Keeping it simple

In Simple Suppers you’ll find his dad’s chicken soup that he ate as a child – summer chicken soup with tomatoes and tarragon – which he’d make with Sunday roast leftovers, gnocchi with crab and chilli (a recipe of just two paragraphs) and lemon posset made from three ingredients.

“This is desperately about accepting and understanding that the way we all eat these days is simple and quick,” Stein says. All the recipes are intended to be completed in 30 minutes, to an hour maximum, and all fit on a single page.

There’s no ingredients or no preparations in the recipes that required you to refer to another page, and “generally I’ve kept them down to five to 10 ingredients and uses lots of pre-prepared things – tins, cannellini, haricot, butter beans – and I’ve always suggested buying in puff pastry.”

Roasted nectarine salad with feta and mint

Ingredients

(Serves 4 as a side or 2 as a light supper)

3 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp runny honey

6 nectarines, stoned and halved

2 red onions, cut into wedges

80g pea shoots or lamb’s lettuce

150g feta, cubed or crumbled

A few mint sprigs, leaves only, roughly torn

30g almonds, roughly chopped

Vinaigrette:

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

2 tsp runny honey

3 tbsp olive oil

Salt and black pepper

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/Fan 180°C.

2. Mix the olive oil and honey in a roasting tin, add the nectarines and red onions, then toss to coat. Roast in the oven for about 20 minutes until tender, then leave to cool to room temperature.

3. Mix the vinaigrette ingredients in a jug and season with salt and pepper.

4. Scatter the pea shoots or lamb’s lettuce over a serving dish and arrange the red onions and nectarines on top. Pour over any roasting juices. Add the feta, scatter over the mint and almonds, then dress with the vinaigrette at the table.

Puff pastry topped fish pie

Ingredients

(Serves 6)

600ml whole milk

500g whiting, coley or pollock

300g undyed smoked haddock

2 egg yolks

2 tbsp cornflour

85g mature Cheddar cheese, grated

Splash of white wine

Large handful of parsley, chopped

150g peeled prawns, fresh or frozen and defrosted

320g ready-rolled puff pastry

Milk or egg yolk, to glaze

Salt and black pepper

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/Fan 180°C.

2. Heat the milk in a wide pan, add the fish and poach for 3–5 minutes.

3. Take the pan off the heat, then lift the fish out with a slotted spoon, leaving the milk in the pan. When the fish is cool enough to handle, peel off any skin and gently break the flesh into large chunks. Allow the milk to cool a little.

4. In a small bowl, mix together the egg yolks and cornflour to form a paste. Gradually whisk in about a ladleful of the poaching milk. Place the pan of milk over a low heat and whisk in the egg yolk mixture, then stir over a medium heat until you have a thickened creamy sauce. Stir in the grated cheese, wine and parsley, then taste and season with salt and pepper.

5. Add the fish, sauce and prawns to an ovenproof dish, about 20 x 30cm in size, and gently combine. Top with the pastry and brush with milk or egg yolk. Slash the pastry a couple of times to allow steam to escape and bake for 25–30 minutes until the pastry is golden and risen. Serve with peas, broccoli or green leafy vegetables.

Last-minute cheat’s tiramisu

Ingredients

(Serves 4)

150ml whipping or double cream

250g mascarpone, at room temperature

40g icing sugar, sifted

50ml Baileys or Marsala

150ml espresso coffee, cooled

8–12 sponge fingers or 4 trifle sponges

Cocoa powder, for dusting or a chocolate flake, crumbled

Method

1. Lightly whip the cream in a bowl until it’s only just starting to thicken.

2. Whisk the mascarpone with the Baileys or Marsala to soften, add the icing sugar, then fold into the cream.

3. Pour the coffee into a separate bowl. Dip the sponges into the coffee and then divide half of them between 4 glasses or small bowls.

4. Add half the cream mixture, again dividing it between the bowls, then repeat the layers of sponge and cream. Dust generously with cocoa powder or crumbled chocolate.

5. Refrigerate until ready to serve or serve immediately if making at the last minute.

Rick Stein’s Simple Suppers by Rick Stein is published by BBC Books