.

I do not use salt to season  the ‘belly’ but use soy sauce and add Port wine. I think this is another very clever bonus that you get by using this modern cooking technique as you get an instant sauce. There is minimal shrinkage and hardly any waste, generally very good for the Gross Profit as the amount of liquids or marinade required is minimal.

To reheat the ‘belly ‘I sliced and pan fried the pieces however if you  have a dinner party then all you need to do is pop the pieces of cooked’ belly’ on a lined baking tray in a preheated oven at 150°C and gently heat, while your guests enjoy their starters. This dish is versatile and it’s ideal for a starter, main course, stand up hot bowl food buffet or just simply dinner for two!

The additional inspiration came from an alternative dish I used to make, a luxurious shepherds pie made with confit shoulder of lamb. I applied the same principles but substituted the shoulder of lamb with the pigs cheeks. You might find pigs cheeks a bit odd but I think they are brilliant, plenty of meat, hardly any fat and when cooked under pressure they are even more tasty.

This dish is perfect to enjoy on the patio with a chilled glass of English rose and a generous slice of fresh sour dough bread. If you use jars with lids it will be perfect to take on a picnic on a sunny summers day.

The real reason for creating this dish was to celebrate peas, here are a few of my favourite pea recipes.

• Chilled Pea Soup with Parmesan Cream and Soft Boiled Gull’s egg
• Early Hertfordshire Pea and Feta Crush
• Pea and Slow Cooked Ham Tarts
• Garden Pea Soup

I found the basis for this Thyme Poached Apricot recipe from a chef many years ago. Unfortunately I cannot remember his  name but this recipe has remained with me, however  I have adapted it as the years rolled by.

It’s funny as I am not great at making notes I always remember snippets of things that I hear or read and then just make the rest up as the mood takes me. It’s great as I allow the creative juices to flow, I have no constraints rules or boundaries, this way I have managed in the past to create some magical recipes. This Thyme Poached Apricot recipe is one of those magical ones. Packed with sharp in your face flavours, perhaps unexpected but delicious.