the art of ASSEMBLING

Assemble was the word that kept coming to mind when writing my book: the idea of taking a few good ingredients and tumbling them onto a big sharing platter, without the worry of complicated techniques or hard-to-find ingredients. This is my relaxed approach to connecting over food, which I’ve combined with realistic guidance on how you can quickly build interesting flavours and textures in your everyday cooking.

In developing my recipes, I’ve tried to strike a balance between attainable and simple, and inspiring and informative. Throughout, I’ve considered my friends who don’t work in the food industry, who might not be as confident in the kitchen, or living on the doorstep of London’s food markets and specialist stockists. In fact, it was those friends who kindly tested these recipes, out in rural Scotland and Australia, where the climate and food landscape differ from where I cook in my small London kitchen.

Vegetables feature heavily in my recipes. It’s not